 |
| CGI reproduction of a 1973 UK print ad for The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief |
Yes, much has been written about The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief album. Actually, no it hasn't. None of the Monty Python albums have been written about very much at all, in fact, but when they do get mentioned, they always bring up the fact that Matching Tie & Handkerchief has three sides. They pretty much mention the three sides, and then move on to talk about the movies. To be fair, the documentary Monty Python: Almost The Truth: The Lawyer's Cut does a pretty good job covering the albums and especially this one, MT&H. More on that documentary later.
The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief album, in reality, has only two sides, like most records. Nay, like ALL records: a front and a back. (Or, if you're holding it horizontally, a top and a bottom.) Traditionally these two sides are known as Side One and Side Two. Remember, we're talking about old fashioned 12" vinyl record albums here. We're also talking about Monty Python, so "traditional" has nothing to do with it, really.
To add to the confusion, both labels on the record say Side 2.
 |
| The Famous Charisma Label for MT&H. The same label appears on both sides, and both say Side 2. |
So what indeed is going on? What is going on? Indeed!
Released in the UK in 1973, The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief was the group's fourth long playing album (I always include the original BBC soundtrack as their first album whenever I list the Python LPs.) (Some people don't count that one.) (Like the Pythons themselves, for instance.) (In fact, Arista Records in America actually calls Matching Tie & Handkerchief the first Monty Python album, because it was the first one to appear in America on the Arista label.) (Only second in confusion to The Beatles discography on Capitol Records!) (Enough with these bleedin' parentheses already!) (I told you so.)
As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Monty Python did not become popular in the US until around 1974/1975 when their television series began airing on Public Broadcasting channels throughout North America (USA and Canada) coinciding with the stateside release of their "epic" movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They had already recorded the first four or five albums by that time, including the Holy Grail soundtrack (and the Live At Drury Lane LP which was not released in the US at the time) when US radio stations started playing cuts from their albums. By 1975 Python was a multi-media sensation in the states.
Arista Records (which ceased to exist in 2011) became the US distributor of Monty Python albums during that time. Unfortunately for them, the rights to the first three albums belonged to other companies: BBC Records and PYE held the rights to the first album, Monty Python's Flying Circus, (which may have been out of print at that time, until it was soon reissued when Python hit it big in America) and Buddah was distributing Another Monty Python Record and Monty Python's Previous Record, which at one point were even packaged together as a two-record set put out by Buddah's co-owned Kama-Sutra label. (Later reissued as The Best of/Worst of Monty Python, as part of the label's horribly designed Best Of series. (More on that later in this blog.) (Don't look for it now, though. I haven't written it yet.) (At the rate I'm going, check back circa 2017.)
This left Arista with Matching Tie & Handkerchief and the Holy Grail soundtrack as the only Python titles on their label (the following year they would add the US exclusive Live At City Center to their catalogue.) They kept the same album cover artwork for the Holy Grail album, The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, yet they created their own version of the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. Nobody knows why.
Fortunately for we (sleekit, cowerin' timorous) purchasers of the album -- beit the UK version or the US version -- they both came packaged with the same Terry Gilliam illustrations inside. The UK package has a rectangular cut-out in the outer sleeve and Gilliam's artwork of a necktie-and-handkerchief-wearing-hanged-corpse slides in and out of the sleeve, exposing only the tie and handkerchief when placed within the die-cut. This insert is printed in 4-color process on a glossy cardboard stock, with nothing on the back. Also included is an insert containing liner notes, a sparse list of credits (including costumes by Hazel Pethig)(?), and a transcription of the Graham Chapman/Neil Innes track The Background to History, containing the lyrics to all of Neil's wonderful glam rock songs about The Open Field Farming System in Medieval England. (Some of the finest glam rock music based on The Open Field Farming System in Medieval England that you will ever hear, in my humble opinion.) (Apart from some copies of Shane.)
Along the bottom half of the insert is a smaller, black and white Gilliam drawing of a neatly-coifed, ever-smiling Grace Brothers-type sales clerk pleasantly hawking the polka-dotted handkerchief and necktie while it is still attached to the now-cut-down hanged-corpse. Pure Terry G. Again, there is nothing printed on the backside of this insert. The record itself is housed in a plain white paper inner sleeve.
