The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief

Monty Python – The Monty Python Matching Tie And Handkerchief

Label:	Charisma – 9211-1080, GRT – 9211-1080
Country:	Canada
Released:	1975

I happen to have a Canadian pressing with lacquers cut at RCA Studios, Toronto. This Recording and mastering studio in Toronto, Ontario operated under this name from 1954 until 1979. It housed two recording studios, Studio A and Studio B. Records cut at this studio are identified by "T.O.", "TG", "GT", "TXG", "TXD" "TD", "XT", "ZDT", "TX", "DT" etc. etched in the deadwax/runout. Side B here has in the runout:

A BILL C ADVENTURE !!

I suspect "Bill C" refers to Bill Cuddihy, an engineer at that RCA facility. I say "suspect" as while he worked there during the '70s he is not known for typically identifying himself in the runouts. However, since this album's early pressing is mastered with two concentric grooves on side two, so that different material would be played depending on where the stylus was put down on the record's surface, it may have been a technical accomplishment worth celebrating this way. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as a "three-sided" record and is one of only three I have with this gimmick in my collection.

Theryl DeClouet (September 17, 1951 – July 15, 2018)

Theryl DeClouet (September 17, 1951 – July 15, 2018), also known as House Man, was an American soul/R&B singer, best known as the one-time lead vocalist of the musical group Galactic.

Born in Hollygrove, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, he appeared on Galactic's first four studio albums as well as a live release and a compilation before health concerns forced his departure from the band and its heavy tour schedule. His independent solo release The Truth Iz Out featured support from longtime friend Ivan Neville and guitarist June Yamagishi of Papa Grows Funk. He also appeared on Charlie Hunter Quintet's 2001 album Songs from the Analog Playground, Hunter's first to feature vocals. DeClouet sang on versions of Earth, Wind & Fire's "Mighty Mighty" and the Willie Dixon standard "Spoonful."

In 2005, DeClouet also briefly appeared as Judge Locke Randolph in The Dukes of Hazzard.

On July 15, 2018, DeClouet died at the age of 66.

Galactic double LP Coolin' Off [Tipitina's Record Club – TRC-0103, June 2021] has scribed on the Side A runout:

 THERYL "THE HOUSEMAN" DECLOUET (1951-2018)

 

Steve King of Pye Records on Outsight Radio Hours #44 08-Feb-04

 

It was a great pleasure to speak with someone who had direct experience in the process when I interviewed Steve King of quality control at Pye Records, Lyntone, etc. on Outsight Radio Hours #44 08-Feb-04. The original audio for this interview is archived as selection #382 at archive.org and a transcription is going to be part of an anthology of interviews, etc. that I am compiling covering a quarter century of music journalism. 

He confessed to some individual record marking on the UK edition of the eponymous album George Thorogood And The Destroyers [Sonet SNTF 760, 1978].

SK: Yeah. And I actually did inscribe records. Not masters or positives, but I actually inscribed a number of records individually myself, saying “George is thoroughly good.” 

Really? 

SK: Really, yeah. And if you've got one of those out there, then you're very lucky, ‘cause there's probably only about four or five out there in total.

[...]

Was there many other records you or other quality people did that with or was that highly irregular?

SK: That was highly irregular. Yeah.

Then that was an incredible vote of confidence. 

SK: It was, yeah. I did it with one other record. I don't know if you've heard of Van Der Graaf Generator. 

Oh yes. 

SK: Yeah, well there was an offshoot group in the years when the Van Der Graaf Generator was inactive and it was called The Long Hello and I sort of wrote “hell”, and then sort of dash, “low”. And then in brackets, “was that long enough?” I did that on a few.

If you see one of these, let me know!

 

Davie Allan & The Arrows ‎– Shape Of Things To Come

Label:

Total Energy ‎– NER3020

Format:

Vinyl, 7"

Released:

1998

"Shape of Things to Come" was featured on the 1998 4-CD box set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968. The version on Nuggets is by "Max Frost & The Troopers" which is believed to have actually been a band called The 13th Power. The vocal was definitely by The 13th Power's vocalist Paul Wibier. There were rumors that the Arrows were Max Frost & The Troopers, but Davie's version is an instrumental that replaces Paul Wibier's vocal with his own guitar on the 13th Power's track. Davie's "Blue's Theme" is on Nuggets, though…. 

