Syd Barrett and the Pink Floyd Sound - 1967

I've been distracted with other things in these crazy times we're in so I have been leaning on others in the community for ideas. This one came from a fellow member of an private alt-music history forum who simply asked me to do "something with Syd Barrett".

1967 saw the debut album by Syd Barrett. Supported by his backing band of Nick Mason, Richard Wright and Roger Waters, known as The Pink Floyd Sound, it contained 13 songs that could only have come from the mind of Syd.

This would be Syd's only album for three years though his backing band would push on releasing a three song EP recorded during the same sessions with Syd contributing guitar and a full LP the following year kicking off a career that would span several decades.

Syd's mental state would quickly deteriorate most likely due to his heavy consumption of psychedelics. The two parties split amicably in 1968 during the recording of the band's first full length album (now known simply as Pink Floyd). Syd did his best at helping his friends out appearing on several tracks but in the end they recruited an old classmate of Syd's, David Gilmour, to take over the guitar chores. That line up would last for most of that band's history.

Syd's relationship with his backing band was a strained affair to begin with. Even though they shared a flat and behaved as a single unit, it was always clear that Syd was the star and the others were support. When they split Syd was left without a band. It took the Floyd a few albums to find their own voice but when they finally broke through they became a mainstay of rock radio and the touring circuit for the remainder of their career.

Syd took a couple years off to rest and recover before returning to the studio releasing two albums in 1970 but the drugs again took their toll and Syd once more faded into the background preferring to hang out with fellow underground musicians Pretty Things drummer Twink, Deviants frontman Mick Farren and Steve Took from Tyrannosaurus Rex. His brief career left a lasting impression and influenced many younger artists.

Tracklist

Side One
01 Astronomy Domine
02 Lucifer Sam
03 Apples And Oranges
04 The Gnome
05 Flaming
06 Scarecrow
07 See Emily Play

Side Two
01 Scream Thy Last Scream
02 Chapter 24
03 Bike
04 Matilda Mother
05 Vegetable Man
06 Jugband Blues

Bonus Non-LP Single
Arnold Layne
Candy And A Currant Bun

Reality Notes

There are plenty of alternate Pink Floyd histories and discographies floating around the internet. Most follow the premise of Syd staying with the band for a few more albums. While I always find them a good read, the compilations never really satisfy me. I love Syd and went through a heavy obsession for a brief time but always saw Syd and Floyd as separate entities despite their entwined history together. This comp is my way of further defining that separation.

For this album I took the first Floyd album and removed the two band written instrumentals Pow R. Toc H. and Intersteller Overdrive and the Waters penned Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk and replaced them with outtakes and singles. The three songs I removed become the EP released by Floyd at around the same time as this album. Yea, this is still Pink Floyd but it is a much different Floyd than that which they would evolve into once Syd was out and Gilmour was in. The "Floyd as backing band" makes much more sense to me.

I used all mono sources and included the Arnold Layne single and B side as bonus tracks. There are a couple of songs here where Syd is not the lead singer or he is the co-lead singer (Matilda Mother, Scream Thy Last Scream). I kept those anyway because he wrote them. Let's just say he is using artistic expression by having someone else sing to achieve a different sound than what he would have done or think of it as giving his backing band a chance to shine a bit.

For the cover I took a black and white photo of Syd and added liquid projection art over the top and added the text. I kept the original title. Most debut albums are self titled but Syd must have been attached to that phrase to name the album that. The title comes from chapter seven of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

The Beatles - Alt-Debut

On the first of January 1962, The Beatles auditioned for Decca Records. During that audition they recorded 15 songs specially selected by their manager Brian Epstein, three of those songs were originals. Decca chose 12 of those songs and licensed two songs the band recorded in Germany during sessions with singer Tony Sheridan.

The record made a few ripples but in the end Decca felt the band had no future and let them go. After changing drummers they were picked up by Parlophone/EMI. Paired with producer George Martin the group skyrocketed up the charts and went on to record 12 more classic albums and numerous singles that dominated the charts and pioneering many now standard recording techniques along the way.

