Melancholia Vol 19 - Singers and Songwriters

Time for another themed edition of  my Melancholia series just in time to finish off the year. This one focuses on the singer/songwriter genre that peaked in the early 1970s. Many of these artists are among my favorites and this genre is close to being comfort food for me so it surprises me that it's taken me so long to put this together. It has become a regular listen between everything else I've been listening to.

Some of these artists, Joan Beaz, Fred Neil, have their roots in the pre and early sixties folk movement and others, Neil Young, Glen Campbell, are on the fringe of the genre. Shawn Colvin is more contemporary but has carried on the tradition nicely, I love her first album.

Because many of these artist have appeared on other Melancholia editions, song choice was dictated as much by the need to avoid track duplication as it was by my own tastes and likes. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Loggins and Messina - House At Pooh Corner
02 Anne Murray - Danny's Song
03 Dave Loggins - Please Come to Boston
04 Joan Baez - Diamonds & Rust
05 Glen Campbell - Gentle on My Mind
06 Steve Goodman - The Dutchman
07 Harry Chapin - Cat's In The Cradle
08 Paul Simon - Something So Right
09 Carole King - Will You Love Me Tomorrow
10 Bruce Cockburn - Wondering Where The Lions Are
11 Leonard Cohen - Suzanne
12 Seals & Crofts - Summer Breeze
13 Cat Stevens - Moonshadow
14 Jim Croce - Lover's Cross
15 John Denver - Rocky Mountain High
16 James Taylor - Carolina in My Mind
17 Joni Mitchell - The Circle Game
18 Fred Neil - Everybody's Talking
19 Shawn Colvin - Shotgun Down The Avalanche
20 Harry Nilsson - Me And My Arrow
21 Neil Young - Old Man

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.

Melancholia Vol 18 - The MTV 80s

Time for another themed edition from the Melancholia series. This one revolves around the 80s at the peak of MTV influence. I first heard each of these songs while watching MTV in the eighties, back when MTV actually played music. While still not a big fan of the era these songs stuck with me. There are a couple bands on this comp that I further explored but for the most part, to me, these are mostly one hit wonders in my book. But such cool songs that seem to perfectly encapsulate what the eighties were for me.

I have one more themed edition to post and two non-themed volumes that I may or may not post which are more catch all type collections that I enjoy playing but don't seem to have the same emotional impact the others do. I might revisit and restructure them.

Tracklist

01 Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
02 Tears For Fears - Everybody wants to rule the world
03 Scandal - Goodbye To You
04 The Fixx - One Thing Leads To Another
05 Psychedelic Furs - Pretty In Pink
06 Animotion - Obsession
07 Fine Young Canibals - She Drives Me Crazy
08 Glass Tiger - Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone
09 Haircut 100 - Love Plus One
10 Human League, the - Fascination
11 Kajagoogoo - Too Shy
12 Katrina and the Waves - Walking On Sunshine
13 Madness - Our House
14 Naked Eyes - Always Something There To Remind Me
15 OMD - If You Leave
16 Talk Talk - Talk Talk
17 The Outfield - Your Love
18 Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me)
19 Soft Cell - Tainted Love-Where Did Our Love Go (Extended Version)
20 Split Enz - I Got You
21 Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days

Bonnie Raitt - Philly 1972

This was my first and still my favorite Bonnie Raitt bootleg. But like many live documents there is a lot of dead space where the band is tuning or chatting among themselves which for me brings things to a crawl. So what I've done here is edit the between song sections to improve the overall flow. There is still some chatter but not enough to get in the way.
Paul over at Albums That Should Exist posted a version of this as well but we took different approaches.

Tracklist

01 Mighty Tight Woman
02 Rollin' & Tumblin'
03 Anyday Woman
04 Woman Be Wise
05 Thank You
06 Bluebird
07 Finest Lovin' Man
08 Big Road
09 Stayed Too Long At The Fair
10 Under The Falling Sky
11 Walkin' Blues
12 Can't Find My Way Home
13 Richland Woman Blues
14 Blender Blues
15 Since I Fell For You

Reality Notes

Like my Grateful Dead, Barton Hall edit my goal here was to fix the flow of the album. I'm sure live and in the moment this was an amazing show to be at but the between song chatter always takes me out of the recording. Also, when a song would pop up when the iPod was on shuffle you tend to get songs from live recordings that either start or end with a lot of dead space bringing the listening experience to a halt. For that reason alone I tend to leave live albums off my iPod but there are a few I love having around and this is one of them.

The cover is the original cover I received with my bootleg. This show has been "officially" released somewhat recently with a new cover but the contents are exactly the same as the bootleg.

KISS - Larger Than Life

[I finally cleared some space in my Mega account. I have a small handful of projects to post and one special project in the works but that won't be ready for some time yet. I'll try to space the new posts out in hopes the new one will be ready by then but I can't promise.]

In late 1977 KISS released their second live album, KISS Alive II, only 2 years and three studio albums after their previous live album Alive!. Because of the close release dates between the live albums they decided that the second album should only contain songs from the last three albums which led to not having enough songs for a full two vinyl disc set. To fix this they recorded five new songs and put those on side four making the album a three sides live one studio.

What if instead of the live album they just put out a new album. This is my answer to that question.

Side One
01 All American Man
02 Rockin' In The USA
03 Larger Than Life
04 Rocket Ride
05 Goodbye

Side Two
01 Burning Up With Fever
02 Wiped Out
03 Tossin' And Turnin'
04 Living In Sin
05 Wouldn't You Like Me To Know

Reality Notes

1977 saw KISS transform from the lean, hungry and mean underdog band from New York into the superstar household names often referred to as SuperKISS. After Alive II they released a best of package, the solo albums and two more studio albums before SuperKISS was brought down and humbled. During this time they relesed a disco single and the average age of their concert attendees went from 18-20 down to 12-16.

