Dating from 1987-88 and titled Gripe, it featured an inlay card designed by Thom Yorke himself. He wrote on the cassette Gripe + 3 trax at beginning and on the inside of that inlay Before the ones overleaf are the following (most recent recordings 1989) Promise Me (Thom), Body(?) in a box (Colin/Thom), These are the Chains (Thom).
Along with these unheard songs, three more – Happy Song, To Be A Brilliant Light and Sinking Ship – are detailed on the red inlay card.
A demo tape by the band that went on to become Radiohead – £6000 at Omega.
At the time the band were called On A Friday, named after the day of a week they rehearsed at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire, where they met. The anonymous vendor knew the band in the early 1990s and was given the cassette by a band member.
The band became Radiohead in 1991 when they signed to EMI.
Estimated at £1500-2000 in the Punk, Indie & New Wave auction on January 26, the cassette consigned by a UK vendor sold for £6000 to a UK buyer.
Finding Fairydust
Tinkerbell’s Fairydust LP – £10,600 at Omega.
Omega’s David Bowie & Glam Rock Vinyl Records & Memorabilia auction, also on January 26, included a significant rarity from a UK vendor.
Pitched at £2500-3000, the saleroom knew that a ‘fabled unreleased’ self-titled 1969 LP from Tinkerbell’s Fairydust was always likely to be sought after. Collectors regard it as one of the most valuable pop/psych albums. In the event it sold for rather more to an international buyer: £10,600. It was catalogued as ‘the extraordinarily hard to find original UK Decca pressing. The record 9SKL 5028’.
Tinkerbell’s Fairydust was a British pop group in the late 1960s from east London. They recorded six 7in singles and an eponymously titled album for the Decca label was due for release in December 1969, possibly with an eye on the Japanese market where their singles had been successful.
Some test pressings were made and four or five ‘finished’ copies, but it was withdrawn before the release date.
Just a handful of ‘pre-release’ copies with covers escaped destruction by the factory.