Side One
01 To Know Her Is To Love Her
02 Sure To Fall
03 Like Dreamers Do
04 Besame Mucho
05 Three Cool Cats
06 Hello Little Girl
07 September In The Rain

Side Two
01 Cry For A Shadow
02 Searchin'
03 Take Good Care Of My Baby
04 Crying Waiting Hoping
05 Love Of The Loved
06 The Sheik Of Araby
07 Ain't She Sweet

Reality Notes

So what if Decca had signed The Beatles? Would they have made as many albums? Would they have had the same success and creative output they had working with George Martin? Ultimately Decca turned the band down and Epstein used the tape to shop the band around to other labels. It was common practice at that time for new artists to release a few singles before making an LP so I'm sure some of these songs would have ended up released that way.

I removed three songs from the original 15. Two, Till There Was You and Money, because they appeared on the Parlophone debut and Memphis because I put a better version on the BBC album. Now these songs can sit alongside the rest of the albums with no duplication. I had to fold down the two songs from the Tony Sheridan sessions to mono to sit nicely with the rest of the tracks.

When I was sequencing the album I kept the idea in the back of my mind that Decca was trying to make the band fit in with the balladeers and crooners of the day by putting focus on the lighter and humorous songs. Another reason for removing Money and Memphis from the running.

The cover features an early promo pic with Pete Best, the drummer that would be replaced by Ringo when they made their jump to EMI.

The Byrds - Jet Set

In 1965 The Byrds released their debut album on Columbia Records but most of us know that that was not the start of their recording career. There are enough tracks that predate the first album to fill several discs. Most of those were gathered on the ever expanding Preflyte album. But what if they released an album in 1964? This is my take on what that alt-debut album might have contained.

I've seen many alternative Byrds albums lately and this is me throwing my hat in the ring so to speak.

Side One
01 You Showed Me
02 Tomorrow Is A Long Ways Away
03 The Reason Why
04 The Airport Song
05 For Me Again
06 Boston

Side Two
01 It's No Use
02 Don't Be Long
03 Please Let Me Love You
04 The Only Girl I Adore
05 She Has A Way
06 You Movin'

Reality Notes

My goal on this one was to focus on only those songs that were recorded by the band. No demos, no solo recordings, no alternate versions or songs that appeared again later. All in glorious mono. Just The Byrds even if they weren't called that yet. I threw this together rather quickly with just a little research so forgive me if I misidentified a song or two but I'm confident and happy with my choices.

I must confess to not being that big of a fan of the band. I prefer Sweetheart of the Rodeo over the earlier albums. They've always been a bit hit and miss for me, some great songs and some meh. I was more into Buffalo Springfield I guess.

While I was compiling this I had the realization that many markets and genres had a "good boy" vs "bad boy" imaginary feuds. In England it was The Beatles vs The Stones, here we had The Byrds vs The Buffalo Springfield. Even the crooners back in the day had Bing vs Sinatra. Of course those feuds were all for publicity and did not reflect reality.

The cover image is an early promo pic. I named the album after their previous incarnation seeing as many of these were recorded while still performing under that name.

Grateful Dead - Alt Debut -1966

[I was just putting the finishing touches on this when Paul at Albums That Should Exist posted three albums of '65-'66 Dead. So if you want more check him out.]

I thought I was done with The Dead but I discovered this album hiding in plain sight. The Grateful Dead released their major label debut in 1967 but that was not the beginning of their recording career.

The 2001 box set  The Golden Road (1965–1973) contained two bonus discs titled The Birth Of The Dead that was later released separately as a two disc set. One disc contained studio tracks and the other contained live tracks Both from 1965-66 before they recorded their Warner Brothers label debut.

Between those two discs and a couple stray tracks from other sources, I was able to put together what could have been the first Grateful Dead album, released on Scorpio Records who released their first single before signing to WB.

