THE IDLE RACE BIRTHDAY PARTY ULTRA-RARE ORIG'68 UK LIBERTY MONO PSYCH LP NR MINT

$

41

WE CURRENTLY HAVE  MORE THAN 200  LISTED ITEMS

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·      IDLE RACE (FEATURING JEFF LYNNE) – BIRTHDAY PARTY - ORIGINAL BRITISH MONO PRESSING - EXTREMELY RARE ORIGINAL 1968 LIBERTY RECORDS (UK)  MONO LP LBL-83132E

·      ORIGINAL U.K. PRESSING

·      ORIGINAL TURQUOISE AND BLUE LIBERTY (UK) LABEL WITH STATUE OF LIBERTY LOGO

·      THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.K. PRESSING; THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.

·      ORIGINAL UNIPAK-STYLE COVER (ONE SIDE OF THE GATEFOLD OPENS, THE OTHER ONE IS A SINGLE-PLY PAPERBOARD)

·      ORIGINAL, THIN, FLIMSY PAPERBOARD COVER (EUROPEAN STYLE)

·      ORIGINAL LAMINATED COVER

·      DIFFERENT AND ENTIRELY UNIQUE BRITISH COVER ARTWORK, COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE AMERICAN (STEREO-ONLY) RELEASE...YES, YES, THE CREEPY GUY WITH THE BLEACHED HAIRPIECE IS NONE OTHER THAN....(GASP!)...JIMMY SAVILE. WE KID YA NOT. SEE THE PHOTO IN OUR IMAGE GALLERY.

·      THICK, HEAVY VINYL PRESSING

·      CLEAN, WEAR-FREE LABELS (SOME SPINDLE MARKS NOTED ON THE LABEL ON SIDE 2)

·      MATRIX NUMBER IN TRAIL-OFF VINYL (DEAD WAX) ENDS WITH '-A1/-B2'.  ON SOME LABELS,  SUFFIX '–1' DENOTES THE VERY FIRST, ORIGINAL PRESSING)

·      MACHINE-STAMPED MATRIX NUMBER IN TRAIL-OFF VINYL (DEAD WAX) OF THE RECORD

·      MONO version of this album has NEVER been available on legitimate Compact Disc or in any other digital format.

(►PLEASE SEE THE IMAGE OF THE COVER, LABEL OR BOTH, SHOWN BELOW)

(Note: this is a REAL image of the ACTUAL item you are bidding on. This is NOT a "recycled" image from our previous auction. What you see is what you'll get.  GUARANTEED!)

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The debut album by this unjustly overlooked band is a piece of classic British psychedelia that transcends its origins. Most British bands trying to achieve a psychedelic sound in those days simply played softly and sang in a very effete and poetic manner -- the Idle Race, by contrast, play hard here and don't sound effete so much as just cheerfully trippy, a lot like the Beatles of "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever"; indeed, "End of the Road" from this album sounds like a rewrite of "Penny Lane." Jeff Lynne is the dominant personality here, as composer, guitarist, and singer, and, as one might expect given his presence, the music all has a Beatles-like quality of playfulness amid the musical invention. The single "Skeleton and the Roundabout" may be a little over-produced, but it is beguilingly innocent in its zaniness, and the softer middle section anticipates the structure of Lynne's later work with ELO. Much more indicative of his future direction are "Morning Sunshine," one of the prettiest songs to come out of the entire Birmingham music scene and displaying a languid guitar flourish that anticipates any number of ELO songs circa A New World Record, and "The Lady Who Said She Could Fly," an orchestrated Beatlesque jewel that sounds like a lost ELO track. As demonstrated here, the Idle Race weren't quite as powerful a band as their rivals the Move -- who also loved to cover American soul and folk-rock and thus had a wider variety to their sound -- but this album is steeped in beautiful melodies and even prettier embellishments in the singing and playing, yet never loses sight of its rock & roll underpinnings. Once in a while, as in "On with the Show," the sound effects are a little more prominent than one would like, and there's a certain music hall ambience to a few songs (such as "Lucky Man") that is somewhat distracting -- but those two numbers are followed by the joyous and pounding "Pie in the Sky," so it all balances out and, overall, this album is very solid and a great deal of fun, as well as full of little surprises and signposts pointing toward Lynne's future.

