Marc Bolan - All at Once - 1966

Here's a project I've been slowly working on for a while now. I have a few others waiting for the final polish and write up before posting but those are almost novelty themed various artist collections. This construction finally completes the Marc Bolan collection and covers the years from 1964 to 1967 just before joining John's Children.

The tracks here can be split into two parts, before and after signing with manager Simon Napier-Bell in 1966. Marc's earliest efforts were the products of managers and producers doing their "best" to fulfill Marc's dream of being a star. That dream wouldn't come true for a few years yet going through several name changes while developing his writing and vocal style. The first few songs are covers but from track three on are all originals. None of his early single did much on the charts.

During Marc's time with Napier-Bell they recorded one single and many demos. most of these eventually were released on the album The Beginning of Doves. After Marc's passing Napier-Bell took some of those demos and augmented them with studio musician and released the album Love and Death with some songs not found on the Dove album. I deferred to the Doves album for purity reasons and filled the gaps with the unique songs from Love and Death. The result is a nice album of 38 minutes of early Marc Bolan. Enjoy.

Track List

01 All At Once

02 The Road I'm On (Gloria)

03 Blowin' In The Wind

04 The Wizard

05 Beyond The Risin Sun

06 The Third Degree

07 San Francisco Poet

08 Hippy Gumbo

09 Misfit

10 Jasper C. Debussy

11 You Scare Me To Death

12 I'm Weird

13 Charlie

14 Black And White Incident

15 Observations

16 You Got The Power

17 Jasmine Forty-nine

18 Cat Black

 

Reality Notes

 

Track one was recorded in 1964 but went unreleased until 2008. Tracks two and three were released under the name Toby Tyler. Tracks four through seven were singles released on Decca records as Marc Bolan via the name Marc Bowland in 1965. Tracks eight and nine were produced by Napier-Bell for track records in 1966. The remaining tracks all come from the Doves album with the exception of tracks eleven and twelve which come from the posthumous Love and Death album. Tracks 14-18 also appear on the Love and Death album and given the post production treatment but I went with the stripped down demos instead.

The Doves album also contained some of the earliest Tyrannosaurus Rex recordings. I included these on the Chinese Christmas Music comp posted a while back. There are a few early songs that were recently released that I do not have and are hard to find. If I do come across them I'll add them to this and post and update. This should be the last of the Marc Bolan collection but if I have enough of them I may put together a short comp of his spoken word poetry, maybe.

The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969

I've got something very different for you today. I have a few projects simmering on the stove so to speak and will put those up eventually but I've been working on this one for a bit and I feel it is ready to share and get some feedback consider this version one. What makes this different is that it is a video I edited rather than an audio construction. I have been watching fanedits of films for some time now and recently decided to try my hand at the process. I've done some simple editing in the past, mostly limited to joining two or more videos together and maybe some trimming on the beginnings and endings. This was my first foray deeper into some of the more complex parts of the craft.

 

So what do I have for you and how does it relate to this blog? Nothing less than the possible answer to the question "What if the Get Back project resulted in a TV special instead of a film?". The concept of the project changed and evolved from inception to completion. Ideas ranged from comeback concerts and films to TV specials and albums. What we got was a film that showed the band bickering and arguing before coming together to make music and an accompanying LP that featured post-production decisions made by Phil Spector that betrayed the bands original intentions of a live in-the-studio recording.

What I did was take the original Let It Be movie - sourced from a VHS ripped from my own copy -  and removed all the behind the scenes discussions and rehearsals leaving just the music. The source was already in standard 4:3 TV format so all I had to do was trim, remove, rearrange and add some opening titles. I hope you enjoy it.

00:00 Intro
01:15 Get Back
04:24 Don't Let Me Down
07:46 The Long And Winding Road
11:20 For You Blue
14:15 I've Got A Feeling
18:05 Two Of Us
21:35 One After 909
24:39 I Me Mine
26:23 Dig A Pony
30:10 Dig It
32:12 Let It Be
36:13 Get Back (Reprise)

I felt using the VHS source would give it a more authentic "as seen on TV" feel. I kept the original audio, my skills are not yet to the level where I can replace and sync the whole soundtrack. It would be interesting to see if this could be recreated using the Peter Jackson version. 

 

As you can see I passed on Across The Universe. Like I Me Mine the film only shows them rehearsing the song but unlike I Me Mine there was no real take that could be called even decent. 

