Item Description
WE CURRENTLY HAVE MORE THAN 1,000 LISTED ITEMS Click here to see ALL our ROCK auctions Our PSYCH PROGRESSIVE auctions Our PUNK NEW WAVE auctions Our JAZZ auctions Our BLUE NOTE JAZZ auctions Our BLUES auctions Our CLASSICAL auctions Our COUNTRY auctions Our FUNK auctions Our LATIN auctions Our METAL auctionsOur REGGAE auctions Our SOUL auctions Our STILL SEALED ITEMS Our PROMO auctions Our AUDIOPHILE auctions GARY HIGGINS RED HASH ORIGINAL 1973 NUFUSMOON STEREO LP WMI-3673 CATALOG NUMBER IDENTIFIED FROM THE MATRIX STAMP ORIGINAL U.S.
PRESSING INSANELY RARE ARTIST S OWN TEST PRESSING INCREDIBLY RARE, ONE-OF-A-KIND ARTIST S OWN COPY OF THE TEST PRESSING OF THIS MINDBLOWING CULT ACID-PSYCH MASTERPIECE, WITH GARY HIGGINS OWN NOTES AND DOODLINGS, HAND-DRAWN BUSINESS CARD, AUTOGRAPH AND PERSONAL NEWSCLIPS INCLUDED - ORIGINAL 1973 PRIVATE PRESSING RELEASED ON GARY HIGGINS OWN NUFUSMOON LABEL, AND WITH APPARENTLY GARY HIGGINS OWN GRAPHIC DESIGN FOR THE TITLE OF THE ALBUM, HIS SIGNATURE IN UPPER RIGHT-HAND CORNER AND HIS OWN HAND-DRAWN AND DESIGNED BUSINESS CARD WITH THE NAME OF HIS PUBLISHING COMPANY STILL TAPED TO THE FRONT PANEL THE ALBUM TITLE FONT WAS LATER USED FOR THE ALBUM S OFFICIAL NUFUSMOON RELEASE AND MANY DECADES LATER A REISSUE.
- PLAIN, WHITE, GENERIC TEST PRESSING LABEL WITHOUT ANY IDENTIFICATION MARKS WHATSOEVER EXCEPT FOR THE HOLBROOK, LONG ISLAND PRESSSING PLANT SONIC RECORDING PRODUCTS , TRACK LISTING IN PRESUMABLY GARY HIGGINS OWN HANDWRITING AND TEST PRESSING NUMBER TP-3936 NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH CATALOG OR MATRIX NUMBER STAMPED ON BOTH LABELS THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S.
TEST PRESSING THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.
TEST PRESSING COMES IN ITS GENERIC, PLAIN, WITH EXTENSIVE ANNOTATION BY GARY HIGGINS ON THE FRONT PANEL CLEAN, WEAR-FREE LABELS THE RECORD HAS A BELL SOUND STAMP IN THE TRAIL-OFF VINYL DEAD WAX AREA, WHICH IS GENERALLY CONSIDERED A PROOF OF AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST PRESSING.
FAIRLY THICK VINYL PRESSING On the scale from 1 to 10 1 being the least, and 10 being the most severe , we assess the thickness of the vinyl as 5.
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 Amazing An unbelievable piece: What we have here is an unheard-of TEST PRESSING of this mindblowing, acid-psych masterpiece, the first and for many decades, the only album by the now-legendary Northwest Connecticut hippie, folkie and counterculture figure, Gary Higgins.
the proverbial Howard Hughes of American Psychedelic Folk art To find the artists s own copy of a much beloved album which affected countless generations of aspiring young folk artists is a totally unique sales experience for this seller.
Think of this as finding the equivalent of the Bob Dylan s first album in test pressing form, with his own business card and extensive notes written by the artist himself :- .
I was totally dumbstruck and awe-struck when I unexpectedly bumped into this incredible piece in a small, independent record store in where else? the hills of Northwestern Connecticut.
I grabbed the object of my desire in a nanosecond and could not be pried from it for the next few weeks.
Needless to say, it has been handled in silken gloves and with tweezers ever since.
The story of this incredible piece is contained in numerous inserts, newsclips and magazine articles which originally accompanied this incredible item but, sadly, no longer do the good news is that we STILL have a handful of them the really, really bad news is that most of them have been carelessly discarded in what I can only describe as a near-tragic accident..
Out of about 15 or so original attachments, enclosures and newsclips which documented Gary Higgins early career and making of this album which took place within a month from his going to prison to serve a 2-year sentence for the sale of hashish - hence the album title - only four remain: those three surviving inserts and extras are as follows a the actual Gary Higgins-drawn and handwritten business card, still affixed to the cover, b July 2, 1973 Article from The Register The Litchfield County s local newspaper describing the events leading to Higgins arrest for drug possession and trade and explaining that the first pressing of this album which would be the only pressing for the next 40-plus years was made in only 2,500 copies.
By any measurable standard, this is a pathetically low figure.
How many of those 2,500 still survive assuming that they were even distributed and sold properly, which is a big if remains a big question, but we estimate that no more than 500 playable copies are still in the hands of the collectors today, if even.
c A cryptic handwritten note in unidentifiable handwriting, possibly Higgins own which mentions a track from this album It didn t take too long which was included in the playlist of the WPQR-100 FM Radio Station on Saturday, June 19, 1982 possibly in conjunction with Higgins in-person appearance at the radio show - and, finally -- d A tiny, equally mysterious, newspaper announcement most likely from some local Connecticut newspaper , mentioning the September 28, 1978 gig by the legendary Cobble Mountain Band at THIS venue in Winsted, CT.
