1969
LAST FLIGHT * RUPIE MARTIN'S ALL STARS * CRAB 34 * UK
For a long time Crab 34, like Crab 43, was thought not to exist, Dalke in his discography volume 9, the Pama labels listings, had them as 'not used' at the time (1987) he went to print. Of course this was before the internet, and collectors, who had advanced pressings, like the one above, were mostly collecting in isolation, so by the time Dalke's discography came out we had no way of knowing this was an unknown (by others) track, though what was still not known was the artist and track titles on the record - I used to refer to this cut as Apollo 10 as that is what is announced in the intro - but nowadays thanks to the sharing / pooling of knowledge on sites like Reggaehitthetown the vital information is now becoming known. The track, a great fast rhythm sax led instrumental, has spasmodic announcements of events relating to the Apollo 10 flight, the fourth manned mission in the Apollo program, which orbited the Moon in the spring of 1969. Last Flight was also released on Torpedo #24 in 1970, which may have something to do with it being withdrawn from Crab, as only white label copies of it exist on that label; though what is interesting with the Crab demo is that it seems like it was pressed as an American/Jamaican style disc with no center! Was this for DJ's only?