Vinyl:  NM- Play Graded. Plays Like New!  Asylum Labels are Clean and Bright.  This is the 1978 Asylum 7E-1048 1ST PRESSING!  NO BARCODE!!!  This is the audiophile acclaimed pressing, Pressed by Columbia's Santa Maria, CA Pressing Plant!!  Emblematic '70s Tom Waits:  full of booze and broads and beat poetry backed up by a crack jazz combo. The stuff that his legend was built on, here in all its glory.  "The Piano Has Been Drinking" says it all!!  allmusic gives it 4 1/2 stars!!

See Review Below!
In the Dead Wax:  Side 1:  7E1078  A-1  CSM ((Pressed at Columbia's Santa Maria, CA Pressing Plant))  ESRTD 81176  ((Date of Mastering of Side 1))
Side 2:  7E1078  B-1 -Re CSM ((Pressed at Columbia's Santa Maria, CA Pressing Plant))  ESRTD 9-17-76  ((Date of Mastering of Side 2)) 2 S

Cover:  VG+  (see photos)  Includes the photo/credits/lyric Inner Sleeve.  NO BARCODE!  Look for the photo of Jack Kerouac in the framed photograph (he had recently passed away the same year the album was released, 1976).  Plus, that's Cassandra Peterson, vamping the classic jaded faded starlet hustler exotic dancer pose.  This was 5 years before she bust-ed out as femme-fatale frightwoman par excellence, Elvira.  Nice high gloss on cover. Front and back of cover artwork and text are rich and clear, with some ring wear.  The seams, corners and spine are solid and clean, with some wear.  No splits.  No writing.  Spine print is crystal clear.

Goldmine Standards.   I play grade every record that I sell on eBay as I have found you can't rate an LP accurately by just visually inspecting an album.  I wipe the dust off of every cover with clean, unscented baby wipes.  I professionally clean the vinyl.  (I also operate a Vinyl Record Cleaning business for your dusty/dirty records--if interested, send me a message).

U.S. Shipping:  $4.99 Media Mail.  Tracking included.   50 cents additional shipping per additional item, when the shipment is combined.   If you wish to take advantage of my COMBINED SHIPPING deal, simply select your items by clicking on "ADD TO CART" on the main listing page.  Do this for all of your selections and then go to your cart to checkout. Your combined shipping discount will be computed automatically.  Free domestic shipping if you spend $100 or more!
All records are packaged securely with the vinyl outside the jacket (to avoid seam split in transit). The vinyl and jacket are sandwiched between two cardboard stiffeners and shipped in a custom cardboard record mailer box. 
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Why buy a first or early pressing and not a re-issue or a ‘re-mastered’ vinyl album? 
First and early pressings are pressed from the first generation lacquers and stampers. They usually sound vastly superior to later issues/re-issues (which, in recent times, are often pressed from whatever 'best' tapes or digital sources are currently available) - many so-called 'audiophile' new 180g pressings are cut from hi-res digital sources…essentially an expensive CD pressed on vinyl.  Why  experience the worse elements of both formats?  These are just High Maintenance CDs, with mid-ranges so cloaked with a veil as to sound smeared.  They are nearly always compressed with murky transients and a general lifelessness in the overall sound.  There are exceptions where re-masters/re-presses outshine the original issues, but they are exceptions and not the norm.  First or early pressings nearly always have more immediacy, presence and dynamics. The sound staging is wider.  Subtle instrument nuances are better placed with more spacious textures. Balances are firmer in the bottom end with a far-tighter bass. Upper-mid ranges shine without harshness, and the overall depth is more immersive.  Inner details are  clearer.   On first and early pressings, the music tends to sound more ‘alive’ and vibrant.  The physics of sound energy is hard to clarify and write about from a listening perspective, but the best we can describe it is to say that you can 'hear' what the mixing and mastering engineers wanted you to hear when they first recorded the music. 
Small Change Review

by William Ruhlmann

The fourth release in ' series of skid row travelogues, proves to be the archetypal album of his '70s work. A jazz trio comprising tenor sax player , bassist , and drummer , plus an occasional string section, back and his piano on songs steeped in whiskey and atmosphere in which he alternately sings in his broken-beaned drunk's voice (now deeper and overtly influenced by ) and recites jazzy poetry. It's as if were determined to combine the Humphrey Bogart and Dooley Wilson characters from Casablanca with a dash of On the Road's Dean Moriarty to illuminate a dark world of bars and all-night diners. Of course, he'd been in that world before, but in songs like "The Piano Has Been Drinking" and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart," gives it its clearest expression. isn't his best album. Like most of the albums made in the '70s, it's uneven, probably because he was putting out one a year and didn't have time to come up with enough first-rate material. But it is the most obvious and characteristic of his albums for Asylum Records. If you like it, you also will like the ones before and after; otherwise, you're not ' kind of listener.