The Spanish word museo means museum in English and, like far too many things in my life, I discovered that word via Depeche Mode. It appears in the video for Pimpf, as you can see above, where the lads are having a wonderful time, laughing and enjoying another Anton Corbijn videoshoot. Anyway, the idea of a Depeche Mode museum is something that appeals to me and, if you've read this blog for a while, no doubt you too, so this is my attempt at it. Kind of.
Every so often I'm going to write a blog that has a look at unusual releases in the Depeche catalogue. Some are rare, some stupidly rare and others fairly standard, but overall hopefully interesting. I know that when I started collecting DM items, I always loved looking at photos of what I still had to collect and that's still true now even though my collection has grown somewhat in the last few years. Other people seem to like that sort of thing too, hence the Depeche Mode Museo series.
1. EVERYTHING COUNTS LIVE - LIMITED EDITION FILOFAX PACK LCDBONG16
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| LCDBONG16 front |
Ah the 1980's. During that decade, Britain was ruled by a tyrannical beast named Margaret Thatcher whose hobbies included crushing the working class, closing or selling off most forms of traditional British industry and inspiring a culture of greed which resulted in the emergence of a group of people known as "yuppies." Primarily, they were young, increasingly wealthy city workers who wore red braces, drank champagne and generally acted offensively as many parts of the country suffered under the rule of Thatcher. One thing they were noted for was their use of Filofaxes which were essentially diaries with mini ring binders in them allowing you to store all manner of things from the address of your coke dealer to the price of rare champagne.
Never ones to be blind to a trend, Depeche Mode released a bewildering limited edition remix cd pack as part of the Everything Counts (Live) release known as a Filofax pack. As you can see from the pictures, the release complete complete with holes, if that's not a contradiction in terms, allowing you to safely pop it into your Filofax. Quite why anyone would want to do this is beyond me. Perhaps it would make sense to do that if you'd just bought the Filofax pack and you wanted to keep it safe until you got home? I really don't know.
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| LCDBONG16 rear |
The Filofax pack came with a 3" cd containing three rather excellent, brand new remixes of Everything Counts, Nothing and Strangelove. As you can see, that cd was housed in the lower of the two slots on the rear of the release. The upper slot was there to hold the standard release 3" cd on which you'll find live versions of Everything Counts, Nothing, Sacred and A Question Of Lust all of which were of course recorded at the Pasadena Rose Bowl on 18 June 1988. My version of the standard cd (CDBONG16) remains in its own case, as I've never quite felt the need to add it to my Filofax pack. Getting the LCDBONG16 out of its cardboard home is tricky enough as the pack isn't what you'd call robust and I'd rather preserve it than damage it.
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| LCDBONG16 |
Ultimately, the Filofax pack is a nice, quirky release. I've done a lot of looking but can only find one other Filofax release, Wire's Silk Skin Paws (https://www.discogs.com/Wire-Silk-Skin-Paws/release/309818). Interestingly, that was also on Mute. It seems someone at the label must have had a problem involving love of a Filofax and storage of cd's and this was their solution.
Given that LCDBONG16 was a limited edition release, finding a copy now is pretty tricky, especially if you want a copy in mint condition. At the time of writing this, Discogs have four for sale starting at £58 (https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/59504?ev=rb) but none of them seem to be in mint condition. As you can see above, mine has a few creases but overall it's in decent shape.
On the wonderful depmod.com, there is some debate as to whether or not a few LCDBONG16's were released in a card sleeve alone i.e. not as part of the Filofax thing and without holes. Most people say no, but some say yes. Even when photos of this apparent release are produced, it's generally thought that the package has been skillfully cut from the Filofax pack. I've never seen any version of LCDBONG16 other than the Filofax pack, so I think a separate LCDBONG16 card sleeve release is unlikely. If you have it though, and if it's definitely not harvested from the Filofax pack, do let me know.
So there we are. The Depeche Mode Museo is officially open and the first artefact is the curious, almost pointless, but ultimately lovely Filofax pack. The next addition to the Museo will be along soon..
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