Blitzkrieg Bop – all versions

This spring it's 37 years since the Ramones released their debut single, Blitzkrieg Bop, and changed the history of music for ever. I have told you about some of the releases of the single before but here is the whole list – the complete Blitzkrieg Bop single discography:

UK: Two different pressings. The first has matt green injection moulded labels, the second has gold labels. Both pressings came in the picture sleeve and both can be found in the Phonogram company sleeve.

Songs: Blitzkrieg Bop/Havana Affair

Number: Sire/Phonogram 6078 601

Year: 1976

Country: UK

 UK 1st press.

  UK 2nd press.

 In Phonogram company sleeve.

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Japan: As always with the japanese singles, one stock version and one white label promo.

Songs: Blitzkrieg Bop/Havana Affair

Number: Philips SFL-2122

Year: 1976

Country: Japan

 Stock version.

 Promo version.

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France: Here the single came out  with a nice full color photo of the band with Tommy chewing bubble gum! No "real" promos exists but some copies are stamped with "Promo not for sale" in french.

Songs: Blitzkrieg Bop/Havana Affair

Number: Philips 6078 503

Year: 1976

Country: France

 With promo stamp.

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Holland: Another nice PS, the dutch version have two live tracks on the B-side. Note that the picture of the first album on the back is the US press with cut corner and not the dutch pressing on Philips this single was supposed to promote!

Songs: Blitzkrieg Bop//California Sun/I don't wanna walk around with you

Number: Philips 6078 505

Year: 1976

Country: Holland

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US: There are four versions of this one. No picture sleeve. A funny thing is that Blitzkrieg is consistently misspelled on all records! Blitzkreig...

Title: Blitzkrieg Bop/Havana Affair and Blitzkrieg Bop/Blitzkrieg Bop

Number: Sire SAA-725

Year: 1976

Country: United States

The "normal" version with Havana Affair on the B-side. Both tracks in stereo. Issued

 with the green/white ABC Records company sleeve.

A promo version with Blitzkrieg Bop in mono and Havana Affair in stereo and white 

labels. The black star marks the A-side.

An alternative promo white label-version with Blitzkrieg Bop in mono and stereo.

Stock version with mono on side A and Havana Affair

 in stereo on the back.

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UK, official reissue: Last year Rhino released the single together with Record Store Day. The record is made to look like the injection moulded labels that was used in the 70's but these ones are made of paper.

Title: Blitzkrieg Bop/Havana Affair 

Number: Rhino/Sire 8122797365

Year: 2012

Country: UK

Record of the week – "Sedated" a hit in the Philippines

For some reason Warner released I Wanna Be Sedated as a single in the Philippines in spite of the fact that RSO already had the single out in the country to market the Time Square-soundtrack. My guess is that the RSO-version came first but I'm not sure.
Warner picked another track on the flipside – Let's Go. The single came in a plastic WEA company sleeve printed in the Philippines.
You find more about the RSO-releases here.

Title: I wanna be sedated/Let's Go

Number: Warner WB-77-231

Year: 1980 (?)

Country: Philippines

Ramones & GRT – the final chapter

The first canadian press of Road To Ruin.

Here is an update about the GRT distribution and label in Canada. In my list of Ramones-releases on GRT I missed the last one: Road To Ruin.
In most other countries Warner took over the distribution after Rocket To Russia but in Canada the old management lasted longer. Shortly after the GRT release of the album Sire/Warner did a re-release (QSR 6031) but the real canadian first press of Road To Ruin is the one on General Record & Tape.
Here is some more information about GRT:
From the beginning the company was specialized in doing casettes and 8-track tapes. The 8-track tape disappeared from the music-market in the early 80's but before that GRT and later on Sire released every Ramones album up to Pleasant Dreams on 8-track.
In 1976 ABC (who then distributed Sire in the US) released the first album on vinyl and had the 8-track made by the US division of GRT.
On the other side of the border GRT of Canada did both records and tapes, that's why they released both formats in Canada. A few years later GRT went bankrupt, Warner bought Sire and the GRT-chapter was history. After the death of GRT in Canada the whole stock of records went to the bargain bins and people in Canada are saying that all the cheap records helped the Ramones gain popularity in the country.
By the way, here you can find a list of all 8-track releases from the Ramones.
And here are pictures of the canadian releases of Road To Ruin:

Album: Road To Ruin

Number: Sire/GRT 9147-6063

Year: 1978

Country: Canada

Notes: First press

Album: Road To Ruin

Number: Sire QSR-6063

Year: 1978 (?)

Country: Canada

Notes: Second press

Updates – the australian Pet Sematary

I have updated the piece about the australian Pet Sematary 7" with some new info and one more picture.

The austrian Baby I Love You

The germans did a lot of cool and unique picture sleeves in 70's and 80's. The single Baby I Love You is one of them. 

This record is quite easy to find today but it's a bit harder to track down the version that was pressed for the austrian market.
Both versions have the same sleeve and as far as I can see they are all pressed in Germany at Ariola-Eurodisc in Munich. The difference is on the label of the record. The gernan version is marked with Gema and the austrian has Austro Mechana as the rights society.

Here are some other facts about the austrian pressing:

1. The matrix number for both pressings are 101399 A2/80S and 101399 B2/80S, machine stamped. But the austrian pressing also has the number 012 in handwritten style carved into the dead wax. 