 

I have a link on the downloads page or you can watch it here. I would be overjoyed if somebody chose to mirror this and upload to YouTube/Vimeo or anywhere else. I tried creating a new YouTube channel just for this but the video was denied due to copyrights. Just say you got it from a friend of a friend. A new and final version three is done and uploaded and the link has been updated. Just a couple transition tweaks and the addition of a time appropriate BBC ID and end credits.

Marcus King - Young Man's Dream

 It's been a while since I posted a non-various artists collection. 

Marcus King is another one of those guitar guys that started out performing at a young age. Like Derek Trucks before him he was a veteran by the time he was Twenty. My brother has been bugging me to listen to this guy for a while now and I would play a video here and there. I was always impressed and could see the attraction but I never took the dive to really give him a chance. This comp is an attempt to rectify that.

YouTube recently recommended the WGBH Live in Studio acoustic session so I gave it a listen. Only a minute in and already I was not disappointed. I like the sound of The Marcus King Band, full on blues based rock, my favorite kind but stripped down to just man and guitar allowed me to get a bigger view of this young man's old soul. So I gathered all the solo performance videos I could and condensed that down to a CD's worth of music for in the car. And now I'm sharing it with you. Enjoy.

 

Tracklist

 

01 Love Song  (Live at JITVHQ in Los Angeles, CA 2020)

02 Man You Didn't Know (Live From The Big House)

03 8am (Live in Studio WGBH)

04 Sorry About Your Love (The Blues Kitchen Presents)

05 Beautiful Stranger (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

06 Where I'm Heading (LaMosiqacom Oneshotsession)

07 Sweet Mariona (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

08 Young Man's Dream (at Easy Eye Sound)

09 Remember (Live in Studio WGBH Acoustic Session)

10 One Day She's Here (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

11 No Pain (Acoustic w/ Dan Auerbach at Easy Eye Sound)

12 Midnight Rider (Live From The Big House)

13 Jealous Man

14 Goodbye Carolina (Live in Studio WGBH)

15 Wildflowers & Wine (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

16 I Won't Be Here

17 Slip Back (in bed - MyMusicRx #Bedstock 2017)

18 Autumn Rains (Live in Studio WGBH)

19 The Well (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

20 Dyin' (Live From The Big House)

Reality Notes

Everything in this comp was ripped from videos found on YouTube. Just do a search for "Marcus King acoustic" and they will pop up. Two of these videos, WGBH and Paste Studios, are multi-song performances the rest are single song videos. I edited out any interviews, applause and bumper music leaving only the music.

The cover is a photo I found on a Google image search which I cropped to a square and added the border using my favorite photo editor/viewer Irfanview. Still looking or a new program to make covers with. I might just end up installing an older version of MS Word that doesn't require a MS account.

Pearhead Jukebox

Hey there. It's been a while hasn't it? I'm still here and I do check in everyday to check/respond to comments and to see what others are doing. I haven't made any new constructions in a while but I do have a few half finished ones waiting for me to wrap up. This is not one of those. I threw this together quickly in the last 24 hours. The reason for the post and the construction was to pay tribute to my friend, band mate, collaborator and the primary reason for my band Pearhead's existence who passed away the last week. Kenny Parisot, You are sorely missed. This is a collection of songs that we regularly covered live and/or recorded under our alter ego Mighty Man. None of these are our versions and not every one is the original version. To shake things up and make the listen more interesting I used live versions or alternate cover versions. Enjoy.

 

Tracklist

 

01 You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones *

    From the album Totally Stripped. This was our standard show opener.

02 Ain't Hurtin' Nobody - John Prine *

    From the album Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings. Both Kenny and I are big  Prine fans and we did several of his songs.

03 Long Tall Texan - Lyle Lovett

    From the album The Road To Ensenada. We based our version on a Lyle Lovett live rendition but this is pretty close to how we do it as well.

04 (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding

    From the album The Dock of the Bay. Another standard song from our setlist.

05 Deep Elem Blues - Blackberry Smoke

    From the TRI Studios session with Bob Weir. A dead standard of an old song which we played often.

06 Eurotrash Girl - Cracker *

    A live unplugged version recorded 11/01/2005 at Knickerbockers Bar. Downloaded from The Internet Archives. One of the more contempory songs from our setlists. We played and recorded this before most of the band ever heard the original.

07 For What It's Worth - Crosby, Stills & Nash

    A live rendition from the album Allies. Closer to how we did it at least this is the version I had in my head when we played it.

08 Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen *

    From the album Live  1975-1985. Originally written by Tom Waits, Bruce added a verse. Kenny changed it to Mexican Girl in honor of his wife.

