The Doors - Absolutely 1970

My first Doors post. I mentioned last post that I would be slowly posting constructions that I had laying around but this one is brand new. I was checking out this post over at Albums I Wish Existed which featured an expanded version of The Soft Parade by The Doors. Side two of the album featured songs recorded on tour that were never recorded in the studio or at least never released on an album proper. 

 

According to the post's notes the '69-'70 tour was recorded in it's entirety on multitrack tape with the intention of releasing a live album consisting of all new material similar to Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies album. The label insisted on including some hits resulting in the album Absolutely Live with a mix of new and old material but it got me thinking what if...

 

Tracklist

Side One
01 Build Me a Woman
02 Someday Soon
03 Close To You
04 Universal Mind
05 Love Hides
06 I Will Never Be Untrue

07 Dead Cats Dead Rats

Side Two
01 Who Do You Love
02 Away In India
03 Petition The Lord With Prayer
04 Celebration of the Lizard

Lions in the Street
Wake Up
A Little Game
The Hill Dwellers
Not To Touch The Earth
Names Of The Kingdom
The Palace Of Exile

Reality Notes

I loaded the original album into my editor and removed the old material while replacing it with those songs from side two of the expanded Soft Parade album. Shuffled things around and tweaked some  edits and the result was a decent album of all unique songs that could sit nicely with the rest of the studio albums. But as I listened I kept getting distracted by the crowd noise.

I've been watching my fellow bloggers posting edits that removed or separated elements using a program called MVSEP with interesting results. The Doors post at AIWE included some and one of these was a live track from which he removed the crowd noise (Someday Soon, included here) so I decided to give it a try. (Side note, PJ if you're reading I vote for keeping the outro sax on Touch Me. It just doesn't sound right without it)

At first I was a bit disappointed. I went to the website hoping to find a downloadable app that I could install on my computer (I don't do anything on my phone except calls, text and one stupid game) but instead saw that it was one of those sites where you upload your file and it would give you a new set of files to download. I've been using computers longer than some of my readers are old and I an so tired of making accounts and handing over an email address. I decided to test it unregistered and uploaded a guitar/vocal demo from a friend to se if it could separate the two elements but I gave up after waiting several hours and still not getting close to the front of the line.

A couple of days later I gave in and created an account. I ran the entire Absolutely Live album through and loaded the results into my editor and was pleasantly surprised. While not 100% perfect the few traces of crowd noise left was on the front or back ends of some tracks and were easily edited out. I recreated all of the edits I did on my first attempt, reshuffled a few things and even created a short collage from bits that were cut out from the removed songs to tack on in front of Petition The Lord With Prayer which leads directly into Celebration of the Lizard. 

 

I kept Celebration of the Lizard as a single track but listed the sections in the tracklist. My copy had these sections as separate tracks and when I loaded it into my editor I found micro gaps between them that I had to edit out to make the listening experience smooth and uninterrupted so I thought it best to keep it as one track. The piece is meant to be listened to as one anyway so why split it up? I'm assuming the release date to be the same as the original. Enjoy!

 

For the cover I used a more contemporary photo from the Isle of Wight concert adding the logo, title and hype sticker. Jim Morrison was a little miffed at the label for using an older picture for the original album because he had recently changed his image by growing a beard and wearing less leather to tone down his earlier rock god image. I dropped the Live portion of the original title feeling it was no longer needed as this now sounds like it was recorded in the studio or at least in a theater with no audience.

Grateful Dead - Europe '72

 As you can see from the lack of activity here, this little hobby of mine may have run it's course. Between time restraints, health issues and just an overall lack of enthusiasm I just haven't been doing much. But, I do have a few more projects that I would like to put up so as the mood strikes I'll post them when I can.

So let's start with this one. Not too long ago my daughter gifted me a Sony Walkman music player to replace my ageing iPods. It's a nice little device that has a microSD slot that can handle high capacity cards. I currently have a 512gb card in there that is about 85% full so I might bump that up to a 1tb card one of these days. Having all that room allows me to carry around a lot of music including full discographies of all my favorite artists and more. But recently while building playlists I ran into a little conundrum that led to the creation of this album.

Back at the beginning of this blog I posted three Grateful Dead albums culled from early '70s solo and live albums collecting Dead songs never recorded for Dead albums. While building a playlist of just the Dead studio albums these were naturally included but I also wanted a playlist of the Dead plus Dead related albums which meant that if I include the solo albums and the albums I constructed from them I would have duplicate songs. If I excluded the fantasy albums I lose the tracks culled from the live albums. I could have just removed duplicates from the list but that would affect the ability to let the playlist play through each album as a whole. To rectify this I constructed this album.

Tracklist

 

Side One

01 Bertha

02 Hurts Me Too

03 Tennessee Jed

 

Side Two

01 Ramble On Rose

02 Chinatown Shuffle

03 You Win Again

04 He's Gone

 

Side Three

01 Jack Straw

02 The Stranger (Two Souls in Communion)

03 Wharf Rat

 

Side Four

01 Brown-Eyed Woman

02 Mr Charlie

03 (Walk Me Out In The) Morning Dew

Reality Notes

I started with the original songs and two covers unique to the Europe '72 live album. The Stranger (Two Souls in Communion) was included on CD reissues. I pulled Chinatown Shuffle from the Complete Europe '72 set while also auditioning all versions of Bertha and Wharf Rat but ended up using the Skull and Roses versions as none of the '72 versions had quite the same feel. I then included the awesome version of Morning Dew. Even though it breaks the "unique songs only" rule, the version on their debut album is very different.

I then arranged the songs to fit on four sides of vinyl with each side timing between 19:30 and 20:00 minutes. Each side gets a Pigpen song. Unfortunately there is only one song that features a Bob Weir vocal and that is shared with Jerry but the Garcia-Hunter team were in overdrive at this time and the bulk of Bobby tunes from this period appeared on his solo album so it is what it is.

 

This gives us a nice double live album in contrast to the sprawling triple disc original. Plus it will fit on a single CD if anyone still uses those. A great car album. I reused the cover from one of the reissues. Enjoy.

The Beatles - Now and Then

[With so few projects in the works I would have preferred to hold this post off until next month but I felt it was time sensitive enough to post as soon as it was ready.]

 

Back when I first started my Beatles-What If blog I had a comp that was inspired by this article. This is actually what got me rolling on the whole alt-Beatles timeline thing. But I was never happy with my results and the comp went through a few different iterations. I used several John demos to flesh the album out including Now and Then but the poor quality of that demo and other elements kept the project from being anywhere near satisfactory. When I reorganized the site in 2010 my Now and Then album was replaced with the Anthology highlights disc and the Lennon & McCartney album.

