Melancholia - Volume 12 [Special Edition]

Another Melancholia mixtape. I flip flopped on how I was going to post these. In chronological order or  randomly. I decided to post the first six volumes in order with the special themed volumes in between them.

This is the first of the themed collections. In reality, none of the themed tapes were intended to be a part of the series but when my library went digital I included them in with the series. They just seemed to fit together.

This edition has a slight country influence with splashes of reggae. I was going for something slightly off of mainstream with a bit of a Grateful Dead feel. In fact the first few times I played this at work we would play "find The Dead". This was also compiled on a 100 minute tape so it is a bit long but it's a nice kind of long.

Side A
01 Little Women - Breakfast at Lucille's
02 Kingfish - My Pledge of Love
03 Pete Townshend - There's A Heartache Following
04 Canned Heat - On The Road Again
05 The Wallflowers - Shy of the Moon
06 Roger Miller - King of  the Road
07 New Riders of the Purple Sage - Last Lonely Eagle
08 Peter Tosh - Ketchy Shuby
09 Joni Mitchell - Blue Motel Room
10 Steve Goodman - City of New Orleans
11 Paul Simon - Proof
12 Garcia, Grisman - A Horse Named Bill

Side B
01 Little Village - Don't Go Away Mad
02 Sugar Minott - Good Thing Going
03 Buffalo Springfield - Kind Woman
04 Bob Dylan - Hard Times
05 Solar Circus - Fortune Teller
06 The Rolling Stones - No Expectations
07 Led Zeppelin - That's The Way
08 KD Lang - Lock Stock & Teardrops
09 Neil Young - Are You Ready For The Country
10 John Lennon - You Are Here
11 Grateful Dead - Monkey And The Engineer
12 Bob Marley & The Wailers - One Love/People Get Ready
13 Arlo Guthrie - Hobo's Lullaby

Melancholia - Volume 1

noun: melancholia
 deep sadness or gloom; melancholy.
 
"rain slithered down the windows, encouraging a creeping melancholia"

Real life is encroaching on my time and I'm running thin on ideas that interest me so I think it's time to honor my promise/threat to post my Melancholia mixtape series (named after a Pete Townsend song). I'll be posting these when I have no other projects to post. I will give a short description of each collection and the tracklist but no further analysis. They are what they are.

You will see some artists make multiple appearances across the series but no artist appears more than once on any collection unless they are musicians in more than one band or a solo artist that is also in another band.

On my hard drive the series is 16 volumes. I won't be posting all of them. Three volumes (7, 10 and 11) are in flux at the moment and I have already posted one of the themed volumes which was the K-Tel edition. The first six volumes are general collections but starting with volume eight I started doing special themed compilations. Also the first five volumes were compiled on 90 minute tapes so they will not burn to a single CD.

When I made this first volume in 1985 it was not my intention to start a series but it turned out so well I kept it going. My goal with this comp was to gather some of my favorite songs with a focus on using only my cleanest vinyl and showcasing tracks that had a lot of headphone candy while at the same time being genre agnostic. Each volume has its own personality but there is a common feel that runs through the whole thing. Essentially this is my musical equivalent of comfort food. My wife at one time commented how the series does not make her sad like the name suggested and I had to correct her saying that it was meant to bring you out of sadness, not push you into it.

Side A
01 Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Lucky Man
02 Elton John - Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to be a Long Long Time)
03 Grand Funk Railroad - Some Kind Of Wonderful
04 Love and Rockets - Haunted When the Minutes Drag
05 The Bangles - More That Meets The Eye
06 T.Rex - The Slider
07 Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City
08 Cat Stevens - The Wind
09 War - Low Rider
10 Alice Cooper - Only Women Bleed
11 The Police - Walking in Your Footsteps

Side B
01 Kansas - Dust in the Wind
02 Pure Prairie League - Amie
03 Bob Seger - You'll Accomp'ny Me
04 Paul McCartney and Wings - Let Me Roll It
05 Doobie Brothers - Black Water
06 Pete Townshend - Behind Blue Eyes
07 U2 - Bad
08 Buckingham-Nicks - Crying In The Night
09 Crosby, Stills & Nash - Helplessly Hoping
10 The Rolling Stones - Play With Fire
11 Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Southern Accents
12 Billy Vera & The Beaters - Hopeless Romantic

I have a common template for the covers. Each features some form of fantasy or classic artwork.

