recent vinyl finds
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- Gardener0
I picked up an Iranian single the other day which came with it's original picture sleeve. Amazingly it is signed by the lady herself who signs as Gougoush, I could find no other example of her signing a record or anything, so this could be unique!
how beautiful to draw a candle next to her name!
- this is iconic Iranian singer Googoosh
https://www.discogs.…Gardener - Wow!instrmntl
- this is iconic Iranian singer Googoosh
- Gardener2
Today I discovered a schools musical LP about a time machine from 1968 complete with programme & press photo!
- Gardener1
some recent flexi-disc finds
I already have the clear square flexi but never realised it came with a card backing!
Japanese issue 1983
cut out disc from an early 50's box of cereal
John was responsible for a lot of advert jingles in the 60's most famously for BEA Airways in 1969. This one is for British brakes and spare parts company Feredo. 
very pretty 5.5" disc of train FX from 1952
Unused disc (note punch-hole still intact) given away with BP petrol in the 50's
I got this fully signed by Indie band Hotel Lux when they played in a local pub recently.
- Gardener1
I came a cross a stash of really tatty Beatles albums today for £5 each, the sleeves were all well beyond repair but bizarrely all the albums were OK. There was the first Jobette credited With The Beatles, and a beautifully clean stereo Revolver but best of all were 2 Please Please Me copies, one yellow & black Parlophone disc in EX+ (again, I couldn't save the mouldy sleeve) and a very first Black & Gold mono which despite a few light marks has cleaned up to be VG condition. Am happy to keep the discs as they will be good for upgrades when I find scratched vinyl copies in the future.
Black & Gold labels, with the Dick James Music song credits, changed soon after on all later releases.
- Gardener0
Lovely 78 disc from the early 1930's by Scots singer Harry Gordon who was afforded his own unique stitched card sleeve for this song. The man in a dress on the front is an odd twist, I assume it's Harry himself as he was known as the Laird of Inversnecky, a fictional Scottish town he used in his comic routines.
Fae 'Snecky - From Inversnecky
- Gardener0
Hey kids, collect the set!
- Gardener0
Oddest car boot find this morning was this late 80's 12" by P.J. Proby where he really goes nuts, he even looks wasted on the cover.
- Gardener0
From a few recent boots in Angus, an auction box in Milton Keynes and a couple of charity shops in the Kingdom of Fife.
A mish mash of finds in a 2nd hand warehouse just outside Montrose.
An early Ultravox! test pressing from 1978, this was in with a box of utter rubbish so was a lucky find.
A pretty sleeved 60's 7" from an Egyptian singer.An excellent (jammy) £12 auction box win with some great singles which included an Elvis on purple/gold label HMV and a pair of acetates by an early 60's beat/garage band.
I have a friend in Norwich who collects acetates so he has these now, I was never gonna play them anyway.
A whole pile of Punk albums were dropped off at my local charity shop but despite the initial excitement the majority were totally trashed, I did keep the red vinyl Exploited even though it's scratched.
A Cliff Richard oddity, his 1987 album Always Guaranteed was inside this over-sized sleeve only available through Thompson Holiday shops for a short while.
I nearly left this in the box as the guy at the boot wanted a fiver but am glad I took the punt as it's really good and the extra surprise (to me) was that it's produced by Eno.
The most valuable find from the past few weeks was this 10" mini-album featuring Clyde McPhatter who would soon leave the group to form The Drifters, it was sitting at the pile of a bottom of easy listening albums and looks un-played!
- Gardener0
I have had some quite unusual finds in the past few weeks especially after a trip south to visit friends and DJ at a festival. I still found time to dig in dark corners of Northants and Essex.
The most unusual lot that were altogether were these Examination Board Music Test records dating from the late 60's to early 80's. I've not had a chance to listen to them yet but I bet they are like doing a really interesting but REALLY difficult music quiz. They are not that exciting to look at as they all just came in plain card sleeves but most of the labels are different.
- Gardener0
Another nice find was this Japanese pressing of an audiophile double album for the different audio options of Quadrophony. It's nice to hear Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield tracks as well as Electronic Footsy in different ways but I don't have a proper Quad set up at home, but if I ever did this album will come in very handy!
- Gardener1
Some more records from my recent trip down to England.