The US version is a bit more economical, actually. Instead of all those loose inserts floating around inside the sleeve, Gilliam's corpse-man has been printed in 4-color process on glossy cardboard stock which acts as the inner sleeve, replacing the plain white paper sleeve of the UK version. The liner notes, sparse credits and Chapman/Innes transcript that are on the green insert of the UK album are printed on the flipside of Gilliam's inner sleeve on the US version. Though the typeface is different on the text, the wording, the layout and Gilliam's smaller, black and white drawing are the same, but on a white background rather than green. Also, the US inner sleeve contains an extra inch or two of credits unique to the Arista version: US art direction: Nancy Greenberg; Cover art: Michael Doret; Inner Sleeve Art: Terry Gilliam. Also mentioned in this blurb is a special thanks to "Keith Prowse Music Ltd and DeWolfe Ltd for the use of their library recordings."
The outer sleeve of the Arista record contains an oval die-cut which works the same as the rectangular cut in the UK edition, that is: only the tie and handkerchief are exposed through the hole. All in all, a much more compact package than the UK edition.
Both versions proudly proclaim on the label that the record itself is FREE, that it is the Tie and the Handkerchief that are in fact the items being purchased. Apart from the US version having the Arista label and the UK version having the Charisma label, the only other difference I can spot on the record itself, is the fact that the Charisma label states "Side Two" on both sides, whereas the Arista label differentiates Side 1 from Side 2.
Which brings us back to why it's called a three-sided album...
Because one of the sides has ONE groove cut into it, like normal, and the other side has TWO grooves cut into it, not like normal. In other words, if you want to hear the whole album, you've got to lay the needle down (at least) three times, thus they call it a three-sided record. What they really hope will happen -- those Pythons -- is that it takes you a dozen tries to set the needle down to find the right groove, the one you haven't heard already. That doesn't always happen. It's kind of a "crap shoot" when you set the needle down; it may land in the same groove you just listened to. You've got to keep trying until you hear the beginning of a different sketch.
It's been reported (citation needed) that some owners of this album had listened to it for twenty years and had never heard the material in "groove two" of the dual-grooved side!
Here's the layout of the tracks on this album:
Single-Grooved Side (a.k.a Side One)
Released in the UK in 1973, The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief was the group's fourth long playing album (I always include the original BBC soundtrack as their first album whenever I list the Python LPs.) (Some people don't count that one.) (Like the Pythons themselves, for instance.) (In fact, Arista Records in America actually calls Matching Tie & Handkerchief the first Monty Python album, because it was the first one to appear in America on the Arista label.) (Only second in confusion to The Beatles discography on Capitol Records!) (Enough with these bleedin' parentheses already!) (I told you so.)
 |
| The cover for the original UK edition of MT&H on The Famous Charisma Label. Designed to look like a fancy gift box, the lower 2/3 is a die-cut window with the tie & hankie seen through it. |
 |
| Cover design for the US edition of MT&H on the Arista record label. Why the US and UK covers differ is something I'm looking into. Stay tuned, minutia fans! |
As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Monty Python did not become popular in the US until around 1974/1975 when their television series began airing on Public Broadcasting channels throughout North America (USA and Canada) coinciding with the stateside release of their "epic" movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They had already recorded the first four or five albums by that time, including the Holy Grail soundtrack (and the Live At Drury Lane LP which was not released in the US at the time) when US radio stations started playing cuts from their albums. By 1975 Python was a multi-media sensation in the states.
 |
| Borrowed from Wikipedia. Click on logo to learn more about Arista. |
Arista Records (which ceased to exist in 2011) became the US distributor of Monty Python albums during that time. Unfortunately for them, the rights to the first three albums belonged to other companies: BBC Records and PYE held the rights to the first album, Monty Python's Flying Circus, (which may have been out of print at that time, until it was soon reissued when Python hit it big in America) and Buddah was distributing Another Monty Python Record and Monty Python's Previous Record, which at one point were even packaged together as a two-record set put out by Buddah's co-owned Kama-Sutra label. (Later reissued as The Best of/Worst of Monty Python, as part of the label's horribly designed Best Of series. (More on that later in this blog.) (Don't look for it now, though. I haven't written it yet.) (At the rate I'm going, check back circa 2017.)
