Celebrating vinyl / CD / cassette / memorabilia releases of musical gems and curiosities from the punk era onwards
This curious 12″ release is notable for featuring an edit that was never commercially released, and that unlike various other edits doing the rounds managed to truncate all of the tracks that make up the full version of the original album version ‘Trans-Europe Express’ / ‘Abzug’ / ‘Metal on Metal’ into one edit of 5’42” duration instead of the full 13’38” run time
1990 had by far been an intense yet successful year for the band – following the release of the ‘Heaven or Las Vegas’ album, the final few months of 1990 (October through December) had seen the band tour Europe, North America and Canada, which then continued on into 1991, with the North and South American tour to promote the ‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’ album that kept the band occupied during March and April of 1991. Along the way, the band also parted ways with 4AD records following some degree of acrimony, a move that would be reflected upon at a later date as not necessarily the best of moves. Simon Raymonde’s ‘In One Ear’ book also provides a bleakly dramatic tale of the human toll of the tour to support promotion of ‘Heaven or Las Vegas’ by way of a rather dramatic end to the tour on a personal level. By this point in time the band were now finding that their relationship with their label, 4AD, was being brought to a close. So, its perhaps little surprise to find that 1991 was otherwise a low-activity period other than the intense touring schedule.
Yet, it was not a quiet year for releases, with a box set of their singles and EPs (in enhanced form with complementary bonus tracks added as appropriate) proving to be a very welcome release on CD format. Continue reading “Year by Year: Cocteau Twins – 1991”
1983/1984/1985 were good years for gig-going for me and alongside enjoying the show, wherever possible and budget allowed I would visit the merch stall and come away with the customary T-shirts, badges and posters.
Having been fortunate enough to see The Cure play live on their 1984 tour to promote ‘The Top’, at Edinburgh Playhouse, I came away from that show with a fair few of the items you see in the spread above – all long since gone now apart from some of the button badges This is a page from the promo brochure of ACME merchandise that I got a few months after the gig and a subsequent update supplement. Continue reading “Blast from the past: ACME official merchandise 1984/85 vintage for The Cure, Bauhaus, Simple Minds, Sisters of Mercy, Killing Joke, PiL, Big Country U2 and all that good stuff”
From the vantage point of 2026 and the myriad of Durutti Column re-releases that we have been fortunate to have available this century, you might wonder why it’s worth dwelling on a compilation from 1991, ‘Lips That Would Kiss (Form Prayers To Broken Stone)’. And well you might, since everything on this CD is readily available nowadays. But… this was one of those very early CD purchases of mine once I had finally decided to adopt the format and was quite something at the time with its combination of familiar single releases, compilation album odds and ends, all gathered up along with previously unreleased tracks of the same early period from an abandoned album that made way for 1984’s ‘Without Mercy’ instead.
Originally released in 1991, this was a vital CD purchase at the time and was basically drawn from the following sources that were released throughout the 1980s, though recorded between 1980 through 1984;
These original sources are examined in much greater detail below… and the tracklist notes those tracks which have multiple titles from their different releases.
Continue reading “The Durutti Column – ‘Lips That Would Kiss (Form Prayers To Broken Stone)’ Belgian CD (Factory Benelux, FBN 2 CD, 1991)”