The Red Vinyl

As you may have noticed (or not !) the website name has changed, like the Facebook page. This blog / collector list is now 4 years old, in one week to be more precise.
So I’ve thought it was time for a change. Monkey On A Leash was from Know for Sure. It sounded cool and I like monkeys. So it fitted well at that time.
There were just 10 items in my new The Temperance Movement collection.
Today it’s near 90 CD/LP/DVD/MC/Digital, 2 posters, 1 wonderful signed photo from Jamie Wagg, 7 (or more) t-shirts, a book, guitar picks and even a LED neon sign (from China, but ssshhhhhh !). Items are coming from UK, USA, Canada, Russia and even Japan.
So it’s a massive improvement ! I don’t know if my wife would agree with this word…
And Monkey On A Leash don’t sound too “collector”. And there’s this mysterious red vinyl for the first album. It was a long quest for me.

And this is its story !

I spotted it on a Rush’s forum but had no clue about what it was. The guy told me that he got it from Amazon.
Then one image was published on the Movers’ Facebook. This one was bought on JPC.de. There was at least 2 copies.
And another one was bought from the merch stand at a gig, maybe a fourth !!
I finally manage to buy one on eBay. The seller had got this copy from a charity shop… 4 copies and none from the same place.
There’s an effect when your’re a completist : you want to know ! Where, why, and so on.
Having no anwser from the band, the management or Earache, it wasn’t an easy task. A piece of the puzzle was solved by MPO, the vinyl manufacturer.
As I own the test pressing with the matrix and the final pressing with all others informations, it was a good start. So I contacted them with all that. And they replied !
The pressing was official and was a 207 copies run. So it wasn’t a bootleg. One point.
But it wasn’t enough !

I managed to have more information about what it was really. Here’s what I’ve been told.

The red vinyl was pressed but it was rejected by the band. So I guess the blue pressing was done at this point.
So the whole batch was put into boxes. And one day, while the band was on tour, they asked for a vinyl delivery, as all was sold. And someone at Earache tooks one box of the red vinyl and sent them !
I guess that another part of the stock was sent randomly to various seller. Actually we don’t know how many of them have been “leaked”. Only Earache folks knows !

I thought months ago that The Red Vinyl will be the next name for this website. For me it’s an emblematic item that reflects what’s great about being a collector : searching, finding, buying and having a good story behind.
So goodbye Monkey On A Leash, welcome to The Red Vinyl !