As shown in the previous post, I have a special place in my heart for Genesis. I knew some of their hits, but took a deep dive around late 2001 by starting to listen to albums such as Duke, A Trick Of The Tail and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. It didn’t take long before I was completely hooked and yes, I like all eras!

It was clear to me from the start that their early singles weren’t big hits and thus rare or hard to find. It was therefore always a dream for me to own just one or two Gabriel-era singles (up to 1974).

In the past few years I was able to obtain Happy The Man and Watcher Of The Skies with picture sleeves on 7″, but The Knife was still high on the list.

That single was finally removed from the list on 13 April 2024 when I was able to buy it from a collector and picked it up at the world’s largest record fair in Den Bosch, NL. It is a great looking copy, especially when considering that it is 53 years old (released in 1971)!

This was the first Genesis single in the UK with a picture sleeve and it is a curious one, since Phil and Steve are not featured on the recording, though they are in the band photo. The single only features one song, The Knife, split across two sides, where it simply cuts the song off after 3:16 minutes on the A-side and continues for the remaining 5:39 minutes on the B-side. No fading, nothing. The 2007 remix of The Knife on The Tour Edition compilation Turn It On Again fades out at the end, making it not a true rendition of Part 1.

In 1982, Genesis released a double album called Three Sides Live. It contained, as you correctly guessed, three sides with live performances. The fourth side contained some non-album studio B-sides and material from an EP which was previously released in the UK.

To keep the album interesting for those markets who already heard the studio tracks, the band replaced the studio tracks with even more live performances. This meant that the album had four sides with live tracks instead of three.

For that reason, Germany imported the UK edition with four live sides and applied a sticker over the word “three”, dubbing the album Four Sides Live.

To make this matter even more fun for collectors, they did this by using two, possibly three, different stickers. One as per the featured photo and another where the round part at the bottom does not feature any text.

If you navigate through this website, you will find out that I dig a number of Japanese artists. One of them is Imitation PoPs 宇宙戦隊NOIZ, aka UCHUSENTAI:NOIZ (宇宙戦隊/uchusentai means “space squadron”).

In September 2007 the band embarked on an event where they gave 32 gigs during 32 days. Apart from this they also released 13 special CD-singles, among other promotional items including this nice calendar.

It comes in a plastic hard shell (bottom right) which can be opened to reveal 12 individual cards, one for each month, representing the artwork for each CD-single. The front image, on a separate card, is the 13th single and a 14th card is a blue backing card containing a short write-up about the band.

This particular copy is signed boldly in grey ink on the front of the plastic case!

Gary Numan gave his 1000th performance on the 15th of April 2003. To celebrate this, he released this special 7″ featuring two songs from this particular concert at Electric Ballroom in London, UK.

1000 numbered copies on tri-colored vinyl were made available. 200 of those were sold on the 12th of February 2024 through his US web store. The remaining 800 were sold during his US Ministry Tour 2024 between 27 Feb – 5 Apr 2024. 20 copies were on sale at every show.

The web store also sold a signed black vinyl test pressing of which 5 were made.

You see both of these releases in this photo.

What you see here is a unique promotional display for David Bowie‘s 1984 album Tonight. It contains multiple layers to create a 3D effect and measures approx 12″ x 12″ x 3″.

A rare piece of memorabilia that you don’t see for sale too often.

And although it looks great, it is a pity that it was made for a not-so-great album..