Yet More Offspring From SOB & The CZYKS!
It fills us with great joy and even greater pride to announce here that SOB & the CZYKS are now three. The offspring goes by the name B ‘n’ B and is entered in the SUISA baptismal register (and on the record sleeve) with the addition When The Boogie Gets The Blues.
Identical twins
Calling it "an" offspring is, admitteldly, slightly misleading. As B ‘n’ B turns out to be identical twins bearing distinctly different imprints, who—simply to make them easier to tell apart—go by the names AB and CD. At birth, the two measured almost exactly 30 cm each (12 inches to be precise); together they weighed in at 280 grams. (This won’t change much over the course of their lives, since long-playing records are known to maintain their size and weight remarkably constant throughout their lifetime.)
A forceps delivery after three years of gestation…
Judging by the dates of the recording sessions, the gestation period of B ‘n’ B lasted between three and five years. Internally, we assume just over three years, as the final session took place in October 2022.
Apparently, SOB & the CZYKS already took their time at conception. They can hardly be blamed for that (nor is it the reason for the long gestation period). Those who saw and heard it agree that the act was great fun for all involved and accompanied by a considerable amount of noise. They recall unbridled joy in playing and experimenting, as well as a desire for variety—at times even in front of a live audience at the scene of the action.
No—SOB & the CZYKS are not to blame; responsibility for the unusually long gestation period of over three years, even by record standards, lies squarely with us. Or rather, with our perfectionism.
…or perhaps a three-year forceps delivery after all?
Perhaps it would be more accurate not to regard the three years between the completion of the recordings and the release of B ‘n’ B as a pregnancy, but rather as a very long-drawn-out birth involving all kinds of complications—and to emphasize that in the end, the offspring meets not only the parents’ expectations, but also the producer’s standards.
All’s well that ends well?
To support this thesis, we summarize the key data of SG-003. Involved were:
one recording studio, two recording rooms, and three recording sessions between 2020 and 2022
two mastering studios (one in Switzerland and one in Germany)
two pressing plants (one in Switzerland and one in Germany)
four complete sets of lacquer foils (8 foils per set—2 per LP side—making a total of 32 individual lacquer cuts, all cut individually and in real time)
three plating facilities (two in Germany, one in the Netherlands)
four test pressings
two print runs (each consisting of 550 gatefold covers, two inserts, and blue and white record labels for official and white-label promo pressings), one of which was scrapped
You can learn more about the turbulent history of B ‘n’ B from the sleeve text, which you can read here without any obligation to buy.
No child trafficking
Please don’t hold it against us (but rather take advantage of it) that we are offering the 500 identical B ’n’ B twins for sale online so shortly after birth. This is by no means child trafficking; it is simply in the nature of things—or rather, in the nature of a record label. Nothing illustrates this better than the following bon mot:
“How do you make a small fortune with records? Simple: you start with a large one and found a record label.”
And if you haven’t read the sleeve text yet, we’ll give away the final punchline here anyway. It goes like this:
Good things take time.
Here you can find out more about SG-003, aka B ‘n’ B – When The Boogie Gets The Blues.