This left Arista with Matching Tie & Handkerchief and the Holy Grail soundtrack as the only Python titles on their label (the following year they would add the US exclusive Live At City Center to their catalogue.) They kept the same album cover artwork for the Holy Grail album, The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, yet they created their own version of the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. Nobody knows why.
 |
| Above: The UK MT&H package... |
Fortunately for we (sleekit, cowerin' timorous) purchasers of the album -- beit the UK version or the US version -- they both came packaged with the same Terry Gilliam illustrations inside. The UK package has a rectangular cut-out in the outer sleeve and Gilliam's artwork of a necktie-and-handkerchief-wearing-hanged-corpse slides in and out of the sleeve, exposing only the tie and handkerchief when placed within the die-cut. This insert is printed in 4-color process on a glossy cardboard stock, with nothing on the back. Also included is an insert containing liner notes, a sparse list of credits (including costumes by Hazel Pethig)(?), and a transcription of the Graham Chapman/Neil Innes track The Background to History, containing the lyrics to all of Neil's wonderful glam rock songs about The Open Field Farming System in Medieval England. (Some of the finest glam rock music based on The Open Field Farming System in Medieval England that you will ever hear, in my humble opinion.) (Apart from some copies of Shane.)
Along the bottom half of the insert is a smaller, black and white Gilliam drawing of a neatly-coifed, ever-smiling Grace Brothers-type sales clerk pleasantly hawking the polka-dotted handkerchief and necktie while it is still attached to the now-cut-down hanged-corpse. Pure Terry G. Again, there is nothing printed on the backside of this insert. The record itself is housed in a plain white paper inner sleeve.
 |
| ... and the US MT&H package. |
The US version is a bit more economical, actually. Instead of all those loose inserts floating around inside the sleeve, Gilliam's corpse-man has been printed in 4-color process on glossy cardboard stock which acts as the inner sleeve, replacing the plain white paper sleeve of the UK version. The liner notes, sparse credits and Chapman/Innes transcript that are on the green insert of the UK album are printed on the flipside of Gilliam's inner sleeve on the US version. Though the typeface is different on the text, the wording, the layout and Gilliam's smaller, black and white drawing are the same, but on a white background rather than green. Also, the US inner sleeve contains an extra inch or two of credits unique to the Arista version: US art direction: Nancy Greenberg; Cover art: Michael Doret; Inner Sleeve Art: Terry Gilliam. Also mentioned in this blurb is a special thanks to "Keith Prowse Music Ltd and DeWolfe Ltd for the use of their library recordings."
 |
| The US inner sleeve contains extra credits for the newly designed US artwork, just above the sole of the shoe on Terry Gilliam's necktie wearing corpse man. |
The outer sleeve of the Arista record contains an oval die-cut which works the same as the rectangular cut in the UK edition, that is: only the tie and handkerchief are exposed through the hole. All in all, a much more compact package than the UK edition.
Both versions proudly proclaim on the label that the record itself is FREE, that it is the Tie and the Handkerchief that are in fact the items being purchased. Apart from the US version having the Arista label and the UK version having the Charisma label, the only other difference I can spot on the record itself, is the fact that the Charisma label states "Side Two" on both sides, whereas the Arista label differentiates Side 1 from Side 2.
Which brings us back to why it's called a three-sided album...
Because one of the sides has ONE groove cut into it, like normal, and the other side has TWO grooves cut into it, not like normal. In other words, if you want to hear the whole album, you've got to lay the needle down (at least) three times, thus they call it a three-sided record. What they really hope will happen -- those Pythons -- is that it takes you a dozen tries to set the needle down to find the right groove, the one you haven't heard already. That doesn't always happen. It's kind of a "crap shoot" when you set the needle down; it may land in the same groove you just listened to. You've got to keep trying until you hear the beginning of a different sketch.
It's been reported (citation needed) that some owners of this album had listened to it for twenty years and had never heard the material in "groove two" of the dual-grooved side!
Here's the layout of the tracks on this album:
Single-Grooved Side (a.k.a Side One)
- The Church Police
- Elephantoplasty
- Novel Writing Live from Wessex
- Word Association Football
- Bruces/Philosophers Song
- The Adventures of Ralph Mellish - Hot Dogs and Knickers
- Cheese Shoppe
- Wasp Club - Tiger Talk - Short Razzberry
- Great Actors
- The Background to History
- First World War Noises in Four
- Boxing Tonight - The Fight of The Century
Dual-Grooved Side - Other Groove (a.k.a Side Three)
- Minister for Overseas Development - Mrs Niggerbaiter Explodes
- Oscar Wilde and Friends
- Buying a Cat - Taking-In the Terrier
- The Phone In
Not the first; just the best...
