''Year Of The Dog''


"They can have this revolution as long as they remember who gets to win the war".
Sleeve - Front:
Hand-made sleeve comprising folded textured blue card, with devil image pasted on and white obi (paper belt) strip with the song title embossed in silver.
Sleeve Back:
The back of the sleeve is a half panel
Vinyl - Side 'A'
Blank labels
Vinyl - Side 'B'
The 'B' side labels are mostly stamped with the FU logo. A handful have blank labels




Stats #1:

First Pressing (Above)

Tracks: Year Of The Dog B/W Last Man Standing
Year: 2006
Label: Blocks Recording Club
Matrix A: ◊◊◊◊038-A
Matrix B: ◊◊◊◊038-B

Pressing Info: 
TBA

Inserts:
Double-sided lyric sheet

Variants:
'B' Side label stamped
'B' Side label unstamped (All should have been stamped, but a handful were missed)



Stats #2:

Repress (Below)

Tracks: Year Of The Dog B/W Last Man Standing
Year: 2009?
Label: Blocks Recording Club
Matrix A: 5-69478 Blocks blocks blocks 038A
Matrix B: 5-69479 Blocks blocks blocks 038B DCB

Pressing Info: 
TBA

Inserts:
Smaller insert than first pressing,with devil image from first pressing.
Some also come with additional single-sided card matching those pasted to the first press sleeve.

Variants:
No variants
Sleeve - Front

Sleeve - Back

Vinyl

Inserts - Front:
Left:
YOTD Lyric sheet, with devil image from first press
Right: Card from first press
Inserts - Back:
Left:
Last Man Standing Lyric + credits
Right: Card has double-sided sticky tape in corners, already to be stuck on the first press jacket




Notes:


Announcment  (LFG Post - March 29 2006):

The "Year of the Dog" 12" will be released on Blocks Records in Toronto. Blocks is a registered worker co-op label and produces and release records within a co-operative framework. Look for this 12" in Toronto first in the late summer also. Wait until next year for the "Year of the Pig" 12".

Year of The Dog (LFG Post - November 18 2006):
Apparently, there is some confusion as to the nature of this record. If you weren't able to pick one up at the Hidden World shows, or you weren't able to catch our merch when it was on tour through the US, don't panic, this isn't a "show-only" record or anything. It's being hand assembled, and the majority of the press isn't ready to be sent out to distributors yet.

FU Webstore:
1st in the series of releases coinciding with the Chinese Zodiac. 'Dog' is an expansive and plodding track, simplistically recorded and featuring some questionably legitimate forays into recorder and xylophone playing. The flip is a re-recorded song from the FU demo, given the royal treatment. The record is double grooved, so depending on where you drop the needle you'll get one of two possble versions of each song, one of which was recorded pushing the entire mix through a SOLDANO guitar amplifier.




Sleeve Notes:

From  LFG  (Dec 27 2010):
We had never really done many 12" singles when Year of the Dog came out, so we didn't really have a set template down yet, like we had for our 7" singles. The label was willing to go along with a more involved design, because it was a co-operative and had a lot of people down to glue stuff. I was listening to a lot of European revisionist martial music like Der Blutharsch and Les Joyaux de la Princesse, and I wanted to do a design that went along with that - sharp lines, block colours, etc. We picked a dark blue for the jacket, glued white bands around the jackets, and then foil stamped the title in silver print on the bands. Each one had a postcard sized image glued onto the cover - it was an Alfred Kubin (who we also used for the Dance of Death 7") of a giant demon ejaculating as he walks across the countryside, except his ejaculate is made up of humans, implying that humans are satans seed, who impregnated the earth with us. It was a cool layout, but it took forever to put them together, what with all the glueing.




When it came time to repress the 12", we had just released Year of the Pig, and had a more standard design template for the Zodiac 12" series, so the repress of Dog follows that and has some intense biblical imagery for the artwork.

''Two Snakes''

THE LAMB AND THE GOAT MUST COME TOGETHER. PURE LOVE DESCENDED FROM THE PINNACLE OF HEAVEN. UNITED WITH PURE HATRED FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL.
(Message on Insert)

Sleeve - Front (North American Press)
Sleeve - Back (North American Press)
Vinyl (North American Press)


Stats:

General:
Tracks: A - Two Snakes Part 1 / B - Two Snakes Part 2
Year: 2006 / 2007 (B&W sleeve versions) & 2008 (Colour sleeve versions, pressed 2008, released 2009)
LabelHG Fact (Japan version) All others self released - FUR-006,  
Matrix A: FLV-205.680 A  SST  Fucked Up
Matrix B: FLV-205.680 B   SST  Two Snakes for the World

Pressing Info:
  • White label tour press (B&W sleeve)  -300 (Of which 100 or so UK Tour variant, 200 or so Euro Tour variant)
  • North American Press (B&W sleeve) - 200
  • German Version (*Colour sleeve)  200 or 250
  • Greek Version (Colour sleeve) 350
  • Japanese Version (Colour sleeve) 350
Inserts:
North American version does not have a regular insert
All other versions have lyric sheet, printed in language specific to region

Variants:
There are three B&W-sleeve and three colour-sleeve variants:
  • UK Tour 06 - Black & White sleeve, white stamped labels, English lyric sheet
  • Euro Tour 07 - Black & White sleeve, white stamped labels, German lyric sheet
  • North American - Black & White sleeve, printed labels, No lyric sheet
  • Δύο Φίδια - Colour sleeve, printed labels, Greek lyric sheet
  • Zwei Schlangen - *Colour sleeve, printed labels, German Lyric sheet
  • Japanese - Colour sleeve, printed labels, Japanese lyric sheet

*German versions - Discogs refers to 50 copies with paper sleeve, which apepars to be based on the HG blurb on the LFG post -  it is assumed the Euro tour version is being mistaken as a variant of  ''Zwei Schlangen'' as both have German lyric sheets. Please advise if you know otherwise.