For this comp I took the studio songs from Alive II and fleshed them out with the leftovers from the solo albums not used on my yake of the 1978 Radioactive album. I did drop one song, a cover of The Dave Clark Five's Anyway You Want It. I replaced that with another cover, Tossin' and Turnin' which was a part of their setlist in 1979, from Peter's solo album to give him a vocal. KISS have done covers before but never more than one per album. It's for this reason I did not use New York Groove from Ace's solo album. We do have two Ace songs.

I tried to pick the most KISS sounding songs from what was left from the solo albums after my 1978 construction. What's left is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. The final result is quite enjoyable and sits in nice between Love Gun and Radioactive.

For the cover I reconstructed the Alive II album cover with the new title.

Pearhead Bootleg Sampler

So last night my band played at Milwaukee's Summerfest. We don't play out too often so I attempted to record the show with a Zoom H4n recorder and was going to post that here if it turned out OK but something failed and all I have is the first minute of soundcheck. We did film it so hopefully that turned out.

We didn't have any physical CDs to sell so we threw together a sampler CDR to give away. Here is a rip of that CDR. It contains four songs each from our two albums and four songs from our upcoming album. We used those cool CDRs that look like a vinyl LP and slipped them into plain black CD sleeves and just handed them out to who ever wanted one.

From the album Barefoot on a Gravel Road
01 Remember Love
02 Red White and Blue
03 Getto Song
04 Feather In Her Hat

From the album Mainstreet Barbershop
05 Temptation
06 Willow
07 Going Nowhere
08 Buddha Dog [slow version]

From the upcoming album TooKens
09 Fishin' Boat
10 Illusions
11 Same Ol' Song
12 More More More

The title TooKens is a play on the fact that our two principle songwriters are named Ken. You can listen to all of our music at our ReverbNation page. We also did a covers album under the name Mighty Man which was fun.

Status Report

As you may have noticed I haven't been vary active lately. Time has been limited and ideas have been few. I do have a couple projects in the works but I'm taking my time with them. At my peak I always seemed to have a few projects done and on deck. It has been interesting to watch the weekly Top 5 list change from day to day and readership seems to be steady so thanks to all of you still stopping by.

In an effort to keep things alive around here I'll be adding another feature. I will be going through each post and add a section called Hindsight. Starting with my first post and working my way up to the present, both here and on my Beatles blog, I'll give a short review on how I feel the project has stood up, how it might be different if I made the construction today and if the project has made its way onto my iPod.

It is rare that I would redo a project so don't expect actual updates but if something is easy to fix I'll include the how and why. For the most part I am happy with at least 90% of the work I have posted. Any changes are most likely related to song choices and track order.

Since my 160gb iPod died I have been using my old 30gb which means space is a bit more tight so a comp has to be special to make it on there. To maximize my walking around music I make my own "best of" comps of 5 to 20 songs for artists that I am either not familiar with their whole catalog or those that have huge discographies but only a handful of songs I find appealing. Others I have my favorite albums with a best of the rest comp. There are a few groups that I have all studio albums on there but to reduce redundant songs I leave the live albums off.

A reader recently contacted me about my ELP concept that I introduced in my last posts and asked if they could run with the idea for their own projects. I was fine with it and gave them the OK and I am looking forward to seeing what they do with it. But it got me thinking about double albums and the ELP format in general. I've discussed my feelings about double albums many times here so I won't repeat myself but I am not as militant about it as I seem to be. Many double albums will fit on a single CD thus they will fit in the ELP format. A single CD is easier to deal with than two. My vision is any album between 50 and 70 minutes I would consider an ELP. I'll discuss any construction here that may apply in my Hindsight feature.

So stay tuned, There is more to come. In the meantime, keep checking in and be sure to visit my friends on the blogroll on the right. We all have different tastes and methods so I know you can find some great stuff from them. I know I have. Share the love. Play hard but play safe.

The cover art for this post is the cover for my band's upcoming release. We are an indy-indy basement band that records in my home project studio on the weekends so work goes slow but the new album is getting closer to being done. When it's finished we will release it on ReverbNation and on our website and hopefully on Spotify. We give our music away for free so download all you want. We all have decent day jobs so no need to complicate things. I'll post it here as well.

The Beatles - The BEATLES I

So, dig this. In 1966 they introduced a new music format called "Laser Read Music Delivery System" or LRMDS for short. The music industry in general was hesitant to try a new format but the classical and jazz industries quickly embraced the medium for its clean sound, its ability to hold longer playback times and the elimination of the need to turn the disc over halfway through. But not before renaming the format to the Extended Long Player or ELP for short. [Many years later, uninformed journalists often would misquote a certain popular Prog band claimimg this as the origin of their band's name. Silly journalists.]

The pop market was slow to catch on to the format due to its higher cost for the consumer. But as 60s consciousness expanded and pop groups became pop artists the format's appeal grew. Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde was tailor made and specifically targeted to the ELP. Frank Zappa exploited the format to its limits on a regular basis.

The first Beatles product released on the format was when Capitol decided to expand EMI's Magical Mystery Tour double EP soundtrack to fit on the ELP adding all the non-LP singles and B-sides not yet released in any long playing format.

But in 1968 The Beatles themselves decided to see how far they could push the format and released not one but two separate but simultaneously recorded ELPs. Averaging 70 minutes each the record companies were worried that the buying public would feel overwhelmed by such an abundance of music from one artist all in one go. But of course Beatles fans couldn't get enough of it.

The contents of each album was a wide cross section of the band's influences stripped of the psychedelia of the past year we got everything from soft folk songs to rousing sing-a-longs to weird abstract soundscapes and straight up rockers, most likely an after effect from their recent meditation retreat in India. Two abbreviated LPs were also released for those on a tighter budget.

Eventually debates and discussions arose over which collection was the better one or whether or not two sets were even necessary. Some fans even went so far as to compile their own single ELP versions.  Imagine that.