(REVIEW REPRINTED COURTESY OF BRUCE EDER, ALL MUSIC GUIDE  /ALLMUSIC.COM/)

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·      CONDITION:

·      THE RECORD

 (IMPORTANT NOTE: unless otherwise noted, ALL records are graded visually, and NOT play-graded!; we  grade records under the strong, diffuse room light or discrete sunlight)

(a)         WE GRADE THE VINYL AS STRONG VG++, JUST A NOTCH BELOW NEAR MINT. A few light abrasions (probably just sleeve scuffs inflicted in storage over the years) ARE VISIBLE, but they appear fairly  insignificant relative to the overall condition of the vinyl, and are only moderately visually distracting. For most part, the vinyl looks impeccable, without any MAJOR visual flaws or imperfections. Much of the original luster is intact, and the vinyl shines and sparkles almost like new. [NOTE: side 2 is in generally better condition than side 1 (close to NEAR MINT), due to the presence on side 1 of two small "Emarcy haze" (cloudy spots) on the surface of the vinyl, which are not expected to be audible)

(b)         The record is pressed on a beautiful, thick, inflexible vinyl, which was usually used for the first or very early pressings. Usually, the sound on such thick vinyl pressings is full-bodied, vivid, and even dramatic. Do not expect to obtain such a majestic analog sound from a digital recording!

(c)         The record comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve, which has - apparently with success - shielded the vinyl from the harmful impact of elements over many years!

(d)         Mono pressing of this title is much rarer, and by far more  preferable to its stereo counterpart. We think that the mix is more natural, humane, "organic" and that the mixes are somewhat different than on the stereo version. We estimate that stereo copies of this album outnumber mono pressings by a ratio of at least 5:1.

(e)         Of course, this is a full-bodied ANALOG recording, and not an inferior, digital recording!!!

·      COVER (THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, LAMINATED, GLOSSY COVER):

THE COVER IS ABOUT VERY GOOD+(+)

The following flaws or imperfections are noted on the cover:

-       The laminated cover has a few air 'bubbles' and wrinkles in lamination (this is a common problem with most laminated 50’s and 60’s covers

-       Cover has JUST A HINT of ring wear (nothing significant); On the scale from 1 to 10 (1 being the least, and  10 being the most severe), we assess the severity of ring wear as 2.

-       Cover has some visible fraying/tattering on the bottom seams and spine

-       Cover has a few tiny wrinkles along the spine

-       Cover has a visible "wrinkle"(crease)  in one of the corners and a smaller one in another.

-       Cover has three corners slightly worn / dinged

-       Cover shows some light yellowing on both sides, apparently from aging. 

NO OTHER VISIBLE FLAWS OR IMPERFECTIONS ON THE  COVER

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POSTAGE & SHIPPING:

We offer three postage rates for domestic orders: USPS Media Mail, USPS Priority Mail and USPS Express Mail and three rates for international shipments:  USPS First Class, USPS Priority International Mail, and USPS Express International Mail (in a small number of cases, we will, at our discretion and for purely technical reasons, substitute First Class Mail with eBay's Global Shipping, which is fundamentally the same service at about the same cost). INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOTE: WE RECOMMEND (BUT DO NOT INSIST) that you select USPS International Priority Mail when making a payment.

INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE rates vary from one region of  the world to another. For SPECIFIC international and domestic postage rates, please click on " Shipping, returns, and payments" tab in the header of our listing.

please note: Effective august 15, 2023 we have ended our volume discount buyer incentive program; this was necessitated by circumstances beyond our control (a never-ending  increase in the cost of doing business, raging inflation and technical difficulties in sending our customers discounted invoices, a simple feature ebay still can't seem to FIGURE OUT even after 30 years of being in business. however, all significant orders will still receive a shipping discount: all orders over $1,000 will be shipped free of shipping charge, and all orders over $300.00 will receive up to $20.00 postage rebate (or free shipping, whichever is smaller) , irrespective of the shipping location. thank you for your understanding and continued loyalty.

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CRITICALLY IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

(A) All orders valued at $50.00 or more will be shipped fully insured against loss, damage or theft by ShipCover, eBay's contracted insurer, at our expense (B) Yes, we do combine items into a single shipment; in order to enable this feature, the winning bidders should WAIT until their last item of interest ends and ONLY THEN make a payment. Doing otherwise will result in multiple shipments to the same customer and forfeiture of multiple shipping charges already paid. (C) Because we do not play-grade our items, we do not know how the purchased item will play on the buyer's equipment. We can only make reasonable inference on the record's playing condition based on its visual appearance. (D) This seller will NOT cancel erroneous, frivolous and prank bids. The bidders can do so on their own, by visiting eBay's Site Map, then clicking on Bid Retractions link. (E) This seller does not specifically grade or describe certain items, such as: shrink (cellophane) wrap; accompanying inserts, booklets, inner sleeves, lyrics sheets, stickers, posters, booklets, newsclips, decals, press kits, publicity photos and similar bonus ephemera; however, the presence of these items WILL be noted and usually accompanied by the gallery photo(s). (F) Please do not submit any bids on our items if you have insufficient user history. We will summarily cancel any bids from the bidders with zero or negative user feedbacks. We will, however, exempt new users if politely asked. (G) Other than in very rare justified cases, failure to pay for the item you won amounts to a fraud and will result in a permanent ban on bidding on our future listings. (H) We will NEVER deliberately, knowingly or willingly provide a false, deceitful or misleading information. If you feel that we have inadvertently provided inaccurate, misleading or outdated information, or if you have any pertinent questions or comments, we encourage you to contact us through eBay soon as possible, and not later than 24 hours before the end of the listing

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OUR REFUND POLICY :

WE OFFER UNCONDITIONAL MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE (POSTAGE INCLUDED) WITHIN 30 DAYS FROM THE RECEIPT OF THE MERCHANDISE, NO QUESTIONS ASKED; STILL SEALED ITEMS MUST BE RETURNED SEALED IN ORDER TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR A REFUND.   NO EXCEPTIONS!

FINE (BUT IMPORTANT!) PRINT

 (1) The year indicated in the title bar is the year of the original release,  NOT necessarily the year of the actual pressing; for the actual generation of the pressing, please see our item description (top section, the text in red letters). (2) Please do NOT bid based on the title bar, subtitle bar or item specifics box alone; instead, please read the entire description and grading before bidding; (3) Absolutely NO order cancellations after the auction closes. ever, under any circumstances. We can ONLY cancel bids before the item closes. (4) We are unable and unwilling to cancel bids in the final 24 hours of the auction; if you need to do so, please contact eBay for help (5) We are unable to provide matrix-, stamper- or other pressing  information in the final 24 hours of the auction. If you require this information, please contact us well before the final day of the auction. (6) Absolutely NO haggling. This seller is not a bazaar. If you are unhappy with the merchandise you received, please return it for a full refund, postage included (7). Civilized people can disagree without accusing each other of being indecent or dishonest; if you need proof of this seller's personal integrity, please check our eBay feedback, which speaks for itself  (8) All disagreements and miscommunications can be - and will only be - solved in a civil and mutually respectful manner; please avoid puerile, offensive, abrasive or menacing language (attempted humor is generally fine and usually appreciated, although overused-to-death sarcasms can be really, really tedious. (9) This seller will accommodate all reasonable requests and - unless seriously molested - is usually a flexible and agreeable person (10) Our love & appreciation for your trust, loyalty and business, always and forever;  Thank You & Good Night!

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