Red Planet CD (Jungle)

The British version of the Red Planet CD (2004) by Sky Saxon & The Seeds came in a digipak gatefold package, on popular indie label Jungle Records. There are some differences in this package and its American CD and LP counterparts. It was released on Rogue Records in the US but licensed to Jungle through a company called Dogman Records, apparently created just for this release. (Sky, I guess, is the dog man. Seems fitting enough.)

First off, the Jungle Red Planet CD package is well-made. It’s certainly an improvement over the American digipak version on Rogue, which was flimsy and opened up to two pockets containing the CD and a cheapo folded paper with the credits and liner notes. Jungle’s Red Planet is printed on heavier, thicker card stock, and has two flaps that open into a lush and lovely colored piece of art. The CD sits in a clear plastic tray in the middle, with the liner notes appearing on either flap to the sides. A fiery cartoon planet, with big red mountains and creepy orange and black sky, extends from side to side.

The front cover of the Jungle Red Planet digipak CD is unique (as were both of the American versions). In this configuration of John E. Miner’s beautiful design, Sky and his so-called “Seeds” (none were the original 1960s members) are in yellow and black at the bottom left. As on the inner gatefold, the mountains are in red and black and the sky fades from light orange to black. The band name and album title are rendered in a very light (almost white) blue.

The American CD (where the band was in mirror image, in the bottom right) used a purplish blue for the shadows instead of black, the LP a lighter blue, among other differences.

The songs, per the liner notes, are credited just like on the other releases:

All Songs Written & Performed by: Sky Saxon & The Seeds

However, on the Jungle version’s disc itself, a new blurb tells a different and more nuanced story:

All songs composed by Richard Marsh, Rick Collins, Dave Klein, Norman Cabrera (BMI)

Rick, Dave, and Norman (and Mark Bellgraph, though not included as a composer) were “The Seeds” on this album, and Richard Marsh of course is Sky Saxon. Why his ancient original name was used for this disc is anyone’s guess; he hadn’t otherwise used it professionally since 1963 or so. Presumably, the legal department at Jungle Records had specific ideas about how the credit needed to be rendered. Although, why they left the liner notes intact, with their competing wording, is a mystery.

Differences in the Jungle CD of Red Planet

Elsewhere someone dropped the ball when it came to the song titles as listed on one of the outer flaps of the digipak. The track "Let Her Sting" is rendered as the meaningless phrase “Let Here Sing”. (Of course, the song is actually "She's Wrong" as recorded by The Seeds back in the 1960s anyway, meaning the title AND the composer credit, whichever you use, are iffy.) Also, "Fools On Capital Hill" fails to use the correct spelling of “capitol” but that’s the case for all releases of Red Planet.

A particularly odd anomaly about this version of Red Planet is the final track, "Coming Home". On the Jungle CD it’s nearly two minutes shorter, with a long section towards the beginning edited out. It’s still six and a half minutes though (the Rogue CD and the LP versions are over eight minutes), so it’s not like editing it a little was going to yield a big hit or anything. They just took it from “really long” to “pretty long”. Who knows why, but if you get the Jungle CD you aren’t hearing the whole thing.

But you are hearing quite a lot – too much, in fact: The mastering on the Jungle CD is a lot louder than the Rogue version, to the point that much of it is unpleasantly distorted. If you look at the waveforms of the opening track, "101 Colorized Bottles", you can see the differences in the Jungle CD (top), Rogue CD (middle), and just for fun, the vinyl LP (bottom).

For this reason I wouldn’t recommend the Jungle version of this CD. Or, actually, I would recommend it because the packaging is so nice, but for actual listening, I say get the Rogue CD. (Or, best of all, the beautiful LP version. Good analog audio quality aside, that glorious front cover art deserves to be seen in its full glory.)

And actually, you get a yellow-tinged photo of the band goofing around in the back yard in the Jungle packaging, unlike the Rogue CD. (The photo is included on the vinyl LP; it makes up most of the back cover.)

The packaging of the Jungle CD was the basis for yet another version of the Red Planet CD, one issued for sale in Russia and its Central Independent States (CIS).

How to Buy Jungle’s Red Planet CD

This version of the CD isn’t especially harder to find (or more expensive) than any other, but note that there is a lot of misinformation on the web (including on discogs.com). Some sellers may offer another version of the CD but use a stock image of this one. To be sure, look for a sale where the vendor has added a real photo of the actual item they are selling.

The Jungle version of Red Planet can be identified by its darker, black-using cover art and by the information on the back cover:

FREUDCD080
LC 9308
Made In England
℗ 2004 Rogue/Dogman Records
© 2004 Jungle Records

… and the bar code 5 013145 208021.

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