I am currently sorting through boxes of 7″ singles with a view to culling the items no longer wanted. I came across this flexidisc which I acquired about 40 years or so ago. I never knew who the artist was at the time, and Shazam has been of no use in identifying the singer, so I’m hoping the accumulated knowledge on here can help. Video is in first comment.
ATM Mystery Flexidisc
https://youtu.be/Xrobv0Oh6tA
Hi there, your video is marked as private, I think you have to publish it in YT (you can do it so that only people with the link can see it.)
Yes when you upload it you need to set it for public (or link only or private). It’s a quick edit to fix it.
While you re-upload it and mark it as Public, give us some more clues – any pictures on the label? Any wording at all visible anywhere?
nothing at all, except for SF1437 marked in the run-out groove area.
If it’s a UK pressed flexi-disc, it was probably pressed by Lyntone.
Although Lyntone tended not to print the year of release on their labels, I should be able to roughly estimate when it was issued based on the matrix number, which should be in the format lYN-xxxx. The matrix number wasn’t always printed on the label but should always be etched into the run-out area. Double sided flexi-discs had a different matrix number for each side.
The only matrix info is SF1437, so it doesn’t look like it’s a Lyntone pressing.
That’ll be SFI 437, which indicates it was pressed by Sounds For Industry, another company who pressed flexi-discs. The catalogue number puts it down to being pressed around 1979.
It’s on Discogs – unfortunately the uploader knows nothing about it either!
https://www.discogs.com/release/26894333-Unknown-Artist-Untitled
looking forward to that vid
Apologies all regarding the non availability of the video. When I uploaded it to YT it wouldn’t let it publish immediately, so I set it for the earliest possible date/time. I think it’s OK now.
Yep, it is available now. Is that the whole thing…?
yeah, less than 2 minutes.
I like it – it has a Tanya Donnelly/Belly/Throwing Muses feel to it.
Me too – I’d buy it if I knew what it was!
not a clue on this one garyt, sorry
I’ve posted the YT video to my Post-Punk pals. They’re a right bunch of nerds.
Maybe a lyric search?
“Put it down to experience
Don’t cry about your loss
File it under expenses
Don’t try to count the cost
Put in the lost and found
Situations free
Don’t you talk about it
Keep it in your memory”
It’s from an obscure late 70s album from a bunch based in London called Darling – it’s the last track on the album – the only one they made – where it seems to exist on this YouTube video as just a short song no longer than the flexi disc itself.
Here’s their Discogs page: https://www.discogs.com/artist/1611018-Darling-5
One of their number – Hal_Lindes – joined Dire Straits after the Darling group split: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Lindes
I note that for some reason the song ‘Put It Down to Experience’ isn’t listed on the cover of the LP, so maybe it only exists here on this video:
Anyone here got the vinyl? A few decent copies are on Discogs for about a tenner if anyone is sufficiently taken by it.
How on earth did you know that?
impressive detective work VV
It turned out to be a fairly simple process. At first I tried a lyric search as @salwarpe suggested – that didn’t really go anywhere promising.
Then I just asked Discogs for any examples of a song called ‘Put it down to experience’, which seemed like a good guess, and up popped the Darling LP.
From its Discogs page you can then jump to any related YouTube videos, and one of them was the one in my answer above giving you all 34 minutes of the LP, and despite the fact that there does not appear to be a song of that name on the album, you can see from the progress bar at the bottom of the video – and the accompanying notes confirm this – that there is a short track lurking at the end… and Robert has married one of your parent’s siblings.
Incidentally, the running order on the YouTube video above is actually that of the US promo release, and is different from all the other releases for the LP. Goodness knows why. So if you want to buy the LP as it sounds here, you will have to fork out for a US promo copy, and they come in at a little more than a tenner due to shipping costs. There’s a mint one of these on Discogs for six bucks, but delivery will cost you another $33 – eek!
I did a Google search on some of the song’s lyrics, and came up with a link to that album, but not the song.
The song itself seems to have appeared on some cassette releases of the album.
Flexidiscs were often used for promotional purposes. I can recall once getting a flexidisc as a freebie with an oddly shaped bottle of bubble-bath, for example, so tracking down why this flexi was issued. As the record has a blank label it’s possible that this was for a project that was never completed.
Fantastic work VV, I’ve updated the Discogs entry for the flexi accordingly. That’s a 40 year old mystery solved!
My pleasure – it was a fun search. Sorry about the errant apostrophe. 😉