PLAN 9

“I Can’t Stand This Love, Goodbye”

(Rhode Island 1981)

Plan 9 seemed like the Peoples Temple of the psychdelic revival bands.

The band was led by couple of 60s survivors who herded an army of young boys, teaching them the lost folk arts of the garage band.

I love this 45 because the band was savvy enough to cover an Others song from Pebbles volume 10. That led (either directly or indirectly) to a deal with Greg Shaw’s Voxx Records. Since Pebbles compilations were technically bootlegs, Greg claimed they were “Australian imports” but pretty much everyone knew he put them out.

Unfortunately for Plan 9, Voxx declined to make picture sleeves for “I Can’t Stand This Love, Goodbye.”

In 1981, this was a disaster on the level of being signed to a major label and not getting to make a video for MTV. A 45 sleeve was your most important advertising tool and usually the first impression a band made on the word. No picture sleeve = not important to your label.

Plan 9 took matters into their own hands. They designed their own sleeve (or took the sleeve design that Voxx declined to use) and made their own picture sleeves with a color photocopier.

In 1981, an odd size copy like this one cost about $2.00. Singles sold for maybe $3.00. I don’t know what the band paid Greg for each record but I think they might have been losing money on each one they sold just so they didn’t face the shame of going sleeveless.

• Download “I Can’t Stand This Love, Goodbye”

(Voxx Records 45-1005)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 11:37 am and is filed under Business, Rock, 80s. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.