Roxy Music "Love is the Drug"

eriejwg wrote: Just got in a promo 45 for this song. In doing some comparisons, I noticed that there are 4 footsteps on the short side of the promo before the car door opens. ---------- The actual run time of the short version on the promo 45 is 3:03.

John, are you sure your DJ 45 is a U.S. Atco 7042 pressing? I have two short/long DJ 45s; one is a Specialty pressing, the other is a Plastic Products attempt at pressing (there's so much coarse regrind in the vinyl aggregate, it looks like the Rocky Mountains rising out of the Great Plains. You can guess what that must sound like in stereo... on a promo copy, no less!)

In addition, I have nine Plastic Products-pressed stock copies, some of which merely resemble the Appalachians.

There are no footsteps on any of them, including the short and long sides of the DJ 45s. They all begin with the car door opening, the guitar strum and the bass notes as described above.

The actual time of my Specialty short DJ 45 is 3:01. I'm not about to sacrifice a stylus to play the other one beyond the first few seconds, which has no footsteps. Mortar rounds, yes, but no footsteps. ;)   

Edited by Yah Shure

And, the run time of the side labeled short version on
my Atco Promo 7042 is actually
3:01. Sorry again for 8 years of confusion.

Edited by eriejwg

You are correct, sir! There is a PL suffix after the
matrix number.

In order to keep shipping costs as low as possible, Atlantic Records contracted with strategically located independent pressing plants, each serving specific regions and population centers of the U.S. For 45s, these were the three primary plants used at the time of the "Love Is The Drug" single, as identified by their printed label matrix number suffixes:

SP - Specialty Records, Olyphant, Pennsylvania. Covered the eastern and northeastern states. Deadwax symbol: the letters "R" and "C" machine stamped inside a large "S".

PL - Plastic Products, Memphis, Tennessee. Also operated a larger plant at the time in Coldwater, Mississippi. Covered the central states of the south, the midwest and upper midwest. Deadwax symbols weren't consistently used, but on "Love Is The Drug," the letters "PP" are hand-etched in the vinyl.

MO - Monarch Records, Los Angeles, California. Covered the western and southwestern states. Deadwax symbol: the connected letters "M" and "R" inside a circle, resembling a cattle brand or ranch logo.

Specialty and Plastic Products 45s were pressed on vinyl, with Monarch opting for styrene. Specialty pressings were, as a general rule, quieter than those from Plastic Products, whose output was often hit and miss, ranging from dead quiet to phantom footsteps to mountainous terrain. Monarch's styrene was far less durable than vinyl, but was quiet when brand new.    

Specialty and Monarch also pressed Atco LPs. Plastic Products was strictly a manufacturer of singles and closed up shop in 1977. PRC ("RI"), based in Richmond, Indiana, took their place in 1977, producing styrene 45s of a markedly inferior quality compared to those from Monarch.

Each plant (or an affiliated firm, in the case of Monarch) did its own label copy typesetting, thus the font styles and sizes and placements do vary between the three.

Edited by Yah Shure

To clarify if there is any confusion...

The LP version has about :09 of sound effects at the beginning, which sounds like a person walking in high heels, followed by a car door opening.

The single version edits off almost all of the opening sound effects, except for the car door opening. Everything else is the same (same mix as LP with no additional edits).

The version on Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies edits off all of the sound effects (starting with the guitar), which is why the database notes that it's missing :01 of the introduction.

If there's a better way to describe this rather than "missing :01..." I'm open to suggestions.

Finally, the promo 45 version is the same as the stock 45 with only the car door sound effect at the beginning, but it fades earlier from 2:55 to 3:02.