01 Back in the USSR
02 Dear Prudence
03 Glass Onion
04 Sour Milk Sea
05 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
06 Wild Honey Pie
07 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
08 While My Guitar Gently Weeps
09 Happiness Is a Warm Gun
10 Los Paranoias
11 Martha My Dear
12 I'm So Tired
13 Blackbird
14 Revolution
15 Piggies
16 Hey Bulldog
17 Rocky Raccoon
18 What's The New Mary Jane
19 Circles
20 Don't Pass Me By
21 Why Don't We Do It In The Road
22 I Will
23 Julia

Reality Notes

I go into a little more detail in the post for part two below. I used the 2009 stereo remaster as my base and for the most part kept the songs in their original order and slipped the new songs where I felt they fit in. The sources for the additional material mostly comes from the 2018 deluxe package unless otherwise noted. I also followed George Martin's plan of not having more than two songs in a row by a single writer, George's songs are spread out evenly between the two discs and all of the "animal" songs are on one disc.

Songs and edits of note are as follows:

Sour Milk Sea: This outfake comes from the 22 disc bootleg series The Lost Album. This is one of the better versions of this outfake that syncs George's Esher demo with the backing track from the Jackie Lomax version that George produced and features Paul on bass and Ringo on drums as well as Eric Clapton on guitar.

Los Paranoias: This is my edit of the impromptu jam between Paul, John and Ringo recorded during the I Will session. This is a new edit and is different from the edit I did on my Paul solo album version.

Revolution is the single version (Hey Jude appears on the second disc).

Hey Bulldog: This was recorded before the trip to India along with Across The Universe during the Lady Madonna sessions so could be considered outside the timeline but the Beatles didn't like to leave things in the can and in spite of it being slated for use in the upcoming animated film they also used it here.

What's The New Mary Jane is the Anthology mix.

Circles is the Esher demo.

Don't Pass Me By: I prefaced this song with the A Beginning orchestral piece as originally intended. I transitioned from one to the next by having the piano intro of the song start to appear while the orchestra is winding down creating a nice natural join of the two parts.

Why Don't We Do It In The Road: I prefaced this song with an additional verse from the previous take to extend the song a little bit more. This is a recreation of the edit I did to the song on my solo album version.

Where ever appropriate I created transitions between the songs to match the flow between songs on the original release.

The Beatles - The BEATLES II

Released on the same day as its sister ELP, The BEATLES II was another full collection of songs covering the same range of styles as its companion album.

While containing fewer songs, this disc is actually longer than the first disc. Two tracks here are almost epic in length. Hey Jude is 7:12  and Revolution 19 clocks in at 10:32!

While initially the more popular of the two albums, most fans would eventually purchase both sets to even out the sales. Future editions would package the two discs together along with bonus discs of out takes and demos.

01 Helter Skelter
02 Yer Blues
03 Mother Nautre's Son
04 Not Guilty
05 Junk
06 Sexy Sadie
07 While My Guitar Gently Weeps II
08 Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
09 Birthday
10 Hey Jude
11 Long, Long, Long
12 Heather
13 Honey Pie
14 Child Of Nature
15 Across the Universe
16 Savoy Truffle
17 Cry Baby Cry
18 Can You Take Me Back?
19 Revolution 19
20 Good Night

Reality Notes

A big shout out and infinite thanks go to SonicLoveNoise for his amazing sync up of the full version of Revolution 1 and Revolution 9 to create his Revolution 19, without which this comp would not have come out as good. The syncing of the two songs transformed the track from an abstract soundscape to a long freak out jam. He created this mashup for his recent April 1 post of a crazy single WA disc. Please go there and check his blog out. He has some wonderful constructions and his attention to detail is impressive.

This project is my attempt to expand the White Album by including everything of note possible in as a polished and complete form as I could. As with many of my constructions I did more than just compile the tracks. I did many edits and transitions to create a flow to match the original album and dropped no tracks other than the merging of Rev 1 and Rev 9 (thanks again Sonic).

At the heart of this comp is the White Album we all know and love and debate and argue about and bond over. I kept the original tracks for the most part in their original order slipping in new songs where appropriate. I did extend a few songs but refrained from using any alternate versions such as the earlier version of Ob-La-Di which I think is just as good. The idea was to expand the album rather than change it up completely. Think of it as an extended movie director's cut with all the deleted scenes put back in.

Songs and edits of note are as follows:

Not Guilty: Take 102 from the 2018 remix bonus disc.

Junk: This is an edit I did for my Paul '68 solo album. I took the instrumental version from the McCartney album and slipped the vocal version inside it to extend the song to over three minutes. Even though this was recorded in 1970, the primitive way Paul recorded the tracks at home helps it fit in with the '68 tracks.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps II: This is the Love version of George's demo with George Martin's orchestral score. The first of two repeated titles across both albums but both alternates are so different they can coexist. This is one of the elements passed down from the Use Your Illusion timeline as those albums each contained a different version of Don't Cry.

Hey Jude: The single version. Maybe having the full version on a record they would have edited the single version down some.

Heather: From a tape of Paul and Donovan trading songs. While not from the WA sessions themselves, it is contemporary so why not include it? We have the room. I did do some cleaning and editing to polish it up a bit.

Child Of Nature: This is my enhanced Esher Demo. Normally when I do these I have all of the songs in front of me in a sequencer. The program I use is flexible enough to do some simple but creative editing but this song and Goodnight were worked on individually before being brought into the project as a whole. The editing I was doing wasn't anything complicated but became frustrating when in the context of the full project. I added more birds from Across The Universe which follows the song and flew in some crashing waves from my sound effects library for the intro. This song was later reworked by John for the Imagine album as Jealous Guy. A better song for sure but this is still an interesting listen.

Across the Universe: I used the Wildlife version from Past Masters but transitioned the song out of the previous song by having the bird sounds before they take off appear during the fade out of Child of Nature.

Can You Take Me Back?: I took a bigger chunk from the full take one to justify its own track listing.