Side One
01 Alice D Millionaire 5
02 Mindbender (Confusion's Prince) 1
03 I Know You Rider 1
04 Early Morning Rain 1
05 Can't Come Down 1
06 Pain in My Heart 4

Side Two
01 You See a Broken Heart 3
02 On The Road Again 4
03 Tastebud 2
04 The Only Time Is Now 1
05 You Don't Have to Ask 2
06 Standing On the Corner 4

Single
A. Don't Ease Me In 2
B. Stealin' 2

Reality Notes

I love archival releases but they seldom lend themselves to repeated listens due to their focus on preserving every meaningful scrap they can find. The Birth Of The Dead is no exception. While disc two can see some regular listens, disc one suffers from the unfortunate side effect of the archival process. What we have on that disc includes multiple versions of many of the songs including instrumental versions. While that's great for research and gaining new insights into your favorite bands, with each listen the skip button is pressed more often.

But sometimes, after a few listens, a group of songs coalesce into an entity of its own. And it is that scenario that is one of the many reasons for what we do here. This is an effort to rescue songs that deserve to sit within the official cannon that otherwise would be buried and possibly forgotten among some less polished gems.

The bulk of these recordings come from two sets of studio sessions. The first was in late '65 for Autumn Records and the second in late spring of '66 for Scorpio Records. Two songs from the Scorpio sessions, Don't Ease Me In and Stealin', were released locally as a single which I have included as bonus tracks. The rest of the album is filled out with live tracks (it wouldn't be the last time). Many of these songs continued to be setlist regulars for the remainder of the band's career.

The one anomaly (there's always one, isn't there) is the opening track, Alice D Millionaire. This recording comes from the sessions that gave us the Warner Brothers debut although notes say it was played live in '66 which makes it fair game to use. I added it for a few reasons. Mostly because it is an original song and fit in stylistically and I didn't want it to get lost in bonus track limbo.

I struggled with a title for the album before giving up and leaving it untitled. They later named two other albums the same name, one was their WB debut and the other was a live album that is more commonly referred to as Skull and Roses so why not add to the confusion? Maybe the fans would have given it a nickname to set it apart. Think of it as a false start. The cover uses elements from a tour poster, an old promo pic and some clipart roses.

1 Autumn Records sessions November 3, 1965 at Golden Gate Recorders in San Francisco
note: tape box lists artist as: The Emergency Crew; a short-lived name the band used immediately prior to "Grateful Dead"
2 Scorpio Records sessions June 1966 at Buena Vista Studio in San Francisco, and Western Recording in San Francisco
note: Don't Ease Me In and Stealin', were previously issued locally (in limited quantity), in July 1966, as the Grateful Dead's first single (Scorpio Records #201), with Don't Ease Me In on the A-side. Included here is the "dry mix" - the single was mastered with added reverb. I Know You Rider was also recorded during these sessions.
3 Studio recording, early 1966 (from Rare Cuts and Oddities 1966)
4 Live tracks recorded in 1966 at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, On The Road Again is from Los Angeles, California
5 Outtake from the WB Grateful Dead sessions 1967. A version of Tastebud was also recorded during these sessions.

Guns N' Roses - Gn'R - 1986

With the release of Guns N' Roses debut album Appetite for Destruction We saw the decline of Hair Metal and the brief rise of Sleaze Rock and a brief two year period when hard rock was stripped of the glam and returned to its roots. In 1989 that all collapsed with the emergence of Grunge and the Seattle invasion.

Before the release of Appetite, Gn'R released a four song EP made up of two original songs and two covers with crowd noise dubbed in to make it sound like a live recording. Released on a vanity label backed by Geffen Records to maintain interest in the band while they recorded their debut album.

But could they have released a full independent first album?

Side One
01 Shadow Of Your Love
02 Nice Boys
03 Don't Cry
04 New Work Tune
05 Move To The City

Side Two
01 Reckless Life
02 Mama Kin
03 Back Off Bitch
04 Ain't Goin' Down No More
05 The Plague

Reality Notes

Another installment of my alternate debut album series. Gn'R's record label Geffen spent two years polishing the band and songs for Appetite. During this time they recorded a lot of demos. Four of these songs were released on Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide, the EP mentioned above. With the recent release of the Super Deluxe Edition of Appetite we have three discs of outtakes from those two years of development. I had most of these on a cassette bootleg back in the late 80s. While most of those outtakes are alternate versions of album tracks there is a small handful of unused songs alongside those songs used for the EP but without the crowd noise of the faux live EP.

