Melanie - The Kind of Night - 1993

As an amateur recording engineer and record producer I have a short list of big names that I would love to work with. Among the top three are Chuck Berry (sadly no longer with us) Crosby Stills Nash and Young (sadly no longer speaking to each other...again) and Melanie.

I wanted to bring Chuck out of recording retirement. For CSNY I wanted one album of new material done with minimal instrumentation to showcase the harmonies. For Melanie I wanted a simple low key recording that shows off her quiet voice as much as her powerhouse vocals.

While I can't do much about the first two, Melanie did record an album that was produced in a way that I would have done. Unfortunately, that album is as much of a mess as her later discography is. It is a mix of new songs, covers and remakes of old songs. Fortunately, there are 29 songs from the sessions. Plenty to pick and choose from to make one great album.

[If Melanie wanted to release a special vinyl issue for record store day this construction would get my top vote.]

Side One
01 The Natural Man
02 Freedom Knows My Name
03 If I Needed You
04 Taking A Bath
05 Count The Days You're Gone
06 Life Will Not Go Away

Side Two
01 Live Coal
02  Arrow (Cheryle Wheele)
03 Ballerina
04 Tonight's The Kind Of Night
05 Friends and Company

Reality Notes

Melanie is at the top of my guilty pleasure list (though I don't feel too guilty). My biggest issues with Melanie has always been on the production side. More often than not her albums are heavy with strings and other MOR nonsense. I like things simple and clean. Which is why I tend to gravitate to her live albums which are usually just her and maybe one or two other instrumentalists.

My other issue with Melanie comes from her later years. Simply put, Melanie's later discography is a mess. It started with the double album Ballroom Streets which had a few new songs and a lot of remakes. In later years she got into the habit of rerecording her early songs. While I have no real qualms about this practice, many artists revisit old material from time to time, in Melanie's case she often sacrificed space on albums that could have benefited from one or two new songs in order to include the remakes. As a result, we have enough alternate versions of songs to fill at least two albums.

Which brings us to Silver Anniversary. Recorded in the early 90s and released only in Germany and the Netherlands in double CD packages, each with slightly different tracklists. To confuse matters further, six songs were tacked on to the US version of the European only release Silence is King renamed Freedom Knows My Name after one of the songs from Silver Anniversary.

So what good can be found here? The new songs are all great songs. The remakes are good and some even rival the originals. The covers are imaginative even if they don't all live up to expectations. But most of all is the production. Primarily acoustic with sparse instrumentation, no strings or orchestras and almost no drums and some great background vocals. Just great songs. Of the 29 songs, ten originals and four covers make their first appearance on this album. Some of these were rerecorded for later albums but these are the original versions according to timeline. I wanted to include only those songs that make their first appearance on this album.

Because we have ten originals that time out to just over 36 minutes I only needed to include one of the new covers. Melanie's covers have always been hit and miss. Sometimes she manages to truly make the song her own, other times it just feels awkward. I could take two or three of the remaining new covers and pair them with three of the best remakes and have a fine EP but at the moment, I'm fine with this.

I did some light editing, cutting out excessive studio chatter and song title announcements. I left some lighthearted moments in but not enough to get in the way of the flow and overall enjoyment.

One song, Tonight's The Kind Of Night, which I named the album after, is actually a Christmas song that she later rerecorded for a full Christmas album. I could have dropped it and still have had a full album but this version is better than the remake and it's not an all out Christmas carol and only mentions Christmas during the chorus. It's more of a mood piece than a seasonal piece so I kept it in.

For the cover I used the picture from the Freedom Knows My Name album. Now about that discography, I think I may need to go and make some charts.

[Edit: I was just poking around Melanie's discography and noticed that Friends and Company previously appeared on Ballroom Streets and before that on Photograph so technically should not appear here. My view is that even though what we do here is revisionist in nature I feel once I have posted a project that is the final and definitive version. Also, given the timeline, this would not be the first Melanie album to have a remake on it. Plus, this is the better version. And I'm lazy. The purist can just delete that song from the folder. Thanks for listening. [Really? Same goes for If I Needed You. I need a break.]]

T.Rex - There Was A Time - 1971-1973

Between the release of T.Rex's Hot Love single in 1971 and the Truck On (Tyke) single in 1973 Marc Bolan released 17 non-LP songs. Almost enough songs for two albums. When you arrange those songs in chronological order they give an evolving picture of Marc that listening to the albums only gives in snapshots.

Marc had always insisted on giving his fans their money's worth by having at least one unique song on each single. Between 1971 and 1973 Marc was on a roll and released four singles that contained all non-LP tracks.

