Page 30 - the NOISE October 2013

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cover with the original barely visible behind it. Third State has the trunk cover removed. Mono outnumbers stereo by about ten to one.
In 1987, a man named Peter Livingston appeared at the Los Angeles Beatlefest with twelve mint condition shrink wrapped First State butchers. He sold the ten mono LPs for $1000 each and the two stereo LPs for $2500 each, creating a major shockwave among collectors.
Peter’s father was Alan Livingston, presi- dent of Capitol records during the 1960s. In June 1966, Alan Livingston walked out of Capitol’s Los Angeles pressing plant with a box of two-dozen pristine butcher albums. They sat in a closet until 1987, when Livings- ton gave them to his son, who eventually put them all into circulation.
The twenty-four “Livingston Butchers” are the best quality copies known to exist and are highly sought after, commanding be- tween $20,000 and $40,000 apiece at auc- tion.
I don’t have one of those.
My butcher cover was born in June 1966, along with 749,999 just like it. The number five was stamped on the bottom right back cover to signify Capitol’s L.A. plant. It was shrink wrapped, placed in a box with twenty- three of its brethren, and shipped to a store. The box was probably never opened.
It then returned to the Los Angeles fac- tory of its birth and was taken out of the box. The shrink wrap was removed from its outside and the disc removed from its inside. It was sent through a machine that pasted the new cover over the old one. The LP and sleeve were reunited and shrink-wrapped, placed in a box with twenty-three of their brethren, and again shipped to a store.
The box was opened and the record taken out. A price sticker was stuck on the front and it was deposited in a display rack along- side many of its brethren. Somebody bought it and took it home. They tore off and dis- carded the shrink wrap, pulled the disc out, placed it on a turntable and dropped a pho- nograph needle into the spinning grooves. It got played a lot, possibly by multiple genera- tions.
The owner heard about the butcher cover and may have seen the telltale V of ringo’s
Celbrities ButcJahecrksthoen BSceoattles
shirt that bled through on their copy. They started tearing off the top right corner of the trunk picture. After about half an inch, they wisely stopped.
And then they just forgot about it.
Eventually no one listened to the LP any- more and it sat unplayed in a box with about thirty of its brethren. Perhaps the owner moved and left it behind, or they passed away and their belongings were sold. Maybe they just got tired of looking at it.
On a Monday morning in August 2013, someone put the box in their car and drove it to a store that buys record albums for cash. They brought the box inside and placed it on the trade counter. They were greeted and given a claim ticket by me, and then left.
I pulled out about twenty LPs that looked promising, mostly old Beatles and rolling Stones original pressings with nice sleeves. My butcher cover called to me from among the twenty, but I did not hear it. I had just be- gun condition checking them when a fellow record nerd coworker relieved me for a break. I left the deal in his hands.
On returning, I looked through the albums he had picked. Decent stuff, hope the discs inside weren’t too beat up. Again, my butch- er cover called to me from among the cho- sen, but I did not hear it. A few hours passed.
After my lunch break, I noticed the deal had been cleared and the LPs were ours. They sat on the pricing table awaiting stick- ers. I glanced through them. AGAIN, my butcher cover called to me, and this time I may have heard something. On a whim, I asked my coworker to put Yesterday And To- day aside for me when he priced the albums. It was time to plug this hole in my collection.
Some time later, our head record nerd ran up and told me we had a butcher cover on our hands. I thought he was pulling my leg until I saw his face.
I raced over to where five or six employees were gathered in a semi-circle looking down. My butcher cover lay on the table looking up at the ceiling and screaming my name. I saw the V of ringo’s shirt and knew it was real.
Our record head authenticated it online: a Second State pressing in stereo with a VG- cover. Although the disc itself was in poor shape, we could easily slap on a $500 price tag and someone would buy it for the sleeve
30 • october 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us