09 Pale Blue Eyes [closet mix] - The Velvet Underground *

    From the album The Velvet Underground

10 She Belongs to Me - Bob Dylan

    A live solo acoustic version

11 Angel From Montgomery (Live) - Bonnie Raitt & John Prine *

    A live version of a duet with Bonnie Raitt who is more closely associated with the song and it's composer John Prine

12 Tower of song - Leonard Cohen

    From the album I'm Your Man

13 When I Paint My Masterpiece - Grateful Dead *

    Written by Dylan, first recorded by The Band but often played by the Grateful Dead. This is my favorite version taped off The Gratelful Dead Hour.

14 Whipping Post - Allman Brothers Band

    From the debut self titled album.

15 Into the Mystic - Swell Season *

    From a live recording. Closer to our version than the Van Morrison original.

16 Goodnight, Irene - Lucius *

    Written by Lead Belly. This is a recent rendition that is pretty close to ours

* We recorded our versions of these songs under the name Mighty Man. You can listen to them here. (You can listen to Pearhead songs here.)

Reality Notes

Kenny was a master story teller and wrote some amazing songs. I posted a collection of demos and stripped down version of his songs here a while back. We tried to keep our covers interesting and often avoided the expected, tried and true songs that everybody else was doing. This is only some of the songs we would do regularly and some we attempted once in a while. The Mighty Man album started as a side project between just me and Kenny when the band seemed to be in a lull. During this period it was often just Kenny and I in the studio so we started to record covers to keep busy and entertain ourselves. The band eventually returned and demanded to be included.

The cover was constructed in Paint.net. I have made all my covers in Microsoft Word until recently when I lost access to my MS account and my copy stopped working. Since then I have been trying different programs looking for a replacement. I did find Paint.net frustrating and gave up once I had this but I am not completely happy with it. If I can make a better one I will replace it.

Melancholia Vol 7

I have a few projects in that I am still playing with but nothing that's really ready to share but I have managed to complete the last missing volume of the Melancholia series.

 

This volume turned out to be sort of a catch-all edition that gathers a lot of songs that didn't seem to fit on the other discs but were played enough to warrant inclusion this collection. While there is no obvious theme there does seem to be an underlying country tinge.

This series is now up to 19 volumes with almost half of those being themed collection, This will probably be the last non-themed edition and maybe the last all together. Readers have most likely noticed the lack of activity here and that will continue to be the norm at least for a while. The last year has killed a lot of enthusiasm in me for many things, this hobby being one of them. I do have a few projects slowly cooking but I'm not going to make any promises as to when they might be done so hang in there.

[Side note: I have been updating some covers here, mostly for this series but one or two others. I have not updated the archives and have no plans to. So if you want the new ones just click on them then right click and save the image.]

 

Tracklist

01 Railroad Earth - Way of the Buffalo

02 Bruce Springsteen - Devils & Dust

03 Ricky Skaggs - Walls Of Time

04 Pat Benatar - We Belong

05 Los Lonely Boys - Heaven

06 Loretta Lynn - Portland, Oregon

07 John Hiatt - Take It Down

08 Modern English - I Melt With You

09 Goo Goo Dolls - Name

10 The Wonders - She Knows It

11 Switchfoot - Twenty-four

12 John Prine - Everything Is Cool

13 Extreme - Hole Hearted

14 REM - Everybody Hurts

15 Supertramp - Even In The Quietest Moments

16 Dwight Yoakam - 1,000 Miles

17 Sugarland - Stand Back Up

18 Prince - Wow

19 Waylon Jennings - Can't You See

Melancholia Vol 10

I have had some fun compiling the many themed Melancholia editions but the original concept for the series was to bring many of my favorite songs together in one collection regardless of genre. The focus is more on a certain vibe and pace which has carried on through the series which means even the special themed editions have this vibe that I chase.

The first five volumes and a few of the themed editions were compiled before I started purchasing CDs. Those and a few others were put together before computer power and storage space were sufficient enough for the existence of a local digital library. With the advent of recordable CDs, the CDR became the new cassette. Nowadays, with so much music just a few taps or clicks away, the playlist has became the new CDR. Which means that later editions evolved more than being put together with what I had on hand in a single sitting. If I didn't like how a song felt in the mix, it was easy to swap it our for another song.