So, are there enough songs to flesh out the EP to album length? Almost. And how does this affect Lies? I'll address that in a moment. I ended up with a ten song LP of mixed quality songs. Fortunately most of those songs are pretty darn good. Unfortunately, two of those, New Work Tune and Ain't Goin' Down No More are instrumentals. Another song, The Plague, is only 47 seconds long and all together the LP clocks in at 33 minutes and 16 seconds. Not exactly a full album which is probably why they released an EP instead of a LP.

Because this is an independent release we have some leeway in quality control. If I took out the instrumentals the album becomes barley 26 minutes long so I had to keep them in. I buried one on each side of the album and removed the gaps between the songs before and after to make them feel a part of them so they don't stand out. I also took a few of the spoken intros from a few songs and attached them to other songs. Overall the flow is pretty good.

The four songs from the EP but without the crowd noise comes from a bootleg. I preferred the sound of the tracks from there, the versions on the deluxe discs sounded a bit too polished. The last song to address is Back Off Bitch. While it sounds like a fun song to play in the clubs, its quality is questionable, obviously an off the cuff throw away type song. But hey, this is an indy release so it works here in a way.

There are two more songs I could have used in place of the instrumentals but they are crappy obvious covers of Heartbreak Hotel and Jumping Jack Flash. As much as I would have liked to remove the instrumentals, I also wanted to avoid an album that is almost half covers. If they were better song choices I might have included them but how many versions of Heartbreak Hotel do we need? I could have also used versions of Knocking on Heaven's Door and Whole Lotta Rosie but I would have had to resort to live versions which I didn't want to do and again, too many covers.

For the cover I utilized the logo found on the EP against a black background. Now what can we do about Lies?

There are a few acoustic tracks we can use to expand side two of Lies to a 30 minute mini LP. there are two versions of November Rain, a 9 minute piano version and a 5 minute acoustic version. I went with the acoustic version. Move to the City comes from 1988 and was most likely in the running to be included on Lies. An acoustic run though of Jumping Jack Flash rounds it all out.

Lies
01 One In A Million
02 November Rain
03 You're Crazy
04 Patience
05 Used To Love Her
06 Jumpin' Jack Flash
07 Move To The City

The last change in future albums is I see no need to include two versions of Don't Cry on Use Your Illusions. We can drop the "Original Lyrics" version. November Rain can stay, this version is different enough for both to exist.

Sources
Appetite For Destruction (Super Deluxe Edition)
Lies
Suicide Demos '86 (Bootleg)

Bruce Springsteen - Bruce Springsteen - 1972

In 1973 Bruce Springsteen released his debut album Greetings From Asbury Park. Anybody more than just a casual fan who has explored the world of Springsteen bootlegs are aware that his career did not start in 1973. Bruce is one of those rare artists that has always made a living as a professional musician. His early bands; The Castiles, Steel Mill and The Bruce Springsteen Band played regularly with each band expanding the range of how far they would travel to perform.

It was between the break up of The Bruce Springsteen Band and the formation of The E Street Band that Bruce hired new management to help take his career to the next level. In 1972 his management arranged for a series of recording dates. Most of these sessions were for the purpose of recording what are called publishing demos. One session was an audition for John Hammond of Columbia Records who wanted to sign him right on the spot.

These sessions produced more than 70 songs according to some sources with half of those songs circulating on bootlegs and a small handful officially released on box sets and other compilations. The majority of these tracks are solo recordings of just Bruce and a guitar or piano. John Hammond wanted Bruce to continue in this style but Bruce had other ideas and soon The E Street Band was born.

But what if Bruce had released a solo record before Greetings From Asbury Park? What would it have sounded like? Well wonder no more as I present the latest installment in my Debut Albums That Never Happened series, Bruce Springsteen circa 1972.

Side One
01 Two Hearts In True Waltz Time
02 Jesse
03 Arabian Night
04 Jazz Musician
05 Family Song

Side Two
06 Hollywood Kids
07 Randolph Street (Master Of Electricity)
08 Lady and the Doctor
09 If I Was The Priest
10 Prodigal Son

Reality Notes

It took me a while to warm up to Bruce. I owned and enjoyed the Nebraska album but not much else. It took the Live '75-'85 box to open me up to his other stuff. Since then I dove deep into his catalog only to come up for air occasionally. I first heard these recordings on a pair of bootlegs, Before The Fame and The Early Years. Each was a two disc set with a large overlap of titles but each containing a few unique songs. Between them they held 36 songs from this period.

