Month: November 2015

November 18, 2015

Book Of Love – I Touch Roses (US 12″)

BURNING THE GROUND EXCLUSIVE 1985

“I Touch Roses” is the second single released by the American synth-pop band Book of Love. The song was included on the band’s eponymous debut album Book of Love in 1986. The B-side to the single is “Lost Souls”, a remixed version of which also appeared on their debut album.

Although “I Touch Roses” failed to reach the Billboard Hot 100 chart, it did make the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, where it peaked at no. 8 in 1985.

“I Touch Roses” was written by band member Theodore (“Ted”) Ottaviano. After the success of their first single, “Boy”, “I Touch Roses” followed a similar trajectory, securing that the band would record a full album for Sire Records. In 2009, Ted Ottaviano revealed, “We didn’t know it at the time, but thankfully, with ‘I Touch Roses’, it was not preordained that Sire was developing us at the time. There was no grand scheme. It was more a la carte. But then people started picking up on ‘Roses’ and then the album happened.”

SIDE A:
I Touch Roses (Long Stemmed Version) 5:42

SIDE B:
I Touch Roses 3:23
Lost Souls (Remix) 4:13

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
SleeveL Near Mint

U.S. CHART HISTORY:

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1985	I Touch Roses	U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play	#8

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Sire ‎– 0-20381
Format: Vinyl, 12″, Maxi-Single, 45 RPM
Country: US
Released: 1985
Genre: Electronic
Style: Synth-pop

CREDITS:
Art Direction – Zoë Brotman
Cover [Cover Art] – Herbert Lee
Engineer – Steve Peck
Keyboards – Lauren Roselli, Ted Ottaviano
Lead Vocals – Susan Ottaviano
Management – Steven Mulroney
Mastered By – Herb Powers*
Other [Clothes] – Jeffrey Costello
Other [Hair, Make-up] – Jill Sunshine
Percussion – Jade Lee
Photography By – David La Chapelle*
Producer – Ivan Ivan
Programmed By, Arranged By, Instruments – Book Of Love
Written-By – Theodore Ottaviano*

NOTES:
Recorded and mixed at Unique Recording, NYC
Mastered at Frankford Wayne, NYC.

Find the 12″ on DISCOGS

EQUIPMENT USED:
Turntable: Pro-Ject Debut Carbon (DC)
Cartridge: Ortofon 2M
Stylus: Ortofon OM Stylus 30
Platter: Pro-Ject Acryl-It platter
Stabilizer: Pro-Ject Record Puck
Phono Pre-amp: Bellari VP130 Tube Phono Preamp
Tube: Tung-Sol 12AX7ECC803-S Gold Electron Tube
Soundcard: ESI Juli@
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Brother MFC-6490CW Professional Series Scanner

SOFTWARE USED:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removal: Manual
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
MP3 (320kbps)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

November 17, 2015

Re-Flex – Hurt (US 12″ Promo)

BURNING THE GROUND EXCLUSIVE 1984

“Hurt” was the third single by British new wave/synth-pop band Re-Flex taken from their debut album The Politics Of Dancing. “Hurt” debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 on May 5, 1984 peaking at #82. The single received significant club play in the US making the single a top twenty hit peaking at #15 on the Billboard dance chart.

“Hurt” was only released as a single in the US and Canada. I have added as a bonus the “Rubber Dub” taken from another US 12″ promo. In all there were two promo 12″ singles issued in the US. One containing the “US “Emotional Mix” and “Rubber Dub” the other containing the US and UK “Emotional” mixes.

SIDE A:
Hurt (U.S. Emotional Mix) 6:47
Remix – John Luongo

SIDE B:
Hurt (U.K. Emotional Mix) 5:35
Remix – Pete Smith

Hurt (The Rubber Dub) 9:24
Remix – John Luongo

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

U.S. CHART HISTORY:

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1984	Hurt	U.S. Billboard Hot 100	#82
1984	Hurt	U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play	#15

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Capitol Records ‎– SPRO-9127, Capitol Records ‎– SPRO-9128
Format: Vinyl, 12″, Promo, 33 ⅓ RPM
Country: US
Released: 1984
Genre: Electronic
Style: New Wave, Synth-pop

CREDITS:
Mastered By – Wally Traugott (tracks: B)
Producer – John Punter

NOTES:
Side A mastered at Sterling Sound. Side B mastered at Capitol Mastering.
From the LP “THE POLITICS OF DANCING”

Find the 12″ on DISCOGS

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
MP3 (320kbps)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

November 16, 2015

Pet Shop Boys – It’s Alright (The Alternatives) (UK 10″)

BURNING THE GROUND EXCLUSIVE 1989

“It’s Alright” is the 13th single from Pet Shop Boys and was released in the UK by Parlophone Records on 26 June 1989. It reached number 5 in the UK and, as of February 2009, it is the Pet Shop Boys’ 8th best-selling single. The song was originally written and performed by Sterling Void & Paris Brightledge and came to the attention of Pet Shop Boys on a house compilation.