2. The title on the B-side, High Risk Insurance, is misspelled: High Pisk Insurance! 

3. Both versions have Made in Germany printed on the dead wax – but the austrian version has X X X marked over the lettering. Maybe this is made i Austria and not in Germany after all!

4. As far as I know this is the only Ramones 45 especially made for the austrian market.

Title: Baby I Love You/High Risk Insurance

Number: Sire 101 399

Year: 1980

Country: Germany & Austria

Austrian A-side.

 German A-side.

 Austrian B-side.

 German B-side.

More fake sleeves coming up?

Two of the fake sleeves. The other two you find here.

I guess most of you have seen them by now – the fake sleeves for Ramones singles that someone is selling on Ebay. And it is not only Ramones sleeves that are coming from this seller.
One thing is for certain, this is not official sleeves. On the other hand the seller don't say that, they are called "special limited edititon picture sleeves" on the Ebay auctions.
Anyway, they have the Sire logo and the record number and it's easy to imagine that someone thinks this is "real" stuff.
These records have been discussed on the net and on teminal-boredom.com someone has posted a comment from the seller. As I have written before he's saying that he got the sleeves at the record fair in Utrecht:

I went to the Utrecht Holland record fair last year and purchased a box of over 300 sleeves. Some were reissues and had identical pictures as the original sleeve. Some like this one had diff. pictures than the original but had the original record number on it. The sleeve is made on a less glossy paper than an original issue. The inside fold is a little wider than an original. The inside color is a true white color and not the off white usually found. There were 7 different Ramones slvs in the box. I'm not an expert on the group so I really don't know if there were sleeves originally with them. I've listed two of them and sold both copys I had and now I'm listing this one which I have 3 copys of the sleeves. There is a p/s book thats made in Belgium that lists two of the Ramones sleeves. It says they were made in Belgium for export use only and manufactured in the late 80's. I just think by listing it as a special edition is clearer than listing as a Belgium export issue. Thats all the information I have on this and I hope it helps. I've sold over 75 of these and only had one returned, which I refunded fully including the postage to ship and return it. I also try to get an original record to match up with the sleeve. Thanks and good luck. XXX

Apparently there will be three more Ramones sleeves coming up. Stay away from them if you're not into fakes!

Needles and pins – all versions

As I have written before, the record company in the UK tried to please the more traditional Ramones fans with the the follow up She's The One after the mocked "country & western"-single Don't Come Close.
But in the U.S. the record company used another strategy. Sights were set on the american radio stations and in february 1979 Sire released another tearjerker, Needles And Pins, as the second single from Road To Ruin.
The cover of The Searchers smash hit from 1964 was first cut for Rocket To Russia but ended up on Road To Ruin.
Besides the U.S. version the single was released in Italy, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. The japanese edition has a great picture sleeve – but it looks like the designer of the sleeve have missed to put color to Joeys left hand!
Read more about the italian version with the DJ-sleeve here.

Title: Needles And Pins/I Wanted Everything

Number: Sire SRE 1045

Year: Feb 1979 (1978 on label)

Country: US

Title: Needles And Pins/Needles And Pins

Number: Sire SRE 1045

Year: Feb 1979 (1978 on label)

Country: US

Notes: Promo, mono and stereo

Title: Needles And Pins/I'm against it

Number: Sire SFL-2358

Year: 1979

Country: Japan

Title: Needles And Pins/I'm against it

Number: Sire SFL-2358

Year: 1979

Country: Japan

Notes: Promo

Title: Needles And Pins/I Wanted Everything

Number: Sire SRE 1045

Year: 1979

Country: Australia

Title: Needles And Pins/I Wanted Everything

Number: Sire SRE 1045

Year: 1979

Country: New Zealand

Title: Needles And Pins/She's the one (promo)

Number: Sire SRE 1009

Year: 1978

Country: Italy

Notes: DJ-sleeve

Title: Needles And Pins/She's the one (promo)

Number: Sire SRE 1009

Year: 1978

Country: Italy

Leave Home – The australian pressings

Last year I tried to list all the original pressings of Leave home. Today I stumbled into a different pressing of the australian version on Philips. The record have the same laminated and glossy front and the non-laminated back, the only difference is the line at the bottom to the left of the Philips logo. The first copy is marked with "Distributed in Australia by Phonogram Pty. Limited", the other with "MANUFACTURED AND DISTRIBUTED IN AUSTRALIA UNDER LICENSE". My guess is that the first copy is the first press and that the other was released between Phonogram and Warner distribution.
The labels on the second press looks a little bit different with an extra number, MX184408.
Leave Home was released a third time i Australia as SR 6031 on Sire label and with Warner distribution in 1978. This time with Sheena is a Punk Rocker. The two versions on Philips both have Carbona Not Glue.
This never ends...
By the way, The two australian pressings on Philips are the only ones I have seen with a black part in the picture in the upper left corner on the front cover. I guess everyone else made it sky-blue to make the Ramones-logo look better.

Album: Leave Home

Number: Philips 6370 809

Year: 1977

Made in: Australia

Matrix number: 6370809-1 / 6370809-2  (Hand written)

Notes: Australian first press on Philips, no inner sleeve.

Album: Leave Home

Number: Philips 6370 809

Year: 1977

Made in: Australia

Matrix number: MX184408  6370809-1 / MX184408  6370809-2  (Machine stamped)

Notes: Australian second press on Philips, no inner sleeve.

Front and back of the australian pressing on Philips.