THE REMAINS original Epic 1966 LP in MONO It slams VG+/VG, read my overshare

$

149

This thing...I just listened to it on Stax headphones, to decide the condition of the vinyl--the mono mix just jumps so hard, it's crazy dynamic. They mastered it at such a high level, it sounds more like a 12" 45. 

I know that when RSD did their Remains special reprint, they chose the mono mix...but it still didn't pop like this original. 

But first about the condition--the vinyl is glossy and looks NM- but unfortunately there's one scratch, that I can't feel with my fingernail, and that I can't hear, on the last cut of side 2. Also surface noise just at the start of side 2. So I'm calling it VG+.

As for the sleeve, the wear is reasonable as you can see, but then somebody wrote his name on the back (same guy who put the light scratch no doubt) and some grubbiness on the back as well, so VG on the sleeve.

I remember the day I came across this record in the bins, I grabbed it and held it to my chest, couldn't believe my luck. Back then you couldn't hear music unless you had the actual vinyl, or a great friend who made mixtapes, or you lucked out on hearing something on the radio...and this album was super rare. I only knew about it because Lenny Kaye had put "Don't Look Back" on his great anthology "Nuggets," so for the first time a lot of us knew about the band. (Come to think of it, that's when I ran out looking for records by other bands featured on that album: 13th Floor Elevators, Mouse and the Traps, Cryan Shames, etc etc) 

Now, thank god, we can listen to just about anything in recorded history within a few seconds, for free. But this record makes a great case for getting off the couch and playing vinyl, because some of these old-school LP mastering engineers were geniuses.

What you hear on these grooves is NOT what's on Spotify--it's a sound that's pushed into harmonic distortion to an "unprofessional" degree, a mastering that's actually skirting the edge of "what the hell" (q.v. the first two Velvet Underground discs) just about to overload the cutting lathe, for the holy purpose of punching the listener in the face. There was no other way to get it done, and the clean sound of the remasters is nice background music by comparison. The mono mastering is wild, and the band deserved it. And you can only get it here!

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