Revolution 19: Sonic's masterpiece. This was the catalyst for this comp (the story came later). I was perfectly happy to enjoy the 2018 deluxe White Album and everybody else's constructions until I heard this. By syncing up Revolution 9 with Revolution 1, we were able to eliminate a redundancy that allowed us to include the single version on disc one and improve the overall flow of both discs. Without this we would have to make a choice on which Revolution to eliminate (most likely keeping the single version as a single only and moving Rev 1 to disc one) even if No. 9 sounds little like the song it was built upon.

Good Night: I added on the guitar version with harmonies before seguing into the finished orchestral version extending the song to over three and a half minutes.

This is now my preferred way to listen to The White Album. Even though we have more music, by separating the tracks into two groups makes for a more manageable listen to me. I liken it to having a double scoop ice cream cone taken away from me but given back two full bowls. And thanks to the 2018 remixes of the Esher demos which, while still rough, improved them enough that I felt no qualms including the ones I did. In fact I feel they fit in nicely in this format.

I modeled the covers on the original of course but now we have a white album and a black album.

The Beatles - "Double" Rubber Soul - 1965

This post pushes the "What if" motif of this blog to it's limits. Even more, I suspect that it will raise an eyebrow or two of those that are familiar with my opinion of double albums but this story was too good to let it pass me by (no pun intended Ringo).

In 1965 The Beatles came off the road to work on new material and begin filming their next, still untitled movie. During the long days of filming the boys spent their downtime "having a laugh" and writing more songs. By the time they finished filming they had more than enough songs for an album with seven songs to be used in the movie and by the time they finished recording they had more than 20 more songs to deal with. Combined with the songs from the movie they had over 30 songs!

George Martin's plan was to let United Artists have the soundtrack songs and release another album, one or two EPs and some singles over time but the boys had other plans. Using their newfound clout as England's biggest hit-makers they managed to convince EMI/Parlophone to release everything as a double album!

In spite of its size, this comp will fit on a single CD.

Side One
1 I've Just Seen A Face
2 Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3 Think For Yourself
4 The Word
5 It's Only Love
6 Girl
7 In My Life
8 I'm Looking Through You

Side Two
1 Nowhere Man
2 You're Going To Lose That Girl
3 You Like Me Too Much
4 Michelle
5 If You've Got Trouble
6 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
7 Drive My Car

Side Three
1 Day Tripper
2 What Goes On
3 Wait
4 Run For Your Life
5 If I Needed Someone
6 Another Girl
7 The Night Before
8 We Can Work It Out

Side Four
1 Dizzy Miss Lizzy
2 You Won't See Me
3 That Means a Lot
4 Act Naturally
5 Tell Me What You See
6 I Need You
7 Yesterday

Reality Notes

I have heard George Harrison say that Rubber Soul and Revolver are sister albums. Personally, I have always connected Rubber Soul with the Help! album. The two albums have a similar feel and production. Especially as someone who grew up with the US version of Rubber Soul, hands down my favorite Beatles album and the only one which I prefer the US version over the UK version. If they had replaced Michelle (my least favorite Beatles song) with something else it would have been perfect.

My one big complaint is the length. The US albums always clock in at around 30 minutes. Because of this I started to expand the album by reinstating the songs Capitol removed and adding more songs from the Help! album. It was while listening to my latest version that this story started to emerge.

I used the 2009 mono remasters as my baseline. Previous versions used the stereo mixes but due to the odd mixing of putting vocals on one side and instruments on the other, I would always switch the playback to mono, especially if I was working nearer to one speaker than the other in my listening room.

I did use the US stereo version of I'm Looking Through You to have the false start but folded the song down to mono to fit in with the rest. When the original CDs were released I never even noticed that the false start was not there. My brain filled it in for me every time. I also included the two outtakes from the Help! sessions, If You Got Trouble and That Means A Lot and included an unlisted snippet of 12 Bar Original for good measure.

Side one is my condensed version of the US Rubber Soul. This is the core of the album to me and the sequence that evokes the greatest amount of nostalgia when listening. From there I sequenced each side for maximum flow and impact as well as making sure that each side would flow into the next on CD.

I kept Help!/I'm Down and Ticket To Ride/Yes It Is aside for non-LP singles. We Can Work It Out/Dizzy Miss Lizzy are still released as a single on the same day as the double LP. The Yesterday and Nowhere Man EPs are still released as planned to give the buyers a choice.

This post is more than a simple "what if" scenario. The idea here is to take a timeline and lay it on top of another timeline to see how one affects the other. The two timelines do not have to be from the same person or band. In essence, I take one or two elements from the overlay and apply it to the current events.

I have another project like this one where I lay the timeline of the recording of G'N'R's Use Your Illusion over the events of the White Album. This project takes the events from the time The Beatles went to Rishi Kesh through the completion of the White Album and layers them on top of the events from the filming of Help! to the completion of Rubber Soul. The elements from '68 that are shadowed in '65 are the downtime of Rishi Kesh and the glut of songs that led to a double album.

Bruce Springsteen II

[Still busy but I had this one laying around]

A while back I posted what could have been Bruce Springsteen's debut album. At the time I posted I was trying to maintain a certain amount of realism in regards to release schedules and album lengths so I refrained from posting this.

This is the follow-up to that imagined debut album. It's sources are the same though I opened up some criteria in choosing the songs. While the first was strictly just Bruce and a guitar or piano, this album bears witness to the beginnings of the E-Street Band.

While still stripped down to the bare minimum as far as backing arrangements go, some of these songs are more fleshed out than others. When he signed, the label had hopes that they found the next folky Dylan but Bruce had other plans.

01 Bishop Danced
02 New York City Serenade
03 Evacuation of the West
04 Cowboys Of The Sea
05 Hey Santa Ana
06 Marie
07 Visitation at Fort Horne
08 The Angel

Reality Notes

As noted above, the sources for these tracks come from the same two bootlegs that I created the alt-debut from though some songs have seen official release in some form. Overall, this still does not exhaust the pool of songs from those CDs. Also included on those discs are songs that would be re-recorded for inclusion on the first two albums Greetings From Asbury Park and The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle as well as a few more unreleased songs.

