Odds and Ends

Limited Edition 5 Song EP

The Drive-By Truckers came into being on June 10, 1996, when Patterson Hood and a group of invited friends recorded five songs at Rock Central in Athens, GA. The band distributed the songs via a small run of homemade cassettes, with Patterson providing the cover art. Here's what it looked like:

Limited Edition 5 Song EP cassette

Bulldozers and Dirt/Nine Bullets 7"

In late May of 1997, the band pressed their first (and only) 7" single. It featured two tracks from the EP, "Bulldozers and Dirt" and "Nine Bullets", as well as Jim Stacy's inimitable cover art (which also graced the band's first two albums). An interesting note concerning the single is that a small initial run of the sleeves was printed on white paper. After this run, the band changed post office boxes and had to change the number listed on the back cover (the earlier run show box number 682, and the rest show box number 667). The remainder of the sleeves were printed on brown paper.

Bulldozers and Dirt 7 in. white front Bulldozers and Dirt 7 in. white back
Bulldozers and Dirt 7 in. brown front Bulldozers and Dirt 7 in. brown back

Pizza Deliverance

There are a couple of artistic variations in the different releases of Pizza Deliverance. The first, and most noticeable, is the color difference between the original 1999 Soul Dump release and the 2005 New West re-release:

Pizza Deliverance 1999 front cover Pizza Deliverance 2005 front cover

The art on the back of the various releases is slightly different, as evidenced by the original Soul Dump, European distribution, and eventual Ghostmeat releases. There's also an oddity on certain versions of the American version. The band released the album on their label, Soul Dump Records, but had a distribution deal with Ghostmeat Records, so the album has two identifying numbers: SDR-03 and GM-027. Some copies have GM-028 printed on the back cover, however. I contacted Russ Hallauer, the founder of Ghostmeat, who was kind enough to let me know that GM-028 was assigned to a David Dondero album, and he had no idea how the number showed up on some copies of Pizza Deliverance. If anybody knows more, please let me know.

Pizza Deliverance Soul Dump back cover Pizza Deliverance import back cover
Pizza Deliverance 1999 back cover Pizza Deliverance reprint back cover
Pizza Deliverance release numbers



Thanks to Matt Rankin of ninebullets.org for providing several of the images on this page.