The lyrics list a wide variety of serious political issues in the headlines at the time (“Dictation enforced in Afghanistan, revolution in South Africa taking a stand…”), and then offers the positive message of the title—that on its “timeless wavelength”, “music is our life’s foundation”, it “shall last” and ultimately “succeed all the nations to come”.

On the 10″ single there are additional lyrics with Neil Tennant speaking: “there’s a boy standing by a river, there’s a girl lying with her lover, there’s a statesman standing at a crossroads, there’s a soldier polishing his gun”.

SIDE A:
It’s Alright 4:44

SIDE B:
It’s Alright (Extended Dance Mix) 10:30

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Parlophone ‎– 10R 6220
Format: Vinyl, 10″, Single, Limited Edition, 45 RPM
Country: UK
Released: Jun 1989
Genre: Electronic, Pop
Style: House, Synth-pop

CREDITS:
Design [Sleeve Designed By] – Mark Farrow
Engineer – Julian Mendelsohn, Stephen Lipson
Mixed By – Julian Mendelsohn
Percussion – Danny Cummings
Producer – Pet Shop Boys, Stephen Lipson, Trevor Horn
Vocals [Additional] – Tessa Niles
Written-By – Sterling Void

NOTES:
“Limited edition contains free poster”

“These two alternative versions of It’s Alright were recorded in January, 1989 and are available only on this limited edition ten-inch disc.”

Designed at 3a.

Find the 10″ on DISCOGS

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
MP3 (320kbps)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

November 13, 2015

ABBA – Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (US 7″ Promo)

BURNING THE GROUND EXCLUSIVE 1979

REQUEST

“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”, (working title “Been and Gone and Done It”), is a song by Swedish band ABBA. It was recorded and released in 1979. It appears on ABBA’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2.

“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” was written and composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with the lead vocal sung by Agnetha Fältskog. Agnetha, as the narrator, weaves the image of a lonely young woman who longs for a romantic relationship and views her loneliness as a forbidding darkness of night, even drawing parallels to how the happy endings of movie stars are so different from her own existence.

The song was recorded at Polar Music Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1979, and was ready for release in October of that year, in conjunction with the group’s tour of North America and Europe.

The single version of this song, which was released in its full length of 4:48 everywhere else in the world, was released in the United States and Canada in an edited format, being just 3:39 in length. This was done by removing the first half of the opening instrumental, the first four of the eight bars of the instrumental bridge between the second and final chorus, and fading the song out early. It is believed the edit was done by Atlantic, ABBA’s North American record label, and not Polar, hence the reason why it was available only in the USA and Canada. This single version has never appeared on any commercial CD issued by Polar/Universal to date, and along with the US radio edit of Chiquitita, it marked the only time Atlantic ever commercially released an edited version of an ABBA single while they had the North American rights to release ABBA recordings.

The single was never released by Polar Music in the group’s native Sweden, instead being featured on the “Greatest Hits Vol. 2” album, which did get a Swedish release. While Polar released the single in neighbouring Norway, Denmark, and Finland, copies of these versions were not made available in the Swedish record stores, who thus arranged to import copies of the United Kingdom version on Epic Records. Sales of these imports were sufficient for the single to reach no. 16 on the sales chart in Sweden.

“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” was another highly successful song for ABBA. It hit no. 1 in Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, and Switzerland, while reaching the Top 3 in Austria, Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands, and Norway. It also proved to be ABBA’s most successful song in Japan, hitting no. 17.

SIDE A:
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Long Version) 4:48

SIDE B:
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Short Version) 3:39

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint (company)

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Atlantic ‎– 3652
Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, Single, Promo
Country: US
Released: 1979
Genre: Pop
Style: Disco

CREDITS:
Engineer – Michael B. Tretow
Mastered By – GP*
Producer, Arranged By, Written-By – Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus*

NOTES:
“PROMOTIONAL COPY NOT FOR SALE”
From the Atlantic LP “Greatest Hits Vol. 2”

Find the 7″ on DISCOGS

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
MP3 (320kbps)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi