"right band, wrong label" - sounds like a Fruits de Mer review; but here we've been looking to club members to suggest examples of artists who will be known and liked by FdM fans but whose records appeared on highly inappropriate, or at least hightly unlikely, record labels. Thanks to many club members for the selectios below, and to Matthias Lang who shared a classic example of record labels not knowing what they're doing - German Babylon Records reissued an LP by Epitaph and managed to rename a song called 'She Is Burning' as 'Cheese Burning' - even FdM would be hard-pressed to beat that...
John Mayall and Eric Clapton appeared on Decca's 'Ace Of Clubs' label, The Artwoods on Decca's 'Eclipse' subsidiary, Amon Duul II's 'Phallus Dei' was released by the Sunset reissue label, while Pink Floyd's 'Relics' came out in the UK on Starline...
Jimi Hendrix's early outings with Curtis Knight have been reissued by many dubious labels, but at least most of them could spell his name correctly...
Three classics, in Hell's Preachers Inc on Marble Arch, Bram Stoker on Windmill and The Magic Mixture on Saga...
...not to mention Sandy and The Strawbs on Hallmark, UFO on Beacon and the Seven Ages Of Man on Rediffusion...
Music for Pleasure often lost the plot - thank god - and came up with releases from the likes of Bob Downes, The Indo-Jazz Ensemble and Jeff Beck Group (Beck-ola released as 'Most Of Jeff Beck')...
I was working for the publishers of 'Loving' magazine when Crass managed to persuade them to give copies of this flexidisc away in honour of the royal wedding (and I grabbed a copy!)...and then there's the Bad News single...
Till Wolff is our resident expert on European bands and labels, but Matthew Raynor came up with two interesting examples on the Ex-Libris and Europa labels, and I've added in a third from Till...
Pete Banahan reminded me of the awful Pickwick label from the 70s/80s - here are a few of their releases, including a cassette and an 8-track!
while Steve Hallam came up with a World Record Club album by The Yardbirds - and that led me onto some more gems, including a couple of 'splendid' Beatles releases...
Robert Musgrove mentioned the Cambra label - another truly forgettable label that somehow got hold of some credible artists...
Boulevard were stocked by the likes of Woolworths and I think were 50p a time; again, they somehow got hold of a few credible artists, while Equinox released a hard rock LP on the label including a track called 'Patterned Skag', so it can't be all bad...
Quite what Atomic Rooster were doing on Trojan is beyond me - a double LP reissue spotted by Nik Williams...the same goes for Jimi Hendrix on Marks & Spencer's own label - found by Robert Simpson...and did you know Tesco re-released London's Calling in 2016, or Sainsburys issued a Who 3LP set in 2020 and reissued The Zombies classic a couple of years before that?
I'll leave you with a selection of releases on the fabled Contour and Marble Arch labels...
...and hand over to Zil Bareisis with a first-class vinyl covers compilation put out by the owner of Lush(!), an excellent Sainburys double LP and a very odd release on a Polish label from 1981 - a gig the band didn't even know was being recorded...!
Late arrivals from Luke Lands in the USA with Silver Apples on Kapp, Spleen on the Limelight label and Flat Earth Society on a US label that usually released the sounds of drag racing and belly dancing music!
And finally, Luke reveals that the 13th Floor Elevators' classic 'You're Gonna Miss Me' was originally released on the Hanna Barbera label!!!