This is a fine companion to the the alt-debut. For the cover I wanted something simple. I'm pretty sure that the picture is contemporary with the music. I imagine the pic being embossed into the cover.

Sources
Before The Fame
The Early Years

Melancholia - Volume 17 - The 90s What's Going On

This will be my last regular post for a while. Time is short these days and I'm having more fun reading everyone else's blogs. I'll keep an eye out for comments but my posting schedule for a while will look more like Sonic's and the other part-timers. I do have two more Melancholia volumes to post so you may see those sooner than later. Thanks for reading.

This is the most recent edition to my Melancholia series. The theme I was going for is mid-90s alternative rock or sometimes referred to as college rock. A mix of rock, grunge and dirty power pop, it was a good time for music.

When I started putting this together I consulted my younger brother and a few online lists for song titles. Between my brothers list and the lists online I ended up with about 50 songs and ended up putting together a three disc comp for my brother before trimming the list down to the 21 songs found here.

I've been enjoying this comp a lot and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite Melancholia editions. I drew the cover pic during a recording/rehearsal session for one of the bands I work with. The subtitle comes from the song What's Up by 4 Non Blondes. I never cared for the song but it is one of my brother's favorites so in concession for leaving the song off (I did put it on his multi disc version) I used the title here. Enjoy.

01 Alanis Morissette - Hand In My Pocket
02 Everclear - Santa Monica
03 Republica - Ready To Go
04 Cracker - Low
05 Bush - Glycerine
06 Green Day - When I Come Around
07 Pixies - Here Comes Your Man
08 Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
09 Blink 182 - All The Small Things
10 The Divinyls - I Touch Myself
11 The Toadies - Possum Kingdom
12 Live - I Alone
13 Meat Puppets - Backwater
14 Weezer - Buddy Holly
15 Goo Goo Dolls - Slide
16 Presidents of the United States - Lump
17 Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains
18 Screaming Trees - Nearly Lost You
19 Nirvana - All Apologies
20 Smashing Pumpkins - I Am One
21 Collective Soul - December

Rush - All The World's A Stage - Not Recorded Live

Another from my Not Live series.

I could have been a massive Rush fan. I had tickets to see them on one of their first headlining tours during my formative years but the Blizzard of 78 snowed me in. I often wonder if I had seen them live, would I have reacted differently to them.

I have nothing but love and respect for the guys and their talent but I lost interest from Hemispheres on. The song Tom Sawyer did nothing for me. I was never much for prog and it seemed they were heading more in that direction.

That said, I did listen to the live album and 2112 often and the followup to the live album contained my favorite Rush song, Closer To The Heart which I included as a bonus encore song. Enjoy.

01 Bastille Day
02 Anthem
03 Fly By Night
04 In The Mood
05 Something For Nothing
06 Lakeside Park
07 2112
08 By-Tor & The Snow Dog
09 In The End
10 Working Man
11 Finding My Way
12 What You're Doing
13 Closer To The Heart

Reality Notes

For me Rush suffered the fate of most of the popular bands of the mid 70s. I had just entered my unhappy, anti-radio, folky/glam rock phase and anything I wasn't already emotionally attached to went by the wayside. It wasn't until the mid 80s that I opened myself up and discovered a new appreciation for artists like Prince and Elvis Costello though I never really re-warmed up to many of those mid 70s bands I shunned back then. Mostly I discovered a lot of artists that I never gave a fair chance to back in my snobby phase.

This collection can be seen as a roadmap of Rush's journey from young upstarts to established mega stars. Every studio album before the live album is represented. The band had a unique sound that they honed and developed over the years which for me culminated with the A Farewell To Kings album. After that they seemed repetitive to me but that observation comes from someone who hasn't really listened to much after that anyway so take that with a grain of salt.

I modified the original cover a bit using the pic from the back of the 2112 album.

Marc Bolan & T.Rex - '74-'77 Sky Church Music

This is the second album that collects tracks from Marc's '74 to '77 time period. The first volume focused on the non-LP singles and B-sides. This one gathers what I feel are the best and more interesting outtakes from the time.

Some of these tracks are proper studio outtakes, others are embellished demos. I stayed away from Marc's home acoustic demos as they can be of variable quality and can be quite rough. A few of these tracks have posthumous overdubs. I tried to avoid these as much as possible. For those I did include, either there was no unaltered versions available or - as in the case of Depth Charge - the overdubs actually improved the song enough to warrant its inclusion.

01 Reelin' An' A Rockin' An' A Boppin' An' A Bolan 1
02 Funky London Childhood 2
03 All Of My Love 1
04 Bolan's Zip Gun (Theme For A Dragon) 1
05 Dance In The Midnight (version 1) 3
06 Magical Moon (1976 Studio Outtake) 6
07 Metropolis Incarnate 4
08 Mr Motion 3
09 Saturday Night (version 3) 4
10 Savage Beethoven 6
11 Sky Church Music 7
12 Do I Love Thee 8
13 Everyday 8
14 Depth Charge 9
15 Hope You Enjoy The Show 1

Reality Notes

For a collection of tracks from my least favorite period of Marc's, this is a pretty good comp and even more surprising and enjoyable than the last volume. The sources for these tracks are varied but the bulk of them came from the Unchained series or Messing With The Mystic, both from Edsel Records who owned Marc's post '72 tape archives at the time of release.

A couple of these songs would find a spot on official albums in slightly modified form. Funky London Childhood appears on Dandy In The Underworld with new lyrics as Domino. Bolan's Zip Gun (Theme For A Dragon) minus the vocals, opens the Futuristic Dragon album. Magical Moon is a remake of a song from the Beard Of Stars LP.

