Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Way I Look At It, You Were Asking For It

click for enlarged view

Here's a Prisonshake picture sleeve that I can guarantee no one else has, mainly because I made it myself. The original "120 Days" EP came in a cardboard box that was too big to fit into a typical 45 storage box, so I took it upon myself back in 1988 to make a standard-sized 2-color sleeve using the pictures and stickers that came with the original packaging. (Don't ask me to pull out the original packaging-- I've been searching for it for two days now, and haven't found it.)

"120 Days" was Prisonshake's second 7-inch, and listening to the two A-level rockers on the a-side reminds me all over again on why I dug this band so much right out of the starting blocks; "She Talks Trouble" is understatedly great (love the ending bridge after the guitar solo), and "Fall Right Down" mines a mid-tempo Stones vibe while aping "Another Girl, Another Planet" fairly effectively.

Prisonshake was full of weird product ideas back then (like the point-of-sale sealed baggie that their first single came in, or the "Fucked" box set), so things get a bit different on the b-side, where you'll find 8 separate songs-- 4 in the right channel, and 4 in the left. There's actually some decent songs buried within the gimmickry (well, "Ginn Slips In" and "Downtight" are sorta interesting, at least), but I doubt that any of you will have the patience to listen to it all the way through. Admittedly the whole record sounds a bit wonky at times, probably because there's 6-1/2 minutes of music pressed onto both sides of a 7-inch. Still, this is a heckuva EP, even without the box it came in.


click for enlarged view

Prisonshake -

(these files are now listen-only)

"She Talks Trouble"

"Fall Right Down"

"B-side tracks"

right speaker:
Fanchon
Champville
Ginn Slips In
Sanctuary

left speaker:
This Night
Dèsgranges
Somebody to Love
Downtight



click for enlarged view

4 comments:

Lightning Baltimore said...

I know exactly where the box for mine is. It's on a shelf with other crazy packaging ideas that wouldn't fit with the other records. The record itself, though, is with the other 7"s.

Brushback said...

Obviously, you're way more organized than me.

Brushback said...

P.S. - I was pretty sure that I just stood it up in one of the crates that I keep my LPs in-- either that or it would be over by where all of my copies of the "I'm Really Fucked Now" box set are stacked, but no luck in either place...

You should see me trying to find a CD (which are kept in two big CD towers and a box, in no particular order).

Brushback said...

The mp3 files on this post are now listen-only (non-downloadable) files. Be on the lookout for a Prisonshake discography-type release from Scat sometime in the future...