MURDER BALLADS (Deluxe Graphic Novel + 10" EP (Mondo Exclusive) - Gabe Soria, Paul Reinwand & Chris Hunt

https://mondotees.com/products/murder-ballads-deluxe-graphic-novel-10-ep-mondo-exclusive

"Mondo and Z2 Comics are proud to present the original score to the musical noir graphic novel MURDERBALLADS, composed and produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and featuring vocals by iconic bluesman Robert Finley. This limited edition box set contains the score on heavyweight, colored 10" vinyl, the full 160-page graphic novel written by Gabe Soria and illustrated by Paul Reinwand and Chris Hunt, and three exclusive prints by artist Tyler Boss. The entire collection will be housed in a custom clamshell box with exclusive painted art by Jon Langford of The Mekons. 

MURDER BALLADS follows the fall and reinvention of Nate Theodore, the dead-broke and deadbeat owner of a failed record label who is on a cross-country drive in the dead of winter with his wife Mary, fleeing the wreckage of their business and heading towards the destruction of their marriage. But Nate is given an unexpected chance to redeem himself when, during an unscheduled detour, he "discovers" Donny and Marvell Fontweathers, two African-American brothers who play a singular version of doom-laden country blues. 

Dan Auerbach and Robert Finley recorded the original score for the book at Easy Eye Studios in Nashville, collaborating with writer Gabe Soria to weave the story's narrative into the music, resulting in an organic marriage of sound, narrative and graphic image.

Limited to 500 copies and available only through Mondo."

Ace Records 40th Anniversary - Book with 7-inch Vinyl 45 rpm

https://acerecords.co.uk/ace-records-40

"A celebration of our 40years in business: 1975-2015 represented by seven vinyl singles in a luxury box/book.

40 years on and, as the song says, we got to get right back where we started from. That was and still is the 7-inch vinyl 45rpm single. This traditional “album” contains seven 45s that could never fully represent the Ace story so far, but they touch on numerous aspects of what we have been doing all this time. There are unissued versions, highlights from our career, lost gems and an error corrected, but all truly terrific music. A small jukebox worth of recordings spanning the 20 years from which the bulk of Ace releases have been drawn. It is hard to believe only 20 years separate Etta James’ release for Modern from Joe Strummer’s first recording made for our Chiswick label, which in turn is now nearly 40 years old.

After our dalliance with pop and rock, which lasted until the early 80s and wasn’t without its highpoints, we shifted our attention to recording London’s garage and psychobilly bands in the wake of licensing the Cramps’ catalogue. But the blues, its more active little brother rhythm & blues, even more active grandchild soul and wayward second cousin who got the funk have always been a major strand in what we do. We heard some of that rock’n’roll music, liked it and put a lot of it out, alongside its sweeter pop counterpart and teenage rebel nephew 60s psych and garage that contributed to the backbone of the past 40 years of releases.

During that time, we have danced to many different tunes in many different styles. We jived, we twisted, then we shimmied (and shaked), glided elegantly across the northern soul dancefloor, pogoed and all the time shook a tail feather. These days it is more likely to be a soft shoe shuffle but the enthusiasm hasn’t dimmed. The dedicated team of Ace staff, engineers and consultants are still turning out a regular flow of great-sounding, handsomely packaged, articulately annotated CDs, with the odd LP and 45 thrown in for good measure. You can even download a lot of it, but unfortunately without the pretty pictures and sweet words as yet.

They say the future is online and they may be right, but nothing can match that warm fuzzy feeling the whiff of wax brings." Roger Armstrong

Side 1

• 01
  Preview
  Confessin' The Blues (Take 11 with edit section from Take 5) - B.B. King
• 02
  Preview
  Tough Lover (Take 8) - Etta James

Side 2

• 01
  Preview
  One Cup Of Coffee And A Cigarette - Glen Glenn
• 02
  Preview
  You're Under Arrest - The Shirelles

Side 3

• 01
  Preview
  Not My Girl - The Platters
• 02
  Preview
  No Other Guy - Lou Johnson

Side 4

• 01
  Preview
  Try A Little Tenderness (Alt take) - Otis Redding
• 02
  Preview
  You Gotta Have Soul - James Carr

Side 5

• 01
  Preview
  Psychedelic Sally - Eddie Jefferson
• 02
  Preview
  Keep On Brother Keep On - Johnny King & The Fatback Band 

Side 6

• 01
  Preview
  I Got Mine - The Charlatans
• 02
  Preview
  Get The Picture - The Scot Richard Case

Side 7

• 01
  Preview
  Don't Cry For Me - Undubbed - The Zombies
• 02
  Preview
  Keys To Your Heart - The 101'ers

Michael L.Abramson - Light On The South Side 033

"Between 1975 and '77, Chicago’s southside nightclubs were experiencing dark times. The after-hours routine may have been on the up, but the sound of urban blues was on its way down, getting funkier, heavier, picking up a Zeppelin echo from the British rock scene that had raided its larder. Thankfully, lightening came by way of a lanky white guy skulking from club to club with a camera and strobe light. Chicago photographer Michael Abramson hit Perv’s House, Pepper’s Hideout, The High Chaparral, The Patio Lounge, and The Showcase Lounge nightly, not to capture the artists on stage but instead popping off a half-dozen rolls every night exclusively on the seldom photographed crowd. Light: On The South Side gathers more than 100 beautiful black and white Abramson images, as Numero shines its own light on yet another dark corner of the musical past. The 132-page hardback book features not just these photos, but an extended and wildly colorful ephemera section, plus an essay by British novelist and Numero fan Nick Hornby. Housed in a gorgeous slipcase with the 12X12 monograph is the 2LP set Pepper’s Jukebox, a 17-track compilation of Chicago blues in transition, as heard from both the stage and the Wurlitzer. The deluxe 2LP set, featuring tracks by Little Mac Simmons, Arlean Brown, Bobby Rush, Lady Margo, Little Ed, and a dozen other modern blues artists, is packaged in a sharp gatefold jacket with two inner sleeves crammed with label scans and stories. All in all, it’s the classiest Numero record ever made, our first Grammy-nominated product, its 2" spine spotted easily from across any discerning record archive."
source: https://numerogroup.wordpress.com/category/a-light-on-the-southside/