This was a lovely find, a 10" promo for a special day - October 23rd 1961 if the label is to be believed, when shoppers at the Talk of The Town in Leicester Square were offered the chance to buy special acrylic fibre garments to the sound of easy listening music. Issued by chemical giant Dupont, the catchphrase Better Living Through Chemistry on the back of the sleeve was later to be used by Fatboy Slim as the title for his debut album.
A music/spoken word goodie I had not seen before, I still have fond childhood memories of Animal Magic.
Deserved modesty for this 7" 3 track EP from the mid 50's Jazz pianist and his 2 mates.
Giving the impression of a military invasion this one sided US promo explains to record shop staff how to sell more Mercury discs in June 1959.
Scottish Synth-pop that charted for a few weeks in America in 1981 but didn't trouble UK pop-pickers, it might even be signed by keyboard player William Perry on the label.
This single is a complete mystery to me, according to the internet they don't exist but they sound like Splodgenessabounds if they were a Ska band, nice sleeve though.
A 50p picture disc which I am resisting the temptation to push a drawing pin in the middle and stick it on the kitchen ceiling.
This is the original (superior) version later covered by popular fops Toploader in the late 90's.
An album of recordings made by Alan Lomax of Blues musicians on St. Simons Island just off the Georgia coast in 1935.
- Gardener2
A Beach Boys compilation used for a sun tan cream advertising campaign in 1981 which neglects to mention the band on the gate-fold sleeve, however it was later remedied when it was re-issued as 14 All Time Greats.
I have at least 3 different driving courses on albums but this is one I'd not come across before, I guess this one has got to be good as it's especially for the Metropolitan Police.
Delightful stories & verse for children to the accompaniment of a harp which was used in schools in 1970.
More beautiful harp music on these 2 mid 60's singles by Héloise Russell-Fergusson.
A nice looking soundtrack for a film I must admit I've never heard of.
Music and cabaret from the Hollywood hot spot which was to later feature in the 1969 Raquel Welch film Flareup.
The pick of a whole bunch of Hawaiian records that an old lady had on her stall, I just bought them all and they are very nice indeed, I must be going a bit soft as I remember a time I wouldn't have entertained this kind of music.- ever convert any of your oddities to digital? I'd be interested in hearing half of your posts, but so little of it is online. Sign me up for the driving coursesimbecile
- Gardener3
Charity shop finds on a recent trip to Wales via stopovers in Penrith and Preston.
A dodgy bootleg recording of The Beatles album issued in Taiwan in 1970. It's thin paper sleeve is fully lined in polythene inside & out with no inner sleeve and the sound quality is pretty grim by usual standards.
In the same box was this weirdy art sleeved album of cover versions released in France in 1976, same LP was issued in a different sleeve as The Beatles Golden Songs in UK & Canada.
These seven Japanese Yamaha keyboard wizards were showing off their skills at the 1971 Tokyo Song Festival.
A great sleeve and reliable label for this album I took a £2 punt on, I initially assumed it was Ike Turner but it's the Burmese-British jazz guitarist Ike Isaacs.
A scarce privately pressed 7" from a Scottish rock band, the woman I bought this from told me she picked it up at one of their gigs in Forfar in 1972.
Best buy of my trip south was a whole bunch of Jazz singles in a pound box, these were the ones in picture sleeves.
- fooler1
I bought this CD 20 some years ago. I loved it then but didn't really follow his career afterwards. I just read this article about him about to tour with his 16 year old son before his son died in a car accident and it really tugged at my heart strings. So what do I do? Buy the 3 disc super deluxe vinyl reissue directly from his website. I know it wont help with the healing process but wanted to show my support.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/art…
- Gardener0
I've had a great week digging and even purchased a classical music collection which was mostly albums but in with the lot were a few 78 gems including this one.
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This is without a doubt the most stunning and quite beautiful find this week, a really heavy 2 sided 12" French picture disc which was released in the early 50's
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Another nice find was this one off metal acetate, again most likely from the 50's as most of the other records were, but I couldn't find any info about the artist or the music anywhere so it's pretty unique and it's certainly the heaviest record I've ever seen.