The versions of Do I Love Thee, Everyday and Depth Charge are from the Marc On Wax albums Dance In The Midnight and Billy Super Duper. These songs received posthumous overdubs which divided fans but the untouched versions were either non-existent or too rough to include. A few others here also appeared on those albums (All Of My Love, Dance In The Midnight, Saturday Night and Metropolis Incarnate - all appear on the Dance In The Midnight album) but these are the unaltered versions that show the songs potential enough to include them over the more polished, embellished versions.

Again, the cover looks to be outside of the time frame of the album. It looks like it is from '73 but could be from '74. The outfit is typical of the outfits he wore on the Tanx tour.

Sources

1 Messing With The Mystic
2 I Love To Boogie
3 Unchained Vol. 3
4 Unchained Vol. 4
5 Unchained Vol. 6
6 Christmas Box
7 Pure Magic
8 Dance in the Midnight
9 Billy Super Duper

Marc Bolan & T.Rex - '74-'77 Tame My Tiger

I thought I was done with Marc but apparently not. This is the first of a two volume set covering the years 1974 through 1977. This volume covers the non-LP singles and B-sides. Volume two will cover the outtakes.

I've mentioned my dissatisfaction of this period of Marc but the singles, for the most part, fared better than the albums. I often refer to this time as Marc's "lost" period. He seemed to be chasing trends rather than setting them. Heck, Dreamy Lady b/w covers of Do You Wanna Dance? and Dock Of The Bay were credited to T.Rex Disco Party!

Many of the tracks prominently featured Gloria Jones as a co-lead singer or main backing vocalist and her organ is on display high in the mix. The last two tracks were credited to Big Carrot but were T.Rex songs with Gloria as the main or co-vocalist.

Side One
01 Satisfaction Pony
02 Dreamy Lady
03 Do You Wanna Dance?
04 Dock Of The Bay
05 London Boys
06 Laser Love
07 Life's An Elevator

Side Two
01 To Know You Is To Love You
02 City Port
03 Dandy In The Underworld
04 Tame My Tiger
05 Celebrate Summer
06 Big Carrot - Blackjack
07 Big Carrot - Squint Eye Mangle

Reality Notes

Aside from a few oddball covers and some questionable production choices, this is a pretty good collection. '74 - '76 saw Marc's popularity slip. He started an affair with Gloria before splitting from his wife June, culminating in the birth of his only child before his death in '77. He was also at his unhealthiest having gained weight and was drinking heavy. His albums from '74 and '75 certainly have some highlights but fail to stack up to his earlier works. Futuristic Dragon in '76 was better as was his health. '77s Dandy In The Underworld gave us the Marc we all knew and Loved.

I can't promise that the images I used for the covers are timeline correct. I chose them because I liked them. The pic used here looks more to be from '72 (you can usually tell from the hair) and I'm pretty sure the one I used for the next volume is from '73. Anyway, I wouldn't be the first to use an out of time frame image on a T.Rex cover. Anachronistic images on Bolan releases is almost a rite of passage.

Melancholia - Volume 15 - Praying

I still have a few of these to go yet.

In my senior year of high school I became a bit of a holy roller. While I wasn't one of those "in your face" fundamentalists it did affect my everyday life, including my music listening habits. I started buying more Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and less secular music.

This phase of my life only lasted about five years before moving on and exploring other religions but I discovered lots of music that I still listen to occasionally. While I still listened to a lot of rock and hard rock it now had a religious overlay.

This comp is focused more on the softer and worshipful tracks but came out of that period. Of the artists represented here there are some that I still listen to not because of the message but because I found them to be true song craftsmen. The one common trait among those are that most of them started out with some success in the secular industry. Many of these artists also appear on other Melancholia editions.

Obviously Bob Dylan falls into this category. Amy Grant, while best known as a CCM artist, dabbled for a while in the secular market with some success. Phil Keggy first tasted fame in the band Glass Harp which had a large fanbase and opened for acts like The Allman Brothers. Dion is of course of Dion and the Belmonts fame with early rock hits like Runaround Sue, The Wanderer and Abraham Martin and John. Brothers Terry and John Michael Talbot were the core of the 70s country rock band Mason Proffit who had at a few minor hits including Two Hangmen. Stryper was an unusual crossover act. paying their dues as a secular band then breaking through as a CCM act while still appealing to a large secular audience.

Larry Norman is still one of my favorite artists. Larry came out of the band People! who had a hit with the song I Love You. Larry is considered the a pioneer and godfather of Jesus music releasing his first album in 1969 on Capitol Records. What always struck me about Larry is that I never felt that his songs were just last weeks sermon set to music. His music had humor and honest lyrics. He sang about his life and loves as well as his beliefs. Even at his preachiest he always felt honest and genuine. Unfortunately his discography is a bit of a mess. Over the years when many of his albums were reissued they were remixed with many tracks changed with additional recording or even re-recorded which makes it hard to figure out his original intentions. There might be a Larry post sometime in the future.

Audio quality varies as there is an abundance of vinyl rips. Especially with the more obscure stuff. Enjoy.

01 Lamb - The Sacrifice Lamb
02 Bob Dylan - I Believe In You
03 Steve Camp - Farther and Higher
04 Amy Grant - All I Ever Have To Be
05 2nd chapter of Acts - I Fall In Love-Change
06 John Fischer - Beggar
07 Randy Stonehill - Find Your Way To Me
08 Phil Keaggy - What A Day
09 Dion - Only Jesus
10 Ray Hidlebrand - Didn't He
11 Stryper - All Of Me
12 Fireworks - Someone's Got a Hold of Me
13 Malcolm and Alwin - Tomorrow's News
14 Terry Talbot - Lamplighter
15 Petra - More Power to Ya
16 Marijohn - Where I'm Going
17 Chuck Girard - Think About What Jesus Said
18 David and the Giants - Noah
19 John Michael Talbot - Cast Down Your Cares
20 Larry Norman - UFO
21 Keith Green - Make My Life A Prayer To You

KISS - End of the Road - Not Live

I had other plans this week but this one needed to go up instead. This is part of my now ongoing Not Live series. This was thrown together at the last minute so there might be some volume matching issues. I'll do an update if needed.

