The small text to the right says: “Fab Four 101 is the first of a series of limited edition 45’s intended for collectors only. Sound Quality: A-/B+ Front cover illus. by Scott”
Matrix: FF 101-A/B
Surprisingly perhaps, not that many copies were pressed and this title is rather rare.
It does sound as if Lou had planned to issue more Beatles 7″ titles and I wonder if this release came out in 1977, following the Joe Pope debut offer of a colored Deccagone single in April of that year.
‘What A Shame Mary Jane Had A Pain At The Party’ had first been presented to the world in November of 1972 on Contraband’s The Never Released Mary Jane LP and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s 1967 45 ‘L.S. Bumble Bee’ pirated and wrongly attributed to the Beatles on the same label a few months later. Dub had also included ‘Mary Jane’ on his title by the same name (more commonly referred to as SPICY BEATLES SONGS – TMOQ 71076) and both titles appeared on Wizardo’s DR. ROBERT…? pirate album in 1976.
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H.A.R. 169:
A companion piece to Wizardo’s releases # 500 – LIVE IN HANOVER – and 505 as material from the Offenbach, Germany 1972 and the San Diego 1976 was spread over two of these titles for each concert.
The Offenbach concert was discussed in detail here
Side 3 has ‘Jet’, ‘Magneto and Titanium Man’, ‘My Love’, ‘Beware My Love’ and ‘Soily’ from the 16 June concert at the San Diego Sports Arena. The Wizardo 3 LP box shown below has ‘Live And Let Die’, ‘Time To Hide’ and ‘Beware my Love’, the last one sounding better on the Wizardo box.
There is a small error in the solo Beatles reference book EIGHT ARMS TO HOLD YOU where it says “[‘Oriental Nightfish’] was one of the first Linda tracks to make it out to the collecting world, via its appearance on the 1978 Beatles bootleg Indian Rope Trick.” when it really was 1976 and Lou’s double album of the same name, where it closes side 1.
The preceding five tracks were the first time anything from Wing’s August 1972 European dates became available – in this case the concert in Groningen, the Netherlands, on 19 August ’72, unfortunately, this is the worst sounding audience recording Lou would ever press onto vinyl. The tape Lou had to work with must have suffered from some substantial azimuth misalignment and have been a very high generation copy. Presented here is about half of the first set in rearranged order and the opening song of the second one, ‘Best Friend’.
“But collectors will recognize the performance, or at least, part of it. Sections of it appeared on the rare Oriental Nightfish vinyl bootleg [‘Eat At Home,’ ‘Mumbo,’ ‘Best Friend,’ ‘1882,’ and ‘I Would Only Smile’ on Oriental Nightfish (Hoffman Avenue HAR 169)], and a longer segment has changed hands on tape. In both cases, the show was identified as ‘Sweden.’ Actually, it appears to be neither Sweden nor Paris, although we cannot be entirely sure exactly what it is. McCartney makes no location references during the show, but us heard saying dank u – thank you, in Dutch. We have (at least) extractions from most of the 1972 Dutch shows, and the performances here do not match those. ” [Darth Disc liner notes for their Live In Groningen CD]
Matrix etchings on the ‘Groningen 1972’ side, spelling out “Lou”.
And “Sean” on the ‘San Diego ’76’ side. The remaining sides have “Char” and “Mark” just like the Dylan double “Hold The Fort For What It’s Worth”. It seems that this title was only pressed in this ‘yellow with black streaks’ pattern.
Collector’s opinions on this compilation:
“It Is worth for the MINE FOR ME song alone, which is sung by Linda, Paul & Rod Stewart.Bare in mind that It can only be found here.Those were the times that despite the bad quality sometimes you’ve stumbled accross some gems like these….-:)“
“Well the yellow specaled [sic] vinyl is cool. The San Diego concert songs are decent sound. Side one will remind the “Older” folks just what the golden age of boots really were. Side 2 slightly better. I like the disclaimer, “like there’s only so much an equaliser can do!” “
“ never get tired of listening to this bootleg!
A very fine one! (many core tracks!)
Side one is in quite terrible quality but the folks that made this record were kind enough to warn the collector (!) of the bad quality with a little note on the back cover!!
Side two is also not the best quality but still very enjoyable! Too funny to hear Paul speaking german! (“Wir machen eine Ausweiskontrolle – alle Jugendlichen unter 18 Jahren müssen das Lokal verlassen” 🙂
Side three is really a quite good recording of a great concert!! And on
Side four we get a nice compilation of still rare songs, especially “Mine For Me”, although it lasts less than a minute, is a delightful gem! (I believe it originally appeared on one of Joe Pope’s SFF fanclub flexis.) The pirated b-sides ‘Zoo Gang’, ‘Country Dreamer’ and ‘I Lie Around’ are always nice to hear just like the J.P.M. songs.
All in all: A fine bootleg (above all for its age!) which you won’t listen to only once…“
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H.A.R. 170:
Released almost a year and a half after Wizardo’s first official offering ‘One – One Concert + More’ and surpassed by the official release of the 1972 Madison Square Garden material, the beautiful colored discs are now the main attraction here. The two “Salute To Sir Lew”TV special tracks made their bootleg debut on this release.
Repressed in green
A third pressing was on black PVC with Dragonfly labels.
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Repackaged in Japan together with Vicky Vinyl’s 10 inch A Guitar’s All Right John… after John’s murder created a renewed interest in his unreleased material.
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Yet another repacking job from Japan coupled the material with Melvin Record’s In The 1970’s and took the liberty of renaming it Last Live Show
