Best LP spine in your collection (unfortunately difficult to make into pic thread)

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I remember being really freaked upon discovering "Brékkek Kékkek kékkek Kékkek! Koáx! Koáx! Koáx! Ualu! Ualu! Ualu! Quaouauh!" on the spine of a 93 Current 93 / Sickness of Snakes mini-LP already in my possession at a time that i) I was starting to get into Finnegans Wake and ii) Joyce seemed to crop up everywhere in my musical purchases (The Sensual World, The Madcap Laughs, NoMeansNo's Sex Mad, etc). But still...

Parade navelly has it. Or?

― OleM (OleM), Monday, 12 May 2003 17:59 (twenty-two years ago)

That "Brekkek!" line always makes me think of Christian Morgenstern's "The Great Lalula". It looks a lot like it. Morgenstern was born in 1871 and died in 1914 so I suppose it's possible they knew of each other. Morgenstern was a fantastic writer of what has come to be called "nonsense poetry" but it is really more (or less) than that. He delights in proposing a system and having the system become overwhelmed by its own rules, or in slowly making things vanish until you realize nothing was there in the first place.

The Impossible Fact

Palmstroem, old, an aimless rover,
walking in the wrong direction
at a busy intersection
is run over.

"How," he says, his life restoring
and with pluck his death ignoring,
"can an accident like this
ever happen? What's amiss?

"Did the state administration
fail in motor transportation?
Did police ignore the need
for reducing driving speed?

"Isn't there a prohibition,
barring motorized transmission
of the living to the dead?
Was the driver right who sped . . . ?"

Tightly swathed in dampened tissues
he explores the legal issues,
and it soon is clear as air:
Cars were not permitted there!

And he comes to the conclusion:
His mishap was an illusion,
for, he reasons pointedly,
that which must not, can not be.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 12 May 2003 18:22 (twenty-two years ago)

The Picket Fence

One time there was a picket fence
with space to gaze from hence to thence.

An architect who saw this sight
approached it suddenly one night,

removed the spaces from the fence,
and built of them a residence.

The picket fence stood there dumbfounded
with pickets wholly unsurrounded,

a view so loathsome and obscene,
the Senate had to intervene.

The architect, however, flew
to Afri- or Americoo.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 12 May 2003 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I have Parade, what's on the spine?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 12 May 2003 18:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Um, Prince's navel.

― OleM (OleM), Monday, 12 May 2003 18:25 (twenty-two years ago)

several young fresh fellows LPs have alternate, or just plain wrong (depends on your point of view) titles on the spines. my fave is "the men who loved music," whose spine says "chicago XIX."

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 12 May 2003 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

That [...] Christian Morgenstern [...] rules

Tracer Hand, I kiss you!

Nothing to do with JimmyJay or Wogews, though :-)

― OleM (OleM), Monday, 12 May 2003 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Palmström often wishes to dissolve,
like a salt, into a glass of water,
preferably sometime after sunset.

Thus to rest until the coming sunrise,
and then from the waters reappear,
Venus - Palmström - Anadyomene...

― OleM (OleM), Monday, 12 May 2003 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Ahem! BEST LP SPINE, PEOPLE. sorry.

― OleM (OleM), Monday, 12 May 2003 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I only own about two dozen LPs; I have just inspected them and none of them have interesting spines.

But can I risk further derailing this thread by saying how much I hate when the text on a CD spine runs UP instead of DOWN. (I've even toyed with filing those discs physically upside down just so the text would be oriented the same way as the rest of my collection...)

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Monday, 12 May 2003 19:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I think for the most part the spines on the records I own say what the record is. The only one to the contrary is the generic Ninja Tune jacket used circa 1996, that reads "Hey! Look!, It's that Ninja Tune record you were looking for amongst the mass of vinyl in front of you." That one sorta startled me the first time I saw it.

― Vic Funk, Monday, 12 May 2003 20:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Are there any record spines that work in combination with each other?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I like the spine of the LP version of God Is My Co-Pilot's _How to Be_: "WE ALL BELIEVE THAT EVERYTHING WE DO IS RIGHT."

N.b. the Brekekekex koax koax bit is originally from Aristophanes' "The Frogs"... though Joyce added the "ualu" bit.

Honorary mention: the CD spine of the Silver Jews' "American Water," which is a brilliant typographical joke that I will not spoil here.

― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Crass - Station Of The Crass
first record
A:The Sistem Is The State
B:The State Is The System
second record
A:The State Of The System
B:Is The System Of The State

Cure - Concert
A:Play Me Loud
B:Eat Me Too

Levellers - Carry Me
A:Crap But Cheap

Husker Du - Zen Arcade
first record
A:Failing Shirley - Everytime I Square Off Against Someone's God
B:I Spend The Rest Of The Night (Or Day) Hallucinating
second record
A:And Now Is The Vision Of A Joyous Hell
B:Whitin The Circuits That Make Pac-Man Die And Vessels Disintegrate

Butthole Surfers - Hairway To Steven
A:Hey Heepee
B:Suck My Pee Pee

Coil - Horse Rotorvator
A:We All Get The Gods We Deserved
B:Chants De Mort

Loop - Heaven's End
A:Your Mind And We Belong Togheter

Jesus Lizard - Down
A:Matt Shebell
B:Big Love Pooche

Stereolab - Peng
A:Go Bake Yourself A Cake

Therapy - Babyteeth
A:Oops Wrong Planet...
B:Scare The Hippies

Sonic Youth - Confusion Is Sex
A:Birth Of Jon Spencer,Or What?
B:Neutral,Zensor,LGW-Rip Us Off You Need To

Big Black - Pig Pile
A:The Death Of Jon Spencer Or What?
B:Please Increase Playback Volume 2 db

Clawhammer - Ramwhale
A:What Cha Got Now...Cow!
B:Rob LOves You!

Bad Religion - Against The Grain
A:Drink The Cool AID
B:Intrepid Pioneer

Anathema - Crestfallen e.p.
A:Serenades
B:Somniferous

Fugazi - Steady Diet Of Nothing
A:Don't Worry
B:This Is The Last One

― giulio_from_genoa, Monday, 12 May 2003 21:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Has there been a thread dedicated to those in-jokey little messages scrawled in the center of the vinyl, where the catalog number and whatever else goes? It seems like a high percentage of '80s indie-rock records have those.

― Sam J. (samjeff), Monday, 12 May 2003 21:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I have that Felt best of from Cherry Red on CD - on the spine it has a little picture! I can't make it out very well but there seems to be someone in a bird costume and eyemask, and there's someone else wearing a Sgt. Pepper style brass band costume.

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Monday, 12 May 2003 22:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Also didn't the Inspiral Carpets have loads of different messages on the spines of their records? I know my vinyl copy of "Life" has something on it but I forget what it is and I can't find it at the moment.

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Monday, 12 May 2003 22:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Sam J: best vinyl engravings

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 12 May 2003 22:54 (twenty-two years ago)

the spines of all the Ultrasound CD singles were all colour spectrums that are easily recognisable (but they didn't connect up, chiz)

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 12 May 2003 23:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Yay ILM! (Ha, and it was just a few weeks back, and I missed it.)

― Sam J. (samjeff), Monday, 12 May 2003 23:05 (twenty-two years ago)

When I was in high school my little sister (about 5 or 6) took a safety razor and "shaved" the spines of a large part of my record collection (vinyl, of course). I was anal enough about keeping my records in good shape to be upset, but I didn't make a fuss because, hey, she's a kid.

― nickn (nickn), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 00:02 (twenty-two years ago)

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