Last week KISS played the first show of their End of the Road tour. I'm not going to get into any of the "debates" that the different fan factions are having. For me this is the time to be celebrating one of my favorite bands as they say good night one more time to their fans.

KISS was my first musical obsession. My brother brought home the first KISS album in 1976 and by the time Destroyer came out he had all of the back catalog. My first KISS LP purchase of my own was Love Gun in 1977. 1977 was also when we first saw them live on the Rock and Roll Over tour which still featured the Destroyer stage set and costumes.

I had originally planned on making studio versions of their first two live albums (might still post then in the future) but someone posted the setlist for the first show of the new tour online and I decided to recreate that instead. It's a great setlist full of classic KISS from all eras. While a little light on the non-makeup era and a bit heavy on tracks from the first album and Destroyer, really, in the end the only song I could do without is Beth. It will be interesting to see if the setlist changes throughout the three year tour. Enjoy.

01 Detroit Rock City
02 Shout It Out Loud
03 Deuce
04 Say Yeah
05 Heaven's On Fire
06 War Machine
07 Lick It Up
08 100,000 Years
09 God Of Thunder
10 Cold Gin
11 Psycho Circus
12 I Love It Loud
13 Hide Your Heart
14 Let Me Go Rock 'n' Roll
15 Love Gun
16 I was Made For Lovin' You
17 Black Diamond
18 Beth
19 Do You Love Me
20 Rock And Roll All Nite

Reality Notes

I took a couple of liberties with the song sources. I chose alternate sources for three songs. Detroit Rock City and Black Diamond are the Double Platinum mixes. Detroit Rock City is minus the intro/outro vignette. It's cool when you listen to the album as a whole but gets a bit annoying after repeated listens in a mixtape setting, just get to the song already. Black Diamond, which closes the first album, has an effect at the end of the tape slowly slowing down until it stops. This goes on for at least a full minute and like the vignettes on Detroit Rock City. can get frustrating on repeated listens. The Double Platinum version does not do this.

The last alternate version of a song is I Was Made For Loving You. For those of you that do not know, the original version from the Dynasty album was KISS' disco hit. In 2008 KISS released the album Jigoku-Retsuden, at first only in Japan, then later included as a bonus disc with Sonic Boom. The album consisted of 15 re-recorded classics. For the most part the re-recordings are faithful to the original but I Was Made For Loving You was done more in the style of how they were playing the song live. With tougher guitars and stripped of it's disco beat the song is much more listenable if not actually enjoyable.

I assembled the cover using elements from the KISS Online landing page announcing the tour.

REO Speedwagon - Not Live: You Get What You Play For

A while back I posted a Peter Frampton comp that recreated his Comes Alive! album using the studio versions. I was wondering if other live albums could be given the same treatment. Here is the first of those efforts.

In the 70s, double live albums were all the rage. For many artists, their live albums were their breakthrough moment when the general public took greater notice of them. Some breakthroughs had long lasting results pushing the band into the upper elite of rockdom, others were brief flashes of stardom that gave them their 15 minutes of fame before being sent back into near obscurity.

REO Speedwagon fell somewhere in between. Their live album gave them enough of a push to see them through at least two albums that would spawn several chart hits.The hits would slow down as they seemed to push their MOR ballads over their more snappier rock tracks. By the early 90s they were once again playing clubs and the festival circuit. They still tour and record but only the singer Kevin Cronin and keyboardist Neal Doughty are from the classic line-up and the keyboardist being the only founding member. Gary Richrath, the guitarist from the classic line-up who sparred many times with Cronin over creative control left the band in 1989 and passed away in 2015.

01 Like You Do
02 Lay Me Down
03 Any Kind Of Love
04 Being Kind (Can Hurt Someone Sometimes)
05 Keep Pushin'
06 (Only A) Summer Love
07 Son Of A Poor Man
08 (I Believe) Our Time Is Gonna Come
09 Flying Turkey Trot
10 157 Riverside Avenue
11 Ridin' The Storm Out
12 Music Man
13 Little Queenie
14 Golden Country
15 Roll With The Changes
16 Time For Me To Fly

Reality Notes

In the 70s it seemed everyone and their grandma released double live albums. Some were good, some were not so good and a few were amazing. REO's was good but I'm not sure about amazing. I think the downside of these albums is that if this was the band's breakthrough then the live versions of their songs become the definitive versions over the studio versions. This tends to minimize the importance of those studio albums that came before. Though the die hard fans will seek out anything and everything related to their favorite band the casual fan will stick with the live album or the greatest hits package.

Personally I prefer the studio over the stage. Even as a musician I prefer recording over performing. While I enjoy the immediacy and 'in the moment'-ness of performing live, the studio has an additional creative layer to it. Painting with sound as the cliche goes.

For REO, their live album was where it all came together. They had struggled through their six previous studio albums, riding out personnel changes that included three different singers. Kevin Cronin joined the band for their second album and quit while recording their third. His replacement lasted two more albums before Cronin rejoined them for the sixth album. The setlist for the album draws from four of the six studio albums. Completely ignoring albums four and five which Cronin had no input into, being recorded during the time he was away from the band.

So this comp features three different singers. Although the band has released some tracks from the third album that feature Cronin's voice before they were replaced I chose to stick with the officially released versions. As a bonus, similar to what I did with the Frampton comp, I included the hit songs from the follow up album.

I used the original album cover as a template for the cover I made. Turned out nice I think.

Melancholia - Volume 11

I wasn't sure if I was going to post the last few general editions but I already had this one uploaded for some reason so why not? I'm kind of running out of ideas at the moment and these are already put together so not much effort is needed to keep the blog running a little longer.