If you were to do a search of "Multi-Grooved Records" on the internet, MT&H would probably be listed in almost every one of the thirty-two million finds. But you'd be surprised at how many other multi-grooved records you'll find. From 78 rpm "puzzle" records to MAD Magazine flexi-disks.
 |
| Early Victor multi-grooved "Puzzle Record" circa 1930s. The label states: "This side contains 3 tunes. Can you find them?" |
To be fair, Python never claimed to be the first, but Terry Jones -- in the 6-part documentary Monty Python: Almost The Truth: The Lawyer's Cut -- claims it was his idea to do "something different" for the MT&H album:
"Actually we discovered it had already been done in the 30s. There was a 78 (rpm) record that you could buy that was a horse race. And (each cut) would have the same commentary going, and you'd bet on the horse race... and a different horse would win at the end!"
~ Terry Jones re: multi-grooved records
There have been several variations of the aforementioned Horse Race record over the years. The one shown below was an actual game you would buy at a toy store (as opposed to a record shop). It came in a box with a game board inside, an "odds chart", and a 10" record. The record had three grooves cut into side one and three grooves cut into side two, so when you bet on "your" horse and played the record, you had a one-in-six chance of winning! As Terry J said above the commentary started off the same for each groove; as the race went on, the dialogue would change announcing a different winning horse for each groove. Pretty damn clever. These sorts of "game" records date as far back as 1901. Basically since the dawn of recording. But leave it to Python to use this technology on a modern day (well, 1973) comedy record and NOT TELL ANYONE about it. Until years later, of course.
 |
| CG reproduction of mid-century 78 RPM "Magically-Grooved" Horse Race game box, cleverly titled "Phono-Finish." Upper left corner states: "Amuse and Mystify Your Friends!" Why, when we were kids, was it always a good selling point to "mystify" our friends? |
Would you like me to show you a diagram of your intestines? I mean of how multi-groove records work? Below is a diagram of a triple-grooved record, such as the Horse Race game. The colored lines represent the path the needle takes across the record when the stylus is set down at the leading edge. (This is exaggerated, of course, as the grooves are a lot closer in real life, obviously.)
A similar diagram below shows the dual-groove of The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief.
Later pressings -- circa 1980s reissues -- of The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief album do not have the dual-groove. At least not in the States. I don't know if they discontinued the gimmick on the UK edition. My guess is yes. But at one point when the record wasn't selling as much anymore, Arista chose to "flatten" the whole thing down to a single grooved side, with Background to History starting off Side Two -- and leaving a small silent gap where the break would be -- followed by Mrs Niggerbaiter Explodes/Minister for Overseas Development.
It's pretty easy to see if you have an original dual-grooved edition -- not that they're worth a whole lot, I mean Python sold millions of these records in the 70s -- but you can see by looking at the runout groove near the center label. One side should look normal, with the grooves getting wider until they eventually merge by the label, and the other side you should notice twice as many grooves running off into the label.
Oh, the fun never ends regarding MT&H...
Original UK versions of the record have a note from a man named George "Porky" Peckham etched into the runout groove of the double-cut side. George Peckham was a record cutter at Apple, the Beatles's Record Company, from 1968 and has been one of England's foremost cutting engineers for the next 40-odd years. It was his job to cut the grooves into the original Master Disks that the vinyl records were then pressed from. Well, George, or "Porky" as he was affectionately known, would leave a "signature" in the runout area of the master disks he cut, and subsequently it would be forever embedded into every vinyl record pressed from that master.
George's traditional "signature" was the phrase, "A Porky Prime Cut" or just his name, "Porky." By the time Python had the idea for the multiple groove, Michael Palin states in his diaries that everyone in the record trade recommended "Porky" as the most trustworthy man in England to handle such a delicate task as cutting a multi-groove. This led to Michael's visit to Apple at 3 Saville Row in the Mayfair section of Central London, circa 1972, where he quite coincidentally bumped into George Harrison, who went on to become great friends with The Pythons and even financed a film for them six years later and blah blah blah don't get me started! See what happens when I start talking about Python records!? I expect to hear Michael Paln's voice any minute yelling, "Take it up!! TAKE IT UP!!!"
Anyway, etched into the inner groove of the original UK release of The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief record, George Peckham wrote "A Porky Ray Adventure" because it was such an adventure cutting this double groove.
Now, go and pull out all of your albums and check the inner grooves to see if George Peckham was the master cutting engineer! (Joe Walsh writes on his records, too, by the way.) (But don't get me started again.)
 |
| Photo of George "Porky" Peckham, stolen from Mersey Beat's website. Please follow the link below and learn more about the man who cut "the infamous double groove!" |
For more on George "Porky Peckham, click here and read about him on Mersey Beat's website.
http://www.triumphpc.com/mersey-beat/a-z/georgepeckham_studioyears.shtml
