Sunday 31 January 2010

3 More Flags!

A good friend of mine recently told me he was thinking about selling some records because he was short of money. He offered me first dibs before he put his collection on eBay. Unfortunately though he didn't have a list of his collection, and he wasn't going to make one for me. And he lives quite a way away, so I couldn't go round and have a look. So I could only make offers on things I knew that he had, which wasn't many things. Probably for the best I guess. I need to try to control my spending anyway because the last month or so was quite an expensive one for one reason or another. Anyway, as a consequence of this I am now two steps closer to a complete Black Flag colour vinyl LP collection...

First up, my third colour copy of 'Damaged'. This one is on clear pink:

The only other colour of Damaged that I am aware of that I still don't own is a dark, clear purple. In the unlikely event that anyone reading this has one they wanna part with, get in touch.

Next up, one that I am totally stoked on - 'My War' on blue:

Even though this is probably at least the fiftieth pressing of this record, I don't care. This looks great.

I also have this one on red vinyl. It's easy to tell that this blue one is a much more recent pressing than the red one because the blue one has a barcode on the back of the sleeve, whilst the red one does not, as you can see here:


I also picked up another Black Flag record from the same dude, but this one is kinda weird. This is a test press of 'The Process Of Weeding Out' 12". It has no sleeve, but does come with a photocopied piece of paper which states the record title, catalog number and release date:

What seems strange to me is that the labels on this test are in French:

I know that SST used to use Rainbo to press their records, which is based in California. So I have no idea what is going on here. I always thought SST records were all pressed in the States and then shipped around the world. But I must be wrong. The pressing plant is called SNA and is definitely in France. So some SST records must have been pressed in Europe. How many SST releases were also pressed in other countries around the world? Anyone with any info please leave a comment. I am intrigued. Thanks!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a UK pressing of the V/A Blasting Concept LP chances are these were made in france the same as some Dichord releases back in the '80s. One of my friends has a canadian pressing of Husker Du's New Day Rising on Fringe Records.
I posted up on your blog a while back that I had Black Flag - In My Head on solid pink. I also have the Wasted..Again LP on clear gold and the Descendents - Enjoy LP on white vinyl.
Hope this info helps your quest !

Cam

Graham said...

Were Southern distributing SST records at that time? Maybe they got their records pressed in France?

mcs said...

In My Head on solid pink - dunno how old that one is, but it seems hard to come by. Any chance of a pic?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, i'll sort some pic's out on the weekend as I don't live in the same house as my record collection. Also forgot to mention I have a Rainbo Records test press of the Screeming Trees-Other Worlds 12" released on SST. I remember buying the test press for £1 at the Newcastle Record Fair around 1990/91.

Cam

ET said...

There was a UK SST office (Bravingdon Road, London) in the mid-eighties, so I'm guessing it must have been pressed in France for a UK release?
That said, the version they did of Damaged was cut at Porky's, which probably wouldn't have then been pressed in France. Not sure how much help that is, but may go some way to explaining it?

Anonymous said...

I've also got a test copy of the Process of Weeding out, with exactly the same French label and photocopied info sheet stapled to an inner sleeve. Got it from a Brighton record fair back in 1985 for a few quid. I've only played it about twice... it's a godawful record!!!

Anonymous said...

societe nouvelle must have been a french CANADIAN pressing plant.
no such pressing plant in france...

mcs said...

No such pressing plant in France? Are you sure about that?

http://www.snadisc.com/contactez-nous/

phfw1961 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
phfw1961 said...

I too have exactly the same bit of vinyl! With the same piece of photocopied paper! Guess it's not as rare as I thought!

But when researching it, I contacted SNA and this was their reply...

I confirm that your disc has been manufactured in our company "Société Nouvelle Areacem".
I'm afraid this disc is too old that we do not have any records about it at the factory.

Best regards,
Arnaud LE SAOUT
Logistics Manager

SNA
Parc d'activités de Sainte-Anne
61190 Tourouvre - France
Tel.: +33 (0)2 33 85 15 13 Mobile: +33 (0)6 16 77 25 50
www.sna.coop


So, it is indeed a French pressing. Tourouvre is about 140km west of Paris.

'ET' mentioned Porkys - On the track out between the grooves and the label, the word 'Porkys' is scratched/engraved into it. Is that the studio they used?

I'm not a Black Flag fan but I've enjoyed researching this!

If anyone is interested in purchasing said vinyl, I'm open to offers.