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