Poncier - Big In Belgium - 1992

After leaving his band Citizen Dick, front man Cliff Poncier recorded his one and only solo album. Titled after a flip comment made during an interview about his band's popularity the album sold modestly. It has been subsequently reissued many times over the years yet still maintains an obscure yet legendary cult status among the Seattle bands of the day.

Moody and introspective lyrics are paired with sparse, mostly acoustic and at times ethereal instrumentation it served as the antithesis to the current grunge rock that was pouring out of Seattle at the time. While many of the LPs released during grunges heyday are sounding dated, Poncier's album still sounds fresh and original.

Side One
01 Times Of Trouble
02 Spoon Man
03 Black Cat
04 Ferry Boat #3
05 Nowhere but You

Side Two
01 Flutter Girl
02 Missing
03 Seasons
04 Call Me A Dog

Reality Notes

I had a completely different project done, wrapped up and ready to post this week when this slapped me in the face and demanded to be built. It fell together so quickly that I decided to post this instead.

Cliff Poncier is a character in the movie Singles. A film by Cameron Crowe about Seattle in the early 90s that explored relationships, work and music, it featured stars Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon among others. According to Crowe, Dillon's character Cliff was originally intended for Chris Cornell of Soundgarden but a busy schedule prevented Chris's involvement beyond a short non-speaking cameo.

While on the set Cornell "borrowed" a prop cassette tape that was suppose to contain a five song tape that Poncier recorded and was selling while busking on the street. The tape case was created by Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament that included the fake song titles Seasons, Nowhere but You, Spoon Man, Flutter Girl and Missing. As the story goes, Chris went home and wrote and recorded songs for each of the titles then presented the tape back to Cameron.

Cameron was so impressed with the tape that he included the song Seasons on the soundtrack. Two other songs were later re-recorded by Cornell. Spoonman appeared on Soundgarden's Superunknown album and Flutter Girl was sped up a bit and recorded for Cornell's 1999 solo album Euphoria Morning. The full five song demo tape was released as a promotional CD at the time of the films release. In 2017 it was rereleased on cassette and vinyl for Record Store Day.

All five songs plus two more Cornell compositions (Ferry Boat #3 and Score Piece #4) were included on the deluxe version of the soundtrack album. I had heard the story of the tape at the time of the movie's release but never found the rest of the songs until recently. I always thought it would be cool to hear. Even better would be an entire album of similar material but sadly 7 songs does not an album make.

About the same time that the film was in production Cornell recorded and album in tribute to Andrew Wood. Wood was the frontman for Mother Love Bone and Malfunkshun and was a big part of the growing Seattle music scene. Cornell and Wood were roommates at the time when Wood overdosed on Heroin just as his band Mother Love Bone was taking off nationally. Hit hard by the loss of his friend Cornell turned to music and songwriting as therapy to work through his grief. He approached Wood's band mates Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament and formed Temple of the Dog to record the songs along with Mike McCready on lead guitar, and Matt Cameron on drums and guest vocals by Eddie Vedder. (So basically Temple of the Dog was Chris Cornell backed up by Pearl Jam, many of whom also had bit roles in the movie Singles so it all ties together.)

A deluxe version of the Temple of the Dog album included a second CD of demos, outtakes and live tracks. Most of the demos were done in the same or similar style as the Poncier demos. Could we use those to flesh out the album? Why not? The CD contained six demos - Say Hello To Heaven, Reach Down, Call Me A Dog, Times Of Trouble, Angel Of Fire and Black Cat. Add these to the seven songs from the Singles soundtrack and we have a song pool of thirteen songs. More than enough to carve an album out of.

I dropped Say Hello To Heaven and Reach Down because they were too associated in my mind as Temple of the Dog songs. Say Hello To Heaven was also maybe a bit too polished for the project. I also dropped Score Piece #4. It was short and only an instrumental and didn't really add anything to the project. I then dropped Angel Of Fire due to it being a lower quality and not sounding like Chris (why can't I find songwriting credits for this one?).

