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