When you look at Marc's non-LP output from this period it almost seems like he was releasing a new album a few tracks at a time. Similar in the way writers would serialize a novel by releasing a chapter at a time in a magazine. If we gathered those tracks together we could make a fine album that would rest easily along side the three albums he released during that time.

This could be done in one of two ways. Gather all of the best songs that will fit on one vinyl LP or gather everything and put them all on one CD. There is too much material for a single album but not enough songs for a full double album. I played with option one but went with option two and filled out the CD with some rare bonus material.

01 Hot Love (Non-LP Single A Side)
02 King Of The Mountain Cometh (Hot Love B Side)
03 Woodland Rock (Hot Love B Side)
04 There Was A Time_Raw Ramp  (Get It On B Side)
05 Sailors of the Highway  (BBC recording. Never recorded for LP)
06 Cadillac (Telegram Sam B Side)
07 Thunderwing (Metal Guru B Side)
08 Lady (Metal Guru B Side)
09 Children Of The Revolution (Non-LP Single A Side)
10 Jitterbug Love (Children Of The Revolution B Side)
11 Sunken Rags (Children Of The Revolution B Side)
12 Solid Gold Easy Action (Non-LP Single A Side)
13 20th Century Boy (Non-LP Single A Side)
14 Free Angel (20th Century Boy B Side)
15 The Groover (Non-LP Single A Side)
16 Midnight (The Groover B Side)
17 Truck On (Tyke) (Non-LP Single A Side)
18 Sitting Here (Truck On (Tyke) B Side)
19 Children Of The Revolution (Born To Boogie soundtrack feat. Elton John and Ringo Star)
20 Children Of Rarn Suite (Unreleased)

Reality Notes

In 1971 Marc released Hot Love. If the previous single, Ride A White Swan, brought Marc to the edge of stardom, Hot Love pushed him over the edge. In the three short years following Marc had ten singles reach the top ten in the charts. Most of those reached the number one slot. T.Rex was everywhere. Hailed has the next Beatles, Trexstasy reached a fever pitch and in the eyes of the fans, Marc could do no wrong. Former Beatle Ringo Starr even directed a concert film for Apple Films.

My own Trexstasy reached its height in the late 70s and early 80s. I would scour the cutout bins (remember those?) and used record stores for anything that I had not heard yet. Occasionally I would come across a compilation with a new song and on rare occasions I would find a completely new album I had never seen before.

For this comp I gathered all of the non-LP tracks released between 1971 and 1973. I added three bonus tracks to bring it up to double album length. Sailors of the Highway was never recorded for a T.Rex album or single. It was released by Gloria Jones on her Vixen album which Marc produced. This T.Rex version comes from a BBC studio performance. The second version of Children of the Revolution comes from the Born To Boogie soundtrack for the film directed by Ringo Starr, It's an in studio performance featuring Ringo and Elton John. This version was recorded before the single version and is my preferred go to version.

The Children of Rarn Suite comes from this period but was not finished until the eighties by producer Tony Visconti. Originating in 1970 two short excerpts bookended the T.Rex album. This demo was recorded in 1971. The Children of Rarn was an ambitious project that at one time was planned to be a double album with an accompanying novel. Set in a Tolkienesque mythology it tells the story of two races that war with each other for control of their planet. This version first appeared on the compilation The Words And Music Of Marc Bolan 1947-1977. There are other versions out there, some more complete than others but Marc never really finished the piece.

The cover turned out nice.

Sources
Marc Bolan and T.Rex: The Hits and More
The Words And Music Of Marc Bolan 1947-1977
Marc Bolan and T.Rex: Across the Airwaves
Marc Bolan and T.Rex: Born to Boogie Soundtrack

The Rutles - Lunch - (C) Rutle Corps 2010

[I didn't want to post this without the permission of the original creator but it's been a while since I tried to contact him and still no answer. If he sees this and wants me to take it down I will.]

LUNCH is a unique collaboration between Rutle Corps and Circle of Hay celebrating the musical legacy of The Rutles. A legacy that will last long after other musical legacies have ended.

Born from a personal friendship and mutual admiration between now-retired Stig O'Hara and Circle founder Captain Liberty, LUNCH brings the manic energy of Circle of Hay together with the spirit and trousers behind the semi-legendary Prefab Four to create a vivid, intimate and powerful entertainment experience.

The southwestern cast of actors, riders and dancers channel a raw, amateur energy underscored by performance, rodeo and country square dance. With stereophonic sound and stereoscopic visuals, the audience experience The Rutles as not-quite before...

