The Beatles - Rock and Roll (At The Beeb) Volumes 1 & 2 - 1976

In 1976 The Beatles' contracts with EMI and Capitol expired. One of the side effects of this was that the labels were now free to recompile and release new albums. These new albums had the stipulations that the band members had final say in how their music was used. The details were vague but they did specify no remixes although that was not adhered to.

Until the release of the first BBC set followed by the Anthology series the only album of unreleased material we got was the Live at the Hollywood Bowl album. EMI/Capitol did come close to releasing an LP of unreleased studio recording called Sessions but once the band found out about the project the album was dropped. We also got the Star Club tapes but that was released on a different label.

Capitol was the first one to release new product. That album was Rock and Roll Music. A two disc set (later rereleased as two separate discs as Volume one and Volume two) that contained previously released songs with a rock and roll feel. I bought the album and enjoyed it but what if instead of rereleasing old material they dipped into the BBC vaults and gave us all new songs.

Side One
01 I Got A Woman
02 Too Much Monkey Business
03 Keep Your Hands Off My Baby
04 I'm Talking About You
05 Young Blood
06 A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues
07 Some Other Guy

Side Two
01 Sweet Little Sixteen
02 Lonesome Tears In My Eyes
03 Nothin' Shakin'
04 The Hippy Hippy Shake
05 Glad All Over
06 Beautiful Dreamer
07 That's All Right (Mama)

Side Three
01 Soldier Of Love
02 I Just Don't Understand
03 So How Come (No One Loves Me)
04 Carol
05 I Forgot To Remember To Forget
06 Clarabella
07 I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)

Side Four
01 Lend Me Your Comb
02 I Got To Find My Baby
03 Memphis, Tennessee
04 Ooh! My Soul
05 Sure To Fall (In Love With You)
06 Lucille
07 Don't Ever Change

Reality Notes

I thought I had posted this as part of my Alt-Beatles timeline. Apparently I didn't so I'm posting it here.

The Beatles in the early days were a top notch rock and roll band. Before the madness of Beatlemania the band made numerous appearances on a variety of programs for BBC radio. They even had their own weekly show for a while. During those performances they would dip into their setlists and play songs that they would never record for their albums. Especially once they stopped including cover songs on their LPs. This is an attempt to gather as many of those never recorded songs in one place. I used the original album as a template (yes, it's still a double album! but of course, reissues were released as separate volumes) but adhered to the following criteria:

• No original songs
• No ballads or showtunes
• No cover songs that appeared on a previous album.

My intention here was to present only those songs that have never appeared on a Beatles album before. To have an album of new material in 1976 was every Beatles fan's dream even if it was an album of "moldy oldies". The bulk of these songs come from the first set of BBC recordings released in 1994. The rest are from the second volume with a couple more coming from the unofficial Complete BBC Recordings.

I first heard of the BBC recordings while listening to the radio show The Lost Lennon Tapes. I taped every episode I could and compiled my own personal bootlegs from all of the unreleased tracks that they would play. This included some BBC material but being a Lennon focused show they only played songs that featured a Lennon lead vocal. I also had a small handful of BBC songs on the few vinyl Beatles bootlegs I had.

The cover was made at a time when I was making best-of comps for my 30gb iPod. I wanted to be able to read the text on the small screen so I was using a lot of large block type fonts.

Sources
Live at the BBC
On The Air (BBC Volume Two)
The Complete BBC Recordings (10 CD bootleg)

U2 - Rattle and Hum - 1988

A while back when I first started this new blog I had an idea to post some of my favorite fantasy albums from other constructors. This came out of the fact that I didn't have a lot of albums of my own to share and feared running out. The idea was that I would give links to the original posts with a short review about what I liked about it. If the constructor did not provide a download of the project I would do it myself and post it for them. This album was to be the first in that series.

While browsing through AlbumFixer's blog I came across his deconstruction/reconstruction of Rattle and Hum. It had several things going for it but the two main points were it was U2 and it was a double album reduced down to a single album (do I need to mention...). I agreed with every point he made and every justification for his song choices. I put it together and gave it a test run and was pleased with the flow and feel of the album. Then...

I was glancing through the list of songs AlbumFixer would have included as bonus tracks and noticed Hallelujah Here She Comes and thought why was this left off? AlbumFixer's plan was to only include those songs that appeared on the album itself. Hallelujah only appeared as the B side to the Desire single. But he did include Jesus Christ which was a cover song that was not on the album but later appeared on the Woody Guthrie tribute Folkways: A Vision Shared.

Jesus Christ was recorded during the Sun Studios sessions along with many of the other songs on the album but as far as I know it was always destined for the tribute album. If AlbumFixer could include this song why not Hallelujah? We had the room so I slipped it in and the project was no longer a review and started to take on a life of its own.

