What Is This Tape?

[OPBASSMAN1994]

So I got, as a kind of collectible, an old tape of 2112 by Rush for Christmas. I popped it in 2 players, and in both, it played too fast.
Now this could be due to the players. One is my little brother's that has half blown out speakers and an occassionally malfunctioning "play" button. The other is a FM radio/Tape player combo that has sat in the garage to keep my dogs from feeling lonely for the past 2-3 years through all sorts of weather and such. The "eject" button is broken on that one.


However, this tape's sticker says "Recorded by 'UFO' Record" on it. The case art has an obviously cropped photo from the inside of the LP cover (the one where they are in Kimonos) sitting over the album cover, which is all cropped onto a white backround with "RUSH 2112" written over the image.

So I guess my real question is: has anyone heard of UFO records? Was it commonplace for record companies to use their own cropped covers for tapes that they release? Did record companies that a band was not signed to release copies of their albums? I'm wondering if this tape is rare in any way, or maybe a pirated copy, because I've never seen one that looks just like it... It'd be really cool if I got something relatively rare or so. even if not, I'm very happy with this thing. just to think of all the years its seen and all the plays it's gotten....


I can't wait to try to play it in my car.

so yeah. any info would be appreciated.

[OPBASSMAN1994]

anybody?

[OPBASSMAN1994]

anyone....anyone...?

[bolophonic]

Sounds bootleggy.

[OPBASSMAN1994]

You may be right.

[OPBASSMAN1994]

although I usually regard copies of commercially available stuff as pirated, and live, unreleased material as bootlegs.

[OPBASSMAN1994]

New piece of the puzzle. I popped in the car and it played perfectly. However, the guitar solo in "Presentation", the death of the hero in "Soliloquy", and the 2nd half of "Grand Finale" are all faded out (professional-sounding fades, too)...which makes me think that someone edited the tape to either fit it on the tape, or to take out parts that they deemed unnecessary. My conclusion is that it's highly likely to be bootlegged/pirated, which actually kind of makes it a bit cooler to me! I've got a rare, maybe one of a kind copy of 2112....haha. funny.

[ilovenofrets]

Big Rush fanatic here. Sounds like a pirate to me, but cool nonetheless. On a related note, I was fortunate enough to pick up a Korean vinyl pressing of 2112, on Mercury, totaly legit pressing. What's interesting is to see what was(or wasn't) allowed to be printed as artwork, especially in those days. The red star is completely airbrushed out of the front cover. Kinda like how the old German pressings of KISS albums weren't printed with the 'lightning bolt' S's(they felt those S's looked too much like the SS troop logo). Cool historical stuff.