01 Lunch
02 Unfinished Words
03 Lonely-Phobia
04 Now She's Left You (transition)
05 Piggy in the Middle/Hold My Hand
06 Goose-Step Mama / It's Looking Good / Blue Suede Schubert
07 Ouch!
08 Another Day
09 Nevertheless/Joe Public
10 Good Times Roll
11 I Love You (transition)
12 Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik / Let's Be Natural
13 Questionnaire (transition)
14 Hey Mister!
15 We've Arrived! (And to Prove It We're Here)
16 Cheese and Onions
17 Shangri-La
18 Major Happy's Up And Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band (reprise)
19 Love Life

Reality Notes

Full Disclosure: I did nothing to this except split the full album MP3 into separate tracks. All credit goes to the original creator of this wonderful mashup and artwork (and the opening paragraphs of this post). Please visit the official website to get the full story.

Lunch is one man's loving attempt to create a Rutles equivalent to The Beatles Love album. If you liked Love and like The Rutles you will love Lunch. My only complaint is that the album is only available as a single video. While this is fine, the album is best to listen to in one go, the OCD in me wants the audio only with the tracks split to sit in the library better.

To accomplish this I downloaded the video and ripped the audio so that I could separate the tracks. I used the track by track description on the website to locate where I should mark the tracks (I hope I got them right). For the purists, I included the uncut MP3 file with the archive.

I've been wanting to do this for some time but only now got around to doing it. This is something special and I felt it should be shared. Please direct all praise for the incredible efforts and talent that went into the creation of this amazing work to the man who put it all together. The backstory alone is worth a hello to the author.

From the creator's website:

Disclaimer

This is a tribute...
Perhaps the most meta, niche tribute imaginable.

I've created this because I sincerely love these songs and the senses of humor that led to the creation of The Rutles.
I hope those people still have senses of humor.

This is not a for-profit enterprise - I make no money from this website.
I have expended tremendous amounts of time and effort (and money) on the production of the LUNCH audio, artwork and website.

It is my hope that this site and my effort will act as a tool of discovery, leading to the purchase of legitimate Rutles merchandise.

Legal

The Rutles were created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes.
The Rutles music was written by Neil Innes and is controlled by copyright.

The first Rutles album, The Rutles is controlled by Warner Music Group.
The second Rutles album, The Rutles Archaeology is controlled by Virgin/EMI.

The Beach Boys - Vocals Only

I've been working on this for a while and I think I finally have things where I like them. This is a collection of vocals only tracks. I had started this a while ago and decided to finish it up after my previous Alternate Universe post which features a song found here.

The goal of this comp was to present the best and most interesting tracks while also maximizing the listening experience by removing anything I felt got in the way and took me out of the moment. This is not a career spanning comprehensive collection though it does cover a good chunk of their output.

If you're looking for more, head on over to Paul's Albums That Should Exist blog. Shortly after I started working on this he posted two fine collections over there. There might be some overlap between mine and his but each of us took a different approach.

Side One
01 Wouldn't It Be Nice
02 She Knows Me Too Well
03 Surfer Girl
04 Farmer's Daughter
05 You Still Believe In Me
06 Girl From New York City
07 Catch A Wave
08 In My Room
09 Help Me Rhonda
10 Little Deuce Coupe
11 Be True To Your School

Side Two
01 Sloop John B
02 Good Vibrations
03 Fun Fun Fun
04 God Only Knows
05 California Girls
06 Loui Loui
07 Surfers Rule
08 Wonderful

Reality Notes

The Beach Boys have released several vocals only mixes in recent years including the entire Pet Sounds album. There are also many unofficial tracks to be found on various bootlegs. I have a three disc collection that gathers as many of these as possible that I no no longer recall where I found them.

That three disc boot sounds like a mix of vocals only mixes, reverse karaoke (OOPS, Out Of Phase) and what could be surround sound channel isolation tracks. The success rate for isolating the vocals is hit and miss so I went through them all and chose the best and most interesting to fill out this comp.

Once I had my tracklist I took each track and I trimmed and edited each one to remove or minimize any between vocal noise and pre/post song chatter and intros/outros. Even some of the cleanest mixes were tightened up by shortening any long quiet passages to make the listening experience smoother. Overall, eight of the nineteen tracks here recieved internal edits and most tracks had the beginnings and endings trimmed.

I included two songs that I found interesting but do not really fall in the same area as the rest. Good Vibrations features only the lead vocal and prominent jaw harp and sounds like an early take before the harmonies and final lead vocal were recorded. Wonderful, which closes the album, features an isolated overdub track full of strange sounds and noises and some background vocals.  I thought it gave the album a nice fun ending.

The three disc bootleg did not have a cover when I found it so I made one for it. I reused that cover here.

Sources
Good Vibrations: 30 Years box set
Pet Sounds: A Cappela
Vocals Only (bootleg)