 

Now with the release of the finished version of Now and Then I felt compelled to revisit the project. The quality that the current technology allowed them to achieve is astounding. I still think the song itself is the weakest of the three songs they worked on but it is listenable and enjoyable and it does grow on you the more you hear it. and it does feature all four Beatles so I'm not complaining. Even the weakest of songs by the Beatles is better than some of the best by others. So I reopened the project and reconsidered some choices and swapped the Now and Then demo with the finished track and ended up with a tight 35 minute album with one bonus track that I felt was worthy of sharing. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Flaming Pie

02 Real Love

03 Dehra Dhun

04 Grow Old With Me

05 Thinking of Linking

06 King Of Broken Hearts

07 All Those Years Ago

08 Beautiful Night

09 Free As A Bird

10 Now And Then

11 Ain't She Sweet

Bonus Track

12 Stand By Me

Reality Notes

I used several suggestions from the original article but rejected more than I kept. Only Flaming Pie features only one Beatle but Paul plays everything on it and the lyrics are Beatle related. I also prefaced it with the soundbite of John telling the flaming pie Beatles name origin. All the others have at least two or more fabs and most come from around 1980.

Real love and Free as a Bird are the anthology versions. Grow Old With Me is a John demo and was included on the tape delivered by Yoko but was rejected by the three due to it's subject matter. It was later enhanced with an orchestral score by George Martin and appeared on the John Lennon Anthology box set.

George's Derha Dhun is an All Things Must Pass outtake which I prefaced with a bit from the Anthology ukulele jam and might have Ringo on drums (sounds like him and he seemed to remember it during the jam). Also from George is All Those Years Ago which has Ringo on Drums and Paul on background vocals along with Linda and Denny Laine .

Thinking of Linking comes from the acoustic Anthology jam. I edited parts of the two takes into one solid take. Ain't She Sweet is from the garden ukulele jam that I edited in John's vocal from a solo session outtake of the same song to create another track with all four Beatles. In the last iteration of this album I created two medleys from the ukulele jam and the acoustic jam but they never really worked.

King of Broken Hearts is a Ringo tune with a fine slide solo from George. Beautiful Night is a Paul song with Ringo drumming.

I took the suggestion from the article and segued Beautiful Night into Free as a Bird by way of syncing the snare hits before the false ending on BN with the opening snare hits on FAAB but unlike the article I did not return to BN before the false ending on FAAB.

 

Stand By Me comes from a 1974 session that happened while John was producing Harry Nilson's Pussycat album. After the session ended Paul showed up and a jam session occured with John, Harry, Stevie Wonder, Paul (on drums) and others. Sadly Ringo, who's kit Paul was playing, went home for the evening. The session itself did not produce much worth listening to more than a few times, This snippet was the peak moment.

The cover photo was found online to which I added the cloud background.

The Theme From...

Here's something a bit different. This is a collection of TV theme songs but not just any theme song. The wife and I were binge watching the old Judd Hirsch series Taxi and I fell in love with the theme song and was inspired to collect as many jazzy/funky/MOR theme songs as I could fit on a CD.

 

My main criteria was that the song must be an instrumental. No snappy tune where the lyrics explained the show's premise. I broke that instrumental rule only twice but for good reasons.

 

Because TV themes tend to be no more than a minute to a minute and a half this is one of my longer track listings. I searched for the full versions of as many tunes as I could and bent the rules slightly for a couple of interludes but my main goal was to make it fun to listen to. I hope I achieved that goal. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Bob Newhart (Home to Emily)

02 Sanford And Son

03 Taxi (Angela)

04 The Office

05 MASH (Suicide is Painless)

06 Peter Gunn

07 Barney Miller

08 Night Court

09 Arrested Development

10 Room 222

11 Peanuts

12 Jeopardy [Think Music]

13 Hawaii Five-0

14 Mission_Impossible

15 Portlandia (Feel It All Around - Washed Out)

16 I Dream Of Jeannie

17 Pink Panther

18 Rockford Files

19 Newhart

20 Curb Your Enthusiasm

21 Batman

22 Hill Street Blues

23 Trailer Park Boys

24 Wings

25 Northern Exposure

26 Breaking Bad

27 Countdown [Think Music]

28 SWAT

29 Andy Griffith Show

30 thirtysomethig

31 Bewitched

32 Twin Peaks

33 The Munsters

34 The Man From UNCLE

35 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Journey of the Sorcerer - The Eagles)

Bonus

36 Weeds (Little Boxes)

Reality Notes

While most of these tracks are named after the show they are associated with some existed before being chosen as a theme song. I put the actual name in parenthesis when applicable. 

 

The few songs that have vocals on them are tracks 15, 21 and 36. The full version of the Portlandia theme has some vocals but they are almost unintelligible. The Batman theme uses the vocals almost as another instrument and just repeats the name Batman over and over. The song Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds opened the show Weeds and I looked forward to hearing it every time I went to watch the show.The song predates the show, first recorded by Pete Seeger in 1963, so the lyrics are unrelated to the show's premise. Over the course of the series they used different versions of the song but this one stuck in my head. Think of it as a bonus song.

The Weepies - Butternut Ridge - 2004

[I've listened to this a few times now since posting and decided to make some changes (something I rarely do). I removed to audience to turn it into a studio album and while I was at it I redid the cover to my liking. If you downloaded the original I recommend re-downloading.]

The Weepies were a husband and wife duo consisting of Deb Talan and Steve Tannen. Their music has been described as "subtly intoxicating folk-pop". Light melodies with an acoustic base and wonderful harmonies. They met as mutual admirers of each others music which led to each contributing to to the other's next solo album both of which featured a version of Deb's song Rocks and Water. They immediately began writing together and self released the first Weepies album Happiness soon after the release of their solo albums. They married in 2007.
 
I discovered The Weepies around the time of their Hideaway album in 2008 while at a Barnes & Noble where I heard it playing in the music department. I fell in love with them right there and purchased the album. I bought their other CDs as I found them. Later I found some live shows posted on the Internet Archives. I downloaded five of the eight posted and gave them all a good listen then filed them away.
 
