sneaky double-groovy records

This may have been addressed before... I think Monty Python put out an LP featuring that gimmick.

Wasn't Mr Python I'm thinking of: this was in the post-punk ouevre, or at least by someone like the Fabulous Poodles. (No, it wasn't them, either.)

Not quite as neat, but another couple of examples/stories of attempted vinyl trickery:

• School Of Fish (an otherwise archetypal bland college rock band from 1990) released a blue vinyl EP called "Inside Out" or something like that where you had to put the needle in the inner groove of the record, and it would play towards the outer groove.
• There's a collaboration record between Ganger and Two Lone Swordsman(??) or someone else where one side has a bunch of messily carved grooves that all intersect. Just put the needle somewhere in the middle, and it will navigate around randomly. Usually it will get stuck somewhere, though. And it's also murder on the needle. Please use a backup cheap needle for such a thing.
• Don't forget those nifty RRR 100 and RRR 500 compilations.
• Well, the Flaming Lips unintentionally did something amazing on the vinyl version of "Oh My Gawwd!!". I was once playing a request for a band called the Primordial Undermind who played on my radio show on KUCI around 9 years ago. Eric Arn (lead guy in the Undermind) requested "Maximum Dream For Evil Knievel". So I played it. We all hang out, start talking, and then we realize we've been talking for 10 minutes. That Flaming Lips song is only 3 minutes if even that. Turns out the record skipped on the exact beat to Wayne screaming "MY BACKYAAAARD!" over and over again. One of those old college radio stories that's probably only amazing to the people immediately around at the time -- so apologies.

Can't help Jerry with the identity of that late 70s 12".

Another double-groove:

Kate Bush's "The Sensual World" 12", though not advertised as such, featured regular and instrumental versions of lead track on the 'A' side as concentric grooves. Imagine my consternation when Kate's voice drops out half-way through (on third or fourth playing) as my crappy worn-out stylus merrily clambers over the groove wall into vocal-less territory.

The playing-from-the-inside-out trick was, I think, used a fair bit in the 50s/60s by certain classical labels. Fidelity is at its greatest at the outer edge of a vinyl record (well, ok - ignoring those two points on the arc where cartridge alignment is perfect), so symphonies which climax with an almighty crescendo were best served by this approach. Not sure why this wasn't more popular.

m-pop muzik

"Cycledelic" by Johnny Moped! is that the one yr thinking of ET? prob'ly not, but it had 2 concentrically-tracked songs at the top of the 1st side. How did they deal with the part where it goes back to just 1 groove? can't remember.

I have a John Cooper Clarke 7" from 1979: Splat/Twat b/w Sleepwalk, Splat/Twat has a double groove, the Splat version with sound effects over the offensive words. The sleeve says "a twin grooved single recorded live at the marquee and messed about with at moliniaire"

I think this was The Sugarcubes and Jesus and Mary Chain, depending on which groove you picked. I can't remember what the songs were, although I have a vague recollection that it was actually the same song by each outfit.

Martha and the Muffins released a double grooved 45 which featured the same track played backward and forwards. Just how stupid is that?

Could have been M's 'Pop Muzik' I was thinking of: certainly I would have owned it at some point, but now it's sadly lost to the ravages of time. I like the idea of the Martha & The Muffins song - it's like when the Lips played their entire album in reverse, only speeded up, as a final song - and surely, I must have owned that, being one of only two people who attended the Only Ones final gig just to see the Muffins open. But no longer.

Sigh. On the upside, just heard Mogwai for the first time in five years - the new 26 minute single - and they're all right, aren't they?

When i say all right, I mean spell-bindingly incredible, of course.

Hey, I'm with you there. So "Our Father Our King" has finally been released? I am a Very Happy Man.

I think there was some other record at the time that did something like you were asking about -- Non, maybe? Or was that two different holes in the vinyl?

The US copies of that Lee Ranaldo record that you're talking about (at least the first ones on SST--was it ever reissued?) were marbled grey vinyl. A bit of a visual loss from the clear vinyl edition, becuase it doesn't set off the B-side's Savage Pencil etching quite so well.

there was a white flag "3-sided LP" that consisted of a live album but if you got very lucky and dropped the needle just right on side 2 you got their extremely long cover of "radar love."

there was a haters 10" (_sweet austerity_) that had 4 songs - the first on each side played regularly while the second started next to the label and played out.

thomas brinkmann did a vinyl release that was interesting in that the repetitive (and rather dull) music left a visible pattern in the vinyl.