The deadwax on the single says "Never Mind Max Frost & The Troopers / Smash The Thirteenth Power".

Max Frost and the Troopers were a fictional rock music group created for the exploitation film Wild in the Streets, released in 1968. The film featured Christopher Jones as the highly influential singer Max Frost. The songs performed by Frost and his band, a group that was never formally named in the film, were credited to Max Frost and the Troopers in the subsequent singles and album. The band name "Troopers" is based on the term "troops," the designation Frost used in the film to refer to his friends and followers. A studio group appeared on the soundtrack album for the film, along with incidental music penned by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann and composed by Les Baxter; however, the songs were not originally credited to Max Frost and the Troopers, but rather to The 13th Power. Owing to the success of the song "Shape of Things to Come" as a single, an accompanying album by "Max Frost and The Troopers", Shape of Things to Come, was issued on the Tower record label in 1968. Musicians playing on the album were at first believed to include members of Davie Allan and The Arrows (who also released the "Shapes of Things to Come" without lyrics) with lead vocals by Paul Wibier (who also wrote a majority of the songs on the album), however, it is now thought that the album was actually the work of Wibier's own group, the 13th Power, who had previously recorded for Curb under the name The Moms. 

Davie Allan - So what was the deal?

 

The Mekons ‎– The Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strnen

Label:

Virgin ‎– V2143

Country:

UK

Released:

30 Nov 1979

I used to have a Mekons t-shirt in camo with hammer and sickle proclaiming some desperate railing "last to get paid/first to die". I say used to, since this was in the 90s and as my love for The Mekons has grown since then, so has my abdomen--to the point I had to leave the shirt behind.

It really typifies for me their plugger, underdog, earnest and dogged attitude of the band still thriving on low expectations. In putting together this debut album, they famously borrowed the gear of Gang of Four who Virgin -- apparently in error -- pictured in the lower right of the jacket reverse.

From the jacket

Not on the jacket

Here the A-side Runout Inscription "A PORKY PRIME CUT" is indicative of George Peckham. This British lacquer-cutting and mastering engineer, better known as "Porky" has had an illustrious career that includes work on records of The Beatles, Genesis and Led Zeppelin. The B-side Runout Inscription echoes the spirit of the band: "BOTTOM OF THE POPS".

Dead Kennedys ‎– Bedtime For Democracy

Label:

Alternative Tentacles ‎– VIRUS 50

Format:

Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold

Country:

US

Released:

1986

A-side dead wax reads: JOHN SCOPES DIED FOR YOUR SINS
B-side dead wax reads: "POWER IS THE ULTIMATE APHRODESIAC" - HENRY KISSINGER

I got reading this as I listed to and admired the cartoons on this early (first?) pressing. I like that a band that includes Klaus Flouride misspelled aphrodisiac. Also, among the most intellectual of punk rock acts, they reference the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial.

The Coctails ‎– Hip Hip Hooray!

Label:

Hi-Ball Records ‎– HBS-8255

Format:

Vinyl, LP, Album

Country:

US

Released:

1990

Side A and B are etched with "Where is Bobo?" What I like about this is that it is self-referential for the album. The dog it refers to emerges in the story song "Ghost Town".

Cruel Frederick - The Birth Of The Cruel

Cruel Frederick - The Birth Of The Cruel

LP, Album
SST Records SST 127
1988 US

Free jazz on this largely punk rock label is unusual. As a matter of fact, I know of no other example. I like the two beat worship-to-incursion rhythm of their deadwax message:

• Side A runout, etched: ANGELS SING
• Side B runout, etched: SAINTS GO MARCHING IN

Big Tube Squeezer - I Have A Thing For Love

Been on the fence on this one... recorded by Jack Endino in 1988... should I keep it or trade it? I do like the fugs cover....

