Collecting log: Devil With The Blue Dress Medley (live) from NO NUKES 1979 (a.k.a. the MUSE concert), a U.S. custom promotion-only 12" disc released as the 100-numbered 33⅓-speed limited edition (Part 3 of 4)

Both test pressing and white label promotional copies for NO NUKES LP shown here were pressed at the Santa Maria pressing plant in California, as each side of vinyl has a hand-etched number/letter code (1S) that specifies where these discs were pressed. The pressing plant is also known from an abbreviated code CSM (Columbia Santa Maria) in a parenthesis that is found beneath the catalog number-side indication (ML-801-E) on the white label. According to Discogs, there are two more code variations, CP and CTH, referring to Columbia Pitman and Columbia Terre Haute, respectively. Thus, this soundtrack album (yes, this album is classified as the soundtrack for the NO NUKES documentary movie) was pressed at the three major Columbia Records' pressing plants even though it is an Elektra/Asylum release.
 

Collecting log: Devil With The Blue Dress Medley (live) from NO NUKES 1979 (a.k.a. the MUSE concert), a U.S. custom promotion-only 12" disc released as the 100-numbered 33⅓-speed limited edition (Part 2 of 4)

Note that the second post on this topic also constitutes the latest part of a featured blog series Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited. 

Although the officially released Devil With The Blue Dress Medley (live) was exciting enough for me at the first listening, I did not know that it was not the intact performance from the concert, with a major edit in the midst to eliminate the instrumental break and health hazard warnings from Springsteen. It was Dave Marsh's Born To Run semi-authorized biography from which I knew how the edited version was produced and came out on the NO NUKES album. Then around late in 1981, I was able to imagine what the actual live performance looked like, when I obtained and listened to my first copy of LIVE IN THE PROMISED LAND (a.k.a. WINTERLAND, 1978) that contained the earlier 1978 version (with the instrumental part and his oral warnings, but no Devil With ... reprise before the medley was concluded).

Collecting log: Devil With The Blue Dress Medley (live) from NO NUKES 1979 (a.k.a. the MUSE concert), a U.S. custom promotion-only 12" disc released as the 100-numbered 33⅓-speed limited edition (Part 1 of 4)

Various NO NUKES releases (from left): a Japanese regular copy with the Obi strip; a custom U.S. promo-only 12" disc played at 45 rpm (still with the price tag of $10); same but played instead at 33⅓ rpm; a U.S. test pressing made at a Columbia Records plant in Santa Maria; and a white label U.S. promo copy.

You may be wondering why my blog was not updated for quite some time. Have I run out of material to write about?  Never, of course not and there are still plenty left. In the past months, my work-life balance was skewed too much towards work, which has kept me away from blogging and other hobbies for unpredictably long periods. In addition to this main reason, during this period, I have become a victim of the evil of eBay Global Shipping Program (GSP) thrice. In each case, the seller in the U.S. adopted GSP for the international delivery, even though I pleaded him/her not to do so and to reconsider to use another option (i.e., any method of direct shipping from a seller to a buyer) instead of this quite inconvenient program for overseas buyers. As a result, without explicit explanation, the "extremely rare items" of Springsteen vinyl collectibles I won were restricted at the Global Shipping Center and not allowed for export to my location.

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: Decoding two- or three-letter matrix hand etchings on the early pressings (Part 2 of 2)

NOTE: Vinyl discs reported here with the hand-etched matrix code "PPP" was found not to be pressed at the Pitman factory. Please check the updated information in the blog entry from 8/20/2022.

One yet unelucidated DARKNESS matrix code found
in some of the early U.S. pressings.

In some fraction of the early vinyl copies of the U.S. DARKNESS album released in June 1978, you can find at least four different varieties of hand-etched matrix codes, PN, PMI, PMN and PK. Each code specifies one of the four pressing plants that had been used unusually and temporarily for making Springsteen's fourth LP, due to the transient shutdown of the Pitman plant, one of the three major Columbia plants back then. In the last post, I attempted to crack these codes and proposed that: (1) the first and shared letter P might denote the Pitman plant because it is the most probable common term; (2) a second letter, N, M or K, refers to an initial of company that owned one of these pressing plants; and (3) a third letter, I or N, specifies the State where a company locates its own facilities. According to these assumptions, I interpreted the four matrix codes as follows: PN for Pitman/North American Music Industries, Scranton, Pennsylvania; PMI for Pitman/MCA Records, Pinckneyville, Illinois; PMN for Pitman/MCA Records, Gloversville, New York; and PK for Pitman/Keel Manufacturing Corp., Hauppauge (blog posts 1 and 2), New York.

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: Decoding two- or three-letter matrix hand etchings on the early pressings (Part 1 of 2)

Pressing plant-specific matrix hand etchings as found on the early vinyl copies of DARKNESS released in the United States. For the details, refer to the main text.

As I first introduced here March in the last year, there is a small unusual variety of the early U.S. pressings of his fourth album, as to where they were pressed. These variants occurred because, when the LP was ready for production, the Pitman pressing plant, one of the three major plants used by Columbia Records back then, was not available for the operation due to continued labor issues that first happened on the 2nd of April 1978, according to Billboard Magazine. Thus far, I have confirmed that at least four vinyl manufacturing plants, excluding the other two major Columbia-related plants in Santa Maria and Terre Haute, made up for the shortfall in vinyl pressing at the early phase of the album release. The said four plants were owned by the following companies that had probably never been involved in Springsteen's album production before: