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Back to: Archive · Old features Bits and bobs Okay, I must admit I don't have much limited edition, etc, Blur stuff at all, but I like what I have got! Here's a brief rundown. Click on the titles to see the pictures. Sounds magazine, 7 July 1990 An ultra-collectable magazine - the first time Blur featured on a magazine front cover, and before they had even released their first single! To read the accompanying article, see the "Archive" section under "1990" - the article is called "Super Fuzz Big Guff". This really is priceless (well, okay, it cost me £9.99), a cool piece of Blur history. Rating: 10 out of 10. 'The Special Collectors Edition' A Japanese-only B-sides collection released in 1994, this is well worth having if you can find a copy cheap enough. Some shops sell it for about £30, which is far too much... You can find it on the web for about £20. There are some great songs on here, like 'Day Upon Day', 'Inertia', 'Luminous', 'Supa Shoppa' and many more. Track 18 is a version of 'Bank Holiday' performed by Japanese fans for Damon at Tokyo Airport! The inlay booklet includes the lyrics for the B-sides, with some amusing mistakes ('Chemical waste / Best part of the beach' instead of 'Chemical eats / Best part of the peach', for example). A great introduction to the world of the Blur B-side, and great packaging too. Rating: 10 out of 10. The 'Rollercoaster' EP Released to coincide with the infamous 'Rollercoaster' tour, which saw Blur travelling around various venues and taking it in turns to headline with Jesus & Mary Chain, Dinosaur Jr, and My Bloody Valentine. 'Resigned' is included here. The other tracks are good too. Rating: 8 out of 10. DJ-only promo copy of 'Music Is My Radar' This is just a one-track CD that I picked up somewhere. What makes it special to me is the CD design. Really quite wonderful! 'Blur: The Best Of' DVD This is good, but it could have been much better - where's the video for 'Music Is My Radar'? Where's the American version of the 'There's No Other Way' video? Where's the video that was made for the Françoise Hardy version of 'To The End'? Most Blur fans will know all the singles already, so extras like the ones I've mentioned could and should have been included. Another gripe is that whoever compiled the text for the enclosed booklet has never heard of spell checking! Don't get me wrong - everyone makes spelling mistakes, but this is a (supposedly) professionally-produced commercially-available DVD! This lack of attention to detail is unforgivable! All in all, though, it IS a Blur DVD containing 22 videos to 22 Blur songs, and the menus are very nice. Overall rating: 9 out of 10 (because of the quality of the videos and not the overall DVD package - on that alone it would score just 4 out of 10). 'No Distance Left To Run (The Making Of)' DVD Released in 1999, this is a feature-packed DVD containing the promotional video for 'No Distance Left To Run', which was directed by Thomas Vinterberg. It also contains a "Making Of" documentary about the video, three live performances ('No Distance Left To Run', 'Tender' and 'Battle'), four separate interviews with the members of Blur, plus information about the "Beagle 2" Mars mission. The coolest thing about this DVD is the song that plays while you read the "Beagle 2" information - it's an Alex James/Ben Hillier remix of 'Far Out' which is a million times better than the version on the 'Parklife' album! Fully recommended, 10 out of 10. New Musical Express magazine, 17 June 1995 You're probably wondering what's so great about a copy of the NME - after all, Blur have been on many magazine covers in their time. But this particular issue is a little different. This is the famous "New Blur Express" issue when the four members of Blur "took over" the NME for one week, contributing articles, reviews, and even editing the letters page! If you'd like to read all the relevant bits, check out the "Archive" section under "1995", then search for "New Blur Express". This issue cost just 80 pence when it came out. I wouldn't part with it for a million pounds! 10 out of 10 because it's an unusual piece of Blur memorabilia. It's funny how the NME soon decided that they didn't really like Blur after all - happened about the time they fell in love with Oasis' second album (even though they'd given it a bad review). Yes, tongue is firmly in cheek as I write this lol! Live At The Budokan The cover states that this is a "Japan Only Official Live Album", but that didn't stop it being sold all around the world! This is a 2-CD, 25-track live album recorded at The Budokan on the 8th of November 1995 (except for "She's So High", recorded on the 9th at NHK Hall). The first track is a live rendition of the theme from "The Great Escape", before the band launch into "Jubilee" for track 2. The sound quality is excellent and, as always, Blur are great live. The inlay booklet has some nice photos and designs (although a few of the pics are mirror-images - Alex and Graham aren't left-handed!). I've seen this in shops like HMV and Virgin for about £20-30, but I got my copy free from the Blur Fan Club (well, "free" as in I bought lots of other stuff from there in order to get this!). Bearing in mind it can be expensive, I'll give this 8 out of 10. If you can find it cheap then snap it up! Great Xpectations Live A CD released in 1993, featuring just Damon and Graham performing "For Tomorrow". On the 13th of June 1993, 27,000 people attended the Great Xpectations event at Finsbury Park, London, in support of XFM in its bid for a London radio licence for alternative music. It's a rather good performance, not the best I've heard, but then I initially bought the CD for the tracks by Belly, so there! Starshaped This longform video was released in October 1993, and the original version (shown here) features the videos to Blur's first seven singles (She's So High, There's No Other Way, Bang, Popscene, For Tomorrow, Chemical World and Sunday Sunday). The re-release made quite a fuss over the fact that it was available for "the first time without the original promo videos" which doesn't sound like a good reason to buy to me! But anyway, no matter! Quite frankly, it is a classic! I know, through reading various articles (plus 3862 Days - the group's official history), that the years featured in this film were extremely harrowing for Blur for a number of reasons, and maybe it's just my sick sense of humour, but I think it is just full of laughs! The best bits are when they're in Germany. One scene