To create this alternate debut album I listened to each song and slowly removed songs until I had a good solid single LP. I first removed any song that was later recorded for the first two albums. I then took out any song that featured a full band. This still left me with enough songs for a halfway decent double album but how many labels would be willing to take the risk of releasing a debut double album? Not Me so I continued removing songs until I was satisfied I had only the cream of the crop.

With the exception of the first song which has a bass guitar behind the guitar all other songs are just Bruce and one instrument. Two songs, Jazz Musician and If I Was The Priest, feature the piano. The rest are guitar songs but a few use a 12 string, some use a steel six string and at least one sounds like a classical nylon stringed guitar so we have a variety of sounds and styles.

The fidelity of these songs were pretty good to begin with so very little was needed as far as mastering was concerned. I did brighten things up slightly but my main task was in sequencing and making sure that there was enough variety to keep the album from being boring and same sounding which is what keeps me from listening to the original discs straight through.

There are enough tracks leftover for a decent follow up if I allow songs with more instruments but it would take a suspension of belief to allow an artist to release three albums in such a short time span. This album would have to be released in July '72 at the earliest to allow all songs to be used. Asbury Park was released in January '73 and the follow up was released in September '73. Both of those albums would have to be pushed back to make room for a follow up to this album. As prolific as Bruce can be record labels usually like to give the audience some time to digest one album before releasing another.

I'm really happy with how the cover turned out. I managed to simulate a cutout that exposes a picture of Bruce on the inner sleeve of the album. You can imagine pulling out the sleeve and reading the liner notes and lyrics. I cannot say for certain that the picture is of the right vintage but Bruce's image did not change much from '72 to '75 and this picture has that brooding singer/songwriter/Dylan vibe that I imagine he was going for at the time.

Sources
Before The Fame
The Early Years

Mudcrutch - Long Way From Home - 1975

In 1974 Tom Petty and his band Mudcrutch (Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Randall Marsh and Danny Roberts) headed west in search of a record contract. On a scouting mission to L.A. they managed to gain interest from several labels. They headed back to their Gainsville Florida home base with a verbal agreement to sign with London Records. Before they could return and seal the deal they received a call from Denny Cordell of Shelter Records. Cordell managed to convince the band to stop off at one of his studios in Tulsa Oklahoma to do some test recording and hopefully convince them to sign to his label.

Things went well in Tulsa and Mudcrutch became Shelter Records recording artists. Denny Cordell bankrolled the groups last leg of their journey into Los Angeles and set them up with places to stay and recording began. Cordell felt that they needed some time to acclimate themselves to the studio and sent them back to Tulsa with an engineer and all the time they needed to learn this new aspect of their craft.

Mudcrutch eventually recorded enough material for an album and some stand alone singles. After losing their rhythm guitarist they replaced him with a bassist and Tom moved to guitar but when the new guy insisted they record one of his songs Tom had enough and Mudcrutch was no more. This album and a few scattered singles are all we have left.

Side One
01 Depot Street
02 Up In Mississippi
03 Long Way From Home
04 Cause is Understood
05 Makin' Some Noise
06 I Can't Fight It

Side Two
01 On The Street
02 Once Upon a Time Somewhere
03 Don't It Get Weird
05 Since You Said You Loved Me
06 Wild Eyes
06 Country Girls Run Dry

Bonus Tracks
Don't Do Me Like That
Cry To Me

Reality Notes

Another project in my debut albums that never happened series. This is an album I have been wanting to put together for a long time. Unfortunately most of this material still has not seen any official release. Tom Petty is one of the most consistant songwriters out there. From the earliest songs and recordings to his last Tom proved himself a craftsman and A class musician time and time again. As the cliche goes, the average songwriter would kill to write even one song as good as one of Tom's mediocre songs.