Variants:

Black & White Sleeves:
There are two variants of this; the Tour Pressing and the  North America pressing. The Tour Pressing also has two label variants. These are all discussed below:


Black & White Sleeve: (Folded Out) - Front
Black & White Sleeve: (Folded Out) - Back


1. Tour Press: There is a UK & a Euro Tour variant. Both have the same sleeve, white-label vinyl and dust covers numbered out of 300.

UK Tour version has the labels stamped: ''UK Tour 06'' and comes with a double-sided English lyric sheet





Euro Tour version has the labels stamped ''Euro Tour 07'' and comes with a single-sided German lyric sheet.






From a total of 300, it seems the first hundred or so where used for the UK version and the remainder were given a different stamp and insert and used for the Euro version. These numbers are based on the highest number UK version found during ''research'' being # 99/300 and the lowest Euro version being # 114/300.

Tour Press Variants: These are numbered out of 300
Left: UK Tour 06  # 096
Right: Euro Tour 07 # 114
Tour Press Inserts - Front
Left: UK Tour version is double-sided and written in English
Right: Euro Tour Version is single-sided and written in German
Tour Press Inserts
Left: Reverse of UK version
Right: Front (again) of Euro version (reverse is blank)


2. North America Press:
The sleeve is similar to the tour version, but the text on the front cover is slightly smaller and the image quality is sharper. The labels are printed and there is no insert.

North America Press:
B&W Sleeve, printed labels, no insert.
Tour Sleeve Compared with North America Sleeve:North America sleeve has slightly smaller text and sharper image quality than Tour sleeve.
Left:
Tour Sleeve
Right: North America Sleeve


Colour Sleeves:

There are three variants (Greek, German & Japanese). The sleeves and inserts are all alike, but differentiated by the text, which is translated into the language of each of the three countries. The sleeve artwork comprises the original image, but is screen printed with a reflective silver background and red snake silhouettes.

Colour Sleeve: (Folded Out) - Front
'Text Bars': This picture shows the tops of the three different sleeves for comparison. The sleeves are otherwise identical.
Top: Greek
Middle: German
Bottom: Japanese
Colour Sleeve: (Folded Out) - Back
Inserts:
This picture shows the inserts of the three variants for comparison.
Left: Greek
Middle: German
Right: Japanese
Vinyl:
This picture shows the disks of the three variants for comparison.
Top Left: Greek
Bottom: German
Top Right: Japanese




Notes:

Mircea Eliade Quote (intro to Two Snakes lyrics on Hidden World album insert / inlay - 2006):
''To be no longer conditioned by a pair of opposites results in absolute freedom''

LA Record Interview (June 28th 2007):
Was ‘Two Snakes’ inspired by Snakes on a Plane? 
Jonah Falco (drums): Definitely not. Maybe subliminally, like maybe a fleeting relationship to that film. Although Mike does have a severe fear of flying, so maybe that influenced it. That was a very intuitive question on your part.

AU Interview - LFG Post (Jan 3rd 2008)
AU- Was the song ‘Two Snakes’ inspired in any way by Conan The Barbarian? *adopts Arnie voice* “two snakes……..facing each other!” 
10KM- Ha, no, I have never seen that movie. Its from the medical staff - the caduceus. The song is just supposed to be about the entwinement of opposites, and snakes were just the coolest symbol we could think of - it could have been about the double-helix. While we were recording we had an article about this two headed snake that had just been born somewhere.


LFG Post (Jan 12, 2009)
Two Snakes

Hello fans. The "Two Snakes" 7" has just been released in Japan on HG Fact. For those keeping track, that makes it: England, Germany, Greece, North America, Japan issues for this single. Still waiting on Israel, Yukon, Azerbaijan and Kiribati editions in the future. Here is the blurb from the label, so you can try to order one (there are 250 copies only):

(ps you aren't gonna get one)






HG Fact release blurb

FUCKED UP - Two Snakes HG-236 (7"EP) ltd 350 copies!

The track is originally on the 2xLP Hidden World released by Jade Tree but was re-mastered and separated on two 7inch sides. Probably the most powerful track on the Hidden World 2xLP. Fucked Up are from Toronto Canada and play tuneful hardcore. On the records they expanded the bondaries of hardcore with a lot of cool arrangements and ideas and bring in many other influences but live all songs are shorter and in the face, just plain hardcore. A band with a  lot of ideas, humor, content and success!


Two Snakes:  
Snake 1: Why are me measured in inches?
Snake 2 We don't have feet






Sleeve Notes:

Two Snakes Mermaids image in art nouveau reference book