Side One
01 Desire
02 Angel Of Harlem
03 When Love Comes To Town
04 Love Rescue Me
05 Hallelujah (Here She Comes)

Side Two
01 Hawkmoon 269
02 Van Diemen's Land
03 God Part II
04 Jesus Christ
05 All I Want Is You

Reality Notes

Rattle and Hum is where I lost U2. At the time of its release I was still enjoying The Joshua Tree from the year before. I guess I was more confused by Rattle and Hum than anything else. Was it a soundtrack? A live album? A new studio album? It just seemed to be all over the place and that got in my way from enjoying the many great new songs on the album. It took me a year or two before I purchased the album and even then I did not play it enough to really get to know it.

When I decided to take ownership of this construction and added Hallelujah I also added A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel which was the B side to the second single from the album. I eventually dropped the song because it pushed the album length to more than 48 minutes. And while it is a good song it was not one I found myself humming when the album was not on. Keep it for the B sides.

I kept Jesus Christ because it fit well with the other songs. There is a general religious/spiritual feel to the album in both subject matter and the use of gospel choirs and other musical themes from gospel music. I probably could have just swapped Jesus Christ for A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel but Jesus Christ just seemed to fit better.

I removed Heartland and The Star Spangled Banner. Heartland was recorded during The Joshua Tree sessions. AlbumFixer included it on his double album version of that album And I followed suit and included it on Hold Onto Love. The Star Spangled Banner is Jimi Hendrix from Woodstock so it doesn't belong here anyway.

Once I had the album constructed I took a look at the leftovers. Six live songs remained. Four originals from the last two albums and two cover songs. I took those songs and put together a live mini album in the style of Under A Blood Red Sky with a little surprise at the end.

01 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
02 All Along The Watchtower
03 Pride (In The Name Of Love)
04 Silver And Gold
05 Helter Skelter
06 Bullet The Blue Sky

I renamed the studio album Rattle and named the live EP Hum. I modified the cover for Rattle and Hum and created a similar cover for Hum by modifying the cover for the All I Want Is You single. Both albums are included in the download.

Sources
Rattle and Hum
The Best of 1980-1990
Folkways: A Vision Shared

Poncier - Big In Belgium - 1992

After leaving his band Citizen Dick, front man Cliff Poncier recorded his one and only solo album. Titled after a flip comment made during an interview about his band's popularity the album sold modestly. It has been subsequently reissued many times over the years yet still maintains an obscure yet legendary cult status among the Seattle bands of the day.

Moody and introspective lyrics are paired with sparse, mostly acoustic and at times ethereal instrumentation it served as the antithesis to the current grunge rock that was pouring out of Seattle at the time. While many of the LPs released during grunges heyday are sounding dated, Poncier's album still sounds fresh and original.

Side One
01 Times Of Trouble
02 Spoon Man
03 Black Cat
04 Ferry Boat #3
05 Nowhere but You

Side Two
01 Flutter Girl
02 Missing
03 Seasons
04 Call Me A Dog

Reality Notes

I had a completely different project done, wrapped up and ready to post this week when this slapped me in the face and demanded to be built. It fell together so quickly that I decided to post this instead.

Cliff Poncier is a character in the movie Singles. A film by Cameron Crowe about Seattle in the early 90s that explored relationships, work and music, it featured stars Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon among others. According to Crowe, Dillon's character Cliff was originally intended for Chris Cornell of Soundgarden but a busy schedule prevented Chris's involvement beyond a short non-speaking cameo.

While on the set Cornell "borrowed" a prop cassette tape that was suppose to contain a five song tape that Poncier recorded and was selling while busking on the street. The tape case was created by Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament that included the fake song titles Seasons, Nowhere but You, Spoon Man, Flutter Girl and Missing. As the story goes, Chris went home and wrote and recorded songs for each of the titles then presented the tape back to Cameron.

Cameron was so impressed with the tape that he included the song Seasons on the soundtrack. Two other songs were later re-recorded by Cornell. Spoonman appeared on Soundgarden's Superunknown album and Flutter Girl was sped up a bit and recorded for Cornell's 1999 solo album Euphoria Morning. The full five song demo tape was released as a promotional CD at the time of the films release. In 2017 it was rereleased on cassette and vinyl for Record Store Day.

All five songs plus two more Cornell compositions (Ferry Boat #3 and Score Piece #4) were included on the deluxe version of the soundtrack album. I had heard the story of the tape at the time of the movie's release but never found the rest of the songs until recently. I always thought it would be cool to hear. Even better would be an entire album of similar material but sadly 7 songs does not an album make.

About the same time that the film was in production Cornell recorded and album in tribute to Andrew Wood. Wood was the frontman for Mother Love Bone and Malfunkshun and was a big part of the growing Seattle music scene. Cornell and Wood were roommates at the time when Wood overdosed on Heroin just as his band Mother Love Bone was taking off nationally. Hit hard by the loss of his friend Cornell turned to music and songwriting as therapy to work through his grief. He approached Wood's band mates Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament and formed Temple of the Dog to record the songs along with Mike McCready on lead guitar, and Matt Cameron on drums and guest vocals by Eddie Vedder. (So basically Temple of the Dog was Chris Cornell backed up by Pearl Jam, many of whom also had bit roles in the movie Singles so it all ties together.)