When Mudcrutch broke up Mike Campbell stayed with Tom to work on Tom's solo album. Benmont Tench fell in with some other Gainsvile exiles to record some demos. When Tom and Mike paid a visit to one of Ben's sessions Tom liked what he heard and convinced them to be his band. Why not, Tom had a contract and was growing dissatisfied with the way his solo album was coming along. Tom liked being in a band and the Heartbreakers were born.

The sources for these tracks vary from official releases on the Playback box set to dodgy sounding bootlegs so making these songs sound like a cohesive whole presented a challenge. The official releases suffer from the "loudness wars" and have very little dynamic range and the bootleg material lacks fidelity. I had to make some compromises to make it work. Let's call this an interim version until we can do an upgrade.

Once Upon a Time Somewhere was the worst offender. As if the fidelity weren't bad enough the track shifts from stereo to mono in a few spots. I didn't want to lose the song so to mask this I tried folding the whole project down to mono. The results were OK but not great. So I folded only Once Upon a Time down to mono. The transition from stereo to mono back to stereo was not as awkward as I thought it would be so I kept it that way. I did my best to volume match and EQ where needed but my mastering skills still need work and the material fought me the whole way.

There are several songs here that would later turn up as Heartbreakers songs. Long Way From Home was according to some sources rerecorded in 1977 but not released. The two bonus tracks (Hey! I have bonus tracks!) include Don't Do Me Like which was later recorded for the Damn The Torpedoes album and Cry To Me, a cover song that appeared on the No Nukes charity album. Hometown Blues which appears on the first Heartbeakers album also comes from this time and is actually a Mudcrutch song. I could have included that but I didn't wan't to mess up that album.

The cover; while there are a lot of great photos of the band when it was a four piece with Tom Leadon I have only seen one picture of the band as it was before they broke up in L.A. (and that picture is not that great) and none of the band as they were when they arrived in Los Angeles. So I went with a crowd shot of the audience that showed up at Mudcrutch Farm for one of the three Mudcrutch festivals.

Sources
Playback
Mudcructh and Solo Petty Outtakes (Bootleg)
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased 1971-1977 (Bootleg)

John's Children - In The Perfumed Garden - 1967

It looks like Debbie was not as popular as I hoped, that seems to be her fate unfortunately. If you skipped that post you are missing out on a fine performance. Anyway, here is something a little more "hip".

John's Children were active for only two tears. During that short time they had several line up changes, released or nearly released three albums and numerous singles. In The Perfumed Garden could have been their third and final album and the only album to feature future glam pioneer Marc Bolan. Marc was only in the band for a fiery brief four months but during that time the band managed to record several singles and one album's worth of songs and was thrown off a tour for upstaging the headliners The Who who complained they were too loud and violent. Known as much for their outrageous stage performances as they were for their loud and raw musical style they foreshadowed both glam and punk long before either one was realized.

Marc Bolan was installed in the band by manager Simon Napier-Bell as a Pete Townsend type in-house writer and brooding intellectual figure. At the time Marc was a struggling unknown who modeled himself as a Dylan type folkie artist who had released several unsuccessful singles, the first under the name Toby Tyler before settling on the name Marc Bolan but he would not develop his distinctive vocal style until just before joining John's Children.

After leaving the band Marc would go on to form the underground hippie folk duo Tyrannosaurus Rex that would morph into T.Rex where Marc would hit it big everywhere but the United States. After replacing Marc John's Children continued on briefly before breaking up. Ellison and Townson would go on to form Jet and then Radio Stars during the punk/new wave era of the late 70s.

Side One
01 Desdemona (Bolan)
02 Come & Play With Me In The Garden (Ellison/Hewlett)
03 Sally Was an Angel (Bolan)
04 Perfumed Garden Of Gulliver Smith (Bolan)
05 Hippy Gumbo (Bolan)
06 Mustang Ford (Bolan)

Side Two
01 Midsummer Night's Scene (Bolan)
02 Dan The Sniff (The Lilac Hand Of Menthol Dan) (Bolan)
03 Remember Thomas A'Becket (Ellison/Hewlett)
04 Sarah Crazy Child (Bolan)
05 Jagged Time Lapse (Hewlett/McClelland)
06 Hot Rod Mama (Bolan)

Andy Ellison: vocals
Marc Bolan: guitar
John Hewlett: bass guitar
Chris Townson: drums/guitar

Reality Notes

This is the next installment in my debut albums that never happened series. While this would have been John's Children's second or third album (with such a jumbled discography of reissues and compilations it's hard to be sure what's what) it would have been Marc's LP debut. Up to this point Marc had released two solo singles and two singles with the band. There was one solo single that was not released and one John's Children single that made it no further than the acetate stage, coincidentally they were the same song, Hippy Gumbo.

