For those who don´t know, me I dedicate myself to making high-end audiophile loudspeakers at a really good price, but we realize that any sound system is only as good as the music played on it so in my free time I blog about everything sound and music. Today’s post in my series on remarkable vinyl is about the Yeti of records. A mythical creature only reported to have ever been seen by few, it’s existence being disputed, the whole thing might be a hoax. Deliberate forgery should be considered a distinct possibility as well. This Yeti exists, if it does, in at least three different incarnations. Even serious music collector sites, consider the record as one of the most valuable ones in history. This story is about Their Satanic Majesties Request pink silk padded cover version. In writing this, I rely heavily on the work of Jan Richards incredible work on stonesondecca.com. So by all means go and check out that site as well. I also send my kindest regards to Kevin from Australia and who might be the last to have seen the real Yeti when it was still white as snow. Kevin has been incredibly kind with his time and insight in making this article possible and certainly provided the second piece to solve the puzzle. Kevin also runs a great Australian forum called the Rolling Stones Collectors Cave that is a fantastic place to read and discuss anything Rolling Stones.
The mainstream commercial record of “Their Satanic Majesties Request” was released in 1967 after a long and windy road of recording sessions with various members of the band not appearing due to court appearances and jail terms. Bassist Bill Wyman recalls:
"Every day at the studio it was a lottery as to who would turn up and what – if any – positive contribution they would make when they did. Keith would arrive with anything up to ten people, Brian with another half-a-dozen and it was the same for Mick. They were assorted girlfriends and friends. I hated it! Then again, so did Andrew (Oldham) and just gave up on it. There were times when I wish I could have done, too.”
Not only was the recording cumbersome but the design of the album art work was too. 1967 was a time where seemingly every self-respecting artist was a practicing psychonaut and psychedelic, provocative art was considered a must. The stakes for demonstrative enlightenment got higher and higher after the release and immediate recall of the Beatles “Butcher Cover” of Yesterday and Today (link to Beatles) and Sgt. Pepper earlier that year sending a greeting to the Stones in the form of a Shirley Temple Doll wearing a T-shirt that said “Welcome The Rolling Stones Good Guys”. What the Stones needed to launch clearly had to top everything done up to that point.
The final version shows a 3D lenticular image of the Stones in a colorful fairytale type setting surrounded by white and blue clouds.
The 3D image was rather expensive to make so the use of this technology was reduced to a smaller area in the center of the album surrounded by blue and white ornaments. This must have been decided before August 15th, 67 since an early test but several full album sized 3D images were made regardless and pop up at auctions every now and then.
Now comes the Yeti: For a long time there have been rumors that a pink silk padded promo version existed which, if true, would easily be one of the most valuable records of all time as there is said to be just one or two copies. Now this really should be considered a rumor because no official statement by the DECCA record company or the Stones themselves was ever produced that would conclusively authenticate any claim to its existence.
Stonesondecca.com were the first to produce images that were provided by a man named Adriaan Neervoort who worked at or owned a company called wantedmusic.com and is said to be the owner of one of the elusive copies. A letter accompanied the record from the DECCA Copyright department, describing the record in some detail, but alas, making no reference to the silk padding.
There are also some obvious errors in the letter that may of course be easily attributed to the fact that most letters have obvious errors. All of mine do. Here are some clues however, that this may be a fake.
Keith Richards at the time, had temporarily dropped the "s" from his last name; however he was inconsistent about the spelling himself and so were several other business documents.
Some of the tracks on the letter had their order reversed, although this could have been due to a non-defined final order at the time that the letter was written.
The silk padding seems in mint condition, but there are some stains on the 3D image that would most likely also have stained the silk.
The silk padding seems less than perfect in its manufacturing, but this again is no conclusive evidence.
