Description: Vinyl: EX+ Play Graded. Sounds Excellent! Has some marks that don't affect the sound quality. Asylum Labels are Clean and Bright. This is the 1977 Asylum 7E-1117 1ST PRESSING! NO BARCODE!!! Emblematic '70s Tom Waits: full of booze and broads and beat poetry backed up by a crack jazz combo including the great Shelly Manne on drums. Foreshadowing the brilliantly iconoclastic Waits to come, these stories point the way to Waits' personal Republic that he built, one story at a time. His duet with Bette Midler is a one-of-a-kind and the salute to Beats Jack Kerouac and Neal Casady is pure inspiration. This is an oft-overlooked Waits' gem: Dig in. See Review Below! In the Dead Wax: Matrices, etched. Complete Dead Wax information cheerfully provided upon request. Cover: EX+ (see photos) Includes the photo/credits/lyric Inner Sleeve. NO BARCODE! Nice high gloss on cover. Front and back of cover artwork and text are rich, clear and bright with some shelf wear. The seams, corners and spine are solid and clean, with some wear. No splits. No writing. Spine print is mostly clear and readable. Goldmine Standards. I play grade every record that I sell on eBay as I have found you can't rate an LP accurately by just visually inspecting an album. I wipe the dust off of every cover with clean, unscented baby wipes. I professionally clean the vinyl. (I also operate a Vinyl Record Cleaning business for your dusty/dirty records--if interested, send me a message). U.S. Shipping: $4.99 Media Mail. Tracking included. 50 cents additional shipping per additional item, when the shipment is combined. If you wish to take advantage of my COMBINED SHIPPING deal, simply select your items by clicking on "ADD TO CART" on the main listing page. Do this for all of your selections and then go to your cart to checkout. Your combined shipping discount will be computed automatically. Free domestic shipping if you spend $100 or more! All records are packaged securely with the vinyl outside the jacket (to avoid seam split in transit). The vinyl and jacket are sandwiched between two cardboard stiffeners and shipped in a custom cardboard record mailer box. INTERNATIONAL BUYERS! EBAY'S PLATFORM DOESN'T ACCOMMODATE FOR COMBINED SHIPPING FOR INTERNATIONAL BUYERS---BUT DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU!!!---I CAN COMBINE SHIP FOR YOU AND MINIMIZE SHIPPING COSTS!!! TELL ME WHICH ITEMS YOU WANT TO BUY, AND I WILL WEIGH THEM AND THE SHIPPING BOX TOGETHER AND THEN I WILL CREATE A "LOT OF 2..." OR "LOT OF 3...", OR "LOT OF 4...", ETC WITH THE ITEMS YOU WANT, AND CREATE A LISTING WITH THE EXACT WEIGHT OF YOUR LOT. THIS WILL SAVE YOU A LOT OF MONEY!!! IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN THIS, SEND ME A MESSAGE TELLING ME WHICH ITEMS YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AND WE'LL GO FROM THERE. OR, FEEL FREE TO ASK QUESTIONS. I ship internationally through EBay's Global Shipping Program. Check to be sure that they ship to your country. Feel free to ask any questions and happy shopping! Once you're satisfied with your purchase, please leave positive feedback and I will do the same for you. If you're unsatisfied, please let me know so we can resolve it. I do not give partial refunds. Take a look at my previous feedback and buy with confidence. I've qualified for the "Top Rated Plus" seal from eBay, awarded to the most reputable sellers who consistently deliver outstanding customer service. Check my other items this week, check back often & CLICK ON "SAVE THIS SELLER" at the top of my listings page to be notified of New Listings as I will be adding more Rare items in the coming weeks! Thanks! Why buy a first or early pressing and not a re-issue or a ‘re-mastered’ vinyl album? First and early pressings are pressed from the first generation lacquers and stampers. They usually sound vastly superior to later issues/re-issues (which, in recent times, are often pressed from whatever 'best' tapes or digital sources are currently available) - many so-called 'audiophile' new 180g pressings are cut from hi-res digital sources…essentially an expensive CD pressed on vinyl. Why experience the worse elements of both formats? These are just High Maintenance CDs, with mid-ranges so cloaked with a veil as to sound smeared. They are nearly always compressed with murky transients and a general lifelessness in the overall sound. There are exceptions where re-masters/re-presses outshine the original issues, but they are exceptions and not the norm. First or early pressings nearly always have more immediacy, presence and dynamics. The sound staging is wider. Subtle instrument nuances are better placed with more spacious textures. Balances are firmer in the bottom end with a far-tighter bass. Upper-mid ranges shine without harshness, and the overall depth is more immersive. Inner details are clearer. On first and early pressings, the music tends to sound more ‘alive’ and vibrant. The physics of sound energy is hard to clarify and write about from a listening perspective, but the best we can describe it is to say that you can 'hear' what the mixing and mastering engineers wanted you to hear when they first recorded the music. Foreign Affairs Review by Thom Jurek Tom Waits' fifth album for Asylum foreshadowed changes that would alter his career over the next six years. It signals a musical restlessness that fueled his next two records (Blue Valentine and Heartattack and Vine), and resulted in his writing a film score and leaving the label for Island, where he was given greater artistic control. He leans less on comic relief here and more on fully formed story songs. The album contains more ballads than most of his records do, but they were the most effective vehicles for the kind of storytelling he was trying to get to. The song "Perfect Strangers" inspired director Francis Ford Coppola to shape the characters for his film One from the Heart (he also convinced Waits to score it, leading to Waits' iconic collaboration with Crystal Gayle). Produced and engineered by Bones Howe, Foreign Affairs was recorded live in studio by a quintet that included West Coast jazzmen Jack Sheldon on trumpet, saxophonist Frank Vicari, bassist Jim Hughart, and drummer Shelly Manne. Further accompaniment was provided by an orchestra arranged and conducted by Bob Alcivar. Introduced by the instrumental "Cindy's Waltz," which sounds like a cinematic cue, it's followed by the bluesy, alone-on-a-Saturday-night longing expressed in "Muriel." The aforementioned "Perfect Strangers" is a duet with Bette Midler. It offers a lyric dialogue between two beleaguered veterans who find themselves (again) the last patrons in a bar at closing time. Their clever, direct exchange is sweetened by smoky tenor sax flourishes, swelling strings, and brushed snares behind Waits' piano. He doesn't discard his Beat Generation influences, though. Check the fingerpopping swinging medley of his "Jack & Neal," with Al Jolson's "California, Here I Come" as a travel guide to a gone-daddy-gone road trip. The ghost traces of "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)" are heard in a borrowed melody from a saloon waltz with a cupful of bittersweet nostalgia in the lovely "A Sight for Sore Eyes." The lengthy "Potters Field" checks the harmonic charts of Richard Rodgers' theme for Slaughter on Tenth Avenue and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" (with Gene Cipriano's clarinet) before digging deep into sparse, noirish, blues-jazz. Its lyric is as dark and dramatic as "Small Change (Got Rained on with His Own 38)," creating a narrative worthy of a Sam Fuller film. "Burma Shave" is a solo piano and vocal paean to the memories of drives Waits took with his father through life's seedy side. While the funky blues-cum-rhumba in "Barber Shop" adds swagger and pop to Waits' post-beat lyricism, the closing title track returns to the ballad to offer a bittersweet meditation on the perspective of "home": What it represents in the heart as opposed to what it actually is -- all from a guy living at the Tropicana Motor Hotel. Foreign Affairs is one of the most unjustifiably overlooked titles in Waits' catalog. It holds its appeal -- and sounds less dated -- than many of his more popular entries.
Price: 32.99 USD
Location: Sonoma, California
End Time: 2024-01-23T01:08:32.000Z
Shipping Cost: 4.99 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
Restocking Fee: No
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
Refund will be given as: Money Back
Artist: Tom Waits
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Catalog Number: 7E-1117
Style: Blue-Eyed Soul, Swing R&B, Acoustic, 1970s, Singer-Songwriter
Material: Vinyl
Speed: 33 RPM
Record Size: 12"
Format: Record
Type: LP
Release Title: Foreign Affairs
Record Label: Asylum
Release Year: 1977
Edition: First Pressing
Genre: Junkyard Blues, Beat Poetry, Swamp Blues, West Coast Jazz, Neo 1930s Cabaret, Civil War Parlor Songs, Alt-Country, Tin Pan Alley
Number of Audio Channels: Stereo
Country of Manufacture: United States