We could not establish any obvious connection between the two artists, and can only assume that Gary Higgins opened for the Cobble Mountain Band at this particular performance.
Sadly, the remaining inserts - and there was a whole h tload of those - are lost forever through no fault of this seller.
You can rest assured, however, that only the artist himself could have been in possession of many of those inserts and extras.
The winning bidder gets to have not only an incredible cult classic and a wonderful period piece of rural hippie Americana, but also a piece of history -- in more ways than one.
Because less than a month lapsed between the making of the album and the commencement or the Higgins prison term, we can easily and confidently put a more or less exact date of this pressing in the three weeks immediately PRECEDING his prison term in 1973.
Our best guess is that Gary received a handful of these test pressings from the pressing plant, hand-designed them himself and handed them out as complementary copies to the local DJ s and radio broadcasters as a sort of self-marketing promotion.
If this is a correct assumption, this is a sole copy still in existence.
Not a single other test pressing of Red Hash has surfaced anywhere, at any time, since 1973 .
You are truly looking at the BIRTH of the Red Hash.
It s been a good couple of years for once-lost folkies.
Comparing Higgins to other formative players in the midst of rebirth, he s darker than Vashti Bunyan or Incredible String Band, less outer-realms and more melodic than Simon Finn.
His work could, more or less, be compared to Skip Spence s Oar dressed up like David Crosby.
On Red Hash, his guitar and soulsick but often uplifting voice are accented with rich cello, piano, organ, mandolin, flute, and bass.
The sounds are melancholy but never unaccessible: This is folk both your uncle and WFMU will and do love.
Coming first, Thicker Than a Smokey s the strongest composition, a perfect blend of wanderer sadness, transcendent vocals, jangling instrumentation, dour melodies, and a libretto that feels like a Beatnik Advice to the Graduate .
Like many of Higgins songs, Thicker deals with a journey.
Beginning with the queries, What do you intend to do young man? Where do you intend to go?, he delves out homespun advice If you travel with a spider/ In your duffle bag/ With you good weather goes and personal anecdote It s often that I wish to leave myself/ Buy some fancy clothes...
in a way that connotes something cyclical or unending.
Higgins major themes are travel and lonesomeness.
Telegraph Towers finds the protagonist sailin for home only the blowing wind makes him feel like he s not alone.
In I Can t Sleep at Night he s afraid of shut-eye because it might mean death he smells it everywhere .
The mournful Windy Child s downcast sing-along weds flute, cello, and Higgins minor chords to You were the sun/ And I was the morning dew...
/ You were always bigger / you were always brighter than me.
The parlor fare of Looking For June has Higgins joined on vocals with upfront piano for a tale of a solo desert wanderer meeting with camels and the pope check out the subtle, Eastern vibe .
Secondary lyrical fixations include animals, which often signify a lighthearted turn that under closer scrutiny isn t so joyful.
There are plenty of birds and the skies in which they fly , including a cuckoo in the track of the same name.
Honing in on Trout Mask Replica, Down on the Farm s comic protagonist milks a bull instead of a cow.
There s also the gently humorous love ballad, Stable the Spuds , but before getting too cozy, note the creepy piano, which trills like descending ice cubes.
The most beautiful work outside of Thicker than a Smokey is Unable to Fly , which is traditional-sounding and pastoral, as if performed by Elliott Smith.
In parts, Higgins adopts a falsetto that sounds torn from Either/Or.
It retells a quest to reach the sun via an Icarus-type flight, but the hero s sent off in a wooden boat carved by his father to sail alone on the sea as instructed by his mother .
Before going, he turns in time to see her spread her wings to greet the sky so blue and fly away.
Addressing a lover, he s bummed that know that knows where he s supposed to go, You no longer care to know.
He then flies, In the golden light of your stare.
Red Hash proper consists of 11 pieces and ends with the aforementioned Revelations-inspired? dream quest, Looking For June .
For a very illuminating interview with Gary Higgins CLICK HERE EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW BY BRANDON STOSUY CONDITION: 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 EXCELLENT.
This is one of those albums that are somewhat difficult to grade.
It is somewhere between VG and NEAR MINT, just a notch below NEAR MINT.
A few light abrasions ARE visible, but they are extremely shallow, superficial and only moderately visually distracting nothing significant .For the 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 VERY MINOR - ALMOST UNDETECTABLE - WARP NOTED ON THE DISC, WILL NOT AFFECT PLAYING IN THE LEAST .
b The record is pressed on a RELATIVELY thick, inflexible vinyl.
This is NOT a thin, flimsy dynaflex type , vinyl, but not the thickest, most rigid vinyl, either.
c Of course, this is a full-bodied ANALOG recording, and not an inferior, digital recording d COVER : This reference pressing comes without any custom jacket, and will be shipped in a plain, generic, white cardboard cover with extensive notes, doodlings and business card from Gary Higgins not separately graded, but significantly yellowed and aged .
POSTAGE SHIPPING: We offer THREE postage rates for both Domestic and International Mail: Media Mail, Priority Mail and Express Mail for domestic, and First Class, Priority International Mail, and Express International Mail for international orders.
INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOTE: WE RECOMMEND that you pay for USPS International Priority Mail OR International Express mail when making a payment in order to obtain tracking information, which is NOT available for First Class International shipments.
INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE rates vary from country to country.
For SPECIFIC international and domestic postage rates click here.
While you can be rest assured that our packaging is careful, sturdy and impact-proof, please note that damage, loss or theft in transit is always possible, and in the case of some countries even PROBABLE.
To discuss this potential problem and ensure flawless delivery, please contact us thru eBay BEFORE placing a bid.
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