This leaves us with nine songs. I shuffled them around until I had a track list I liked that could be split evenly on a vinyl LP. Even though this is suppose to be from the CD era, vinyl at this time was still very much alive and most independent releases were released in this format.

The cover is derived from a promo pic of Matt Dillon in character enhanced with a pop-art photo filter in Word. Some WordArt and the promo sticker completes the illusion. Yea, I know the sticker says demos when this is supposed to be an official release but marketing will do what marketing wants to do.

CSN&Y - Long May You Run - 1976

Hot on the heels of their 1974 release Human Highway, CSN&Y managed to regroup and record and release Long May You Run. A much more polished effort than its predecessor we find the band working together nicely. The songwriting credits are divided evenly among the four giving each member equal time, the first and only CSN&Y album to do so. A strong album that received good to fair reviews, it is still counted among their best works.

For a band with such a tumultuous past and turbulent relationships and large egos it's amazing they can work together at all. When they do manage, that's when the magic happens.

Side One
01 Long May You Run
02 Mutiny
03 Black Coral
04 Time After Time
05 Make Love To You
06 Ocean Girl

Side Two
01 Taken At All
02 Guardian Angel
03 Foolish Man
04 JB's Blues
05 Midnight On The Bay
06 Out Of The Darkness

Reality Notes

In 1976 CSN&Y made one more attempt to finish an album together and once again egos got in the way. This is basically a straight mashup of the two albums Whistling Down The Wire and Long May You Run with full band versions used where available. I stuck with those songs I knew they had worked on but dropped Human Highway as that was used on the last album.

We had set an end date for the Human Highway album at December of 1974 - mostly so that we could use Homeward Through The Haze and give David at least one strong song. That leaves us with 1975 through the Miami sessions in 1976 to build our song pool from. I also allowed any song from the Crosby-Nash and Stills & Young Band albums to be in the running. While we don't have mixes of every song they worked on we can use anything from those albums as substitutes. The list of songs we know they worked on is as follows.

January 1975
Western Witches
Guardian Angel

Long May You Run Sessions Miami 1976
Taken At All
Long May You Run
Human Highway
Black Coral
Midnight On The Bay
Ocean Girl
Mutiny
Talk To Me
Dancer

I immediately eliminated Western Witches, Talk To Me and Dancer, each for different reasons and also Human Highway because we used that already. This gives us seven songs to establish a foundation with. The three songs we do have a that include all four are Long May You Run, Black Coral and Taken At All.

The track listing for this comp has gone through several iterations. My first attempt came out as follows.

01 Long May You Run
02 Mutiny
03 Black Coral
04 Foolish Man
05 Taken At All
06 Time After Time
07 Midnight On The Bay
08 JB's Blues
09 Out Of The Darkness
10 Ocean Girl
11 Guardian Angel

I really liked this tracklist and it stayed this way for some time but one day I realized that there were only two songs from Stephen and three each from the other three. Knowing the egos of those involved I assumed that Stephen would insist on one more song of his so I added one of his and removed one each from Graham and David which is more in line with earlier releases.

01 Long May You Run
02 Mutiny
03 Black Coral
04 Time After Time
05 Make Love To You
06 Ocean Girl
07 Taken At All
08 Guardian Angel
09 Midnight On The Bay
10 Out Of The Darkness

This made me happy briefly. The timing was right and the overall feel was concise and flowed nicely but I missed Foolish Man and I felt that I couldn't add that back in and not Graham's song so I came up with what we have here.

Three songs each, egos placated but it now is 24 minutes per side. What's a producer to do? For my post here I will leave it as is. You can configure this anyway you want but personally I am going with my original 11 song tracklist. I'm not really fond of Stephen's Make Love To You and the other song choice of his, 12/8 Blues, was not any better.

I altered the original album cover to reflect the change from Stills & Young to CSN&Y.

Sources
Crosby-Nash - Whistling Down The Wire
Still & Young Band - Long May You Run
CSN - Box Set
The CSNY Anthology (Bootleg, although the songs from here are also available on official sources)

KISS - Indy Debut - 1973

In 1973 KISS released their debut album as a self financed independent release. Funded by manager Bill Aucoin who used the LP to secure a major label contract with newly formed Casablanca Records. The tracks were recorded quickly and cheaply at two different studios. They even included a live track recorded at an early gig. While the album didn't sell it did get them signed and they still play most of these songs live today. It was cleaned up some and repackaged for re-release in 1975 after the success of their double live LP Alive!