I discovered Marc Bolan and T.Rex in 1977 when I was 14. Here in the states Marc was not as popular as he was overseas. In his home country of England he was the next Beatles causing the equivalent of Beatlemania that was labeled TRexstasy. It took me a year to hear of his passing. He was killed in an auto accident in 1977, the same year we lost Elvis and Bing Crosby.

I was Rex obsessed and purchased everything I could find. Not everything was easy to find. It took until the CD era before I was able to find the Zinc Alloy and Zip Gun albums though I did have the bastardized American release Light of Love. While I had all the Tyrannosaurus Rex albums (Unicorn is still one of the most gorgeously recorded albums in my opinion) Marc's prehistory was mostly unknown to me. It took a trip out of the mid-west to Los Angeles where things were hipper where I came across a pile of CDs in a used music/comic book store that filled a lot of holes in my collection as well as not one but two books on Marc. I finally was able to learn the whole story. Still the only John's Children tracks I owned were the clean version of Desdemona and the half of the vocal version of Sally Was An Angel on the Beginning of Doves LP.

Once the internet happened and I found all of the nice people who share rare bootlegs and unreleased/out of print music I was able to finally fill my John's Children void. There was a lot to download but unfortunately it just confused things even more. Between six collections I had at least two copies of everything and several different versions of many of the songs. All of these songs covered the band's entire time of activity which meant that not everything was Marc related. I wanted to sort all of this out once an for all and see if it was possible to construct an album's worth of material that featured Marc's time with the band.

So, armed with a few meager resources that included the band's own website I loaded everything I had into my sequencer and chopped away. I compared multiple versions of each song choosing those I felt had the energy and best quality. Then I eliminated any song not from Marc's tenure. From the final song pool I ended up with twelve songs that I felt made a cohesive whole. I shuffled, rearranged and edited until I was happy. While not a long album. clocking in at just over 32 minutes, it does finally present what could have been a great album had the band been given a bit more time to mature.

Track by Track

Desdemona - The A side to the band's third single and their first to feature Marc there are two versions of the song. The original which appears here and a cleaned up version. The original version was banned by the BBC due to the lyric "lift up your skirt and fly". A new vocal was recorded replacing the line with "why do you have to lie". For our purposes we will call these the album version and the single version.

Come And Play With Me In The Garden - This song was released as a single. It uses the same backing track as the song Remember Thomas à Beckett with only slightly different lyrics and some additional overdubs. That backing track without vocals circulates as well.

Sally Was An Angel - This song exists in two different mixes. One with vocals and one without. Unfortunately only half of the vocal version circulates and that is tacked on to the end of Marc's solo demo version that is found on the Beginning of Doves LP. What I've done here is to edit the two versions into one by taking the first half of the instrumental mix and edited what we have of the vocal version (after removing the solo demo) onto the end to create one full version.

Perfumed Garden Of Gulliver Smith - This is the first of several songs that exist only as performances from the BBC. While a non-vocal mix of a studio version circulates of this and a few other songs I tried to avoid using them as my goal here was to present as complete as an album as I could.

Hippy Gumbo - An earlier recording of this song by Marc was intended to be his third solo single. That single was never released. John's children rerecorded the song with Marc on lead vocal. Again this was intended to be Marc's third single with the band but it never made it passed the acetate stage. Luckily the band passed out copies to various DJs in advance of it's anticipated release.

Mustang Ford - One of two songs here that Marc would later rerecord for the debut LP by Tyrannosaurus Rex. This John's Children version was later reused after Marc's departure with new lyrics (not by Marc) titled Go Go Girl.

Midsummer Night's Scene - This was intended to be the band's second single with Marc and fourth single overall but never made it passed the pressing of 20-40 or more (no one is quite sure how many) test copies which the band distributed at their shows. The test copies have become prized collector's items with one copy selling for an astounding £3,700.

