Promotional music collectables from the WonderDawg archives

Mrs. WonderDawg at one time was deep into Beanie Babies; coming back from Orlando on vacation, we stopped at virtually every McDonalds to collect the mini Beanie Babies - we ate a lot of Happy Meals back then.

I've been collecting musical packaging and promotional items since I was ten years old, not so much for the rarity, but the creativity in the execution of the packaging. Before Gary was born 26 years ago, I had at one time maybe thirty thousand albums in mint condition, filed A to Z, by category, in plastic outer sleeves and inside dust jackets filling a pre-nursery bedroom and a 10 x 20 mini warehouse.

I'm reminded when I was transferred from Atlanta to Nashville back in 1975, the UHaul was loaded down with peach crates full of LPs. The four hour trip took over eight hours with a top speed of 50 mph. Over the years, I got tired of lugging them around, so a bunch of them made their way to Great Escape. I'm down to a manageable five thousand or so LPs now.

These days, I've been collecting schwag from tech companies, but I love the old days when I was in the record business doing the marketing and merchandising stuff. When people were buying records by the crates, there were posters, buttons, t-shirts, trinkets and much more a plenty!

After lugging this promo stuff around for nearly forty years, I've been up in the attic reclaiming some stuff - such as the Rod Stewart standup I've hauling around since 1978 - which has a found a good home at the Mothership BBQ.

Me thinks that with the age of iPods and iTunes, our generation has totally missed out on the joy of album covers artwork in big 12 x 12 size and the stuff contained within. They'll never know the joy of The Who Live at Leeds Lp that was packaged as a press kit with B&W glossies, poster, booklet and other stuff, or Led Zeppelin's third lp with the spinning die cut wheel (that lp cause all kinds of warpage problems with retailers). I'll find examples from the WonderDawg archives and post it here soon.

In fact, I just might dig out my 100 favorite LPs with built in goodies and post a Flickr set.

Some of my favorites tucked away in ziplocked bags within easy reach of the keyboard are:





SUZANNE VEGA Days Of Open Hand (1990 US 11-track promotional CD, featuring Book Of Dreams & Rusted Pipe and housed inside a holographic front panelled tri-fold digipak.)





SUZANNE VEGA 99.9F (1992 12 tracks + 1 bonus Limited Edition 24 page book housed inside a slip cover.)



Jane's Addiction Been Caught Stealing CD Promo with mini handcuffs.

and some plastic:





Neil Young & Crazy Horse promo single from 1981 Reactor LP