Yesterday (as I write this) I was organizing my library and came across those live shows and gave them another listen. They were mostly as I remembered them, very good to excellent audience recordings but one show stood out for a couple of reasons. First it was a soundboard of an intimate club show from 2004 between the release of their first and second albums and second they played a bunch of songs from their pre-Weepies solo albums. So I extracted those songs and found I had a nice little album and I decided to share it with you. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Rocks and Water
02 How Will He Find Me
03 The World Spins Madly On
04 Sing Me to Sleep
05 Tell Your Story Walking
06 Big Strong Girl
07 Cherry Trees
08 San Francisco
09 Love Come Knocking
10 Don't Pay No Mind
11 Comfort
12 Strange Place Now

Reality Notes

This show is just Deb and Steve, no backing band so the interplay between to two really shines. The recording is nearly perfect so I did not feel the need to do any post production work. The only flaw I found is that the applause after the song Comfort is cut short. I could have patched some from elsewhere but with everything else so perfect I decided I could live with it as is, so I hope you can too. The original full show is still up and can be found here along with the others.

In 2006 The Weepies released their Live Sessions EP. A six song EP of tunes from this same pre-Weepies era. Only three songs are duplicated here. I do not have that album so I don't know if they have other musicians behind them.

I found a cover I liked online and used that as a template to make my own. The original download came with an OK bootlegish cover but someone made a better one that was much nicer and already used the photo I intended to use (this photo was also used as part of the cover for the Live Sessions EP).

Remco Hendriks - Remco's Groove Lab

Two Posts in one month! I'm on a roll. When I published my last post, noting it was YouTube month I remembered Dutch bassist Remco Hendriks and my desire to put together and album's worth of tracks from his YouTube channel. There is a lot there so I focused on one playlist that features a live drummer, his videos are either solo or have a drum backing track, (some live and some canned?). I've mentioned before my preference for songs with vocals over instrumentals but sometimes exceptions must be made and Remco is worthy of that exception. Besides YouTube you can find Remco on iTunes, Spotify and elsewhere (links below) so go show him some love.

Remco describes his channel thusly "On this channel you can find one-take performances recorded on video. No edits, no talk, just good ol' funky music. All bass and all original compositions, hope you'll enjoy!". Watching him play is just as much fun as listening to him, maybe more. As a bassist myself, he and I share some things in common in style and technique but like Micheal Hedges for acoustic guitar, Remco takes things to a whole other level (I still can't slap with conviction). I should be so lucky to be able to do half the things he does. Enjoy.

 

Tracklist

01 Funk with Chords

02 Experimental Fretless Funk Rock 

03 Fingerstyle Funk

04 Fretless Funk

05 Funk Rock Fingerpicking

06 Freaky Funk Rock

07 OC-2 Octaver Dirty Bass

08 Thumb & Fingerstyle Funk Rock

09 Chill Funk

10 Funk Rock in 7/8

11 Shuffle Feel Funk

12 Fretless with Harmonics

13 6/8 Funk Slap

14 Dirty Fretless Rock Bass

15 Dirty Fretless Rock Bass #2

16 Experimental Funk Rock Slap Bass

17 Heavy Groove

18 Fretless Funk Jam

Reality Notes

 

I have been a subscriber of Remco's channel for some time now and I still haven't watched every video there. There are so many! Cutting the playlist down to a CD's worth wasn't easy. I started with the longest tracks and worked my way down from there. I kept them in the order they appear in the playlist.

The cover is a screenshot from one of the videos, cropped and slightly altered with added text and an image from one of his albums. Track titles were derived from the video titles which are more descriptions of style and technique with some redundant wording edited out.

 

Links

YouTube: youtube.com/@RemcosGrooveLab

Facebook; facebook.com/Gr00veLab

Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/4Rej4Q5WWdG3vQHwfNSfwB

Apple Music: music.apple.com/us/artist/remco-hendriks/1240178630

Bandcamp:  remcohendriks.bandcamp.com/

Larkin Poe - Stripped

September on this blog has been YouTube month. I don't have enough projects to fill the month but I do have this. I discovered Larkin Poe through fellow blogger Paul who runs the Albums That Should Exist blog. At the time of this post he has put up 18 separate albums from this duo. The bulk of those are pandemic era home concerts and collections of covers from the bands Tip o' the Hat series (8 volumes so far) all sourced from their YouTube channel (thus making it appropriate for September). 

 

The band is made up of sisters Rebecca (lead guitar) and Megan Lovell (slide guitar) with a small backup band consisting of a bassist and drummer. But I really fell in love with Paul's collections of performances that feature just Rebecca and Megan. Paul calls these acoustic performances but the pedantic in me has issue with that because Megan's slide is always amplified and Rebecca is sometimes playing electric guitar as well but that's a minor quibble, the important thing is the music and both are A class musicians that help renew my faith in the idea that guitar based music is not dead.

I've had Paul's first comp of this band, which he titled "Acoustic 2014-2017", and have had it on my iPod and other mobile devices pretty much since he first posted it but lately that hasn't been enough. I based this compilation on that first album Paul posted, removed the covers and expanded it with songs from other collections Paul posted. He did such a fine job gathering and editing these albums I decided not to reinvent the wheel and use his work and my source, thanks Paul hope you don't mind. The albums I used are listed below. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Holy Ghost Fire

02 Back Down South

03 Don't

04 She's a Self Made Man

05 Bleach Blonde Bottle Blues

06 You Can Close Your Eyes

07 Blue Ridge Mountains

08 Look Away

09 Tears of Blue to Gold

10 Blunt

11 Cast 'Em Out

12 Elephant

13 Trouble in Mind

14 Keep Diggin'

15 Stubborn Love

16 Easy Street

17 Take What You Want

18 Come On in My Kitchen

Reality Notes

These girls love to play covers - and they do a fine job of it - but one of the things that the pandemic era of YouTube home concerts gave us is a glut of cover versions by so many artists that frankly I'm a bit burnt out by them so this comp is focused on the band's original material (as it should be, they're fine songwriters as well as musicians). There are still a couple covers, Come On in My Kitchen seems to be a band favorite and is featured on two of their albums making it one of their own and You Can Close Your Eyes is just too good to pass up. Being kind of an obscure song to me helps it to fit in. I tried to make sure that the rest were all originals or at least made appearances on their official albums.

 

There was some overlap in the source albums that duplicated a few songs so I chose the best sounding ones. The cover is a pic I found on a Google search and added the text and border. 

YouTube channel

@LarkinPoe

Sources

Porch Pickin', Episode 3, Nashville, TN, 2-13-2021

Home Concert, Nashville, TN, 11-21-2020

Home Concert, Nashville, TN, 6-13-2020

Home Concert, Nashville, TN, 5-22-2020

Acoustic, 2014-2017

Melancholia Vol 20

Hey there. Been a while. Many reasons for being away, life and health mostly and a hard drive crash that forced me to rebuild the library from several partial and/or out of date backups but life goes on and I'm back with a brand new volume of Melancholia goodness.

