This is an extremely difficult to find album from The Little Boy Blues
Please please read this very detailed description carefully, I am providing a lot of detail about the vinyl condition and the resulting sound ... at the end of the day it is the sound that matters most, not the "look" of the media that delivers the music.
This is one very pschedelic album, loads of dreamy unconventional music, quite "The Doors" sounding at times - a real time capsule of the 70's music
The Little Boy Blues band formed in 1964, playing Chicago Blues and songs like Heartbreak Hotel.
Pretty soon the band was signed and asked to move into a more commercial sound for the times, their style became more of the British Invasion sound.
So successful had become the band that they became a popular opening act for big name bands playing in the Chicago area, including the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Association, the Lovin' Spoonful and others.
In 1967 they pioneered the garage-punk sound, with some signs they were evolving into a more psychedelic style. This is when they started playing many shows at psychedelic clubs including the Electric Playground and the Cheetah in Chicago and the Electric Theater in New York.
In 1968 the band landed a contract with a major label i.e Mercury Records and underwent some turmoil, two members left during the recording and many would say this album was quite uneven compared to their previous work.
This was to be the very last album the band recorded, breaking up soon after.
EXTREMELY collectable album
The Little Boy Blues - In The Woodland Of Weir
Fontana - Mercury Records
Catalogue # SRF 67578
Matrix codes: SRF67578 A.2 MR R1 (hand etched), SRF67578-B-F 3 (stamped) MR R111 1 (hand etched)
Released May 1968
Heavy cardboard cover is in excellent condition - more detail....
The rear cover photograph of the band shows the new lineup, James Boyce (drums) and Frank Biner (vocals-guitar) had left the band during the recording of this album.
THIS ALBUM IS A CUT-OUT/DELETION. A cut-out record was one that had been returned to the distributor as unsold - absolutely nothing wrong with the product except for the deletion punch holes.
The cut-outs were then supplied as specials to retailers by the label and either cut across the corner of the cover OR punched right through from the rear cover, through the record label area and through the front cover.
This is what has happened with this record, two small holes (like ring binder holes) have been punched clean through the record in the label area, to mark it as a cut-out. This means there are two small holes in the front cover, through the record label and then on the rear cover, you can see the two holes on the record label and if you look closely, also on the rear cover next to Ray Levin's head. The two holes on the front are much harder to see.
Actually this method of product deletion is quite unusual, it is far more common to diagonally cut a corner of the cover (and inner sleeve if there is one) and the record left untouched, however it was not to be with this particular record.
No damage to any of the tracks on the record, the punch is clean with no vinyl damage around the punch holes.
Supplied in a new plastic sleeve
Vinyl is in good condition, inspected under a white halogen light source and I can see just a couple of light scratches/marks on Side A and B, and I would expect these to not cause any audio issues however the only real way to tell is to play the album, which I have done - completely.
You need to keep in mind the type of music this band is producing here, it can be very deceiving in that it sometimes sounds like a mistrack on the record but it isn't.
In particular I am speaking of Side A track 1 - not just strange beats but some electronic manipulation of the instruments (e.g cymbal crash played backwards) and short sections of the music repeated .. repeated .. repeated. When I first had a close listen I thought "Oh Oh ... theres a problem" but in fact it is the music and the vinyl record is faithfully reproducing the song.
The following information is a couple of audible observations that I have made and these may help the new owner understand this music.
Back in the day, this music would have gone down well after some weed or when the listener had dropped some acid!
The beats change and sometimes the drums and keyboards seem out of time. Sections of the music are repeated in quick succession, this can give the impression of record groove mistracking but IT IS NOT!
Although the vinyl is not perfect by any means, I have very carefully observed the behaviour of the tonearm while playing the unusual sections of music in particular and also compared what I have heard with other owners youtube postings of this music - the music I am hearing is identical to that posted online. It plays with your head though, this is really very psychedelic rock and do not expect "normal" sounds on this album. Quite a bit of early electronic manipulation as well e.g cymbal at the opening of Cathedral is actually the cymbal sound being played backwards.
Side A Track 1:
Right at the beginning:
Obvious electronic manipulation of the cymbal during the opening seconds (backwards playback) and the beats are weird, the drums and keyboard sound out of time and sometimes it sounds like a dropped note (its the music, not the record!)
At approximately 1:05
There is an instrumental section and it is here that a short section of music is repeated 4 times! For all the world it sounds like a physical problem with the media, it SOUNDS like the tonearm is mistracking - this is not the case and I have confirmed this by listening to other people's recordings of this track online.
I have included a video/audio recording from youtube so you can hear what I am talking about - the recording is not my copy but mine plays in an identical fashion to that which you can hear online.
On other tracks other instruments sound "out of sync" with each other and also the vocalist - it's all pretty experimental! e.g Mr Tripp Wouldn't Listen, the vocals don't seem to be quite in time with the instruments.
The vinyl surface has a few light scratches and some discolouration marks. I have professionally cleaned the vinyl with both a "wet wash" then another wash in my VPI vacuum cleaning system and this has cleaned up the grooves nicely (very low surface noise) but those discolouration marks remain - they do not appear to affect the audio.
I listened carefully to the surface noise and MOST of the time the surface noise level is of a very low level, clicks/pop occur only very occasionally. In fact my copy is better than those I heard online, those I heard online seem to have quite a few audible clicks/pops in their recordings.
Please be realistic about vinyl record condition, afterall this is over 50 years old and in my opinion it is in not too bad a shape at all but more importantly, it sounds great - it's always great to get a taste of real 1970's psychedelia!
Records must NEVER be judged entirely upon "how they look" - it is the sound they provide that is the whole aim of the exercise and this record gives a very good sound!
New outer protective sleeve
Tracks: Cathedral, Is Love, I'm Hip To You, Mr Tripp Wouldn't Listen, The Death Of Don Quixote, Jazz Is Love, It's Only You, Echoes Of "You", Dream Weaver, Seed Of Love, The Fox
