10-inch records

Rudy

¡Que siga la fiesta!
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Late last week, I finally after years of 1) looking for a clean copy of this and 2) kicking myself for not buying it new in the early 80s when I saw it sitting in the record bins for months...

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Yep...this label only appeared on this set:

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So I finally have the 10" 2-record set of this album. It was maybe a little more than I wanted to pay, but the seller claimed it was "unplayed" and from his collection. While it doesn't have the shrink with the hype stickers, it did come with the poster (which I'm leaving folded), and the vinyl does look to be mostly untouched. (I'm waiting for the 10" adapter for my record cleaner to get back in stock before I can clean it. It sounds a little noisy but the records need a good cleaning.)

That checks off one bucket list item...
 
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I have just one A&M 10" record. It's a single of "Luka" by Suzanne Vega, but it had the standard red fly-out label. Two live tracks inhabit the b-side. I think I bought it for the novelty of a 10" record.

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Joe Jackson's Look Sharp was the other 10" set I bought--it came with a button imprinted with the album title, which popped out of the jacket. IRS Records had a few 10" releases, like the Oingo Boingo EP, and the Klark Kent EP (on green vinyl and a later issue on black vinyl)--I forget about this one since mine came in a full 12" jacket, which is glued internally (and rather awkwardly) to take the 10" disc--the green pressing had a die cut cover, but it would have been too expensive to redo for a second pressing. I'm wondering how many other 10" A&Ms are out there.

I don't have too many 10" records here. The two newest pressings are the Sinatra Songs for Young Lovers and the Cal Tjader Trio, both of which were 10" releases all those decades ago. Of older 10" records, my rarest is probably the Moondog and his Friends on Epic. Two copies--one was my mother's and it's beaten up, and the replacement I found in the mid 2000s on eBay (for less than half the usual $150 price at the time). There's a 10" of eight of Perez Prado's early mambo recordings (including the now-popular "Mambo No. 5") that my mother brought back from Mexico in the mid 50s. And I found a Shorty Rogers 10" that wasn't in the best condition but has some cool and crazy music on it:

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I'd get more of these 10" releases from back in the day, but they are quite expensive if you can find a clean one. Better to find these on a CD reissue if I'm buying it just for the music.

But 10" records are still kind of cool to collect. 😉
 
I played the heck out of this one when I was growing up. The 10" my mother brought back from Mexico in the mid 50s.

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I don't recall the label being in gold print, so I may have one of the variations on this. The label and album jacket were confusing--the label shows Que Rico el Mambo but the jacket shows El Rey del Mambo. ("The King of Mambo.") I now have all of these tunes on various CDs, although unfortunately a couple of the tunes were "remastered" by jacking up the EQ and applying digital reverb, both of which sound atrocious. The Tumbao Cuban Classics CDs are the best sources for these tunes, at least the six or so out of these eight. Interesting to note that most online sources show the second track on this side as "Ni Hablar" which is incorrect--the label and jacket clearly say "Ni Hablal" as does Prado's own spoken words at the end of the tune.


The Moondog 10" I also grew up with, which probably explains a lot of my musical leanings over the years. Moondog was doing odd time signatures back in the early 50s, years before the jazzers got ahold of it. 😉

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A&M also put out a Squeeze EP on 10." It was entitled Six Squeeze Songs Crammed Ont One 10-Inch Record. Like the I.R.S. Klark Kent album, it was packaged in a 12" sleeve with some nice die-cut work.

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Squeeze also famously release a 5-inch single which looked crazy at the time. Now in the day of CDs, it just looks like a CD (other than being pressed in black vinyl)

-Mr Bill
 
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Added that to my wantlist! 👍👍 Six great tracks on there.
 
Yep, basically a "Greatest Hits EP" of the best songs from their first three albums.

--Mr Bill
 
There are plenty of copies out there, so I'll probably get one fairly soon when I put an order together.

I did a Discogs search and found there are quite a few 10" releases on A&M throughout the world. I might take time one day to try and list them here.

In that search, I found an interesting variation on the Klark Kent 10" EP:

Non die-cut cover.

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Label is A&M, not IRS:

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Joe Jackson also had a 10" single from Look Sharp!:

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The flip side is the non-album track "Don't Ask Me." Apparently it was pressed on white vinyl. Which made it look (wait for it....) sharp.

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Here's a really interesting and strange release. The A&M "Foreplay" series I've noticed have only small portions of the featured tunes. This one has the Herbie/Hugh "Skokiaan" as the fifth (!) track on side one...of a 10 inch record.

Side two, though, is highly unusual and may be a first and only release for A&M. It's The Wreckers and Apes with a tune called "I Love My Label". I have no clue on it, but....side B only has one track because it was cut at 78 RPM!

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I could actually play this one, but...would I even want to? 🤣
 
The only 10-inch record I ever owned was Cheap Trick's Found All the Parts EP. It was a half-live/half-studio set. I remember absolutely nothing about it, so it must have been a non-starter.

That album was part of a collection by Epic/CBS called "NuDisks" which they were using to hype up some of their non-A-list artists -- the thinking being people might pay a few bucks to sample an artist they might not want to spend a whole album budget on. I think the initial release was four EPs and I'm not sure if it ever continued beyond those four.

As a kid I used to play a lot of 10-inch 78RPM disks that my grandparents owned. That was before I really knew how to treat a record! None of those disks have survived today, but they were so beat-up they weren't worth keeping anyway. I remember a lot of them having a red Columbia label.
 
That album was part of a collection by Epic/CBS called "NuDisks" which they were using to hype up some of their non-A-list artists -- the thinking being people might pay a few bucks to sample an artist they might not want to spend a whole album budget on. I think the initial release was four EPs and I'm not sure if it ever continued beyond those four.