Side One
01 Strutter [Electric Lady]
02 Let Me Go Rock And Roll [Bell Sounds]
03 Firehouse [Bell Sounds]
04 Cold Gin [Electric Lady]
05 Let Me Know [Bell Sounds]

Side Two
01 Watchin You [Electric Lady]
02 Deuce [Electric Lady]
03 Acrobat [Live at The Daisy]
04 Black Diamond [Electric Lady]
05 100,000 Years [Bell Sounds]

Reality Notes

Things happened fast For KISS in 1973. Within a year after forming they had acquired a manager and a record contract with an up and coming label. Both helped to shape and mold them into the machine they became four years later. What if things did not move quite so fast? What if their debut album was an independent release? With the available demos we can construct what could have been that LP.

The tracks here were all recorded before their debut album. Five songs were recorded at Electric Lady by Eddie Kramer as payment for session work owed Gene and Paul. Four songs were recorded at Bell Sounds studios by Kerner and Wise who produced their major label debut and the follow up Hotter Than Hell. Acrobat was recorded live at an early gig at the Daisy, this song would become Love Theme From KISS after dropping the Much Too Young second half.

There are two songs from the first album that we do not have a demo for. Nothin' to Lose and Kissing Time. Kissing Time is a Bobby Rydel cover that was added to the second pressing of the first album. These two songs are replaced with two demos from the same sessions of songs that would later appear on the second album. You could take Nothin' to Lose and Kissing Time from the first album and move them to the second if you really wanted to.  

Watching You comes from the Eddie Kramer produced demos and Let Me Go Rock And Roll is from the Kerner and Wise produced Bell Sounds demos. It was standard practice for Kerner and Wise at the time to record pre-production demos in an independent studio. Their reasoning was to keep any unreleased songs out of the labels hands. It's not theirs if they didn't pay for it.

I basically used the first album as a template and substituted the HTH tracks where they were needed. I did switch the last two songs around simply because I wanted to. All songs were sourced from the 28 disc KISSTORY bootleg.

The cover features one of the earliest photos of the band in full makeup.

U2 - Hold Onto Love - 1987

The Joshua Tree was U2's fifth album and was released in March of 1987. A few months later in spite of the album still sitting at the top of the charts the band released Hold Onto Love as a part two of sorts. The songs were recorded at the same time as those on The Joshua Tree but were finished after its release. While a double album was considered at one time the idea was dropped in favor of two separate albums released close together under the umbrella title of Desert Songs Volume One and Two. While the title Desert Songs never appeared on the packaging it was mentioned during interviews and press releases and the similar artwork tied it all together. It was felt that the second batch of songs had a different feel than the first and was closer in feel to The Unforgettable Fire.

Side One
01 Luminous Times
02 Sweetest Thing
03 Deep In The Heart
04 Beautiful Ghost
05 Heartland

Side Two
01 Spanish Eyes
02 Wave Of Sorrow (Birdland)
03 Walk To The Water
04 Race Against Time
05 Silver And Gold

Reality Notes

The inspiration for this construction came from AlbumFixer who posted an expanded version of The Joshua Tree that becomes a double album. Not being a fan of double albums (have I mention that before?) I wondered if the extra tracks would make a decent single album. I think it worked. Many, if not most, of the songs here are just as good as any of the songs on The Joshua Tree. All of these songs originated and were worked on during the Joshua Tree sessions. They were finished after the release of that album without the presence of any producers with the intention of using them as B sides for the upcoming singles. Heartland was later released on Rattle and Hum but originated during these sessions.

I Was U2 mad at the time The Joshua Tree was released. I had every album, EP and 12" single I could find. The day I purchased the album I had heard it in it's entirety on the radio. They were playing it in the store when I bought it and I played it almost constantly when I got it home. This was U2 at the peak of their game. After this album I kind of lost interest. Rattle and Hum was good but I never really took the time to immerse myself in it like The Unforgettable Fire or The Joshua Tree.

