COLLECTING… The Jesus and Mary Chain

Upside Down

(Creation Records, CRE 012, 1985) £100

Reputedly the first proper success for Alan Mcgee’s upstart independent label Creation Records with an impressive 50,000 7”s sold, the splenetic Upside Down announced to the 80s that there definitely weren’t nearly enough 45s around with ear-lacerating feedback permeating every inch of the groove. The clamour for the Reid brothers that ensued saw them soon snapped up by WEA subsidiary Blanco y Negro, leading them to chart success and more improbably onto the cover of Smash Hits a year later.

Riot!

(Fierce Recordings – Fright 004, 1985) £175

It’s hard to imagine now, but the Mary Chain were in such demand in the early days that a recording of the riot they caused at the North London Polytechnic in March 1985 made it out into the public domain via a partially unofficial, one-sided 7”.

April Skies

(Blanco Y Negro – NEG 24T, 1987) £200

In the old days, a brown paper bag usually signified that you were drinking something you shouldn’t in the street, though on Discogs, a copy of April Skies with the custom brown paper bag it came in, complete with the name of the group and song, inflates the asking price of a landmark single which took the Mary Chain into the UK Top 10 for the first time. Brown sugar paper, how come you taste so good?

Kevin Shields / Jesus & Mary Chain – Lost In Translation

(Not On Label – LITEP 450612, 2007) £100

A rare split single bringing together noisy miserablists from either side of the Irish Sea in Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine with City Girl, and the Jesus And Mary Chain with their delicious Phil Spector-referencing Just Like Honey on the B-side. Both offerings contributed a wealth of atmospheric feedback and bright jangly riffs to Sofia Coppola’s hymn to cultural displacement, Lost In Translation.

Live At The Fox Theatre In Detroit

(Third Man Records – TMR-731, 2021) £35

The Mary Chain’s first single since 1998 was released in celebration of Jack White’s Third Man Records opening a shop in London. Live renditions of The Living End, Teenage Lust and Cracking Up recorded in the American city in October 2018 can be played at a leisurely 33 1⁄3rpm.