Sweeney's Men - Tracks Of Sweeney, Classic Irish folk

	£		112
	$		148

Sweeney’s Men - The Tracks Of Sweeney

(Transatlantic TRA 200 1968 UK LP)

Second album by the seminal Irish folk rock band. Following the departure of Andy Irvine the band were reduced to a duo of Johnny Moynihan and future Pogue Terry Woods. Blending traditional Irish folk styles with an almost confessional style of performance and even the odd cryptic almost but not quite psychedelic touches, the duo attempted to outdo each other with each composition and arrangement. From Moynihan’s dope dream reworking of “Standing On The Shore” and Woods’ mystical “Go By Brooks” to the albums highlight “Dreams For Me” which has a mournful almost countryish sadness to “Brain Jam’s” tripped-out feel, the pair produced a mystical, melancholy album which still sounds fresh today.

Tracks:

Dreams For Me

The Pipe On The Bob

Brain Jam

Pretty Polly

Standing On The Shore

A Mistake No Doubt

Go By Brooks

When You Don’t Care

Afterthoughts

Hiram Hubbard

Hall Of Mirrors

Condition: Sleeve VG/ Record EX

Sleeve:

Standard single sleeve design, thinnish card laminated on the front only, manufactured by MacNeill Press Ltd.

The front sleeve is in reasonably good condition but does show some signs of age. It is clean and has no writing or tears anywhere. The lamination is cracked in several places coming in from the spine which has resulted in small dirty looking creases. There is also a line down the open edge where the lamination has shrunk over the years. There are a couple of hard to see half moon shaped creases near the open edge. Those points aside it looks fine at arms length in a PVC sleeve.

The unlaminated rear sleeve is also in reasonably good. It’s clean with no creasing or tears anywhere. There is a stamp on the singer’s face showing the shop that this was originally sold from (Boots The Chemist! Can you believe it?), there is also a small amount of ringwear noticeable at the bottom.

The spine is cracked in several places where the lamination cracks have carried over from the front sleeve. The spine itself is a bit compressed but despite this and the cracks all of the writing is still clearly readable.

The top seam is totally unworn.

The bottom seam is also totally unworn.

Record:

The record itself is in very nice shape. It’s made of fairly thick vinyl which I guess hasn’t been played much. It’s extremely clean and has a nice dark reflective sheen. Any dust or dirt which was present has been removed using a professional Moth record cleaning machine. Under normal light the disc looks just lovely with no surface marks visible at all. When held under a very revealing harsh light there are still very few marks visible, only a small amount of very light hairlines of the type which are caused by taking the record in and out of the sleeve and which are totally inaudible. The disc sits flat and true on the turntable with no warping at all.

The two labels are in pretty much perfect condition. Both are very clean with no writing, no tears, no stickers and no discernible spindle wear. On side two there is a small piece of “flash” vinyl, this is a piece of excess vinyl which is soon knocked off after the record is placed upon the spindle a few times, this supports the barely played theory.

When played the record sounds just fine but is not the greatest pressing in the world. The pressing leaves just the faintest background rumble, this isn’t noticeable at all during the music only on the run in grooves and just very occasionally between tracks, that said the record is still a pleasure to listen to the sound reproduction is clean and clear with no hint of distortion or groove wear. Unusually for this type of album the sound has a dynamic quality which belies the subject matter if a lot of the songs it’s possibly this quality which makes it such a highly rated album

So, not a perfect copy but a nice copy of the record in a niceish sleeve, but this is a hard to find album these days so this copy would be a welcome addition to any collection.

What you can expect from me:

Fast friendly communication, quick postage with good strong packaging and the record will be exactly as described above, if you disagree with my description of the condition then a full refund is available (sorry, no refunds if you don‘t like the music!).

What I expect from you:

Good communication and quick payment, any disagreement’s (not that I’m expecting any!) can be settled amicably.

Payment and postage:

I’d prefer cheques from UK buyers but paypal is available if necessary, UK buyers can deduct 1.00 from the postage cost if using any payment method other than paypal. Overseas buyers must use paypal. I’m not responsible for any parcel after it leaves my hands, I will have proof that the parcel as posted and will help in any way I can in any dispute between you and the postal authorities but the decision on whether to insure a parcel or not is yours and as such the responsibility for the parcel is yours too however insurance is mandatory on any parcel sent outside of the UK, this is for your protection as well as mine, the cost of the insurance is included in the postage costs quoted.