 

This is a non-themed edition and like the other non-themed editions before it, it contains some of my favorite songs that come from recent discoveries/purchases and a few long time favorites that have not found a place on past editions. Some of these discoveries come from suggestions from friends or posts from my fellow fantasy album bloggers others just seemed to present themselves out of nowhere.

I've been test driving this for a bit now and I think I'm happy with the results. One of the things I enjoy most about this series is queuing up the whole thing and putting it on shuffle. It's like my own private personalized radio station. Enjoy.

 

Tracklist

 

01 Tedeschi Trucks Band - Midnight in Harlem [Revelator]

02 Robert Plant - Angel Dance [Band Of Joy]

03 Cher - Just Like Jesse James [Heart Of Stone]

04 North Mississippi Allstars - Up and Rolling [Up and Rolling]

05 Railroad Earth - Seven Story Mountain [The Black Bear Sessions]

06 Sade - The Sweetest Taboo [The Best of Sade]

07 Alexi Murdoch - All My Days [Time Without Consequence]

08 Marcus King - Young Mans Dream [El Dorado]

09 Allman Brothers Band - Soulshine [Where It All Begins]

10 Reina del Cid - Giving Up [The Cooling]

11 The Magpie Salute - High Water [High Water I]

12 Roxette - Crash! Boom! Bang! [Hit Collection]

13 Neal Casal - Maybe California [Leaving Traces_ Songs 1994-2004]

14 Bonepony - The Crush [Travelers Companion]

15 Temperance Movement - Pride [Temperance Movement]

16 Warren Haynes - New Years Eve [Ashes & Dust]

Reality Notes

When I was gathering my pool of songs for this collection I did a check to make sure I wasn't duplicating any songs from previous volumes, I discovered I used a song twice on previous volumes. Eric Clapton's Please Be With Me is found on volumes 5 and 11. For now I deleted the instance on volume 11, you can do the same. I may find a replacement eventually but it's not a long song so the comp still feels full. One of the things I enjoy most about this series is queuing up the whole thing and putting it on shuffle. It's like my own private personalized radio station.

The cover features a nice pinup by Alberto Vargas. Along with the music lost with the hard drive crash I had all my personal documents and pictures. Among those documents are all the Word files of album covers I have done over the years including the file with all the Melancholia covers. This means I had to recreate the template but I couldn't find the font I used so I just cropped a previous finished cover to complete this one. Still trying to identify that font.

Marc Bolan - All at Once - 1966

Here's a project I've been slowly working on for a while now. I have a few others waiting for the final polish and write up before posting but those are almost novelty themed various artist collections. This construction finally completes the Marc Bolan collection and covers the years from 1964 to 1967 just before joining John's Children.

The tracks here can be split into two parts, before and after signing with manager Simon Napier-Bell in 1966. Marc's earliest efforts were the products of managers and producers doing their "best" to fulfill Marc's dream of being a star. That dream wouldn't come true for a few years yet going through several name changes while developing his writing and vocal style. The first few songs are covers but from track three on are all originals. None of his early single did much on the charts.

During Marc's time with Napier-Bell they recorded one single and many demos. most of these eventually were released on the album The Beginning of Doves. After Marc's passing Napier-Bell took some of those demos and augmented them with studio musician and released the album Love and Death with some songs not found on the Dove album. I deferred to the Doves album for purity reasons and filled the gaps with the unique songs from Love and Death. The result is a nice album of 38 minutes of early Marc Bolan. Enjoy.

Track List

01 All At Once

02 The Road I'm On (Gloria)

03 Blowin' In The Wind

04 The Wizard

05 Beyond The Risin Sun

06 The Third Degree

07 San Francisco Poet

08 Hippy Gumbo

09 Misfit

10 Jasper C. Debussy

11 You Scare Me To Death

12 I'm Weird

13 Charlie

14 Black And White Incident

15 Observations

16 You Got The Power

17 Jasmine Forty-nine

18 Cat Black

 

Reality Notes

 

Track one was recorded in 1964 but went unreleased until 2008. Tracks two and three were released under the name Toby Tyler. Tracks four through seven were singles released on Decca records as Marc Bolan via the name Marc Bowland in 1965. Tracks eight and nine were produced by Napier-Bell for track records in 1966. The remaining tracks all come from the Doves album with the exception of tracks eleven and twelve which come from the posthumous Love and Death album. Tracks 14-18 also appear on the Love and Death album and given the post production treatment but I went with the stripped down demos instead.

The Doves album also contained some of the earliest Tyrannosaurus Rex recordings. I included these on the Chinese Christmas Music comp posted a while back. There are a few early songs that were recently released that I do not have and are hard to find. If I do come across them I'll add them to this and post and update. This should be the last of the Marc Bolan collection but if I have enough of them I may put together a short comp of his spoken word poetry, maybe.

The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969

I've got something very different for you today. I have a few projects simmering on the stove so to speak and will put those up eventually but I've been working on this one for a bit and I feel it is ready to share and get some feedback consider this version one. What makes this different is that it is a video I edited rather than an audio construction. I have been watching fanedits of films for some time now and recently decided to try my hand at the process. I've done some simple editing in the past, mostly limited to joining two or more videos together and maybe some trimming on the beginnings and endings. This was my first foray deeper into some of the more complex parts of the craft.

 

So what do I have for you and how does it relate to this blog? Nothing less than the possible answer to the question "What if the Get Back project resulted in a TV special instead of a film?". The concept of the project changed and evolved from inception to completion. Ideas ranged from comeback concerts and films to TV specials and albums. What we got was a film that showed the band bickering and arguing before coming together to make music and an accompanying LP that featured post-production decisions made by Phil Spector that betrayed the bands original intentions of a live in-the-studio recording.

What I did was take the original Let It Be movie - sourced from a VHS ripped from my own copy -  and removed all the behind the scenes discussions and rehearsals leaving just the music. The source was already in standard 4:3 TV format so all I had to do was trim, remove, rearrange and add some opening titles. I hope you enjoy it.

