Ceremony Sunday

I ordered this pair of Ceremony items absolutely ages ago, and a big part of me thought that they would never turn up. But after a few emails back and forth, and a little patience here we have it. I've said a few times that this blog is not just for records or cassettes, but for anything musical or creative that I feel had an impact. Please bear this in mind as we go through this one! 

Ross Farrar - Society Verse - Bridge 9 Records - 2nd Edition /?

Ceremony - 6 Cover Songs - Bridge 9 Records - 1st Press - White Shell /500 

As I bought these together, it just kind of makes sense to talk about them as a package. I'll keep anything on the book short and sweet as it should be. Although to be fair there isn't an awful lot to say about the tape either. Both have some fun little quirks though! 

This is the first page of the book, and acts as an introduction to why the book itself exists. Farrar goes through his (then) recent introduction to creative writing and poetry, and this goes some way to explain the lyrical layout of some of the songs presented in this book. 

For those that don't know, Society Verse is a neat little place in which all of the lyrics (up to and including the Rohnert Park LP) are housed, often with little anecdotes and stories to further develop the content. Alongside the lyrics there is a short essay on Rohnert Park, a small collection of poems and some fairly insightful photography. Although there is no way I can convey all of that in a few photographs and paragraphs, I can guarantee you it's a great read if you're into Ceremony or any factor of their lyrical content. 

Poetry

Although the poetry section of the book is fairly short lived, it allows a little look in at how Farrar's lyrics developed over the course of writing 'Still Nothing Moves You' onwards. As the sound of Ceremony massively differs on each LP, the lyrical content also seems to be more refined. Court Day is definitely the poem I've re-read the most from the bunch.

Photography 

Vanzig. Doesn't get more real than that. I like the idea of a van that's so purpose built for tour. You could not re-integrate back into normal society driving that to and from work right? The photographs were mostly taken on tour at a guess, but it doesn't feel like a tour diary as such. More just a social commentary I guess? 

On to the musical portion of things next. 

Although I would've liked the vinyl option for this record, it seemed far easier to grab this. It was reasonably priced and from the same seller in a package with the book, and for the amount of time I normally listen to 'covers' albums this will almost definitely do. The vinyl came with a screened B-Side though... 

Anyway, all the cassettes for this pressing were on white and this is a one time pressing for cassette so I'm quite happy with this for now. My Ceremony collection is a bit weird, some stuff I own is on vinyl, some on tape and some on CD. I like to keep things as uniform as possible for the most part, so what happened there I don't know. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

As the whole EP plays on both sides of the tape, the printing on the shell is absolutely identical. It's a pretty neat little feature, and always preferred over blank shells. Sometimes I feel it's a waste of a good B-Side to do this as there is always live audio/ interviews/ demos/ B-Sides etc. but at least it's not changing over a tape 3 songs in? 

Spine View 

This really is what it says on the tin. It sounds like Ceremony, just covering other bands. They make each song stand out and make no effort to imitate anyone which is quite refreshing. Even Nimrod's Son could easily pass for a Ceremony track if you didn't know the original. 

J-Card Layout

Ceremony Covers: why Charles Mingus gets two mentions I don't know. Maybe others do too. Looking at their influences, there are a bunch of cool bands these guys are into. Imagine a cover of Seeing Other People by Belle and Sebastian? I Don't Mind If You Forget Me by Moz? Ross Farrar and Cody Sullivan tackled art direction and layout between them here, and I'm into it!

J Card Layout (Layin?) 

Not much to say about what's going on here as the stark Black and White layout makes things pretty clear. This was a fun project to pay homage to some cool bands, and nothing more. These were recorded on the same sessions as Rohnert Park. I bought a copy of that after having a CD copy for long enough, but do you really need to see a new press of an album that tons of other blogs already jumped on years ago when I should've? Probably not. This was definitely cool to write about though so cheers!