The band can probably relate to a love/hate feeling since Side A is etched "Ed sucks" and Side B with "Joe Loves Beatrice"

Don't know anything about the triangle of Ed, Joe, and Beatrice...

So what censorship?

November 1981 saw the release of Anti-Nowhere League's first single, a cover version of Ralph McTell's "Streets of London". The single peaked at No. 48 in the UK Singles Chart and spent five weeks in the listings. The profanity-laden B-side of the single, "So What" later became the group's anthem. Copies of this single were seized from indie distributor Pinnacle by the Metropolitan Police's Obscene Publication Squad shortly after release. "So What?" was covered by Metallica, being released as a B-side to the "Sad But True" single, and later included on the Garage Inc. album; "So What?" would go on to become an in-concert standard for Metallica.

We Are...The League is the debut album by Anti-Nowhere League. Original, first pressing European editions contained uncensored lyrics for the exaggeratingly self-deprecating "Animal". Later, the line in the song "I'm a child molester" was changed to "I'm your next door neighbor". My first US edition has the censored version. Is that artistically compromised to gain entry to the large US market? It also has a runout inscription not found as far as I know in the earlier editions across the pond: SO WHAT….

L7

From my 2008 interview with Donita Sparks:

First I have to confess. I’m kinda a record geek.

DS: “Ok.”

So, I pulled out my pristine copy of Smell the Magic to play some tracks today. And I also happened to always be interested in‑kind of a more recent thing‑a run out groove inscriptions. And I don’t know if you know this, but on at least my copy, it’s inscribed in the runout groove “ROCK SHOW tONIGHT - BIG BUttS LIVE ON StAGE”.

[Laughter]

I actually do a blog about run out groove inscriptions and try to explain them. Do you know anything about that one and what it means?

DS: “Oh, well that was our idea.”

Ok.

DS: “And I believe it was being mastered in LA. And you know when you’re mastering on vinyl or for vinyl, you know a lot of times the mastering person will say, hey do you want to write anything in there? And I think on our first album, on Epitaph, we had put ‘PLAY LOUD DROP TROU’ or‑”

[Laughs]

The Apostles – Hymn To Pan

The Apostles were an experimental post-punk band from the 1980s anarcho-punk scene in the UK. (This album is embossed with the anti-commercial notice "Pay No More Than $7.00.")

The group had much respect from notable members of the original anarcho-punk movement such as Crass with whom the band co-operated during the squatting of the Zig-Zag Club and running of the (Wapping) Anarchy Centre and (Westbourne Park) Centro Iberico venues, and Conflict who released a single and album by The Apostles on their Mortarhate label. 

Side A has a runout grove sentiment that is a Lovecraftian echo of the pagan title: "cthulhu r'lyeh hail discordia"

Side B: "Jess Hopkins Told Us Do It"

Side B includes The Iron Brotherhood Trio with a three-song medley.  

Basically Jess Hopkins is Iron Brotherhood. He provides the lyrics, rhythms and the vocals, although various other musicians are involved in his demos and in the backing tapes for his live 'displays'. Musically he aims for a sparse black and white sound, to form a basic framework for his lyrics. These, like the written work which he also produces, concentrate largely on fetishism, violence, insanity, death, degradation and the DHSS. Disjointed, hysterical and very, very strange. 

(The Cut, 1987)

---

Christian Death ‎– Zero Sex (Jungle Records ‎– JUNG 50T, 1989)

• Runout groove etching on side A only: I CAUTION BEFORE DESIRE
• 
  

Hmmm, the deathrock / Goth group hardly ever struck me as that restrained.

This 12" EP came out in the Valor Kand era (1985–present). The band had their biggest successes on the UK Independent Chart with the 1987–89 singles "Sick of Love", "Church of No Return" and "Zero Sex" and the 1988 album Sex and Drugs and Jesus Christ. Following the "Zero Sex" single, Demone opted to leave the band.

Giant Black Low Leaving Naked River

This compilation of indie rock and alt-country has its runout grooves split up a phrase: "Believe it or not..." and then on Side 2, "I got nothing to say!!"

