I had no idea it was rare. The collectors’ market wasn’t as big as it is now, and there wasn’t as much interest in the group’s work, so it only cost me about five quid from a shop in Reading in 1998. It’s a 12” promo copy of Under The Viaduct, from Glance’s second album Glancing Blows, released in 1992, in a plain sleeve with the group’s logo on the label visible through the hole. It’s still sealed, and as it just has the radio edit on one side and the club mix on the other, both of which I own on CD, I’ve never opened it.
It was the fourth single from the album, which charted at #34 for one week then dropped out, so it’s one of their less well-known songs – but still, when I logged it on Discogs I was surprised to find it was the only copy ever to have been logged on there. Almost immediately I got offers for it – fifty quid, a hundred, sometimes more. I didn’t need the money, and as a fan of the group I was more interested to own such a rare item than to cash in on it.
Over the last few years I’ve probably had a couple of offers every month, and I began to notice one user who went by the handle Daze_Of_Wonderr contacted me persistently about it. They were friendly at first, engaging in chats about the group’s work, but quickly started making offers for the record, which before long went as high as £500. I was tempted, but still declined.
One Saturday morning three people turned up at my house, and one of them introduced himself as Daze_Of_Wonderr. His real name was Michael and he was a genial man of about 35 – if so he’d have been about five when Glance split up, unlike me who’d bought all their albums the day they came out. There were two others with him: Penny, a woman who was more my age and constantly bit her lower lip, and Karl, a skinny guy with greying hair who didn’t make eye contact.
‘Hope you don’t mind us coming down in person,’ Michael said.
‘How did you know where I live?’
Michael grinned and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Your other social media gave us some clues, wasn’t difficult. Look, I know you’re not going to sell the record – I just wanted to see it.’
‘You came all this way, unannounced, so you could see my record?’ I didn’t want to be rude, but I also felt very sure I didn’t want them in my house. ‘Sorry, no.’
I went to close the door, but Penny slammed her hand against it, pushed back and stepped inside. Karl also entered the house and between them they pinned me to the wall. Michael walked in and closed the door behind himself.
‘Where is it?’ Michael said, putting his face so close to mine, his greasy black spaniel hair almost swung into my eyes.
I didn’t answer.
‘I’ll find it,’ he said and went into my living room. He was right: my records are filed alphabetically and he was able to locate it in a matter of seconds. At the same time, Penny and Karl guided me into the room and sat me down on the sofa, sitting on either side with their arms across my chest, stopping me from standing up.
Michael turned the coveted record over in his hands and exhaled nervously. ‘They pressed two hundred of these,’ he said as he started to tear the shrinkwrap off.
I winced.
‘They were gonna be sent out to radio stations and selected club DJs,’ he continued. ‘But then they all got recalled and destroyed.’ He slipped the disc out of its sleeve. ‘All except this one.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
Michael tutted and addressed his companions. ‘See, I told you. He doesn’t have a clue.’
Penny and Karl both snorted derisively.
‘Nobody knows,’ Michael went on. ‘But any true fan would have heard the rumours. We’ve been talking about it for years on the messageboards, and everyone knows this record doesn’t have what the label says it has on it.’
‘Some people,’ Penny told me, ‘say Dean Lucas recorded a suicide note and put it on there, wanting it to be played out on the radio, and they stopped him killing himself just in time and withdrew the record.’ (Dean Lucas was the group’s guitarist.)
‘Some people,’ Karl said, ‘reckon it’s some kind of a subliminal message.’
‘My theory,’ said Michael, ‘is they were going to blow up their own careers with a song dissing loads of people in the industry and saying controversial things.’
‘That’s a lot of people’s theory,’ said Penny. ‘You didn’t come up with it.’
Michael grinned. ‘Let’s find out.’ And he put the record on my turntable and dropped the needle on side A.
It was the radio edit of Under The Viaduct. After thirty seconds or so, it skipped and then skipped again.
Michael took the needle off, turned it over and played side B.
It was the club mix of Under The Viaduct. This also skipped a couple of times as it played.
Michael turned the record over again and let it play all the way through that side, then the other. It skipped many times.
‘That sounds like a pressing error to me,’ I said.
Michael looked down at the record on the turntable and said nothing.
‘Like, the plates for the pressing haven’t been cut properly so the needle slips out of the grooves –’
‘Yes,’ snapped Michael, ‘obviously.’ He whipped the record off the turntable and held it above his head for a moment, like he was about to smash it. But then he just put it down, without putting it in the sleeve, and the three of them left.
The record is now valued at £23. I’m open to offers.