Grateful Dead - Day Job - 1995

[UPDATE: I've made enough changes to this album to justify an updated archive. Something I rarely do. I've removed the two songs I was never quite happy with: Keep Your Day Job and Samba In The Rain and swapped the version of Days Between with a new edit by John Hilgart over at Save Your Face. Overall the album feels more concise and consistent from front to back. On Nov. 22nd the band will finally release their version. With only 9 songs but still long enough to make it a double vinyl album due to using all live version it still seems long to me but at least we'll finally have the band's input.]

Last week I addressed The Grateful Dead's hypothetical first album so I thought it appropriate that I take a look at their last. I've been seeing a lot of constructions of what could have been the last Grateful Dead album before Jerry Garcia passed away. I enjoyed all of them but none of them satisfied me completely for one reason or another so I decided to throw my hat in the ring.

In 1995 The Dead had begun the process of recording their next album. According to interviews they had barely gotten past the stage of laying down the foundation when Jerry checked out. While ideally it would be best to polish off those recordings, Jerry never got around to doing his vocals or solos which renders the album impossible to finish from the band's perspective.

Fortunately for us all songs in contention were played live on many occasions. The band recorded every show which gives us plenty of source material to construct a facsimile of what the album could have sounded like. Interpretations of this album vary and production was still in its early stages so the only clues we have from the band is a list of potential songs in no particular order.

01 Lazy River Road (Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter)
02 Corinna (Bob Weir/Mickey Hart/Robert Hunter)
03 Wave to the Wind (Phil Lesh/Robert Hunter)
04 Easy Answers (Bob Weir/Bob Bralove/Rob Wasserman/Vince Welnick/Robert Hunter)
05 If the Shoe Fits (Phil Lesh/Andrew Charles)
06 So Many Roads (Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter)
07 Way to Go Home (Vince Welnick/Bob Bralove/Robert Hunter)
08 Liberty (Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter)
09 Eternity (Bob Weir/Rob Wasserman/Willie Dixon)
10 Days Between (Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter)

Reality Notes

The first version of this album I heard was Days Between (The Final Album That Never Was), by Tony Sclafani, author of The Grateful Dead FAQ book. This remained my goto version right up to when I started my construction. What I liked most about Tony's construction was his use of shorter length versions over longer jams even when the longer version was better. This allowed all 12 tracks to fit comfortably on one disc.

I think my growing dissatisfaction came down to sequencing, not enough Jerry and too much Phil. As a bass player Phil sits among my pantheon of bass gods but I have never been a fan of his voice and there were three Phil songs. To rectify this I dropped Phil's Childhood's End (the worst offender) and added Keep Your Day Job. I'm well aware of the controversy over Day Job but I have always liked the song and feel it is mostly misinterpreted by those who speak against it (if you're one of those then just delete the song and you'll still have a full album). I swapped a few other versions and shuffled the songs around until I had a good flow from track to track.

I have been enjoying this construction, I'm very pleased with how it came out. It's amazing how swapping out a few songs can complete an album. My only complaint would be its length. At just over 72 minutes it is quite hefty but this is the swan song of one of rock's most iconic bands so I'm willing to let the length slide. It fits on a CD and it's The Grateful Dead. I'm Happy.

There's still a few scraps out there to collect together. I had the cover song Women are Smarter in contention but in the end went with an all originals tracklist. If someone could find a version of Childhood's End where Phil doesn't sound like an average bar band singer let me know. It's an OK song and is filler worthy but time constraints and subpar vocals pushed it out of contention for this construction.

The cover again utilizes a tour poster graphic with added text by me. I like using tour poster art because I feel it's the closest we can get to official artwork and band promo photos don't always make good album covers.

Hindsight

I was going to add these hindsights chronologically but I wanted to address this album specifically because it is the only one that I have changed since posting. after some further listens it still felt long. I've since dropped Day Job and Samba In The Rain. As much as I like Day Job neither song seemed to fit. I'm not updating the download so if you want to play along you can just delete those songs. Eventhough I'm dropping the title song I'm keeping the album as named. It's a cool name and kind of a tribute to one of my favorite songs of this period that never found a home. This does mean that there are still a small handful of post Built To Last songs that are still unused. Hmmm.

A recent post on the Save Your Face blog led me to an acoustic Dead show on 09/24/1994 at The Berkeley Community Theatre that was billed as a Phil and Friends show but was The Dead minus the drummers. During the set they did a version of Phil's Childhood's End that is for me the most listenable version I've heard yet. If I were to make a comp of what's left I would go with that version. They also did a fine version of Lazy River Road that is almost as good as this one but not enough to replace it. It would have been nice to have at least one acoustic number on the album.

Is it on my iPod? Yes. The Dead is one of the few bands that I have their full studio discography with me at all times including all of the constructions here. It gives me a fuller picture of the band I feel and makes for an interesting listen when on shuffle.

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.