I wonder if this is to be sung to the tune of "Believe It or Not", the song composed by Mike Post (music) and Stephen Geyer (lyrics) and sung by American singer Joey Scarbury. This was the theme song for the television series The Greatest American Hero, which in the early 80s I liked as a socially awkward nerd since the hero and I shared hair styles and general appearance, or so I was told.

Graham Parker ‎– Human Soul

Matrix / Runout of Side A here of Human Soul is etched w/"BEIZEL LIVES". But, who is Beizel? I believe that is the name of a founder of an American religious community, but this could be a more inside reference.

This album has on the B-side Matrix / Runout the etched message "RICK AND JOHN BIACTOLBOYS". Is that mean take on some chaps with acne? Actually, a bigger mystery to me about side 2 is what sounds like an unintentional inclusion of a part of a song after the end of "Slash and Burn".

Toni Childs-Union

Toni Childs' Union album has an interesting inscription. It is not Side 2 "Thank you David", which I figure is for David Ricketts. No, it is the inscription on Side 1 that has me nonplussed: "Cheryl & Sebastian, no war toys".

What do you make of that?

Men & Volts ‎– Rhythms & Blues

It does not suprise me that an album featuring the creative David Greenberger would have inscriptions, but on both sides the Steak 'N Shake slogan "In Sight It Must Be Right"? Part of me hopes that there is another explanation..

Ladling from Big Dipper

Coming across this release (All Going Out Together ‎12", Maxi) made me want to resurrect this blog and post up the archived content from way back before I had put it up and updated it in Yahoo! 360° and then failed to copy it off their before that went away. Well, this Blogger thing seems a pretty durable edifice to hitch my pony to...


So this 12" 45 rpm 4-track single (a good example of a failed model on fixed and variable costs for my algebra students...) has on Side 1's runout groove: "ANOTHER TRICKY COLLECTORS ITEM". Doesn't seem that complicated to me... 
What really got my interest was Side 2: "THE DOG ATE THE 'CLUB MIX'" A nice jab at the remix craze popular when this record came out in 1987. Side 2 is my favorite side, featuring a "goofy sound collage" created by guitarist Gary Waleik which includes a 10 second snippet of Shonen Knife covering Big Dipper's "Faith Healer"

Of course, this makes me look at the band's album's runout grooves even more than I normally would. Side A of Boo-Boo offers "THE RECORD AS A WHOLE", a sentiment seemingly apt for this ringtone and 99 cent MP3 era. The flip side says "IT AIN'T OVER TILL IT'S OVER". I rather like "LET'S WIN ONE FOR THE DIPPER" on Craps but I am confused by the inscription on the other side: "WHAT'S THE PLANET METER READING?". Maybe I am reading it wrong, Does anyone know what it means, if anything?

Well, they expected my searching and on their big, 199p Epic release Slam it says "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING HERE FOR?"

Fripp

Stacey Erdman wrote: Hi there, Here are a few that I have, we used to have fun looking for these... Off the top of my head, I recall: Robert Fripp's The League of Gentlemen- "The next step is Discipline" - (and so it was, with King Crimson) Kate Bush's The Sensual World - "up yours ugly" Heart's Dog & Butterfly - one side said "Lurvin' " the other said, "With Love from Honna Lee" 

[A]musing?

What other inscriptions are out there that you can document? What is the first ever used? What is the longest message known? Is there a proper taxonomy, that is classification, of these messages? Have any been spotted on 78s? I did spot one on one of those maxi 45s when a young guy was showing me the few members of his just begun record collection. The 45 was The Smiths Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others and one side demanded INITIATE ME. 

Reader Angela Bender wrote in, "Hi Im writing to you to let u know that I too have noticed these on a few of my albums. On The Hooters Nervous Night LP I have found on side 1 MANAYUNK,USA and on side 2 N.Y.RATZ On The Eagles Greatest Hits 1971-1975 LP I have found on side 1 "HAPPY NEW YEAR, GLYNN--- and on side 2 -- WITH LOVE FROM BILL. I hope that u enjoy these inscriptions I have found on my albums." 

I wonder what those mean? Thanks Angela! 


What's on your albums?