Minor Threat – In My Eyes – “Gary Cousins Sleeve” (1981)


May 11:th 2013 – A lot of work for a great EP

Minor Threat – In My Eyes – “Gary Cousins Sleeve”

Dischord Records ‎– Dischord 5 – 1981 – 7″

As a group, Minor Threat (Washington D.C. USA) need no introduction. If you are illiterate on US hardcore please check out the Minor Threat section … [more]

The first EP out was Filler (June 1981), this, Minor Threat’s second EP was released in December 1981. It includes songs like In My Eyes, ♬ Out of Step (MP3 320 kbps) , being my favorite Minor Threat song but also Guilty of Being White which some fans thought was racist (which is not). The EP was released on Discord which was owned by the vocalist Ian Mackaye and the drummer Jeff Nelson. Apparently the sleeves where not printed in time for a show so Jeff Nelson made 125 xeroxed sleeves to have anything to sell with the already pressed vinyl. It would not been anything special with this unless a mistake was made on the rear sleeve, where photography credited to Gary Cousins. It was corrected to the printed version to Gary Cousin. So now we got something which will make the collector-scums go ape-shit – a rare sleeve version that goes with the red vinyl / yellow label first press”!.

A word of warning however – I am not too much into various xeroxed versions of sleeves. They are just too easy to reproduce. In most case it is not worth the trouble making sure it’s the real deal – unless there is a really great EP. And this is such an EP, in my opinion. It took a very, very long time to control the provenance for this record. It included having a letter of authenticity from the seller, getting in contact with the previous owner to confirm the sale and from there track back, in total, 3 owners until I got in touch with a guy who got in back in 1981. To put in mild – it took a while. And persistence is a virtue! Now all paperwork is done. I would guess that a lot of DIY labels back in the early 80’s would think this is not a very punk-ish procedure. They would be fully right!!!

Click on the images to expand them to higher resolution. The rips and images are from my record.


Front and rear sleeve



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