A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues 4-track tape cartridge
by The Seeds, Featuring The Sky Saxon Blues Band
Label: ITCC [F-50-2040]
The 4-track tape cartridge edition of The Seeds’ controversial fourth album, 1967’s A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues, is a particularly rare find for collectors. The album has always been the odd man out in the band’s catalog, and 4-track tapes remain the odd man out among formats. A match made in treasure-hunter heaven.
The Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues vinyl album had been credited not to The Seeds but to The Sky Saxon Blues Band, although stickers were sometimes affixed to the front cover of the vinyl LP indicating that it was in fact THE ! SEEDS for the benefit of the record-buying public. On the 4-track tape, which has a full-color sticker of the cover art, that heptagonal hype image is included and is in fact the most noticeable thing on first glance.
Both the lower and upper spines of the 4-track cartridge/slipcase also go out of their way to include both band appellations but to emphasize the more famous one, as does the back sticker on the tape where the songs are listed: THE SEEDS, Featuring The Sky Saxon Blues Band. (Eagle-eyed fans will note this makes no sense – a band, featuring itself?)
Just to be super nerdy about it, the sticker on the upper spine of this 4-track’s slipcase omits “The” from “The Sky Saxon Blues Band”.
The songs are spread across the tape’s two programs out of order from the vinyl LP for unknown reasons. (4-tracks were made of one length of tape divided into two programs of music, kind of like a cassette tape; they could certainly have left the running order of the two vinyl album sides intact.) Here is how the album’s nine songs appear on this 4-track, with the original LP placement in brackets:
Program One
"Pretty Girl" [A-1]
"Plain Spoken" [A-5]
"The Gardener" [B-1]
"One More Time Blues" [B-2]
"Buzzin' Around" [B-4]
Program Two
"Moth And The Flame" [A-2]
"I'll Help You (Carry Your Money To The Bank)" [A-3]
"Cry Wolf" [A-4]
"Creepin' About" [B-3]
The tape was manufactured by the International Tape Cartridge Corporation (ITCC) and was given the catalog number F-50-2040, similar to GNP Crescendo’s GNPS-2040 of the vinyl LP. This is the only Seeds 4-track tape we’ve seen that is made of a hybrid grey and clear plastic case; all others have been made of solid white plastic.
There are scant few of these tapes still around these days and only a small handful in good condition. If you’re lucky enough to see a copy pick it up because who knows when or if you’ll ever see another one available.
