'Buried Alive'
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve posted up some Aerosmith and tried to qualify the post by saying something like, “Well, back when they were good...”
Despite all qualifications, I happened recently to run up on some newer Aerosmith that’s pretty good. So I think I’ve found the problem: They need to cut out the shit in the studio. I found a couple of disks of demos and damned if even the crap songs from the later albums sound decent when they’re unadorned by studio fluffery. Prime example: “Living on the Edge,” which was, in my opinion, a typical late model, Aerosmith pop song. The demo shows the song stripped down and raw, before Bruce Fairburn glossed it up and turned it into mainstream mediocrity.
This collection, which was probably assembled by a fan, is titled
Divers Aerosmith. I don’t know if that’s meant to be “Diver’s” or “Diverse.” Regardless, the original set had 32 songs, some of which had been released commercially, some of which had poor sound quality, and some of which just sucked (i.e. an orchestral version of “Crazy”). I trimmed the fat and ended up with 11 songs that I think are pretty quality. With the exception of “Mama Kin” and “Walk This Way,” everything comes from
Permanent Vacation or newer. And, to the best of my knowledge, nothing here has been commercially released.
Bottom line: Here’s yet another Aerosmith post. You know we're all still fans.
Buried Alive.mp3 ~
Pump outtake
Crazy.mp3 ~ acoustic version
Guilty Kilt.mp3 Hollywood.mp3 ~
Permanent Vacation demo
Line Up.mp3 ~ smoky bar mix
Livin’ on the Edge.mp3 ~
Get A Grip demo
Mama Kin.mp3 ~ live, with Guns ‘n’ Roses
Once is Enough.mp3 ~
Permanent Vacation demo
Samurai.mp3 Permanent Vacation demo
Sedona Sunrise.mp3 ~
Pump demo
Walk This Way.mp3 ~ live, with Bon Jovi
Labels: Aerosmith, classic rock, demos, live music, outtakes
Doug Fieger: 1952-2010
I read this morning that Doug Fieger, lead singer for the Knack, had died Sunday at his Woodland Hills, Calif., home after a battle with cancer. He was 57.
In 2006 Fieger had two tumors removed from his brain. He began undergoing chemotherapy in March of 2007 after a PET scan found a possible cancerous growth in his brain. He remained optimistic, saying, “You can't lie down. You can't stop your life.”
The Knack is often maligned as “one-hit wonders” for their phenomenal success with “My Sharona.” Although “My Sharona” was an insane hit, spending six weeks in 1979 as Billboard’s number one song,
Get the Knack itself also became a huge success. The album went platinum in just two months and spent five weeks as number one, going on to worldwide sales of 6 million. It also spawned three other hit singles, although of course, none of them matched "Sharona's" success.
I think the Knack happened to come along at an opportune time in music history. They had the classic “two guitars, bass, and drum” line-up and made poppy, new wave music just as that style started to break. But they leaned enough on rock that they didn’t alienate fans who wouldn’t listen to the electronic new wave music that was waiting in the wings. Ultimately, the Knack would become
so popular, they were hit with a backlash in the form of a “Knuke the Knack” campaign. Whether as a result of that backlash or because of weak material, none of the Knack’s five successive studio albums would come near the success of
Get the Knack.
Good Girls Don’t.mp3 I Knew the Bride (Dave Edmunds cover).mp3 My Sharona (demo).mp3 Labels: covers, current events, demos, new wave
Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas to you and yours.
I’ve decided to finish off this Christmas song season with quality rather than quantity. These three songs are right up there with my all time favorites. I hope you enjoy them as well.
Like every year at Christmas, there’s been a slight uptick in visitors to my little blog, most of them searching for seasonal music. I hope at least a few of you come back. Once in a while I post some listenable stuff.
Little Drummer Boy (extended version).mp3 ~ Jimi Hendrix
Christmas (demo).mp3 ~ The Who
Winter Wonderland.mp3 ~ Dean Martin
Labels: demos, guitar heroes, holiday
The Stooges: 1973 WABX broadcast
In case you’re wondering, I’m currently reading “Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed.” Written by Paul Trynka, the biography was published in 2007, so it’s pretty up-to-date and includes the Stooges reunion.