00:00 Intro
01:15 Get Back
04:24 Don't Let Me Down
07:46 The Long And Winding Road
11:20 For You Blue
14:15 I've Got A Feeling
18:05 Two Of Us
21:35 One After 909
24:39 I Me Mine
26:23 Dig A Pony
30:10 Dig It
32:12 Let It Be
36:13 Get Back (Reprise)

I felt using the VHS source would give it a more authentic "as seen on TV" feel. I kept the original audio, my skills are not yet to the level where I can replace and sync the whole soundtrack. It would be interesting to see if this could be recreated using the Peter Jackson version. 

 

As you can see I passed on Across The Universe. Like I Me Mine the film only shows them rehearsing the song but unlike I Me Mine there was no real take that could be called even decent. 

 

I have a link on the downloads page or you can watch it here. I would be overjoyed if somebody chose to mirror this and upload to YouTube/Vimeo or anywhere else. I tried creating a new YouTube channel just for this but the video was denied due to copyrights. Just say you got it from a friend of a friend. A new and final version three is done and uploaded and the link has been updated. Just a couple transition tweaks and the addition of a time appropriate BBC ID and end credits.

Marcus King - Young Man's Dream

 It's been a while since I posted a non-various artists collection. 

Marcus King is another one of those guitar guys that started out performing at a young age. Like Derek Trucks before him he was a veteran by the time he was Twenty. My brother has been bugging me to listen to this guy for a while now and I would play a video here and there. I was always impressed and could see the attraction but I never took the dive to really give him a chance. This comp is an attempt to rectify that.

YouTube recently recommended the WGBH Live in Studio acoustic session so I gave it a listen. Only a minute in and already I was not disappointed. I like the sound of The Marcus King Band, full on blues based rock, my favorite kind but stripped down to just man and guitar allowed me to get a bigger view of this young man's old soul. So I gathered all the solo performance videos I could and condensed that down to a CD's worth of music for in the car. And now I'm sharing it with you. Enjoy.

 

Tracklist

 

01 Love Song  (Live at JITVHQ in Los Angeles, CA 2020)

02 Man You Didn't Know (Live From The Big House)

03 8am (Live in Studio WGBH)

04 Sorry About Your Love (The Blues Kitchen Presents)

05 Beautiful Stranger (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

06 Where I'm Heading (LaMosiqacom Oneshotsession)

07 Sweet Mariona (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

08 Young Man's Dream (at Easy Eye Sound)

09 Remember (Live in Studio WGBH Acoustic Session)

10 One Day She's Here (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

11 No Pain (Acoustic w/ Dan Auerbach at Easy Eye Sound)

12 Midnight Rider (Live From The Big House)

13 Jealous Man

14 Goodbye Carolina (Live in Studio WGBH)

15 Wildflowers & Wine (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

16 I Won't Be Here

17 Slip Back (in bed - MyMusicRx #Bedstock 2017)

18 Autumn Rains (Live in Studio WGBH)

19 The Well (Paste Studio NYC - The Manhattan Center)

20 Dyin' (Live From The Big House)

Reality Notes

Everything in this comp was ripped from videos found on YouTube. Just do a search for "Marcus King acoustic" and they will pop up. Two of these videos, WGBH and Paste Studios, are multi-song performances the rest are single song videos. I edited out any interviews, applause and bumper music leaving only the music.

The cover is a photo I found on a Google image search which I cropped to a square and added the border using my favorite photo editor/viewer Irfanview. Still looking or a new program to make covers with. I might just end up installing an older version of MS Word that doesn't require a MS account.

Pearhead Jukebox

Hey there. It's been a while hasn't it? I'm still here and I do check in everyday to check/respond to comments and to see what others are doing. I haven't made any new constructions in a while but I do have a few half finished ones waiting for me to wrap up. This is not one of those. I threw this together quickly in the last 24 hours. The reason for the post and the construction was to pay tribute to my friend, band mate, collaborator and the primary reason for my band Pearhead's existence who passed away the last week. Kenny Parisot, You are sorely missed. This is a collection of songs that we regularly covered live and/or recorded under our alter ego Mighty Man. None of these are our versions and not every one is the original version. To shake things up and make the listen more interesting I used live versions or alternate cover versions. Enjoy.

 

Tracklist

 

01 You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones *

    From the album Totally Stripped. This was our standard show opener.

02 Ain't Hurtin' Nobody - John Prine *

    From the album Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings. Both Kenny and I are big  Prine fans and we did several of his songs.

03 Long Tall Texan - Lyle Lovett

    From the album The Road To Ensenada. We based our version on a Lyle Lovett live rendition but this is pretty close to how we do it as well.

04 (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding

    From the album The Dock of the Bay. Another standard song from our setlist.

05 Deep Elem Blues - Blackberry Smoke

    From the TRI Studios session with Bob Weir. A dead standard of an old song which we played often.

06 Eurotrash Girl - Cracker *

    A live unplugged version recorded 11/01/2005 at Knickerbockers Bar. Downloaded from The Internet Archives. One of the more contempory songs from our setlists. We played and recorded this before most of the band ever heard the original.

07 For What It's Worth - Crosby, Stills & Nash

    A live rendition from the album Allies. Closer to how we did it at least this is the version I had in my head when we played it.

08 Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen *

    From the album Live  1975-1985. Originally written by Tom Waits, Bruce added a verse. Kenny changed it to Mexican Girl in honor of his wife.

09 Pale Blue Eyes [closet mix] - The Velvet Underground *

    From the album The Velvet Underground

10 She Belongs to Me - Bob Dylan

    A live solo acoustic version

11 Angel From Montgomery (Live) - Bonnie Raitt & John Prine *

    A live version of a duet with Bonnie Raitt who is more closely associated with the song and it's composer John Prine

12 Tower of song - Leonard Cohen

    From the album I'm Your Man

13 When I Paint My Masterpiece - Grateful Dead *

    Written by Dylan, first recorded by The Band but often played by the Grateful Dead. This is my favorite version taped off The Gratelful Dead Hour.

14 Whipping Post - Allman Brothers Band

    From the debut self titled album.

15 Into the Mystic - Swell Season *

    From a live recording. Closer to our version than the Van Morrison original.

16 Goodnight, Irene - Lucius *

    Written by Lead Belly. This is a recent rendition that is pretty close to ours

* We recorded our versions of these songs under the name Mighty Man. You can listen to them here. (You can listen to Pearhead songs here.)

Reality Notes

Kenny was a master story teller and wrote some amazing songs. I posted a collection of demos and stripped down version of his songs here a while back. We tried to keep our covers interesting and often avoided the expected, tried and true songs that everybody else was doing. This is only some of the songs we would do regularly and some we attempted once in a while. The Mighty Man album started as a side project between just me and Kenny when the band seemed to be in a lull. During this period it was often just Kenny and I in the studio so we started to record covers to keep busy and entertain ourselves. The band eventually returned and demanded to be included.