This is most true for these last two editions. They have changed and morphed over the years due to some songs being moved to later themed editions or replaced by songs that were a better fit. Volume seven is still being tweaked but I think I can call this volume done. You could almost call this a themed edition. It does have a slight heavier feel than other editions but there are a few surprises and that vibe is still there. Enjoy.

 01 Velvet Revolver - Fall To Pieces

 02 Deep Purple - Don't Hold Your Breath

 03 Collective Soul - Shine

 04 The Verve Pipe - Colorful

 05 Smashing Pumpkins - Suffer

 06 Thin Lizzy - Showdown

 07 Black Crowes - Soul Singing

 08 Blackberry Smoke - No Way Back To Eden

 09 Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

 10 Brother Cane - And Fools Shine On

 11 Cheap Trick - Downed

 12 Jane Wiedlin - Our Lips Are Sealed

 13 Francis Dunnery - Too Much Saturn

 14 Queen - Drowse

 15 The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony

 16 Steel Dragon - We All Die Young

 17 Journey - Daydream

 18 Willy Porter - Flying

 

Bob Weir - Chillin' With Bobby

Bob Weir is by far the most visible band member to carry on the torch that the Grateful Dead held high for so many years. Aside from the many post-Dead offshoots such as Dead & Co., The Dead and the Further Festivals and his many solo fronted bands like Ratdog, Bobby has hosted many artists in the extended Grateful Dead family and friends at Tri Studios (Tamalpais Research Institute).

 

Tri Studios is a state of the art performance venue. It also seems to be Bob Weir's home away from home when not on the road. Over the years of its existence Bobby has performed many times as a solo act, in special, one-off configurations with others or just sitting in with the band of the night. A nice handful of these performances are available on YouTube, most from 2013. I've gone through those shows and extracted Bobby's solo and small group performances with a focus on minimal, acoustic based tunes and gathered them into a two CD set that mimics a Grateful Dead show.

 

Tracklist

 

Disc One

01 Cassidy

02 Hell In A Bucket

03 Maggie's Farm

04 Stealin'>Deal

05 Most of the Time

06 Peggy-O

07 China Cat>I Know You Rider>Shakey Ground

08 Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

09 Loose Lucy

Disc Two

01 Sugar Magnolia

02 Cosmic Charlie

03 US Blues

04 Looks Like Rain

05 West L.A. Fadeaway

06 Easy To Slip

07 Black Throated Wind

08 Dark Star

09 El Paso

 

Bonus Tracks

Catfish John

When I Paint My Masterpiece

Reality Notes

My goal here was simply to collect relaxed, acoustic based performances where Bob is either the lead vocalist or at least a co-vocalist. There are a few duets here but mostly it's just Bob singing. Instrumentation is sparse if not solo. No more than a few other musicians on a song. The musician line-up is different from song to song. I refrained from listing the other players but you can get an idea of who's there by checking out the sorce list below.

 

I tried to keep the song choice interesting with some songs rarely played and maybe a few first timers. The classic/obvious choices are all unique due the the laid back, stripped down feel. Even songs like Dark Star or China Cat>I Know You Rider feel fresh and new. And the sound quality is incredible.

 

Cassidy was the driving force behind the compilation. It is one of my favorite Dead tunes and at the top of my list of Bobby songs but live renditions rarely match the feel and power of the studio version. This rendition not only matches the original for me but in some ways surpasses it. I've been looking for a vehicle for the track since I first heard it.

If you plan on burning this to CDs each set will fit on a disc. The bonus tracks will not. They were good enough to keep but not quite enough to be slipped into the main sets. If you play this from your computer or other device it makes a nice faux concert with each disc a set and the bonus tracks as the encore. I kept the bonus tracks because they were both nice renditions and Catfish John was seldom heard in my listening of Dead shows. Both not finding a spot in the main sets due to time constraints but too good to throw away.

For the cover I manipulated slightly a nice recent photo of Bob and added the text and logos. For the sources below I linked to the original videos. There is a lot of good music there. This could have been a three disc set but not everything would have been as revealing as the final set list. Enjoy.

Sources

2013-01-23 Weir Here with David Schools
Cassidy - Bob Weir, Jonathan Wilson, Jason Crosby
Looks Like Rain (Bob Weir) - TRI Studios - 5132011
WEIR HERE #14 3-27-13 with Leslie Mendelson
weir here 7-3-13 with Fog and Moonalice
weir here over there
Weir Here with Jackie Greene Tri Studios 12-5-2012
Weir here with phil 3-13-13
Weir Here with Warren Haynes 7-31-13
Weir Here 8-7-13 scare the children