Lot 102LAID BACK-PLAY IT STRAIGHT-1985-FIRST PRESS DANISH / HOLLAND - MEDLEY-NMINT/NMINT

WILLY TOKAREV - GOLD-1983-ORIGINAL PRESS 2015 -EU-MIRUMIR-MIR100470. A rare anniversary edition of the iconic album. "Gold" is the fourth studio album by Soviet, American and Russian author-performer Willy Tokarev, released in 1983 on the Sava Recording Corporation label in the USA. The producer is Willy Tokarev. At the age of 40, in 1974, Willy Tokarev emigrated to the United States with $100 in his pocket. He was sheltered for 2-3 weeks by the Tolstoy Foundation, headed by Alexandra Tolstaya, daughter of Leo Tolstoy. There he was a courier, a cleaner in a bakery, sorted through the Russian library of a millionaire, a newspaper deliveryman, became unemployed because he did not know English well, so he began to learn the language by reading American newspapers, graduated from a nurse's course, learned to drive a car, passed a taxi driving test and began working as a taxi driver to earn money for recording records, writing songs in his spare time, he was robbed four times (once, on Christmas Day, he was almost killed by a black man). He played at Carnegie Hall on a balalaika, which he bought at a souvenir shop on Fifth Avenue for $ 50, then played and sang in restaurants and nightclubs.  In 1979, the first record "And life is always beautiful!" was released, which was not particularly noticed. In 1981, the second album "In a noisy booth" was released, which brought Tokarev fame among Russian-speaking emigrants. In the 1980s, he worked at the Russian restaurant Sadko, and then at the restaurants Primorsky and Odessa, accompanied by Irina Ola. He was called the "honorary Jew of Brighton." Willy founded his own label, One Man Band, and recorded about twenty albums there.In 1989, Willy Tokarev flew to the USSR with concerts. A major role in organizing these tours was played by the famous entrepreneur Viktor Shulman, who himself also performed "Odessa songs" from the repertoire of Leningrad "tape recorder" bards, Boris Sichkin and other veterans of the genre. 70 concerts throughout the Soviet Union were a success. ...more

LIVIN' BLUES-ROCKING AT THE TWEED MILL-1973-FIRST PRESS HOLLAND-PHILIPS-6413044. A rare German original of the cult album. .Rocking At The Tweed Mill is the fourth studio album by Dutch rock band Livin' Blues. It was released in 1973 with the support of the Philips label. In 1972, the band broke up with Eggermont and began collaborating with British producer Mike Vernon. Their first record together was "Rocking At The Tweed Mill", on which Arjen Cumming drummed. The album received high marks and hit all European charts. ...more

ARABESQUE-ARABESQUE-1978-THE FIRST SCANDINAVIA-TALENT-TLS3051 PRESS.  A very rare Scandinavian original of the first album of disco giants. Arabesque I (Friday Night) is the debut studio album by the West German disco band Arabesque. It was released in 1978 on EMI Electrola in Germany and on Victor Record in Japan. The Arabesque disco group was founded in 1977 (registered in the German city of Offenbach in a recording studio owned by legendary producer Frank Farian). At that time, there was a fashion in Europe for "girl groups” in which female vocals were dominant: Baccara, ABBA, Boney M. The debut album of the Arabesque trio was recorded with the following line-up: Karen Ann Tepperis, Michaela Rose and Mary Ann Nagel. After recording the first record, Tepperis and Nagel left the band, and Jasmin Vetter and Heike Rimbeau became new members of the trio. In 1979, Arabesque joined the seventeen-year-old and still unknown Sandra Lauer, who replaced vocalist Heike Rimbeau. Sandra immediately became an informal leader in the band - in the vast majority of songs, the main vocals belonged to her. Arabesque were very popular in Japan; in Europe, however, until the release of "Marigot Bay" in 1980, the band could not boast of "frenzied" success. After that, they gained real popularity, but they never rose to the "Japanese" level. I must say that the girls from the group complemented each other surprisingly precisely: they seemed to represent "three elements", three different types - dark-skinned Southerner Michaela, blonde Northerner Jasmine and, finally, Sandra with her "Japanese" cut of the eyes.In 1984, Sandra's five-year contract to work at Arabesque expired. She, with the support of her future husband Michael Cretu, decides to start a solo career, and the band, which rose due to Sandra's talent, ceases to exist. In the same year, the band's last album "Time To Say Good Bye" was released. Michaela Rose and Jasmine Vetter, trying not to miss their chance, create a new band called Rouge, but it was not successful. Rouge disbanded in 1988. Popularity in the USSR. Despite the lack of popularization of disco in the Soviet media, it had a lot of fans in the USSR. Arabesque were one of the favorite bands in Soviet discos. The popularity of the band was so great that in 1984 the Melodiya company released a record with ten songs from different albums. The record quickly became, as they said at the time, "scarce", and it could only be bought with a huge overpayment. Most of the band's songs were distributed across the country in tape recordings. In 1989, in the wake of Perestroika, Sandra was invited to Moscow, where she was greeted by a full house of enthusiastic fans. Arabesque songs are still often heard on Russian radio in retro programs dedicated to the 1980s. ...more

SLADE-SLADE IN FLAME-1974-THE FIRST UK-POLYDOR PRESS- 2442-126. A rare British original. Slade in Flame is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Slade. It was released on November 29, 1974, ranked 6th in the UK and was certified gold by the BPI in February 1975.  ...more

METALLICA-SAME-1991-First press HOLLAND-VERTIGO SWIRL-510022- A very rare original of the cult album on a collector's label. Metallica is the fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. Released on August 12, 1991 by Elektra Records, it is commonly referred to as the Black Album due to its packaging design. His recording took place in a one-on-one studio in Los Angeles for eight months, during which Metallica often clashed with its new producer Bob Rock. The album marked a change in the band's music from the thrash metal style of their previous four albums to a slower, heavier and more refined sound. Metallica performed Metallica in full during the 2012 Black Albums European Tour. In 2020, the album was ranked 235th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest Albums of all time. In December 2019, Metallica became the fourth release in American history to reach the 550-week milestone on the Billboard 200 chart. It also became the second longest-running traditional title in chart history and the second to spend 550 weeks on the album charts. ...more