The cover was constructed in Paint.net. I have made all my covers in Microsoft Word until recently when I lost access to my MS account and my copy stopped working. Since then I have been trying different programs looking for a replacement. I did find Paint.net frustrating and gave up once I had this but I am not completely happy with it. If I can make a better one I will replace it.

Melancholia Vol 7

I have a few projects in that I am still playing with but nothing that's really ready to share but I have managed to complete the last missing volume of the Melancholia series.

 

This volume turned out to be sort of a catch-all edition that gathers a lot of songs that didn't seem to fit on the other discs but were played enough to warrant inclusion this collection. While there is no obvious theme there does seem to be an underlying country tinge.

This series is now up to 19 volumes with almost half of those being themed collection, This will probably be the last non-themed edition and maybe the last all together. Readers have most likely noticed the lack of activity here and that will continue to be the norm at least for a while. The last year has killed a lot of enthusiasm in me for many things, this hobby being one of them. I do have a few projects slowly cooking but I'm not going to make any promises as to when they might be done so hang in there.

[Side note: I have been updating some covers here, mostly for this series but one or two others. I have not updated the archives and have no plans to. So if you want the new ones just click on them then right click and save the image.]

 

Tracklist

01 Railroad Earth - Way of the Buffalo

02 Bruce Springsteen - Devils & Dust

03 Ricky Skaggs - Walls Of Time

04 Pat Benatar - We Belong

05 Los Lonely Boys - Heaven

06 Loretta Lynn - Portland, Oregon

07 John Hiatt - Take It Down

08 Modern English - I Melt With You

09 Goo Goo Dolls - Name

10 The Wonders - She Knows It

11 Switchfoot - Twenty-four

12 John Prine - Everything Is Cool

13 Extreme - Hole Hearted

14 REM - Everybody Hurts

15 Supertramp - Even In The Quietest Moments

16 Dwight Yoakam - 1,000 Miles

17 Sugarland - Stand Back Up

18 Prince - Wow

19 Waylon Jennings - Can't You See

Melancholia Vol 10

I have had some fun compiling the many themed Melancholia editions but the original concept for the series was to bring many of my favorite songs together in one collection regardless of genre. The focus is more on a certain vibe and pace which has carried on through the series which means even the special themed editions have this vibe that I chase.

The first five volumes and a few of the themed editions were compiled before I started purchasing CDs. Those and a few others were put together before computer power and storage space were sufficient enough for the existence of a local digital library. With the advent of recordable CDs, the CDR became the new cassette. Nowadays, with so much music just a few taps or clicks away, the playlist has became the new CDR. Which means that later editions evolved more than being put together with what I had on hand in a single sitting. If I didn't like how a song felt in the mix, it was easy to swap it our for another song.

This is most true for these last two editions. They have changed and morphed over the years due to some songs being moved to later themed editions or replaced by songs that were a better fit. Volume seven is still being tweaked but I think I can call this volume done. You could almost call this a themed edition. It does have a slight heavier feel than other editions but there are a few surprises and that vibe is still there. Enjoy.

 01 Velvet Revolver - Fall To Pieces

 02 Deep Purple - Don't Hold Your Breath

 03 Collective Soul - Shine

 04 The Verve Pipe - Colorful

 05 Smashing Pumpkins - Suffer

 06 Thin Lizzy - Showdown

 07 Black Crowes - Soul Singing

 08 Blackberry Smoke - No Way Back To Eden

 09 Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

 10 Brother Cane - And Fools Shine On

 11 Cheap Trick - Downed

 12 Jane Wiedlin - Our Lips Are Sealed

 13 Francis Dunnery - Too Much Saturn

 14 Queen - Drowse

 15 The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony

 16 Steel Dragon - We All Die Young

 17 Journey - Daydream

 18 Willy Porter - Flying

 

Bob Weir - Chillin' With Bobby

Bob Weir is by far the most visible band member to carry on the torch that the Grateful Dead held high for so many years. Aside from the many post-Dead offshoots such as Dead & Co., The Dead and the Further Festivals and his many solo fronted bands like Ratdog, Bobby has hosted many artists in the extended Grateful Dead family and friends at Tri Studios (Tamalpais Research Institute).

 

Tri Studios is a state of the art performance venue. It also seems to be Bob Weir's home away from home when not on the road. Over the years of its existence Bobby has performed many times as a solo act, in special, one-off configurations with others or just sitting in with the band of the night. A nice handful of these performances are available on YouTube, most from 2013. I've gone through those shows and extracted Bobby's solo and small group performances with a focus on minimal, acoustic based tunes and gathered them into a two CD set that mimics a Grateful Dead show.

 

Tracklist

 

Disc One

01 Cassidy

02 Hell In A Bucket

03 Maggie's Farm

04 Stealin'>Deal

05 Most of the Time

06 Peggy-O

07 China Cat>I Know You Rider>Shakey Ground

08 Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

09 Loose Lucy

Disc Two

01 Sugar Magnolia

02 Cosmic Charlie

03 US Blues

04 Looks Like Rain

05 West L.A. Fadeaway

06 Easy To Slip

07 Black Throated Wind

08 Dark Star

09 El Paso

 

Bonus Tracks

Catfish John

When I Paint My Masterpiece

Reality Notes

My goal here was simply to collect relaxed, acoustic based performances where Bob is either the lead vocalist or at least a co-vocalist. There are a few duets here but mostly it's just Bob singing. Instrumentation is sparse if not solo. No more than a few other musicians on a song. The musician line-up is different from song to song. I refrained from listing the other players but you can get an idea of who's there by checking out the sorce list below.

 

I tried to keep the song choice interesting with some songs rarely played and maybe a few first timers. The classic/obvious choices are all unique due the the laid back, stripped down feel. Even songs like Dark Star or China Cat>I Know You Rider feel fresh and new. And the sound quality is incredible.

 

Cassidy was the driving force behind the compilation. It is one of my favorite Dead tunes and at the top of my list of Bobby songs but live renditions rarely match the feel and power of the studio version. This rendition not only matches the original for me but in some ways surpasses it. I've been looking for a vehicle for the track since I first heard it.

