Fear Of Smell

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Found a few stragglers in the e-mail. Sorry about that… spam and the tonne of e-mail I get on a daily basis, guess these slipped. My loss of time, is your gain. Love the ode to the Rolling Stones, or just a giant tongue. You decide.

Here’s what Greh had to say about it:

Submitting one that the record shop I work at is selling on eBay. We had it on the wall for a while and though no one bought, plenty looked at it.

This one bears a resemblance to: Variation#82, Variation #6, maybe Variation #22 and Variation #29. Also, if your record store is selling one, link to your store as well. People who collect records want to know!

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I can’t make out what the fuck is behind the Mr. Pringles/happy face.  Clearly, the artist tried to put some effort into their first attempt at the cover, which was either smudged or proved to be less than permanent. One sharpie later, problems solved. Which should be someone’s mantra. This one is currently up for auction here, currently at $6.66.

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Here’s the second of the set that belong to Mark Grady and his girlfriend. This one’s Mark’s and has the Vermiform sticker with the Cooper Station address on it, which is before Sam and co. moved to Richmond and even later California. Here’s what Mark had to say about this:

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Dear Broox: Here’s a picture for you to love.

From Chase Corum, who wrote: “Friend of mine owns this one.  Bought when it came out in Southern California, probably at Vinyl Solution.” Wish I could see the back cover, if only to see if there’s stickers on there and wish there was more of a story to this one. Oh well. This is unlike any of the others I’ve seen. No handwriting matches, so it’s not likely to have been done by the usual suspects (Sam, Kent, Charles M.). I don’t know how involved Brooks was beyond playing drums in Born Against, but maybe he was putting together comps on the last Born Against tour and this was some correspondence re-used?

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Here’s one from long-time record and tape trader Dobek Ohashi – who found this copy in his library of records,  posted about it on Livewire and sent me a copy of the pictures. Considering this is #88 I had hoped for some nazi-regalia encrusted version for maximum irony. Not to say that I’d sympathize with nazis – the exact opposite in fact – I hate nazis.  Instead I get the youth-crew sanitized version of what 88 could indicate (the year 1988, which I suppose points to Youth of Today’s popularity, rather than the nazi’s insistence that the eight letter of the alphabet is something important).

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“Typical Fear of Smell purchaser”

“Mommy bought it for me for x-mas & I hate it boo-hoo”

So does that mean that Leo Ferrandino, Fear of Smell collector extrordinaire, is Bill Clinton? Quite possibly. Either way, this one resides in Leo’s collection who bought it recently and thought enough of the blog to send it in. Clearly this has a connection to Variation #25, although I wouldn’t have recognized the younger Clinton had Leo not pointed it out.

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Totally radical ebay find dude, like it’s carving the wave in a real sushi way – clean. I’m almost surprised our friend Daniel didn’t buy this to complete his collection of minimalist designs.  Of course $60 is a bit much for the sedated design we see. Stencil text like Variation #7. Here’s what the auctioneer had to say about it…

Vermiform Records – VMFM 11 – 1993 – 1ST PRESSING of two pressings- 1st pressing only had 5 made, and this is one of them –  Black Vinyl – Hand drawn cover with stickers on back having band lineup – Lyric Sleeve included – Record, cover and sleeve are in excellent condition.  Has been stored on a collectors shelf for the past several years.

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Another ebay rescue job – which I will say I hate doing with their new pop-up image browser. Totally fucking sucks for grabbing images… anyways here’s a new take, kid’s art, with no title. I’ve heard of ones escaping with no art, that’s a theme I’ve heard but not seen. But taping art to the cover, that’s a new one. Well, new to my eyes anyway, it was an aesthetic for a few years after in the emo scene (back before it was a bad word, although some will say it always was a bad word). Here’s what the auctioneer had to say about it:

Very rare hardcore/early emo comp. All sleeve variations were made in editions of 5! Bands include Nation of Ulysses, Rorschach, Man is the Bastard, Heroin, Native Nod, Infest, Moss Icon, Sam McPheeters, Merel and a bunch more. Great copy!

Bit of hyperbole about the sleeves, but it did end up selling for a reasonable $20.01. Here’s a link, which will last for about six weeks (or longer depending on the ebay gods). Enjoy!

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“E.T…. Yes we thought it was a good idea!”

Another good copy, lots of stuff going on and bears a passing resemblance to Variation #81 in style and form.  The writing as well looks like the swoopy hand writing from what seems like a good half dozen submissions. Here’s what Hiroyuki had to say about it:

I got this copy at ebay. It has very simple E.T. drawing, and still looks funny. When the first pressing of Fear Of Smell was out, I’ve never seen them at any record store in Tokyo.

Green E.T. clearly phoned home to Japan. Which makes a lot of anime make a lot more sense. E.T. was some sort of anime character in real life! Just like the giant Gundam that got built outside of  Tokyo.. anime as a method of world cultural control, bow to your Pokemon masters now.

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“Ted you be fearin’ the smell?”

“Yo man, I be fearin’ that smell!”

This came from a Buy It Now auction that eventually went for a best offer of $98.  Here’s what the auctioneer had to write about it:

There are 2 pressings, 1000 hand drawn originals (a database http://fearofsmell.robotvsrobot.com of covers is available online!) and 1,441 second pressings with the same cover. 2,441 made total. This is the original copy with a hand drawn cover. Black vinyl with yellow label. Comes with insert. This is very rare and increasing in value and notoriety every day!!

Thanks for the plug and the correct information – it’s funny how many of the auctions out there try to blow one by the people – saying only five made with this cover, or the classic only five made total, then get no bids. $98 is a bit of a head scratcher, but hey, not my money and if I had it to spend and didn’t have a pretty decent copy of the comp, I’d spend it. Especially for a copy with an parka wearing “Ted”.