Avid Record Collector

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is “street fighting man” the most valuable picture sleeve in the world?

IN LATE AUGUST 1968, the Rolling Stones re­leased “Street Fighting Man” as the lead single for the un­re­leased BEGGARS BANQUET album. It was the group’s follow-up to Jumpin’ Jack Flash, which had been a world­wide smash. While it topped the Cash Box Top 100, for some in­ex­plic­able reason it stalled at #3 on the Bill­board Hot 100

As Street Fighting Man was of a quality sim­ilar if not quite equal to Jumpin’ Jack Flash, I as­sume now that everyone as­sumed then that an­other top-tenner was on the way. [Continue reading]

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what was the first “rock” double-album of the ’60s?

 IT IS ACCEPTED “FACT” that two sem­inal works of pop­ular music—the Beach Boys’ PET SOUNDS and Bob Dylan’s BLONDE ON BLONDE—were re­leased on the same day, May 16, 1966. And there was a second reason to cel­e­brate that date: BLONDE ON BLONDE was also the first rock double-album of all-new studio record­ings, beating the Mothers of Invention’s FREAK OUT! [Continue reading]

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God damn the pusher man

THOSE OF US OLD ENOUGH to have at least wit­nessed “the Sixties”—even if only as teenagers watching it happen all around us—remember that there was a time when the terms “dealer” and “pusher” were NOT syn­ony­mous. A dealer sold only “good” drugs—“head drugs”—like mar­i­juana, hash, and the oc­ca­sional psy­che­delic (mostly LSD). [Continue reading]