Back in 1999, my band Taxi Driver issued a 7" single. It was mastered at Abbey Road and, following a fine tradition, we had the engineer engrave a message into the lead-out groove. Should have been simple enough. However we were mortified to find he made a key grammatical error:
'Your in the jungle baby'.
A conversation in the pub with that band's singer lead to me having a late-night look at the lead-out grooves on some of my other records. Often the artist has a specific message engraved here, or the mastering engineer with leave their own mark (the best-known being that of George "Porky" Peckham, engraved as a 'Porky Prime Cut'). As well as the above our single also included the word 'Orlake', something which I subsequently also found on 'The Best Of Hanoi Rocks'. A little bit of research shows this to have been the pressing plant used, and it closed for business in 2007.
Some of the best examples:
Jane's Addiction self-titled: 'What made you look here?';
Dave Kusworth 'The Bounty Hunters': 'Cherchez vous wives, weddings and roses' (this was the title of his next LP);
Jacobites self-titled 'Hey that's my tie thing' & 'somebody just stepped on my french fries';
Jacobites 'Robespierre's Velvet Basement': 'Guten morgen Nikki ich bin ein hamburger';
Jacobites 'When The Rain Comes': 'The cheques in the post. Love Dave Barber';
Wreckless Eric 'The World According To Wreckless Eric': 'There's no message here! Why!' & 'Due to lack of inspiration -!';
The Only Ones 'Out There In The Night': 'Meow' (the song was about Pete Perrett's cat).
Engineers spotted include:
'Porky prime cut' (George Peckham) - Deaf School '2nd Honeymoon'; Jacobites self-titled and Robespierres Velvet Basement; Nikki Sudden 'The Bible Belt'.
'Arun' (Arun Chakraverty) - Dexys Midnight Runners 'Searching For The Young Soul Rebels'; The Boomtown Rats 'The Fine Art Of Surfacing'.
Jonz (John Dent) - The Only Ones self-titled
Tim D Masterpiece (Tim Dennen) - Belle & Sebastian 'Dog On Wheels'