The remaining non-themed collections, while enjoyable and fine comps, don't hold as much emotional attachment for me which is why I hesitated on posting them. While the ones that were originally done as mixtapes can evoke a special time or feeling because of the time and effort put into them, these were created first as playlists and consist of songs that did not find a place on earlier editions or songs that are more recent discoveries. All songs still have that sound or feeling that I'm attracted to regardless of genre and they still take me somewhere else.

01 Del Fuegos - Don't Run Wild
02 The Weepies - Hideaway
03 Jimmy Buffett - One Particular Harbor
04 Blackberry Smoke - Ain't Much Left Of Me
05 Madonna - Crazy for You
06 Elton John - Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
07 Berlin - Take My Breath Away
08 Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill
09 UB40 - Don't Break My Heart
10 Melanie - Pebbles in the Sand
11 Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes (Closet Mix)
12 Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time
13 Eric Clapton - Please Be with Me
14 Bee Gees - Islands In The Stream
15 Sheryl Crow - No One Said It Would Be Easy
16 Dimentia 13 - 108 Sacred Stages
17 Alison Moyet - It Won't Be Long (Acoustic)
18 Lenny Kravitz - Let Love Rule
19 Dionne Warwick - Walk On By

Melancholia - Volume 16 - Not Feeling Guilty

This edition is based on a series found on the Any Major Dude blog. Named after his series, Not Feeling Guilty, which currently is up to volume 8, it is chock full of middle of the road late 70s early 80s pop. Perfect for playing in the background while you sit in your comfy chair reading romance novels.

If I have a musical guilty pleasure, this might be it. I mean, this is the stuff our parents listened to when they wanted to feel hip and contemporary. Lots of blue-eyed soul, light R&B and general middle of the road schmaltz. Enjoy.

01 Bob Welch - Sentimental Lady
02 Ace - How Long
03 Commodores, the - Easy
04 Player - Baby Come Back
05 Christopher Cross - Sailing
06 Atlanta Rhythm Section - So in to You
07 Poco - Crazy Love
08 Ambrosia - How Much I Feel
09 Dave Mason - We Just Disagree
10 Little River Band - Lady
11 Robbie Dupree - Steal Away
12 Doobie Brothers - Takin' It To The Streets
13 Orleans - Still The One
14 King Harvest - Dancing in the Moonlight
15 Paul Davis - I Go Crazy
16 Randy Vanwarmer - Just When I Needed You Most
17 Robert John - Sad Eyes
18 Elvin Bishop - Fooled Around And Fell In Love
19 Stephen Bishop - On And On
20 Firefall - You Are The Woman
21 Hall & Oates - She's Gone

Melancholia - Volume 6

I have a few more Melancholia volumes to post yet. There are two more themed editions and a few non-themed editions that I may or not post.

This edition was the first volume to be constructed from CD to tape and the last non-themed edition that was constructed on a physical medium. At the time I used a 60 minute tape and remade it every few weeks or so. This construction is a summary of sorts featuring those songs that made repeat appearances timed to fit on a single CD.

This is a good snapshot of what I was listening to at the time. All of the source CDs were new purchases with only a few being repurchases of things I once had on vinyl and most of the songs were roughly contemporary with a few old favorites thrown in. There are a few songs from the time that did not fit due to space limitations. Those songs found space on later editions.

01 Rhythm Corps - Common Ground
02 Maggie's Dream - Love and Tears
03 Soup Dragons - Divine Thing
04 Sun-60 - Out of My Head
05 King's X - It's Love
06 Michael Hedges - Spring Buds
07 Prince - The Cross
08 Chris Cornell - Seasons
09 Guns N' Roses - You're Crazy
10 Matthew Sweet - Divine Intervention
11 Julian Lennon - Rebel King
12 Queensrhyche - Gonna Get Close To You
13 The Church - Under the Milky Way
14 Hoodoo Gurus - Death Defying
15 Jesus Jones - Right Here, Right Now
16 Elvis Costello - Alison
17 Pete Townshend - The Seeker
18 Uncle Wiggly - It's Looking Good
19 Larry Norman - Looking for Footprints

Lindsey Buckingham - Tusk

Thanks to AEC for giving me a little nudge on this one. A while back I took apart Fleetwood Mac's Tusk and created a McVie/Nicks album. So here we have its companion, Lindsey Buckingham's Tusk.

Lindsey was in a frantic state of mind by the time Tusk was finished. Cracking from the pressure of following Rumors, one of the best selling records of all time, and fueled by heavy use of cocaine he was determined to deliver something different in order to compete with the younger New Wave bands of the time.

Side One
01 Not That Funny
02 Save Me A Place
03 What Makes You Think You're The One
04 That's All For Everyone #1
05 The Ledge
06 That's Enough For Me

Side Two
01 Tusk
02 Walk A Thin Line
03 I Know I'm Not Wrong
04 That's All For Everyone #2
05 Out On The Road
06 Kiss And Run

Bonus Track
Tusk (USC Version)

Reality Notes

When I first took Tusk apart to make the McVie/Nicks album I did try to collect Lindsey's songs into an album. At the time I only had a single disc of outtakes and at best I  was only able to come up with about 30 minutes of material. I've recently found more material in the form of the five disc deluxe version of Tusk. With the additional tracks I was not only able to expand the album to a more acceptable length but also swap some tracks with alternate versions with less Christine and Stevie to make it feel more like a solo album.

What Makes You Think You're The One, The Ledge, Walk A Thin Line, That's All For Everyone #2 are the original album versions. That's All For Everyone #1 is an earlier version with different lyrics. Out On The Road evolved into That's Enough For Me. This version is very different from the finished song keeping the chord structure but little else.

Kiss And Run is a proper outtake that sounds like an impromptu studio run through of a song that was never taken further. It was written by Jorge Calderon, the percussionist from the Buckingham/Nicks band and features McVie and Nicks a bit more prominently than I would like but it works. Its informality adds to the charm.

Tusk is an early take that does not have the USC marching band so I included a version that is only the USC band. as a bonus track

For the cover I rotated the image and inverted the colors on the original cover and did a few other modifications.