Monday, 7 September 2015

Back to Reality

I haven't posted for nearly a week I think. I know that I don't post daily or anything, but even for me that's a little on the slacking side of life. If it helps though, this one is cool. 

I know that most posts here cover a few genres, but I think today is the first time I'm delving into classic metal. And by classic I mean 1971, and by Metal I obviously mean Sabbath. 

There's a little bit of a back story here. Rewind to Wednesday of last week, and I was in Birmingham to watch Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World fame play a solo show at the Glee Club. To kill some time me and my mate ventured into The Bull Ring to do a little shopping before getting in line. I disappeared into the vinyl section of HMV with little expectation, but flipping through the Sabbath section, among the new represses I saw this sticker: 


Assuming it was a mistake, I went up to a guy who worked there and asked if he knew anything; he came out with the super shady 'errr yeah, we errr found a box' and walked off. I bolted to the counter, paid and smiled all the way to the gig. Y'see, I was at a store on HMV's Vinyl Day, but for some reason the Sabbath re-releases were snatched up. Sadly, Birmingham only had this to offer; but as this was the top priority for me of the 3, I have no complaints. 

If you haven't guessed by now: 


Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality - Sanctuary Records - ? Press - Purple /500 (HMV Love Vinyl Exclusive)

Only thing is, this record is not photographing well at all. This looks blue; neither the record or the cover is blue. They are both purple, they match well too. I don't get it. Either I'm super colour blind or this record just wants to remain a myth! Despite being a Sanctuary repress, the sleeve still has a Vertigo label top left, and the centre label is the trademark Vertigo swirl. Looks mad when it's spinning!


The cover is embossed and looks great. I'm kind of assuming this is a nod to the box style cover of the first press. However, on the box the album title remains black and this is all in purple (you can see it a little better here). 


Back Cover // B-Side 


Close up of the centre label with the 2015 Sanctuary trademarks and track-listing. 


As opposed to an insert, all of the lyrics and credits are here. This also follows the box set layout of the first press. Even the credits to the poster are left on here! Funny, as obviously there is no poster with this press. An original poster from the 1st press is probably worth more than what this variant is fetching on eBay right now too... 


Finally, one more effort to show you that this record and the sleeve is purple. As you can see, the colour changes in the light. More than anything, this looked pretty neat. 

Arguably the best record to come out of Birmingham, found in HMV in Birmingham, and no eBay involved. And although it's completely unrelated; Jim Adkins was great that night. I managed to meet him and mumble a few words about how Clarity changed my life. Cool day.

As chuffed as I am with this; nothing is as impressive as Doug's quest from a couple years ago. Read this and get jealous... 

 http://doug-wewillburyyou.blogspot.co.uk/2013_11_01_archive.html

Cheers!





No comments:

Post a Comment