best vinyl engravings

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There's a name for those things - you know, the personalized messages engraved in vinyl between the runout groove and the label - like "Mastered by Guy at the Exchange" (now immortalized in Max Tundra's album of the same name). The thread occurred to me just now, inspecting the engraving on Maurice Fulton's (as Mu) "Chair Girl" on Tigersushi:

Side A: "How the FUCK can I be at mastering when I NOT here or in the studio, you dickhead!!!!!!!!"
Side B: "Plus I've already told your FUCKING ASS that I'm already in a band"

(Is this the equivalent of Aztec stonecutters peppering the cathedrals of their Spanish overlords with coded obscenities? There's definitely a backstory here.)

Got more?

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Sunday, 27 April 2003 23:20 (twenty-two years ago)

scratchings on the inside

Favorite vinyl "run in" groove message

― felicity (felicity), Sunday, 27 April 2003 23:28 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry! should've searched. my thread is dead.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Sunday, 27 April 2003 23:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Not at all, I think this is a particularly difficult thing to search for. Sometimes people prefer to respond to the new threads anyway.

― felicity (felicity), Sunday, 27 April 2003 23:48 (twenty-two years ago)

oh but goodiepal didn't constrain himself to the space between the grooves and the label - his 'narc beacon' comes in a triple (i think) lp version where every other side is engraved with complex runes and scandinavian patterns. pretty amazing.

― Jay K (Jay K), Monday, 28 April 2003 00:16 (twenty-two years ago)

UR to thread.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 28 April 2003 00:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Savage Pencil did a big snake eating its tail for the capacious runoff groove of side A of Lee Ranaldo's lock groove EP, From Here To Infinity. A nice analog to the music. There was a Dinosaur Jr 12-inch, I think maybe the cover of that Cure song, with a full-size engraving on the B-side--just that, no audio.

― Sasha Frere-Jones (Sasha Frere-Jones), Monday, 28 April 2003 01:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Also side 4 of one of Joe Jackson's album's.

Big World or something?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 28 April 2003 01:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh---and that Split Enz album with "I Got You". These semi-holgraphic squares and circles were etched over the actual grooves. When you held it up, it made pretty colors. Added a lot of noise, tho.

― Sasha Frere-Jones (Sasha Frere-Jones), Monday, 28 April 2003 01:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't forget Styx's Paradise Theatre if you're going to talk about laser-etched vinyl, Sasha...and I actually played that Dinosaur Jr. b-side, it was very percussive!

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 28 April 2003 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

My favourite's still The Smiths' Hatful Of Hollow run-out groove: "Aesthetics Vs Athletics".

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Monday, 28 April 2003 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Minor Threat - Out of Step:

1. Why did the punk cross the road?
2. Because Ian told him to.

Laugh

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Monday, 28 April 2003 08:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I always liked Coil's crytic engravings that they put on all of their releases such as:

Side A - EARTHLINGS! GO HOME
Side B - STARS SPLASH IN THE SLIVER ANSWER BACK

― fletrejet, Monday, 28 April 2003 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Bauahaus included references to their literary syllabus:

A: When is a door not a door?
B: When it is a DuCasse

(a pun on the author of Le Chants de Maldoror by Isadore DuCasse, a work which they referenced (plagiarised?) quite freely in their lyrics...)

― kate, Monday, 28 April 2003 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Harry Pussy 7"

A: Fuck me!
B: Fuck you!

simple, direct, elegant.

― gage o (gage o), Monday, 28 April 2003 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

It was the "Just Like Heaven" 12" single from Dinosaur Jr. that had one side full of drawings/engravings, for the record. Dinosaur Jr. had little messages on all their vinyl that I can remember. The only one that comes to mind now is "it was screaming but I couldn't tell where the mouth was" or something like that.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 28 April 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

A couple of my favs:

KLF Doctoring the Tardis 12" (these are paraphrased)
A-side (original version): "Possibly the worst record ever recorded."
B-side (Gary Joins the Jams version): "Definitely the worst record ever recorded."

Joy Division Still
Those chicken footprints that ends on side 4 with "The Chicken Stops Here," in reference to the last line of Stroszek.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Monday, 28 April 2003 14:07 (twenty-two years ago)

seeing as this is the newest thread to deal with this: how the hell is it done? i mean, it looks like theyve literally just scratched it by hand, but surely they cant do this for each copy. is there some machin that can do it? how does it work?

― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 28 April 2003 14:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a feeling that the answer to that question is intimately related to the answer to a second question: How do they put all the grooves in the record anyway?

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 28 April 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

The way records are made is.... first you have the laquer on which the actual grooves are cut on a lathe (process is called mastering). Basically, the lacquer is a fairly soft "blank" record and the lathe works in reverse of your record player (they're absolutely beautiful pieces of equipment). On these lacquers you can write in the run-off groove. Then the laquer gets sent off and metal plates are made off of it -- the laquer is dipped in this special metal substance and then you have a negative of the record. The final step is to press records off the metal plates and VOILA! you have a brand spanking new album!!

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Monday, 28 April 2003 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

The Birthday Party had one that said...I think..."Dirtiness is next to antigodliness."

― Fivvy (Fivvy), Monday, 28 April 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Are these messages usually just in the first pressing? (And how can you tell that a record is a first pressing?)

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

"SWELL MAPS AMUSE CHILDREN"

― duane, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:48 (twenty-two years ago)

've got a pooh sticks LP somewhere that has engravings.

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:03 (twenty-two years ago)

teeny; the Dino Jr one was one I thouhgut of too. Its on "youre living all over me"

― chad (chad), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 05:03 (twenty-two years ago)

YES. That line fucking haunted my dreams for some reason.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

the deerhoof 7"on insignificant records has an engraving on both sides over (or underneath ) the actual grooves from which the museck cometh.
also the powerdresser lp that's like a 10" pressed on a 12" platter therefore allowing a surround trim.

― bob snoom, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 13:56 (twenty-two years ago)

On the Weird noise EP on Fuck off records it says "Labels made blank especially for john peel" or something so he didn´t know what songs to play from the comp.
Very indie....

― Jens (brighter), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 23:21 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

I was seearching for a thread about ipod engravings, which was very funny. I cannot find it. Help plz?

As far as this thread goes, the ones i recall are
Fatima Mansions - Viva Dead Ponies..."the real name of this record is bugs fuckin' bunny"
The Cure - Staring at the Sea..."all the way there and back again"
and "play it again it's a grower" can't remember who had this one.

― deekew (deekew), Thursday, 5 October 2006 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

gotta love those Porky's prime cuts...

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-13034.html

― hank (hank s), Thursday, 5 October 2006 19:08 (nineteen years ago)

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