A deluxe version of the Temple of the Dog album included a second CD of demos, outtakes and live tracks. Most of the demos were done in the same or similar style as the Poncier demos. Could we use those to flesh out the album? Why not? The CD contained six demos - Say Hello To Heaven, Reach Down, Call Me A Dog, Times Of Trouble, Angel Of Fire and Black Cat. Add these to the seven songs from the Singles soundtrack and we have a song pool of thirteen songs. More than enough to carve an album out of.

I dropped Say Hello To Heaven and Reach Down because they were too associated in my mind as Temple of the Dog songs. Say Hello To Heaven was also maybe a bit too polished for the project. I also dropped Score Piece #4. It was short and only an instrumental and didn't really add anything to the project. I then dropped Angel Of Fire due to it being a lower quality and not sounding like Chris (why can't I find songwriting credits for this one?).

This leaves us with nine songs. I shuffled them around until I had a track list I liked that could be split evenly on a vinyl LP. Even though this is suppose to be from the CD era, vinyl at this time was still very much alive and most independent releases were released in this format.

The cover is derived from a promo pic of Matt Dillon in character enhanced with a pop-art photo filter in Word. Some WordArt and the promo sticker completes the illusion. Yea, I know the sticker says demos when this is supposed to be an official release but marketing will do what marketing wants to do.

CSN&Y - Long May You Run - 1976

Hot on the heels of their 1974 release Human Highway, CSN&Y managed to regroup and record and release Long May You Run. A much more polished effort than its predecessor we find the band working together nicely. The songwriting credits are divided evenly among the four giving each member equal time, the first and only CSN&Y album to do so. A strong album that received good to fair reviews, it is still counted among their best works.

For a band with such a tumultuous past and turbulent relationships and large egos it's amazing they can work together at all. When they do manage, that's when the magic happens.

Side One
01 Long May You Run
02 Mutiny
03 Black Coral
04 Time After Time
05 Make Love To You
06 Ocean Girl

Side Two
01 Taken At All
02 Guardian Angel
03 Foolish Man
04 JB's Blues
05 Midnight On The Bay
06 Out Of The Darkness

Reality Notes

In 1976 CSN&Y made one more attempt to finish an album together and once again egos got in the way. This is basically a straight mashup of the two albums Whistling Down The Wire and Long May You Run with full band versions used where available. I stuck with those songs I knew they had worked on but dropped Human Highway as that was used on the last album.

We had set an end date for the Human Highway album at December of 1974 - mostly so that we could use Homeward Through The Haze and give David at least one strong song. That leaves us with 1975 through the Miami sessions in 1976 to build our song pool from. I also allowed any song from the Crosby-Nash and Stills & Young Band albums to be in the running. While we don't have mixes of every song they worked on we can use anything from those albums as substitutes. The list of songs we know they worked on is as follows.

January 1975
Western Witches
Guardian Angel

Long May You Run Sessions Miami 1976
Taken At All
Long May You Run
Human Highway
Black Coral
Midnight On The Bay
Ocean Girl
Mutiny
Talk To Me
Dancer

I immediately eliminated Western Witches, Talk To Me and Dancer, each for different reasons and also Human Highway because we used that already. This gives us seven songs to establish a foundation with. The three songs we do have a that include all four are Long May You Run, Black Coral and Taken At All.

The track listing for this comp has gone through several iterations. My first attempt came out as follows.

01 Long May You Run
02 Mutiny
03 Black Coral
04 Foolish Man
05 Taken At All
06 Time After Time
07 Midnight On The Bay
08 JB's Blues
09 Out Of The Darkness
10 Ocean Girl
11 Guardian Angel

I really liked this tracklist and it stayed this way for some time but one day I realized that there were only two songs from Stephen and three each from the other three. Knowing the egos of those involved I assumed that Stephen would insist on one more song of his so I added one of his and removed one each from Graham and David which is more in line with earlier releases.

01 Long May You Run
02 Mutiny
03 Black Coral
04 Time After Time
05 Make Love To You
06 Ocean Girl
07 Taken At All
08 Guardian Angel
09 Midnight On The Bay
10 Out Of The Darkness

This made me happy briefly. The timing was right and the overall feel was concise and flowed nicely but I missed Foolish Man and I felt that I couldn't add that back in and not Graham's song so I came up with what we have here.

Three songs each, egos placated but it now is 24 minutes per side. What's a producer to do? For my post here I will leave it as is. You can configure this anyway you want but personally I am going with my original 11 song tracklist. I'm not really fond of Stephen's Make Love To You and the other song choice of his, 12/8 Blues, was not any better.

I altered the original album cover to reflect the change from Stills & Young to CSN&Y.

Sources
Crosby-Nash - Whistling Down The Wire
Still & Young Band - Long May You Run
CSN - Box Set
The CSNY Anthology (Bootleg, although the songs from here are also available on official sources)