Entertainment For Lively Minds
Here's a bloke whose record collection may well be worth as much as your house
This week we welcome Phil Smee to the pod. Phil's name is somewhere in your record collection, probably on a reissue which he will have either designed, annotated or helped compile. Phil is the one we have to thank for the Motorhead logo, that massive boxed set of Elektra records that came out a few years back, the Bam Caruso label and the invention of an entire genre known as Freakbeat. He brought along mint condition copies of the first Pink Floyd single, a reggae tune written by Nick Drake (both pictured left) and an early pressing of "Hey Jude" on the Parlophone label. We talked records old, new, borrowed, reissued and rare.
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Millie's Mayfair
Rastafied Nick Drake, here you go
And one of the legendary Phil's forthcoming projects...
...is designing 'Monkhouse To Medway: 1963/73' by the late Davy Graham, on Hux. Featuring a 1973 concert at Medway in Kent, from DG's 'wilderness years', plus the 5 acetate demo tracks funded by Bob Monkhouse post 'Anji' (1962 EP) but pre Davy's first LP (1963), in order to get DG said LP deal. It worked. Though George Martin and various dance band leaders turned him down. All previously unreleased. Booklet includes an interview with closet guitar buff Bob Monkhouse re DG.
And no doubt the Smeemeister will make it look the business :-)
Medway
It's a nice title, but you can't strictly speaking play a concert "at Medway" because it isn't a place as such, but a river that lends its name to a conurbation of four towns (Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester and Strood).
You might know that, of course, it just read a little odd...
Another excellent 'cast...
...always good to know there's something out there you didn't know existed.
The Elektra box set is on Spotify:
http://open.spotify.com/album/53FAoxD9FXKH4PdykR5jjd
I think
Joe Petagno may have summat to say about the Motörhead logo
Motörhead
Joe Petagno did the drawing... I turned the drawing into a negative image and designed the logo.... check out the weird "h" which is made up from other letters...! Phil Smee.
well I never...
cheers Phil :D
Story behind the Damned Album sleeve
and the "error" of the Eddie and the Hot Rods pic is explained at the rather lovely Barney Bubbles site: http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/2956
Thanks to Phil. Great Pod. I've a fair bit of the Bam Caruso catalogue. All those brilliant Rubble compilations and i think the Prisoner Soundtrack by Ron Grainer.
I still treasure my copy of
"Happy Birthday Sweet 16" by Clive Pig and the Hopeful Chinamen, on Waldo Records. It's got a great picture sleeve, in a plastic cover. Great song, great record. Good luck, Phil.
The question I kept asking myself was
does Phil ever put stylus to vinyl on his treasured discs? Did he used to play them once to record onto cassette, does he convert to mp3 now or is spinning them on the turntable part of the pleasure, say once a year for his favourites? Mind you, the Elektra collection would take a good part of the year to play. Oh, and Phil, not that we've ever met but thanks for the few LPs you've loaned me to shoot for BBC4 docs - some Fairport and Thompson if memory serves.
Great Show
Really enjoyed that one, some interesting issues to ponder.
To be a bit pedantic re: 1980s re-issues, there was a deluxe version of The Human League's 'Dare', and a couple of rarities compilations of remixes and early unreleased stuff.
Edsel and Cherry Red re-issue loads of 'deep catalogue' (love that phrase!) including a lot of 1980s Pop which includes (look away now the squeamish) an 8 CD Box set of the entire Thomson Twins oeuvre, including 71 bonus tracks and extensive sleeve notes.
I don't own this by the way!
As for David's point about whether re-issues are all about nostalgia, certainly for me they are about getting hold of stuff I don't have (unreleased tracks, live material) or a good hard copy of something i've never got around to buying rather than a repackaged version of something i've already got.
Wikipedia on "metal umlauts"
One Ian Kilmister claims responsibility for the umlaut himself, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut#History
Funnily enough the album cover they show here (2nd album, I think) doesn't have the funny 'h' formed from an 'l' and half an upside-down 'w'; all the others seem to have it.
enjoyable podcast as always
(listened to this one late for some reason) - I really enjoyed Phil talking about his design work and would have liked to have heard more - I felt DH (accidentally) cut Phil off when talking about Barney Bubbles' lack of flexibility. My favourite Costello sleeves are by Bubbles and I'd be interested to know what it was about his submissions that led to the rejections mentioned.
Punch The Clock
Phil was referring to the "Electrocuted Elvis" cover Barney Bubbles delivered for Punch The Clock in the spring of 1983, which was rejected for a number of reasons, one of which is that it's pretty intense artwork (though the record was the first of EC's to drop the intensity and consequently the ball imho).
On the back cover band photograph, only EC retains his head: Bruce Thomas' is replaced by a pharmaceutical capsule, Pete Thomas' with a graphic arrangement resembling pink balloons, sausages and an egg (I think) and Steve Nieve's with a grinning cog. They weren't that pleased...
By this point BB had become thoroughly hacked off with the sleeve-designing business and wasn't in the mood to defer or alter, particularly over such a great design. He took the rejection to heart, though it should be noted this was but one of a number of travails he was dealing with in this, his final year.
His sleeve design appeared on US tour t-shirts etc but had not been seen until the publication of my book Reasons To Be Cheerful.
Couple of things which may be of interest:
Here's a post on my blog about a lovely Nick Lowe artwork Phil dug out for me:
http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/3004
And here's the background on BB sleeve for Red Dirt, the Fontana album in Mike Read's collection which fetches around £600 or so (and is, I think, not half as bad as it's touted):
http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/3059
best
P