The Kinks - Face To Face - How long in print on Reprise?

I've been watching Kinks Reprise vinyl on eBay for a couple of years and have never seen a 70s pressing of Face To Face, although its existence is stated in the Goldmine Guide. Every copy I've seen has had the tri-color label. (BTW, what's the deal with the rivet in the corner of many?) I've seen Something Else through Lola (plus Kronikles) on mid 70s-80s labels with the Warner Commutations logo in the perimeter. In the US Face to Face was their last 60s album with a top 40 hit ("Sunny Afternoon") and it charted higher than Something Else or Village Green. (VG never even charted.) Yet SE and VG have remained in print although I have never heard a song from either on the radio. I don't know anyone who's a fan of SE, VG and Arthur that doesn't care for Face to Face, as they seem to be well regarded by fans and critics. I don't know if I can name another 5 star studio pop album that's never been issued on CD in the US.

So when did the Reprise Face To Face go out of print?

One thing that amazes me is that after Rhino licensed the early (former Reprise) recordings for release on CD from PYE, there have been no new 60s era Kinks releases on CD in over 20 years. Time Warner bought half of Rhino in 1992 and the remainder 6 years later. More Kinks from Rhino would seem natural, but all things were quiet. It's almost like Reprise held their breath in the 80s to hold on to the last 4 Reprise studio titles plus Kronikles to get them out on CD and once there owned that market for those recordings for an indefinite amount of time, but in only those configurations/masterings.

 

I can't answer your question, but I did ask the same thing when a photo of a Reprise Face to Face was posted on the "Listening to Vinyl NOW" thread in the Long and Winding threads forum.

It must have been in print for a week. Maybe two.

 

I started buying Kinks LPs in the very late 70s/very early 80s. At that point, I could easily find "Something Else," "Village Green," "Arthur, "Lola," "Kronikles," "Live," and "Greatest Hits" on Reprise. "Face to Face" on Reprise was gone. In 1981, a UK Pye reissue showed up, which used the superior mono mixes.

The first 5 US albums were gone by this point also.

 

My copy is on the Marble Arch label made in Spain..saw 100s of them in the cut out bin in the 80s at Disco mat..i think i found something else there too...

 

The rivet was to indicate it was a cutout, I have read in the past.

I bought my copy of Face to Face in 1966, when it came out, and I know I had it in Washington, DC, with me in 1973. A friend there really liked it, and I think he was able to buy a copy of his own, so I guess it was available that long. But I'm not sure, really, as I don't specifically recall hearing it in his room, and I don't think I've ever seen a copy with the brown label Reprise used at that time.

Wilkie will be able to answer this question, I feel sure.

 

The Kinks classic period (1964-70) is a mess in the USA. Reprise has a lock on all USA releases to songs from this period. If I recall correctly, the earlier Reprise LPs [starting from The Kinks (the first LP) and up to and including Face To Face] are/were subject to a different legal distribution status in the USA than the later Reprise records (from Something Else up to and including Lola Versus Powerman). That I believe is why Rhino was able to license the earlier material for CDs in the 1980s, but not the later Reprise stuff. It is quite complicated, all to the detriment of USA fans. Arnie

 

It is tough going in the US to find the original pressings of Something Else or Face to Face.. I never see them... I did find a Face to Face once for $1... just a few years ago..unreal..

Have never found the Something Else though..

I get the sense there weren't that many pressed..

I always wondered what that "rivet" was!

 

I got into the Kinks for a while, starting about 1974 or so. At that point it appeared that about half of the 1960's albums were still in print, but there was no rhyme or reason as to which ones. The Kinks' Live Album was still available, The Kinks' Greatest Hits, Something Else, Village Green and maybe one other album, I'm not sure. From a chronological standpoint, it made no sense for "Face To Face" to have gone out of print while 'The Kinks' Live Album" remained available. And why "Something Else" stayed in print for a number of years mystified me also. My guess is that "Face To Face" went out of print around 1970, along with the others that were discontinued, as large numbers of sixties pop albums went out of print at that time.

 

I may be slightly off, but it seems to me I got every Kinks album (not counting Greatest Hits, which I got as a gift shortly after it came out) through Face to Face as a cutout in the era of 1969-1970. I'm almost certain I got Something Else as a cutout as well, if not by then, then not too long after.

At least one of my copies of Face to Face has the rivet in it. I'm lucky enough to have scored a mono one somewhere along the way, too.

I still have dreams sometimes of being back in Musicland at our local mall, where they had rack after rack of cutouts. My entire early Kinks, Hollies, Searchers and Manfred Mann collection all came from there...not to mention many more obscure gems.

 

The discography here (which, granted, isn't absolutely complete) only lists the three-coloured label.