At the time of release I purchased as many of the 12" vinyl singles that contained these songs that I could find. I marveled at the quantity of quality leftover songs and wondered why they didn't gather them for another album or EP instead of wasting them on B sides. I wouldn't doubt that at one time I used them as filler with the album when I put it on cassette for listening on the go. All of these songs were collected together along with a few more songs from the sessions and released on a companion CD for the anniversary deluxe edition of The Joshua Tree.

For the cover I did my best to emulate The Joshua Tree cover to tie them together. I used a picture from the same cover photo sessions.

CSN&Y - Human Highway - 1974

In May of 1973 CSN&Y had some writing sessions at Neil's rented Maui beach house followed soon after by some recording at Neil's ranch. In October they did a surprise performance at Winterland. All of this was leading up to the recording of a new record that was to be titled Human Highway. The album was released shortly after a 1974 summer arena tour. Being a bit heavy on the Young portion of CSN&Y and due to some of the tracks being live performances some critics accused Neil of dragging his bandmates with him into the ditch.

Side One
01 Human Highway (Bootleg)
02 And So It Goes (Nash - Wild Tales)
03 Little Blind Fish (Bootleg)
04 Hawaiian Sunrise (CSN&Y 1974)
05 Myth of Sisyphus (CSN&Y 1974)
06 See The Changes (CSN - Box Set)

Side Two
01 As I Come Of Age (CSN - Box Set)
02 Traces (CSN&Y 1974)
03 Homeward Through The Haze (CSN - Box Set)
04 Love Art Blues (CSN&Y 1974)
05 Prison Song (Nash - Wild Tales)
06 Through My Sails (Young - Zuma)

Reality Notes

Human Highway is among the most debated and reconstructed unreleased albums out there. So why do another one? After a lot of research (mostly from this forum thread) and comparing other reconstructions and being less than thrilled but still intrigued by the results I decided "why not?".

The history of this "lost" CSNY reunion album starts in 1973 and runs through 1974 or 1975 depending on how you view the sessions. Over those two or three years there were several attempts to record an album each failing due to egos and other personality conflicts. Other reconstructions of this album have focused on creating one definitive collection of songs that could have been the official final release at the end of 1975. I have decided to take a different approach.

My first attempt ended up with a four album cycle of three "unreleased" acetates that showed the progression from a very rough sketch of an album through to the fourth finished product where it ceased to be Human Highway and became Long May You Run. Since then I have refined and redone the project several times until I ended up with what we have here.

I decided to set a cut-off date for the Human Highway session at the end of 1974 and focus only on those songs that were actually worked on during those sessions. It is my opinion that anything after that belongs to Long May You Run. (I will address that album sometime soon.) Because none of the recording sessions produced enough material to fill and entire disc and due to the lack of leaked material I have utilized the three CD set of live recordings from the 1974 tour to fill in the gaps.

If we examine the timeline and what was worked on we can come up with a short list of songs. Those sessions and what they produced are as follows.

May 1973 - Writing sessions at Neil's rented beach house on the island of Maui Followed by recording at Neil's Broken Arrow ranch. Six songs produced.

See The Changes
Prison Song
And So It Goes
Human Highway
Through My Sails
Little Blind Fish

October 4 1973 - Crosby, Nash and Young joined Stills at the end of a Manassas show at Winterland playing many new songs.

As I Come Of Age
Human Highway
New Mama
And So It Goes
Prison Song

Reunion Tour Rehearsals - Some recordings were made during the rehearsal sessions for the tour.

Summer 1974 Reunion Tour - Most if not all new songs as well as many even newer songs were played during this tour.

December 1974

Wind On The Water
Carry Me
Homeward Through The Haze
Time After Time
Different Tongues

It appears that Homeward Through The Haze is the only song completed during the '74-'75 sessions.