Dan The Sniff (The Lilac Hand Of Menthol Dan) - One of many songs Marc brought with him into the band. Originally titled The Lilac Hand Of Menthol Dan but rechristened Dan The Sniff by the band. They played it live but never had the chance to record it. After Marc left the group he recorded this version using John's Children as his backing band which is why we can use it here. The song was not released until the 80s and he never returned to the song after forming Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Remember Thomas à Beckett - Released as the B side to the Desdemona single it was slightly rewritten and released as Come and Play with me in the Garden. Neither this song nor Come and Play feature Marc but they were released on singles that featured Marc on the flipside of the disc so we can include them here.

Sara Crazy Child - The B-side of Come And Play With Me In The Garden. Marc would continue to play this song on occasion with Tyrannosaurus Rex but never recorded it for any albums proper. A BBC version by Tyrannosaurus Rex appears on the Across the Airwaves LP and other BBC collections.

Jagged Time Lapse - There are several different versions of this song that appear on many different compilations The final version appeared as the B side for the Go Go Girl single that was released after Marc's departure. Go Go Girl was Marc's Mustang Ford with different lyrics.

Hot Rod Mama - The final song in the set shows how much potential this group had. If Marc had stayed and taken the time to get to know his instrument more they could have been a tight knit group as this BBC recording shows. The original BBC recording has an announcer talking over some of the intro forcing me to rely on some creative editing to restore the intro to its full potential.

The cover uses a band promo pic and a logo found on a promo poster and an attempt at an homage to the pop art of the day that the Mod's seemed so fond of.

KISS - Indy Debut - 1973

In 1973 KISS released their debut album as a self financed independent release. Funded by manager Bill Aucoin who used the LP to secure a major label contract with newly formed Casablanca Records. The tracks were recorded quickly and cheaply at two different studios. They even included a live track recorded at an early gig. While the album didn't sell it did get them signed and they still play most of these songs live today. It was cleaned up some and repackaged for re-release in 1975 after the success of their double live LP Alive!

Side One
01 Strutter [Electric Lady]
02 Let Me Go Rock And Roll [Bell Sounds]
03 Firehouse [Bell Sounds]
04 Cold Gin [Electric Lady]
05 Let Me Know [Bell Sounds]

Side Two
01 Watchin You [Electric Lady]
02 Deuce [Electric Lady]
03 Acrobat [Live at The Daisy]
04 Black Diamond [Electric Lady]
05 100,000 Years [Bell Sounds]

Reality Notes

Things happened fast For KISS in 1973. Within a year after forming they had acquired a manager and a record contract with an up and coming label. Both helped to shape and mold them into the machine they became four years later. What if things did not move quite so fast? What if their debut album was an independent release? With the available demos we can construct what could have been that LP.

The tracks here were all recorded before their debut album. Five songs were recorded at Electric Lady by Eddie Kramer as payment for session work owed Gene and Paul. Four songs were recorded at Bell Sounds studios by Kerner and Wise who produced their major label debut and the follow up Hotter Than Hell. Acrobat was recorded live at an early gig at the Daisy, this song would become Love Theme From KISS after dropping the Much Too Young second half.

There are two songs from the first album that we do not have a demo for. Nothin' to Lose and Kissing Time. Kissing Time is a Bobby Rydel cover that was added to the second pressing of the first album. These two songs are replaced with two demos from the same sessions of songs that would later appear on the second album. You could take Nothin' to Lose and Kissing Time from the first album and move them to the second if you really wanted to.  

Watching You comes from the Eddie Kramer produced demos and Let Me Go Rock And Roll is from the Kerner and Wise produced Bell Sounds demos. It was standard practice for Kerner and Wise at the time to record pre-production demos in an independent studio. Their reasoning was to keep any unreleased songs out of the labels hands. It's not theirs if they didn't pay for it.

I basically used the first album as a template and substituted the HTH tracks where they were needed. I did switch the last two songs around simply because I wanted to. All songs were sourced from the 28 disc KISSTORY bootleg.

The cover features one of the earliest photos of the band in full makeup.