T.Rex The Slider 40th Anniversary deluxe: brand new & sealed

	£		105
	$		139

Product Description

Strictly limited to 2000 copies (numbered 1 - 2000) Now remastered for the first time by Tony Visconti, this classic album released in July 1972 on the back of three chart-topping T.Rex LPs provides a perfect snapshot of the era the press dubbed T. Rextasy and is proof of Bolan s extraordinary and enduring appeal across the generations. 

The Slider contained two UK Number 1 hit singles, Telegram Sam and Metal Guru the latter famously regarded by Morrissey as pop perfection . It was the first to bear the T. Rex Wax Co imprint, a seal of approval from EMI Records, who felt Bolan sufficiently important to warrant having his own record label. 

On the accompanying DVD, Tony Visconti recalls the making of the album in an exclusive new 105-minute interview with Bolan biographer Mark Paytress. The DVD also features TV footage including performances of Telegram Sam and Metal Guru from Top Of The Pops, ITV performance footage of Cadilac, Spaceball Ricochet and Telegram Sam, plus Marc s interview with Russell Harty from 1972. Rounding off the DVD is footage of Marc Bolan and Mickey Finn visiting EMI s pressing plant, a TV advert for The Slider and a US promotional film of Buick Mackane. 

Tony Visconti has also written a special essay for the 48-page hardback coffee-table book included in the box, which also features a 6,000-word essay by Paytress, rare photos and reproductions of archive material. Also included in the set, which comes in a sturdy 12 x 12 box, is a 180g vinyl pressing of the original album, its two spin-off singles and a repro of the hugely collectable promo-only Chariot Choogle 45, all in facsimile T. Rex Wax Co paper sleeves. 

Rounding off the package is a 40-page book of the sheet music for every song on the album, an A2 poster, sticker, plastic carrier bag, sew-on patch and facsimiles of an original Bolan fan club letter, membership card, rosette and concert ticket. 

CONTENT INCLUDES: 

2 x CDs / 1 x DVD / 1 x 180gram vinyl LP / 3 x 7 singles 

48 page casebound book 

Liner notes by: 

Tony Visconti 

Mark Paytress 

Marc Bolan 

105 minute filmed interview with Tony Visconti 

Top Of The Pops and other TV appearances

40 page book of sheet music 

Poster 

Plus reproductions of memorabilia and ephemera

BBC Review

There’s never been a cooler pop group than T. Rex, and that’s almost certainly a provable fact.

After ex-mod Mark Feld had changed his name to Marc Bolan, drifting through shock-rockers John’s Children and into his own hippy acoustic duo Tyrannosaurus Rex (whose albums had titles longer than some band’s careers, and featured narratives by John Peel), he suddenly got the urge to become a pop star again.

On early singles like Hot Love and Ride a White Swan, he began to mix early rock’n’roll with Tolkienesque imagery. And by the time of T. Rex’s 1971 set Electric Warrior, Bolan was able to write singles like Get It On and Jeepster, which were as rock as anything anyone had ever made.

By now he’d also invented glam rock (aka glitter rock) and had inspired his old friend and rival David Bowie to also ditch the flares and become an alien rock god (Bowie’s Lady Stardust is about Bolan), while becoming pop royalty. Ringo Starr filmed him, Elton John jammed with him – all he needed now was a chart-topping, brilliant follow-up to Electric Warrior.

With The Slider, he achieved that easily. It contains two number one singles, the great Telegram Sam and Metal Guru, as well as the fantastic Ballrooms of Mars and the marvelously dreamy title track. Everything else is what Bolan might well have called a groovy little rocker.

Producer Tony Visconti (who seemed to flit from Bolan to Bowie and back throughout the decade) created a sound that mixed strings and guitars in catchy fast hooks while ex-Turtles Flo and Eddie provided extraordinary backing vocals. It’s a perfect album, rock and pop combined concisely and excitingly. Even the cover – Bolan in a top hat – gave Slash something to look like several years later.

This box set, remastered by Visconti, features the original album, demos and b sides (Bolan prefigured punk rock in his genius with a flipside), and comes with a DVD stuffed with TV appearances, promo footage and interviews. There’s also a poster, a badge and, er, a rosette. It’s all brilliant – and best of all, you only need disc one.

Track Listings

Disc: 1

  1. Metal Guru

  2. Mystic Lady

  3. Rock On

  4. The Slider

  5. Baby Boomerang

  6. Spaceball Ricochet

  7. Buick MacKane

  8. Telegram Sam

  9. Rabbit Fighter

  10. Baby Strange

  11. Ballrooms of Mars

  12. Chariot Choogle

  13. Main Man

Disc: 2

  1. Cadillac

  2. Thunderwing

  3. Lady

  4. Rock On

  5. The Slider

  6. Buick MacKane

  7. Sugar Baby (Rabbit Fighter)

  8. Baby Strange (Incomplete)

  9. Slider Blues

  10. Buick Mackane II (Slider Outtake)

  11. Baby Strange

  12. Ballrooms of Mars

  13. The Slider (Acoustic)

  14. Radio Interview

Disc: 3

  1. Telegram Sam (Top of the Pops, 19 January 1972)

  2. Metal Guru (Top of the Pops, 24 May 1972)

  3. Metal Guru (Christmas Top of the Pops, 21 December 1972)

  4. Cadillac (Music in the Round, 8 December 1971)

  5. Spaceball Ricochet (Music in the Round, 8 December 1971)

  6. Telegram Sam (Music in the Round, 8 December 1971)

  7. Marc Bolan Interviewed By Russell Harty (Eleven Plus, 23 July 1972)

Disc: 4

  1. Metal Guru

  2. Mystic Lady

  3. Rock On

  4. The Slider

  5. Baby Boomerang

  6. Spaceball Ricochet

  7. Buick MacKane

  8. Telegram Sam

  9. Rabbit Fighter

  10. Baby Strange

  11. Ballrooms of Mars

  12. Chariot Choogle

  13. Main Man

Disc: 5

  1. Telegram Sam

Disc: 6

  1. Metal Guru

Disc: 7

  1. Chariot Choogle