I’m about two-thirds of the way through the book; up to about the
Zombie Birdhouse period. The Stooges’ story is more or less the centerpiece, as you might expect, with chapters devoted to each of the albums and to the band’s eventual implosion. There are also chapters on Iggy’s collaborations with Bowie and the time they spent in Berlin. As time passes and Iggy turns out albums that are less than heroic, Trynka’s praise, and the amount of ink given each, seems to fade.
An interesting perspective Trynka has given the story is his take on the Iggy Pop persona. Throughout the book, Trynka has written as if Iggy is Mr. Hyde to Jim Osterberg’s Dr. Jekyll. It’s frustrating as, over and over, throughout his career, you see Jim achieve near success only have Iggy snatch it away. One brutal example is after the release of
Lust for Life. Trynka writes that Jim/Iggy locked himself in a room at the Schlosshotel Gerhus in Berlin where “he stared and stared at the album cover, all the while snorting up a small mountain of cocaine, waiting to see if he’d like the photo. Eventually he decided he hated it.
“He listened over and over to ‘The Passenger,’ waiting for it to get faster. It didn’t, and he decided he hated that too.”
Reading this biography has, naturally, put me in the mood to listen to Iggy, and I’ve dragged out several of the old CDs (I cannot find my
Raw Power disk, dammit!). I wanted to share some of the old stuff but couldn’t decide if I should go with something from the commercial releases or something a little more off-the-wall. In the end, I decided to go with what you find here: The 1973 WABX broadcast of an early mix of
Raw Power, which comes from a disk called
Rough Power.
There’s a whole long story about the original mix of the album and subsequent remixes. I’ll suggest you start
here, and then read on as necessary.
As far as this WABX broadcast, I’ve got two not-totally-dissimilar versions at hand as to how it came about. I’m guessing the truth is somewhere in between. In “Open Up and Bleed,” Trynka writes that Iggy himself brought the rough mixes to the radio station, previewing the album, singing along with some of the tracks, then stripping down and dancing naked in the studio.
The liner notes for
Rough Power indicate CBS Records refused to allow Iggy to be interviewed or to play the rough mixes on the air. Iggy, however, wanted to do something for the station, which had always been supportive of the Stooges. As a sort of compromise, according to Ron Asheton, Iggy ended up taking some lesser mixes and keeping quiet.
You’ll hear that the sound quality of these recordings is pretty poor – I don’t know the original source, but it seriously sounds like someone with a handheld microphone recording from a portable radio. The one thing that does come through is the “raw power” that was the Stooges. It’s a shame that, despite several efforts, this seminal album has never been properly remastered.
I Need Somebody.mp3 Hard to Beat.mp3 Death Trip.mp3 Raw Power.mp3 Search and Destroy.mp3 Shake Appeal.mp3 Not Right.mp3 Labels: demos, Detroit, garage rock, punk
The Day the Music Died, 50 years on
"But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step."
... Don McLean, "American Pie"
The story of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson is one of those rock ‘n’ roll legends that it seems like I’ve always known about: At about 1:00 a.m., on Feb. 3, 1959, a single-engine, four-seat Beechnut aircraft took off in a snow storm from the Mason City Airport in Iowa. Within minutes the plane went down, killing all three passengers and pilot Roger Peterson.
As the fiftieth anniversary of the crash has approached, there naturally have been a lot of stories about that tragic day. “The Day the Music Died” has, for me, gone from being an abstract idea to something more real, more concrete. It’s been sad this past week to read about the crash and the events leading up to it. Even more tragic is the fact that these musicians were taken at their prime.
U.K. music critic Philip Norman, in an
article originally posted online last week, called Buddy Holly “the father of rock.” Norman acknowledges Elvis’ contribution, but says of Holly that he was “a pioneer and a revolutionary.”
“Unlike Presley and other guitar-toting idols of the mid-Fifties, Holly was a gifted instrumentalist who had grown up playing country music in his native West Texas,” Norman writes. “As a songwriter, performer and musician, Holly is the progenitor of virtually every world-class talent to emerge in the Sixties and Seventies.”
