Crowdfunding Campaigns of the Week: Vinyl Reissues from ZZ Top, The Cars, Coltrane

As the summer touring season begins, less bands are in the studio recording new material. This causes a bit of a slowdown on the major crowdfunding sites. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything worth investing in. Just as direct to fan sites like PledgeMusic have become increasingly popular with more established bands who use the “pre-order” function rather than the traditional funding goal, it has also become the go-to place for re-issues. With vinyl being the only growing form of physical media, artists are capitalizing by re-issuing their back catalog on vinyl for the first time in years. For this week’s edition of Crowdfunding Campaigns of the Week, I have three vinyl re-issues from The Cars, ZZ Top, and John Coltrane.

The Cars- Candy-O and Panorama

After The Cars burst onto the music scene in 1978 with their Platinum self-titled debut, they kept the train rolling with Candy-O and Panorama. The albums also continued Ric Ocasek and crew’s explorations into uncharted territory of new wave, blending elements of punk, rockabilly, and Cheap Trick-style power pop. Ocasek oversaw the remastering of the two albums, which are now available for pre-order on both CD and vinyl. In addition to the album’s hits like “Let’s Go” and “Touch and Go”, both albums will also come with a bonus album of unreleased alternate mixes, b-sides, and unreleased album tracks.

ZZ Top- Cinco: The First Five LP

While the ZZ Top most familiar to casual fans is the synth-laden slick production of songs like “Sharp Dressed Man”, for many people, the band’s best material was in their earlier albums. With a rougher production and a more pure Texas blues-rock sound, ZZ Top’s first five albums showed them to be something altogether new in the crowded blues-rock field. Now ZZ Top is re-issuing the first five albums in their collection, ZZ Top’s First Album, Rio Grande Mud, Tres Hombres, Fandango!, and Tejas. The albums are not currently being issued individually and instead are being released as one big box set, styled to look like the nudie suits the band made their trademark. There may not be any multi-Platinum hits like “Legs”, the first five albums contain plenty of fan favorite concert staples like “Just Got Paid”, “Jesus Just Left Chicago”, and “La Grange.”

John Coltrane- Vinyl Mono Reissues

In advance of the upcoming documentary Chasing Trane, Atlantic is releasing five of jazz legend John Coltrane’s albums in mono vinyl. While it’s hard to think of Coltrane as anything but a pioneer, the five albums presented here, Giant Steps, Ole Coltrane, Coltrane Plays the Blues, Trane, and The Avant Garde, were Coltrane’s first attempts to move out of the shadow of being a sideman for Miles Davis and into his role as a bandleader. In addition to these five albums, Atlantic is also releasing a single CD/LP compilation of his best work for the company, called Trane: The Atlantic Collection to serve as an introduction for any new fans lured in by the documentary release.