I personally do not think that the letter itself is a fake, but rather that it was never inteded for the record it was later claimed to authenticate. This to me is a strong indicator that this padded sleeve record might be the Yeti. There are two clues about the lack of authenticity of the letter and one additional clue about the lack of authenticity of the silk padded cover:
Clue number one: The record included with the Pink Silk Padded Sleeve is a test pressing that came out later than the one mentioned in the letter used to authenticate the record:
The record itself is a test pressing while the 3D artwork and inner artwork seem to resemble the final production version alluding to the possibility that quality may not be representative of the final product. If this were indeed a promotional copy, then production ready copies were definitely available as the letter itself states as shown below. If anything, this may have been a proof of concept of an artistic proposal. Here comes the real problem with the authenticity of this record, as Jan Richards pointed out to me in correspondence regarding this matter:
"These test pressings where done during the full lifespan of production. First ones done many weeks before actual production begun and then each time they changed pressing plates during normal production. The matrix on the LP inside the silk sleeve has T2 in it. This is clearly a test pressing NOT made in the initial stage of production! The first LP’s did not have the T2 in it."
So this record was produced much later than stated in the letter and there is a definite miss-match.
Clue number two: The letter used to authenticate the letter speaks of a a production record with a blue B3 label while the record included is a test factory pressing.
The accompanying letter speaks of a B3 blue label and catalogue number TXL103 that is consistent of an early mono production recording. The image shown here is a D5 blue label, as no B3 could be found. The accompanying record, however, contained a factory sample with off grove numbers ARL-8126 for side 1 and ARL-8127. This again means that the record included definitely does not match the letter that was said to accompany it, making any additional claim to authenticity questionable at best.
Clue number three: A mock-up was created by someone who had seen what might have been the real thing. The pink padded version has obvious cues to being an imitation of the mock-up.
Beyond inconsistencies of the record with the letter, there is another very compelling argument, that the pink padded sleeve is not a genuine piece of Stones history: Some time before Adriann Nevenvoort, the only other person I could find who has a credible claim to have seen the Yeti is Kevin from Australia who goes by the name of Whiskey on several Stones related forums. But this older Yeti was white as snow, not pink. Now Kevin, who has been very kind and helpful in his ways, and incredibly knowledgeable, not only saw the Yeti, but perhaps caused it to reproduce… Here is the story:
In August 1997, Kevin went to an Australian memorabilia fair and at a rather insignificant auction with perhaps 20 people in attendance, he was offered to bid on a silk padded Satanic Majesties Request. He declined on the offer, this happened to be the day that Lady Diana died and he recalls his wife to have been in some distress over that so they went home instead.
Kevin never quite let go of that opportunity lost, and some time after the turn of the century he produced a mock-up of what he had seen. He confesses to not being a dressmaker, and his first mock-up was somewhat flawed as the padding was square not round.
As Kevin recalls, all of a sudden several additional silk padded covers like the pink one under dispute appeared, all showing the flaws in Kevin´s first mock up that were due to his admitted lack of craftsmanship, and not in representation of what he remembered the silk padded version to look like. Kevin explained to me in private correspondence:
"The squareness of the pink silk surround is exactly the same as my original mockup. I tried the first mockup using some sponge rubber but it was useless to get the rounded approach. It is strange that the pink one appeared only after I produced my mockup"
Now the Yeti was not only sighted, but it was also reproducing rapidly and the myth of a silk padded promo album was cemented even in serious main stream media.
Kevin believes, and I concur, that the original white silk padded sleeve existed and might still exist somewhere. It was never a promotional copy as later claimed, but one of many prototypes that a hyperactive art department produced that felt challenged to try to come up with something more awesome than the already awesome 3D image. At some point someone must have buggered off with those prototypes, including the white padded sleeve, an octagonal card board mock up, an early version showing velvet letters on white and perhaps others. And those pieces are now popping up in rather insignificant auctions or swaps for what they are, curious pieces of stones memorabilia but not valuable authenticated promotional copies reflecting the artistic intention of the group at the tim. Due to the inconsistencies with the label color and the fact that it contains flaws that were clearly copied over from Kevin´s early mock up, the pink padded sleeve was almost certainly not amongst those prototypes. It was fabricated at a later date presumably in intent to deceive and defraud Mr. Nevenwoort.
Now if that isn’t a Yeti of a story, I don’t know what is. Snow cones anyone?
Arved Deecke is founder of the Danish / Mexican Loudspeaker company KVART & BØLGE that makes audiophile quarter wave loudspeakers and sound systems at a price anyone can afford. In his free time he blogs about all things related to sound, music and audio.
