By Ketil Svendsen
The ultra-rare LP box was given to members of the press during the 1981 Motörhead press conference attack on Europe and Scandinavia. The only item missing from the barely opened, pristine and well-kept piece of greatness, is a can of Motörhead Beer! Oh, them journalists …
This baby I happened across in a basement based second hand record store, way back in the early 90s. I had no money for food and had to live on beer alone the subsequent week; though that may indicate more about my then economy and priorities than the actual price of the box.
Not much is known about the press box; with no official release number, the only place it’s found mentioned on the internet is here. The box seem to stem from their February 23rd 1981 visit to Oslo, as it contains some press information related to Norway. In Norway promoter Arne “Blå ballong” Bendixen was the licensee of Bronze.
Contents:
- 1 Overkill LP
- 1 Bomber LP
- 1 Ace of Spades LP
- 1 St Valentines Day Massacre 10″ EP
- 1 black Sweat-shirt, with discrete silver logo and “Europe 1981″. Size “S”. I’m “XL”, dammit!
- 2 B/W photos 190×200 mm, both Ace of Spades themed [1,2]
- 2 large format colour slides, one Ace of Spades themed (uncropped version of the picture used on the original cover), one casual
1 over-sized Ace of Spades playing card, 210×135 mm, silver cardboard, with band biography on the flip side.- 1 stenciled translation of above into norwegian. Light yellow paper.
- 1 stenciled discography, singles and albums, per country. White paper.
- 1 Bronze official “NEWS” sheet: “stop press”, stating “St Valentines Day Massacre” had reached #15 in the UK top 75 singles chart.
- 1 press info sheet, 2 pages, on the purpose of the “Motorhead Week” promo campaign at the end of february 1980.
1 press info sheet on chart positions- 1 VHS promo video, with the usual round-up of lip-sync’d extravaganza. Black cover with silver logo.
- 1 interview cassette, with all questions silenced out, ready for any local “interviewer’s” 15 minutes of glory. Lemmy jokes about The Rockin’ Vickers [web], mentions Sam Gopal [web] and Hawkwind [web], and how he “tried to be the Beatles”. Black cover with silver logo.
- 14 stenciled pages of transcribed interview from above cassette, questions included.
- 1 issue of UK music paper SOUNDS, dated February 21 1981.
- 1 issue of Norwegian music paper Nye Takter, dated March 18 1981 – post campaign.
- 1 can of Motorhead beer – Carlsberg Special Brew (missing, but the seller made a point of it having been there)
The two paged press info sheet give some clue to both the campaign and the content of this box: The promotion dates that made up “Motorhead Week” were February 17th to 27th, starting with Brussels, two days in Barcelona, Oslo/Stockholm, Hamburg/Munich, two days in Madrid and finally Milan. Climate refugees? They certainly didn’t waste any time where the sun didn’t shine. The 3rd of March they were off on a sixteen day French tour.
According to the press info sheet, the following items were to be found - but the content seem to have varied:
The “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” EP (recorded with Girlschool)- A V.H.S. video featuring Motorhead in concert
- A Motorhead interview cassette
- A Motorhead Sweat-shirt
- Colour and black & white photos of the band
- A Biography on the reverse of a 12 inch square “Ace of Spades” playing card
- A Discography with details of British single and LP chart success
- A can of Motorhead beer – Carlsberg Special Brew
A great page on the vast amount of Motörhead releases give the following piece of information:
This box set was a promo for the European tour of ’81. The content in these boxes varies, apparently Bronze tended to put in whatever was lying around. The front cover of the box is black with the Motorhead logo in silver. Here is an example of the content in one box: NSTH LP, European tour ’81 Sweatshirt, 3 b+w press photos , a biography & press release plus some photocopied reviews, an interview tape, and two colour slides from AOS LP. Another copy had 7 pages interview, 3 pages biography, 1 page discography, interview cassette, 2 black and white photos, oversized playing card, 2 color slides, the 1st video release, AOS lp and St Valentine’s 10″ I’ve heard others had the 1st video release, and/or a tin of Motorhead beer (!) in them, some had the AOS LP instead of the NSTH LP, and not all had the Sweatshirt, the slides or the tape. I suppose they were distributed not only in UK but also outside of the UK. It would be interesting to know how many that were made. A few of them most likely have been split and all that remains is the box itself.
Pictures of the box and it’s content:
Wow. What a treasure!