As many people know, I’m an Elbow fan. I’m a bit of an evangelist for the band, actually; I push Elbow on all<\/i> of my friends. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Cast of Thousands<\/i>, the band’s second album, was my first Elbow album, and as such it’s probably the one I will always be fondest of.<\/p>\n
I remember buying it. I bought it at the same time as I bought Snow Patrol’s Final Straw<\/i>; both albums released in the US at roughly the same time, and I was in the Best Buy in Cary, North Carolina. I wanted the latter — I’d heard “Spitting Games” on the soundtrack to EA’s MVP Baseball<\/i> and thought it sounded great — and I’d heard some interesting things about the former, Elbow, in MOJO<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Cast of Thousands<\/i> was the wildest thing I’d heard in forever. Yeah, Snow Patrol was very good and I listened to them muches (though I eventually came to despise Snow Patrol for their rampant self-pasticherie, but that was well in the future), but Elbow was something else. “Fugitive Motel” was magical. “Not a Job” was fantastic. I adored “Grace Under Pressure.” I made all of my friends listen to this album. I made my boss at EB Games listen to the album. (His reaction? “Allyn, you listen to really depressing music.”) I love it. I read in Q<\/i> a few years ago that the band considers it “the difficult second album.” Sometimes the best art comes out of darkness and despair and difficulty. To this listener, Cast of Thousands<\/i> is magic.<\/p>\n
I bring Cast of Thousands<\/i> up because it’s been on my mind recently. I’ve crossed the Elbow Rubicon. I’ve bought my first Elbow rarities.<\/p>\n
The first is a special DVD edition of Cast of Thousands<\/i>. It comes in a DVD case. The insert is light blue. Instead of the two figures that grace the cover to Cast of Thousands<\/i>, there are the molds for those figures. And inside are two discs. One is the CD, with the British running order — no “Whisper Grass,” no “Lay Down Your Cross.” The other disc is a DVD the band made. I haven’t watched it yet.<\/p>\n
The cool thing about this? Besides the fact that this edition of the album was a limited promo release to select media outlets? The front insert is autographed by frontman\/lyricist Guy Garvey and guitarist Mark Potter.<\/p>\n
Yes, I have an autographed Elbow album. Specifically, I have an autographed edition of my first<\/i> Elbow album. That’s really<\/i> special. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
But that’s not the only<\/i> Cast of Thousands<\/i> rarity I’ve added to my collection this week.<\/p>\n
I discovered that the video for “Not a Job” (which I named as one of my top ten Elbow songs<\/a>) has a completely different mix in the video than it does on the Cast of Thousands<\/i> album.<\/p>\n