My intention was to see how CSN&Y would sound if Neil was successful in dragging the rest of the band with him into the ditch. This allows for the rough edges to show through whereas normally the group is known for its polish and perfection. Because Neil is the major instigator here I have bookended the album with his songs. The title track comes first on side one and side two finishes with Through My Sails (as a slight nod to Zuma where it also closes that album). Neil writes and sings five of the twelve songs giving him a big chunk of the album. The other three songs were previously unreleased until the 1974 live album (at least officially).

And So It Goes and Prison Song are taken from Graham's Wild Tales album but both were introduced during the initial writing sessions in Hawaii. David sings backup on both songs and Neil plays piano on And So It Goes. And So It Goes sounds like it could have been recorded with Crazy Horse with Neil at the helm. As I Come of Age actually comes from 1981, a version also appeared on Stills in 1975 as a solo recording but the song was first played at the reunion concert in 1973. Stephen's Myth of Sisyphus is a solo piano and vocal live recording from the '74 summer CSN&Y tour. Homeward Through The Haze was recorded during the last sessions in 1974.

Little Blind Fish was written and recorded during the initial 1973 sessions. If someone can point me to a better version of Little Blind Fish I will do an upgrade. I have two versions. Both are low quality. One seems to shift to mono at the end and the other sounds better but  is sped up. I reluctantly used the first version because I felt the song was needed due to the collaborative nature of the song.

There are two versions of the album in the archive. One where I did my best to eliminate any crowd noise and applause and another where I used the crowd to create transitions between the live and studio tracks. You can decide which you like best.

The cover features a photo taken during the Hawaii sessions.

Michael Hedges - Live on Planet X

In an effort to keep things fresh and different here I give you Michael Hedges. This comp was created at a time when the internet was mostly dial-up, Napster was still a pirate file sharing app, hard drives were measured in megabytes and CD burners were a brand new technology. Michael had only been gone for about a year or two. I was and still am a big fan. My very first CD I purchased (before I even owned a CD player) was Michael's Live on a Double Planet so it seems fitting that my first CD compilation was a Michael Hedges project that was meant to emulate that CD.

Michael Hedges was one of those rare breed of artists. Not content to play within the accepted boundaries of contemporary music Michael pushed the envelope of composition and acoustic guitar technique. He was an early pioneer of two-handed tapping most likely inspired by Eddie Van Halen and Stanely Jordan. He also employed endless alternate turnings, percussive and harmonic slaps and both fingerstyle and strumming with a pick to achieve his visions. He was a classically trained multi instrumentalist and deeply immersed in music theory yet there was a spiritual force the came through everything he did. And, he had the voice of an angel with a powerful set of lungs to boot. Michael was the real deal. Michael was only 43 when he passed away but he left a legacy that few can match.

If there is a what-if question attached to this comp it would be "What if Windham Hill released a posthumous follow up to Live on the Double Planet?" To emulate that album I tried to strike a balance between vocal and instrumental tracks and between originals and covers. I kept pre and post song chatter to a minimum and removed any gaps between songs. There are several songs here that have never appeared on any official Hedges CD in any form.

01 Eminence Front
02 Fusion of the Five Elements (10/25/96)
03 Follow Through (with Michael Manring)
04 Free Swinging Soul (07/06/97)
05 Rickover's Dream (10/25/81)
06 No Expectations (on harp guitar)
07 Sofa #1 (10/25/96)
08 India (winter 1990)
09 Ragamuffin (Kent State 1985)
10 Wondering Where the Lions Are (1981)
11 Point A » Point B (on TransTrem guitar - winter 1990)
12 Face Yourself
13 Aerial Boundaries (1996)
14 Like a Rolling Stone (07/05/97)

Reality Notes

**WARNING - NOT EVEN CLOSE TO STUDIO QUALITY!**

This was my first "mix tape" CD made on a computer. All of the tracks were downloaded through Napster or another file sharing app while working as a tutor at my college's computer lab and are all from unofficial, bootleg recordings. The disc was burned in a classroom that taught emerging technologies where the instructor's computer had an early CD burner. Because I did not have any other music production software at the time and the source material was less than ideal the finished product was a bit on the raw side. But hey, beggars can't be choosers and this was new Hedges. This was the best of what I could find at the time. Luckily I never delete anything.

