THE JAM: 'STRANGE TOWN' ACETATE 1979 UK 45 PUNK WELLER
£
768
$
1,018
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Description
"Found myself in a strange town/Though I've only been here for three weeks now..."
This will be a tremendously exciting prospect for the worldwide collectors of the original UK Punk scene and the thousands of devotees of Paul Weller and The Jam.
Up For Auction: The 1979 factory acetate of The Jam "Strange Town/Butterfly Collector" 45
I have collected punk rarities for thirty years and have never seen another acetate of this. Here, my friends, is a true piece of music history.
As with my other recent sale of "When You're Young" this copy was personally rushed to the New Musical Express in London by the band that it might be included in that week's review section. Paul, Bruce and Rick clearly knew just what they had created in this explosive single - for my money their greatest masterpiece - and wanted the world to know it too.
This is as good as pop singles get and the passing decades only seem to enhance it's power and brilliance. Here is your chance to own the very first copy ever pressed of Strangetown by The Jam, the very one the band would have listened to at the studio in '79 before OK-ing it for release.
And here's a real bonus. So raw and early is this pressing that the,by now, very famous B-side "The Butterfly Collector" is actually titled "Collecting Butterflies" - a variation I don't believe even the most hardcore Jam fans knew of.
The record is cut onto thick, brittle acetate laquer and bears the industrial logo of Pye Studios, Great Cumberland Place, London. It still gives off the tell-tale chemical smell so typical of these always incredibly rare discs.
There are scratches and surface marks to both sides with background noise evident on the quieter passeages of "Collecting Butterflies" (Butterfly Collector). That said, nothing can detract from the sheer drive of Strangetown itself whose mix on this disc sounds to me a good deal fuller and beefier than the regular pressed thin vinyl. This was truly The Jam at their matchless best, at the start of a run of 45s that would send their reputation into the stratosphere.
THE JAM "Strange Town/Collecting Butterflies"
"I'm oh-so-glad the revolutions here...Nice and warm now!"
Good luck everybody, this should be some auction.
The starting price is low and there is no reserve.