If you plan on burning this to CDs each set will fit on a disc. The bonus tracks will not. They were good enough to keep but not quite enough to be slipped into the main sets. If you play this from your computer or other device it makes a nice faux concert with each disc a set and the bonus tracks as the encore. I kept the bonus tracks because they were both nice renditions and Catfish John was seldom heard in my listening of Dead shows. Both not finding a spot in the main sets due to time constraints but too good to throw away.

For the cover I manipulated slightly a nice recent photo of Bob and added the text and logos. For the sources below I linked to the original videos. There is a lot of good music there. This could have been a three disc set but not everything would have been as revealing as the final set list. Enjoy.

Sources

2013-01-23 Weir Here with David Schools
Cassidy - Bob Weir, Jonathan Wilson, Jason Crosby
Looks Like Rain (Bob Weir) - TRI Studios - 5132011
WEIR HERE #14 3-27-13 with Leslie Mendelson
weir here 7-3-13 with Fog and Moonalice
weir here over there
Weir Here with Jackie Greene Tri Studios 12-5-2012
Weir here with phil 3-13-13
Weir Here with Warren Haynes 7-31-13
Weir Here 8-7-13 scare the children

Kent Nishimura - Arranged By...

There are a lot of good and great guitarists on YouTube and beyond. Some are technically great, some seem overflowing with feeling and soul in spite of technical limitations. But the really great are those that seem to transcend the instrument to the point where flesh, wood and steel become one. Even rarer are those that achieve that oneness at an early age. Kent Nishimura is one of those rare types.

What struck me most about Kent was not his age but the completeness of his arrangements. Everything you expect to hear is there. Melodies, solos, bass lines and percussion. His dexterity and feel for a song is mesmerizing.

I really don't know much more about Kent. His videos have been popping up on my feed for a while but I only recently gave him a listen so he's still very new to me. All I know is what is on his website. He started playing when he received his first guitar at five years old, He released his first album at 12 years old and has released two more since. He is primarily focused on covers but has composed a few originals. This comp collects 24 tracks from his YouTube channel that I found most satisfying. There's a lot more on his channel so check him out. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Smooth Jazz Chillout Solo Acoustic Guitar #1 (Short Version)

02 It's Too Late - Carole King

03 Purple Rain - Prince

04 Don't Know Why - Norah Jones

05 Higher Ground - Stevie Wonder

06 Africa - Toto

07 Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers

08 Rylynn - Andy Mckee

09 Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears

10 Careless Whisper - George Michael

11 Hit The Road Jack - Ray Charles

12 Living Inside Your Love - Earl Klugh

13 Human Nature - Michael Jackson

14 Another Brick In The Wall - Pink Floyd

15 Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head - B.J. Thomas

16 Lean On Me - Bill Withers

17 What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong

18 The Hustle -  Van McCoy

19 You Are The Sunshine Of My Life - Stevie Wonder

20 We Are The Champions - Queen

21 Sweet Love - Anita Baker

22 Lupin III [Jazz] - Yuji Ohno

23 Drive My Car - The Beatles

24 Thriller (Ending) - Michael Jackson

Reality Notes

 

To be totally upfront and honest I am not a big fan of instrumental music and instrumental covers of popular music is more often a miss than a hit for me. As I may have mentioned in other posts, I prefer songs. I need voices and words. The exceptions are often those that can transcend mere music making and transport you somewhere else. I'm a fan of fingerstyle guitar in general and like Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke in particular but they occasionally sing which helps to move things along. I also enjoy some classical things, big fan of Bach, not so much Mozart or Beethoven. I love Ravi Shankar and can get lost in traditional Japanese koto music. But for the most part instrumental music is a background filler for me. In spite of that, this will not be my last instrumental post. I am enthusiastically adding Kent to that short list of instrumentalists I enjoy but I'm not expecting this to be in regular listening rotation. But if you are a fan of this style of music you will love this.

With the exception of track one these are all covers. Kent has a few originals but mostly interprets songs from other artists. Drive My Car is from Kent's first video he posted and is quite young at the time of recording but his skills even then are impressive. Kent covers a lot of genres so in choosing the tracklist I went with my own tastes. I highly recommend going to his channel to watch him play Purple Rain and Brick In The Wall. Both renditions are amazingly complete and must be seen to be believed. There is little to no overlap between the songs on his channel and his official albums so if you are a fan this will sit right alongside those.

I wanted to set a mood with the cover so I avoided using a picture of the artist and instead went with a landscape of meadows and trees. Enjoy.

YouTube

Website

Allison Young - Pillow Talk

2020's YouTube month continues with the enchanting Allison Young.

Allison is a singer/songwriter from Nashville, the country music capitol of the world and though she touches on country she covers a lot more ground. She's a fine multi-instrumentalist but first and foremost she has one of the most beautiful, natural voices I've heard in a long while.

Allison naturally cultivates the vintage look to great effect which fits her musical style perfectly. She covers a wide range of genres with the bulk of them old standards but most songs seem to come out soft and a bit sultry. I've gone through as much as I could find from her and gathered a CD's worth of covers for you to enjoy.

Tracklist

01 I Wanna Be Loved By You
02 Everyday
03 I Fall To Pieces
04 Autumn in New York   Feat. Josh Turner
05 Pillowtalk
06 I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire   Feat. Post Modern Jukeboxs
07 We’ll Meet Again
08 Un F The World
09 Sh-Boom (Life Could Be A Dream)
10 I Can’t Help Falling In Love
11 In Spite of Ourselves   Feat. John Paterini
12 Be My Baby
13 If I Didn't Care
14 I'll Be Here In The Morning
15 You Really Got A Hold On Me
16 Creep
17 Mr. Blue Sky   Feat. Post Modern Jukebox
18 Hidden In The Sand
19 Black Coffee
20 The Bug Collector
21 Romulus
22 Gonna Hurry
23 Our Love Is Here To Stay
24 Smile
25 Fever   Feat. Josh Turner

Reality Notes

The bulk of the songs are solo performances with some of those featuring Allison performing all of the instruments and vocals. Three tracks are duets, one with friend John Paterini and two with Josh Turner. Two songs features Allison with Postmodern Jukebox, a group that specializes in doing modern songs in a "loungey"/jazzy style often with guest vocalists like Allison.

Allison has some original music as well. She performs a few of her own songs on her YouTube page. I was prepared to use them if I needed more material to flesh out the album but fortunately I found plenty of covers. Be sure to check out her videos. They are well produced and entertaining, always a pleasant viewing.

For the cover I utilized a pic from a photo session that produced the cover of her EP of originals that can be found on her Bandcamp page. Be sure to check that out.