Aah yes, I forgot about those!! New wave and punk groups were often sold due to their packaging, and the 10" format kind of played into that. That was Epic's way of getting into it via their Nu-Disk label. You're right--the initial release was four EPs including the Cheap Trick, as I recall Stereo Review featured those four in a write-up when they were first released. For sure, I know two of the four titles, but can't recall the others, although I've taken a couple of guesses below.

I got this one when it was new, and it was also one of the original four. Nice little EP, with one of the clever tracks being "Two Lips from Amsterdam" 😁:

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This one might also have been part of the series, due to its early place in catalog numbers and its cover art:

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As well as this one:

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Here's the Cheap Trick for posterity:

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...and let's not forget Gary Glitter!

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Later in the series, they got more into other types of music, like this one that I found in a used record bin a while back (mainly due to the Nu-Disk series)--it is more rock/rockabilly than new wave/punk:

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And also this one:

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While it was a 12" and not a 10", The Clash's Black Market Clash was first released on the Nu-Disk label with nine tracks, and then later expanded and released as Super Black Market Clash.
 
I acquired almost all the "Nu-Disk" releases (new wave and 10" was a thing I really was into back then)... There's one by Nina Hagen, as well. I admit I enjoy Ms. Hagen.

--Mr Bill

PS: I could probably play that 78 Foreplay on the Victrola we got when Mrs. Bill's grandmother passed away. The unit looks good in our "conservatory."
 
Just play the 78 at 45 while recording into a computer. Use software to speed it up to the proper speed.
 
PS: I could probably play that 78 Foreplay on the Victrola we got when Mrs. Bill's grandmother passed away. The unit looks good in our "conservatory."
Other than grinding the vinyl to a pulp....suuuure, it'd be fine. 😁

I made a mistake on the Black Market Clash Nu-Disk release--I guess it was a 10", but since it had five songs on one side, it didn't make sense. But I've seen mention of it elsewhere and it was indeed a 10".
 
Other than grinding the vinyl to a pulp....suuuure, it'd be fine. 😁
Yeah -- the needle (you honestly can't call it a stylus) looks like an 8d (8 penny) nail. Accidentally poke yourself and you'd need a tetanus shot! I don't know how 78 records (usually made of bakelite in the day) survived more than a few plays!

I made a mistake on the Black Market Clash Nu-Disk release--I guess it was a 10", but since it had five songs on one side, it didn't make sense. But I've seen mention of it elsewhere and it was indeed a 10".

Perhaps, like Klark Kent and Oingo Boingo it was later repressed to 12"

--Mr Bill
 
78s were shellac. They did survive the steel needles but, unknown to many, the needles needed to be replaced after each record played. If you wanted a quieter sound, they actually sold cactus needles to use in place of the steel.

Perhaps, like Klark Kent and Oingo Boingo it was later repressed to 12"
That's certainly possible. Although when Super Black Market Clash came along with the additional tracks, it sort of made the original obsolete.
 
Too cool! I’d love to find a copy of that Squeeze 6-track single.

I’ve got the 10” single of Paul McCartney’s ‘Press’ single from the U.K. with its own unique mix. Sounds amazing.

I also recently found a 10” copy of The Beach Boys with ‘Surfin’ Safari’/‘409’ (reissue on the purple Capitol label).
 
There are copies of the Squeeze EP out there, so it's not too out of the ordinary. Given its die cut jacket, though, finding one intact might take a little digging.

The IRS Records version of the Klark Kent 10" above, had this hype sticker:

"You have just purchased an I.R.S. product. Keep in mind, however, that this is no ordinary record. It has been specially sealed under clinical laboratory conditions guarded by 12 armed security officers. Upon contact with light, this 8-song album will shrink to 10 inches and turn green. Exercise extreme caution.
WARNING"
 
This was the Joe Jackson 10" with removable button:

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The packaging is a gatefold, and you can see the circular vinyl tape that attempts to hold the button to the jacket:

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One drawback to 10" LPs--if I have to order protective sleeves for the jackets, I have to order them in packs of 100. It would take me a while to buy that many 10"ers! There are also no 10" "rice paper" sleeves for the records--I hate cleaning them, then having them go back into dusty paper sleeves (especially those with the label cutouts).
 
Hey Rudy.... I also own a copy of that 10" Moondog lp on Epic. I never would have thought that anyone on this website would have a copy of that one as it's so rare & unusual. Moondog's real name is Louis Hardin and his life story as a blind street musician on the streets of New York is amazing.
 
Hey Rudy.... I also own a copy of that 10" Moondog lp on Epic. I never would have thought that anyone on this website would have a copy of that one as it's so rare & unusual. Moondog's real name is Louis Hardin and his life story as a blind street musician on the streets of New York is amazing.
That was, musically, a great record to grow up with--it could be why I'm so at ease with odd-metered songs.

In the early 80s I found a listing for the Columbia Moondog LP in a Schwann catalog and ordered it from my usual record store at the time. Not too soon after, they got in a used copy of odd follow-up Moondog 2 and held it aside for me if I wanted it. And once the CD era boomed, I discovered his albums on Prestige (Moondog, More Moondog, The Story of Moondog) which were closer to that Epic 10" than the Columbia album which expanded more into orchestral works. All quite fascinating, as is his life story.
 
My Dad collected 10" albums, mostly vintage jazz on RCA, with four songs on each side. The artists were Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Spike Jones. Mostly light gray labels. A couple were red vinyl. It's possible they're in my basement -- which is true of most things.

JB
 
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