Reprise only had the earliest Kinks albums temporarily, which is why Rhino was able to reissue them later. When the Kinks renegotiated their contract in 1966, Reprise got perpetual rights to the stuff from Face to Face through Percy. (The Live Kinks, remember, came after Face to Face.) They never actually released Percy, and I gather from comments at the Kinks board that their rights to that one have lapsed as a result (with the presumable exception of the tracks on Kronikles). I'm not sure if the same applies now to Face to Face.

The Kink Kontroversy is in a different kind of limbo; Rhino wanted to put it out along with the rest of their CDs, but there was some sort of publishing dispute. No idea if it's been resolved yet. There don't seem to be similar problems in Canada, even though the publishing situation for that album there ought to be more or less the same.

 

Loss of Face

As far as I know, there was only one legit U.S. pressing of "Face To Face" in 1966.
However, the "brass rivet" cut-out copies were around in bargain bins until 1973 or
1974. I remember seeing them all over in the D.C. area in places like the Woolworths
on Wisconsin Ave. in Bethesda and the Empire Music annex store in Rockville. The
big Discount Records store in Tenley Town had WALLS of Warner/Reprise cut-outs
in the early 70s. I could have bought 25 sealed copies of the second West Coast Pop
Art Band back then...but I stupidly bought only one. Who knew how fast they'd vanish?

 

Just checked my reprise copy, stereo w/no rivet and tri-color.

 

I've never seen a Reprise copy on anything but the tri-color label, or without the cutout rivet, so my wild guess is that it wasn't in print more than a year.

 

That's a good guess. The first and only press run seems to be from 1966. I would think that the title stayed in print until '67-68, since there was a lot of inventory left over (it wasn't a big seller for Reprise). Both the mono and stereo versions I've seen have the tri-color "steamboat" labels. My stereo copy came in the paper '66 Reprise company inner sleeve (with pics of all those Sinatra and Trini Lopez albums). My mono copy came in a factory-sealed plastic bag like many Epic and CBS mono albums did back in '66. Both of my copies were still-sealed cut-outs when I bought them in the early 70s ("brass-rivet" jobs).

 

There were boatloads of counterfeits of FTF in the bins back in the 70s, so beware.

 

According to Doug Hinman's Kinks discography, FTF went out of print in late 1967. Reprise lost the rights to the early Kinks recordings in the mid 70s, but still owns the US distribution rights for Something Else and later Pye-era albums.

The counterfeits appeared in 1978 and can be easily distinguished because a cutout was used to reproduce the covers. The counterfeits have the image of a rivet without the actual rivet.

 

I've always wondered what the rivets were there for, didn't realize it was a cut out thing.

 

I don't remember ever seeing Face To Face in Chicago area record shops in '71-'72 when I was filling-in my Kinks kollektion. I did buy Something Else at that time with the tri-color label. The silver ink on the front sleeve is nice too... rich depth, slightly-reflective.

I didn't hear Face To Face until it became available as an import LP in the late-70's... it may have been as late as 1980 or so.

 

One omission is it doesn't list a two tone (or Red & Brown) Something Else . I know I've seen one on eBay.

What leaves me baffled is this album's place in the minds of those who bought and enjoyed Kink Kronikles. I'd think anyone who liked this enough to dig deeper would eventually want the last 5 Reprise studio albums, as mentioned in the liner notes. I can't believe that after 1979/80 when the Kinks delivered back to back Gold selling albums Reprise (or whoever had the rights) didn't reissue the album and get Rolling Stone to review it so they could slap a few quotes on a hype sticker that also included "Unavailable for Over 10 Years!" Unless of course if imports/counterfeits were available and not moving very well.

 

I have this still sealed copy, and have always wondered when it was made. It has the rivet (see the third picture). There are no plans to open it, so it's anybody's guess what pressing is inside.

 

I want to say that I bought Something Else when it was released and enjoyed it so much that I went and bought Face To Face AFTER that.

As you can see, my copy is Stereo and has no rivet.

I guess the only thing this proves is that record stores (or in this case Polk Brothers in Chicago) didn't get rid of albums from stock very quickly back in that era.

The price sticker is still on the shrink. $ 3.42 .

 

There's a page here with photos of several international configurations of the album, the Reprise mono and stereo tri-colours included. The text is in Japanese.

 

In the early 70's, I was lucky enough to find a sealed Reprise stereo copy with no rivet. It had the tri-coloured label. I knew it had been OOP for years, so I was pretty pumped whin I found one.

 

The cut outs first appeared in May, 1971. I was working in S. Klein (defunct dept. store chain), in Flushing, when they came in @$0.39. I had been looking for a copy for a couple of years at that point, so I immediately bought it, rivet included. They also got in UK, top-loading mono White albums, which I didn't buy, because who would want mono?

 

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