shows Graham, having just got up, being told the band is playing in one hour. "We're on in an hour?" he asks, and the look on his face is classic! Another funny scene is when they're on a minibus going to the festival they're playing and Graham is struggling to drink a cup of tea, while Alex (it would have to be Alex!) is sitting there, tea perfectly steady, looking very... out there! A definite must-have! 10 out of 10, no doubt about it! Showtime This is the official film of Blur's magical Alexandra Palace (or Ally Pally, or Alexandra Parklife - take your pick!) concert on the 7th of October 1994, which was basically a mass-celebration of the success of their Parklife album. Damon later said it sounded great on TV, but rubbish on the night. I wasn't there, but my friends who were never complained about the sound! Graham, beforehand, thought they'd never fill the venue, but you can rest assured they did! 9 out of 10, a fantastic video! Blur - The Illustrated Story By Paul Lester. This is basically a 'cut-and-paste' affair released by the Melody Maker in 1995, after Blur's Parklife success had turned them into global (almost!) megastars. It's good, with loads of fantastic pictures and it's pretty accurate. It's not an essential purchase, but if you spot a copy going cheap then snap it up! 7 out of 10, a bit slim in comparison to the competition, but still worth a read. Blurbook This natty affair was released in 1995 as well, apparently because there was a lot of demand for an official Blur book release. It covers the good and the bad hangovers of the Parklife year that started in April 1994 at Walthamstow and ended in the rain at Mile End in June 1995. Predominantly photos, with a smattering of bizarre comments, etc, this too has been heavily, erm, researched in my quest to establish this site! Fully recommended! 10 out of 10, a marvellous edition to any Blur fan's collection. 3862 Days By Stuart Maconie. First things first, this is a completely AMAZING read! But I have one complaint - at one point the author makes reference to One Born Every Minute, a song in the style of The Kinks, that would apparently see the light of day at some point. Now, when this book was released (1999) the song in question had already been out for FOUR years! It was a b-side to Country House. Now I know the author doesn't pretend that the book is "cut and paste"-syndrome free, but this is just lazy! The section in question seems to have been taken from an article in Select magazine in 1994/95 (can't remember exactly) about all Blur songs up until End Of A Century and its b-sides. The author of that piece? Step forward Stuart Maconie! It's a minor error, I know, but there must be lots of fans out there wondering when this song is going to be released! And it's a good one, too! Anyway, the book is just packed full of absolutely everything you could ever want (or need!) to know about Blur. It's an astonishingly frank and insightful read. 10 out of 10, another success for the boys of Blur! Stereotypes The Valentine's Day 7" pink vinyl gatefold. This is a lovely little piece, sadly not numbered, which is designed like a Valentine's Day card, and features a spoof dating agency advert on the back cover! Not essential, but nice all the same. 8 out of 10, but only because it's not something you have to have. It's a fantastic single, and a fantastic design! Blur at Reading 1991 This is a bootleg of their Reading Festival performance that I picked up at a record fair in 1994 (or thereabouts). The sound quality is awful, but you can hear how good they were even then. At one point Damon announces a song called "She's Scared", to which Graham questions "She's Scared?" and then starts to play Explain! Oh the noise, the feedback! The bass dropping out of the mix and then in again! Absolutely terrible recording, absolutely brilliant though! 9 out of 10, if you don't mind never being able to hear properly ever again! Incidentally, if you look at the pic it lists a song called "Uncle Buck" on side 2. This turns out, in fact, to be Slow Down. Also, "Day Upon Day" is actually Wear Me Down. Blur closed the set with a raucous rendition of Commercial Break! And the fade out track played by the DJ as Blur leave the stage is that old Lambada tune! 13 - The Limited Edition This comes in a lovely white box, numbered too (I think it was "limited" to 250,000 copies (of which I have no. 43,941!)). It contains a free poster, and an enhanced part for your PC with 3 audio interviews (I haven't ever bothered to listen to these - oops, my bad!), pictures (but only three - grr, all that space and you don't use it?), and a complete (well, up to the album's release anyway) discography, which concentrated on UK releases, Japanese-only releases, and fan club releases. For some reason, Turn It Up is omitted from the track listing for Modern Life Is Rubbish. Hmmm! 10 out of 10, the album is a classic and this only cost 100 pennies more than the ordinary release, so what other mark could I possibly give! Tenth Anniversary Box Set This came out in 1999, and features the first 22 singles with all their b-sides, plus original artwork, in a natty zip-up case! It cost £100 pounds, but that's excellent value considering buying all their original releases (which I had resigned myself to doing whenever I had the money) would cost about thirty quid a time! With all the various formats most of Blur's stuff comes out on, from She's So High up until Sunday Sunday (I started buying the singles from Girls And Boys onwards) the cost would be about £500! Eek! Anyway, this collection is absolutely marvellous! 10 out of 10, if you don't own all their singles then I'd say go get a copy today! Except it was a limited release, something like 7,000 copies in the UK (and I got no. UK04577). Interestingly, it featured No Distance Left To Run as the 22nd single even before that was released, with the excellent Cornelius remix of Tender as the b-side. I say interestingly, because Damon had pretty much guaranteed that Battle would, at one point, be a single. Trimm Trabb was in the running too, but this release settled the matter once and for all. Blur - An Illustrated Biography By Linda Holorny. Firstly, this is an absolutely awful book, factually inaccurate time and time again with a blatant disregard for things like research, etc. And it's also out-of-date. But the reason I like it is because it contains a great number of fantastic pictures. For the written content: 0 out of 10. For the pictures: 10 out of 10. Hey, it's quite cheap too so if you see a copy, snap it up! |