Facebook
YouTube
Bandcamp

Josh Turner
Postmodern Jukebox

Jess Greenberg - YouTube

In 2018 I declared September YouTube month where each week I presented an artist that I discovered and/or follow primarily on YouTube. In 2019 I failed to follow up on that theme but in 2020 I have a couple more for you.

During YouTube month of 2018 I received a request for a Jess Greenberg comp. At the time I had about 50 of her videos downloaded but for some reason they resisted all attempts to extract the audio. I would try every now and then and finally I managed through VLC and after some time going through each track I have narrowed the list down to fit on one CD.

Jess posts in small bursts it seems. The most recent is three months old at the time of this post but the previous video is three years old. Her first video was posted nine years ago, as you watch them in chronological order you can watch her mature.

Tracklist

01 Beast of Burden - The Rolling Stones
02 Stop this train - John Mayer
03 Big Love - Fleetwood Mac
04 Crazy in Love - Beyonce Knowles
05 Little Wing - Jimi Hendrix
06 We Found Love - Rihanna
07 Fly me to the moon - Bart Howard
08 Dark Side - Kelly Clarkson
09 Kiss me - Sixpence None the Richer
10 Wanted dead or alive - Bon Jovi
11 Underdog - Kasabian
12 Why'd you only call me when you're high - Arctic Monkeys
13 Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul McCartney
14 Domino - Jessie J
15 Somebody Else's Guy - Jocelyn Brown
16 Everlong - Foo Fighters
17 Fever - Eddie Cooley & Otis Blackwell
18 You've got to show me love - Robin S
19 Get Lucky - Daft Punk
20 When you were young - The Killers
21 Gold on the Ceiling - The Black Keys
22 I don't trust myself (with loving you) - John Mayer
23 Heart-Shaped Box - Nirvana
24 Titanium - David Guetta
25 Wherever You Will Go - The Calling
26 I Got You (I Feel Good) vs Scuttle Buttin' - James Brown-Stevie Ray

Reality Notes

Jess has posted almost 80 videos over the years so if you like these check out her channel for more. As far as I can tell Jess has not posted any original music but is focused on covers. Jess has a wonderful voice and excellent guitar chops and is certainly impressive but overall her videos often didn't affect me in the same way Reina Del Cid or the artist that is featured in my next post. I would like to hear her in a more fully produced performance where her voice can shine a bit more and use her guitar skills in a more controlled environment.

The bulk of Jess' videos were recorded the same way. It looks like she used a laptop or PC webcam using the built in mic in her bedroom. So, while the sound is not perfect, it is clear and consistent which gives the comp a cohesive feel to it. She covers a wide range of styles and genres, some worked for me more than others but everyone's taste is different so again, if you like these you might like the rest so check them out.

Now, about that cover. Sometime during her second year of posting she started wearing the low-cut tops. I'm sure that had something to do with the increase in play counts her videos receive but be sure that the music is the main focus. In fact, one of the reasons for doing this comp was so I could enjoy the performance without the distraction of the wardrobe. The cover here is a cropped screenshot of one of her videos (I believe from the Beast of Burden video, I can tell by the chord she's playing) to which I added the text.

Website
YouTube
Facebook

Syd Barrett and the Pink Floyd Sound - 1967

I've been distracted with other things in these crazy times we're in so I have been leaning on others in the community for ideas. This one came from a fellow member of an private alt-music history forum who simply asked me to do "something with Syd Barrett".

1967 saw the debut album by Syd Barrett. Supported by his backing band of Nick Mason, Richard Wright and Roger Waters, known as The Pink Floyd Sound, it contained 13 songs that could only have come from the mind of Syd.

This would be Syd's only album for three years though his backing band would push on releasing a three song EP recorded during the same sessions with Syd contributing guitar and a full LP the following year kicking off a career that would span several decades.

Syd's mental state would quickly deteriorate most likely due to his heavy consumption of psychedelics. The two parties split amicably in 1968 during the recording of the band's first full length album (now known simply as Pink Floyd). Syd did his best at helping his friends out appearing on several tracks but in the end they recruited an old classmate of Syd's, David Gilmour, to take over the guitar chores. That line up would last for most of that band's history.

Syd's relationship with his backing band was a strained affair to begin with. Even though they shared a flat and behaved as a single unit, it was always clear that Syd was the star and the others were support. When they split Syd was left without a band. It took the Floyd a few albums to find their own voice but when they finally broke through they became a mainstay of rock radio and the touring circuit for the remainder of their career.

Syd took a couple years off to rest and recover before returning to the studio releasing two albums in 1970 but the drugs again took their toll and Syd once more faded into the background preferring to hang out with fellow underground musicians Pretty Things drummer Twink, Deviants frontman Mick Farren and Steve Took from Tyrannosaurus Rex. His brief career left a lasting impression and influenced many younger artists.

Tracklist

Side One
01 Astronomy Domine
02 Lucifer Sam
03 Apples And Oranges
04 The Gnome
05 Flaming
06 Scarecrow
07 See Emily Play

Side Two
01 Scream Thy Last Scream
02 Chapter 24
03 Bike
04 Matilda Mother
05 Vegetable Man
06 Jugband Blues

Bonus Non-LP Single
Arnold Layne
Candy And A Currant Bun

Reality Notes

There are plenty of alternate Pink Floyd histories and discographies floating around the internet. Most follow the premise of Syd staying with the band for a few more albums. While I always find them a good read, the compilations never really satisfy me. I love Syd and went through a heavy obsession for a brief time but always saw Syd and Floyd as separate entities despite their entwined history together. This comp is my way of further defining that separation.

For this album I took the first Floyd album and removed the two band written instrumentals Pow R. Toc H. and Intersteller Overdrive and the Waters penned Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk and replaced them with outtakes and singles. The three songs I removed become the EP released by Floyd at around the same time as this album. Yea, this is still Pink Floyd but it is a much different Floyd than that which they would evolve into once Syd was out and Gilmour was in. The "Floyd as backing band" makes much more sense to me.

I used all mono sources and included the Arnold Layne single and B side as bonus tracks. There are a couple of songs here where Syd is not the lead singer or he is the co-lead singer (Matilda Mother, Scream Thy Last Scream). I kept those anyway because he wrote them. Let's just say he is using artistic expression by having someone else sing to achieve a different sound than what he would have done or think of it as giving his backing band a chance to shine a bit.

For the cover I took a black and white photo of Syd and added liquid projection art over the top and added the text. I kept the original title. Most debut albums are self titled but Syd must have been attached to that phrase to name the album that. The title comes from chapter seven of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.