Funnily enough most of the other records I found were on the way to buy the collection and I passed through 2 car boots en route. I picked up some nice South African 7"s and this debut album by Sarah Jory who was then 'Britain's Youngest Pedal Steel Guitarist'. She later went on to form her own band, touring with Eric Clapton and Glen Campbell and she also played with Van Morrison and performed on his albums Keep It Simple and Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl.
7" odds 'n' ends
Canadian EP promoting Coca Cola, a really cool sticker on one label states 'Jeans 'n Things - in Newfoundland'.
Scarce (probably because nobody bought it in 1962) single by Johnny Victory, but I did so in 2023.
One stall at the boot had about 20 Christian Folk EPs but I only liked the look of 6 of them including this one from '69.
Double A side flop at the height of punk but this sounds pretty good 45 years on with it's "you're life is a farce, you're a pain in the arse" lyrics.
Greetings Pop Pickers this was the debut 7" by Alan 'Fluff' Freeman issued in South Africa in 1962, not arf! The Talmy Band refers to Shel Talmy, who was to go on to produce The Kinks, The Who, Pentangle and many others, this was his first release too.
- Gardener0
Despite the very rainy weather in Scotland this past week, there have been several interesting albums turning up, a few of which came from the same box from the back of a Glasgow charity shop. Light detective work revealed that the previous owner of many of them was a musician who had spent time in Bermuda, I know this as he wrote his name on most of the sleeves and they are from Bermudian artists I'd never heard of before.
A beautifully gold embossed sleeve on this double album of jazz flute released on Mushroom Records in the mid 70's, far out indeed.
In the same box as the record recorded inside a pyramid was this dark folk album privately pressed on... the Pyramid label, stand out track Burn Your Dead.
This is a mid 70's folk album recorded at two Scottish venues by various artists, the building is McCaig's Tower, a folly overlooking the beautiful coastal town of Oban.
It is one of life's great mysteries how this compilation album of new wave and rock bands from the Horsham, Sussex area turns up in a Cat's Protection League shop in Arbroath.
Described as 'Comedy Erotic Soul' this cheeky record was also released in a different sleeve, but this is the limited edition safe version.
The pick of some of the odd albums that once belonged to bassist Wally Russell from Bermuda.
- Gardener1
A rarely seen and by the look of it a never played disc by the legendary budgie called Sparkie Williams. According to his Wiki page he was acclaimed as the world's most outstanding talking bird in the Guinness Book of Records, EVER! He only released one single and most of the 20,000 sold in 1958 were 7"s this is the rare 78 copy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp…
- https://www.youtube.…imbecile
- DOLEMITE IS MY NAME | Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore
https://www.youtube.…fooler
- Gardener2
I had a message from a friend telling me a shop in Forfar had bought 10 huge crates of 7"s in the recent auction of the old stock from Dundee's now defunct record shop Groucho's. So I headed over early and luckily no-one else seemed to know about it so had first dibs, but after digging for 2 hours the shop slowly filled up. I actually decided against going to the original auction itself just a few days earlier as I knew the prices would go nuts - which I later heard the did, but on top of anything won there the buggers add 26% commission & fees, which to me is just ridiculous so I just stayed away in a pathetic record collecting strop protest. So I happily digged into the boxes of singles the shopkeeper says he won blind and wasn't interested in records anyway and was happy to knock them out at 50p each, 3 for a quid, so I found 170 which he kindly let me have for £50, anyway here are some of them and there's nothing really rare here but some nice ones I don't have.
One of the baa-dest records I've heard for a while.
19 Beatles tunes crammed on one side and 15 on the other and yes, it's horrible.
Great French picture sleeve, dunno what the image has to do with the song though.
This short lived band included Neil Innes and Roger McGough and only released a couple of singles.
Another artist who only released 2 singles has nicely signed on the back.
Local musical drama group oddity from the late 60's.
Hendrix sampling Hip-Hop trio from High Wycombe unleashed in 1991.
The debut 7" by ex Radio 1 DJ 'Diddy' David Hamilton who recently celebrated his 85th birthday, apparently every copy of this disc is signed.
I have promo singles by the Manfreds promoting Ski yoghurt and Maxwell House coffee but this is their first one, for Michelin tyres in 1969.
Early 80's Scottish Goth Rock with heavy Bauhaus and whistling vibes.
- PhanLo4
Random spotting on Insta, is that you Gardener?
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