Once this blog started rolling I started to think about what other projects I could do or have done that I could share. I wanted to avoid just doing my takes on the same things everyone else was doing. I had almost forgotten about this one since it has been in my digital library from the beginning but I have been wanting to clean it up a bit for some time. I took all of the original files and dumped them into my sequencer and proceeded to give this project the polish it sorely lacked.

Because these tracks came from file sharing channels there was very little info about where they were from. I included what little data was there. I could have done some research to track down more information and maybe find better sources but I wanted the project to stand on its own as it was. I wanted to improve it, not redo it.

This is more of a nostalgia piece for me so I made very little changes to the original. I kept the original running order. I trimmed the beginnings and endings to make a better flow from track to track. I cleaned, EQ'd and volume matched as best I could but with the quality of some of the source material I can only do so much. The final result is still a great improvement over the original and still a great listen. I do have a follow up to this comp which I will also post eventually. It too has a similar history and is in need of some editing and cleaning.

The cover is one of the first covers I ever made. To show its age I believe it was done with Microsoft Word for Windows 3.1.

Pink Floyd - The Wall - 1979

In late 1979 Pink Floyd released their most successful album since Dark Side of the Moon. Spanning two vinyl discs The Wall told the story of Pink, a celebrity recluse driven mad by fame and circumstance. The project was driven mostly by Roger Waters with production aided by Bob Ezrin. The album, in spite of its success, proved to be the beginning of the end of the band.

What if the record label, after hearing the finished album, demanded that the album be cut down to a single disc? Could it be done? I thought so and here are my results. For those that insist that this is unnecessary and/or believe the album should be expanded to three discs let's just say that with the release of the film they put out a two or three disc soundtrack version using new and rerecorded material to flesh out the story. If someone wants to do that album, go ahead. I don't think I could.

Side A
01 In The Flesh? 3:18
02 The Thin Ice 2:33
03 The Happiest Days Of Our Lives 1:33
04 Another Brick In The Wall 4:18
05 Mother 5:27
06 Goodbye Blue Sky 5:22
07 Young Lust 4:17

Side B
01 Hey You 4:49
02 Is There Anybody Out There? 2:17
03 Comfortably Numb 6:18
04 The Show Must Go On 1:36
05 In The Flesh 4:14
06 Run Like Hell 4:24
07 Stop Outside The Wall 2:13

Reality Notes

Do I need to repeat myself on how much I dislike double albums? There are only a few I enjoy from front to back. Either they are some self indulgent concept album that got out of control or a prime example of not being able to edit oneself, sometimes both. The Wall is one of these, at least for me. It didn't help that the album was released around the time I became completely disenchanted with and resistant to anything that was on the radio. If it was popular I wanted nothing to do with it. It took quite a while before I grew out of that phase.

That said, The wall does contain a few of my favorite Floyd songs with Comfortably Numb being among my all time favorites by any artist. This comp is a purely selfish attempt to rescue these songs but keep them in a context that is as close to the intent of the artists as I could manage and still maintain interest.

To accomplish this goal I loaded the entire album into my sequencer and slowly whittled away. In some cases I deleted whole tracks, in others I trimmed and combined to create new ones. I paid very close attention to transitions and in some cases rearranged or created completely new transitions using the material at hand. I did not introduce any outside material although I did go through the preproduction demos before dropping the idea. My intention was not to make an alternative Wall but a more concise one.

I'm not going to go into details of where I edited. There are too many to mention and when I started this project I did not think it would be shared and did not keep notes. Just download it and see if you can spot the edits. At just over 50 minutes, 25 minutes per side, it pushes vinyl constraints to their limits but I don't think I can trim it down anymore. It will fit comfortably on a CD, Just make sure you burn it with no gaps between tracks.

I did not create the cover this time. I found this one on a google search so I do not remember who made it. If the original creator wishes that it be removed I will gladly take it down and make one of my own but I do like this one a lot. So thanks to whoever it was that created it.

Source
The Wall [Experience Edition]