There are literally pages and pages of information about Buddy Holly and about the plane crash. As jumping off points, I can recommend Holly’s
Wiki page, as well as
The Day the Music Died Wikipedia page. Both of those sites have links to more information and suggestions for further reading.
In memoriam of Buddy Holly (but with no slight to the Big Bopper or Richie Valens), I’ve got a few songs that come from a Purple Chick collection titled
The Complete Buddy Holly – Volume One. Like all Purple Chick releases, there are tons of alternates, demos, home recordings, and live performances that were left off the commercial releases. Volume one of this 10-disk set reaches back to a 1949 home recording and goes through the April 1956 sessions at the Norman Petty Studios in Clovis, NM., just before Buddy Holly and the Crickets recorded their debut album. The notes came along with the file, so I can’t necessarily vouch for their accuracy. I just plays 'em like they deals 'em.
My Two Timin’ Woman.mp3 ~
c.1949: Home Recording, 3315 36th St., Lubbock, Texas.
Buddy Holly: vocal, acoustic guitarI’ll Just Pretend.mp3 ~
c. 1952: Home Recording, 3315 36th St., Lubbock, Texas.
Bob Montgomery (poss. Jack Neal): lead vocal, guitar; Buddy Holly: second vocal, mandolinI Gambled My Heart.mp3 ~
c. late 1954/April 1955: Nesman Recording Studio - Wichita Falls, Texas. Bob Montgomery: lead vocal, acoustic guitar; Buddy Holly: duet vocal, electric lead guitar; Sonny Curtis: fiddle; Don Guess: bassBaby Let’s Play House.mp3 ~
mid-1955: Nesman Recording Studio - Wichita Falls, Texas.
Buddy Holly: lead vocal, acoustic guitar; Sonny Curtis: lead guitar; Larry Welborn: bass; Jerry Allison: drumsLove Me.mp3 Midnight Shift.mp3 ~
Jan. 26, 1956: Bradley's Barn Studio - Music Row, Nashville, Tenn. (Owen Bradley: producer)
Buddy Holly: vocal; Sonny Curtis: lead guitar; Grady Martin: rhythm guitar; Don Guess: bass; Doug Kirkham: percussionI’m Gonna Set My Foot Down.mp3 ~
February-April, 1956: Norman Petty Studios - 1313 W. 7th St. Clovis, NM. Buddy Holly: vocal, guitar; Sonny Curtis: guitar, lead guitar; Don Guess: bass; Jerry Allison: drumsLabels: current events, demos, oldies
The 12 Days of Xmas (day 7)
On the seventh day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Seven Swans a Swimming
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
I thought I’d turn things over to the “classic rockers” for the Seventh Day of Xmas.
Please Come Home for Christmas.mp3 ~ The Eagles
Christmas (demo).mp3 ~ The Who
Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home).mp3 ~ U2
White Christmas (live).mp3 ~ Elton John
Christmas Must Be Tonight (alternate).mp3 ~ The Band
Father Christmas.mp3 ~ The Kinks
Santa Claus is Coming to Town.mp3 ~ Bruce Springsteen
Labels: classic rock, demos, holiday, live music
Thanksgiving and Hendrix's Birthday. All at once.
To those of you who celebrate it, Happy Thanksgiving. To the rest of you, today is Jimi Hendrix’s birthday, so you, too, should join in the party.
Had Hendrix lived, he would have been 66 years old today. Hard to imagine what the flamboyant guitar god would be doing now. Would he have mellowed into an elder bluesman? Or would he have become a nonstop touring nostalgia act? Sadly, we’ll never know.
To mark Jimi’s birthday, I dug out a box set released in 1990 on what would have been his 48th birthday. It’s called
Lifelines: The Jimi Hendrix Story. I skipped this back when I was doing the “Saturday Boxing” series because of the way this collection was put together.
Over the 1988 Labor Day weekend, the Westwood One Radio Network aired a program called “Jimi Hendrix – Live & Unreleased,” hosted by Bruce Gary. This
Lifelines collection is from that program and includes excerpts from several interviews with Hendrix. To me, the dialogue was annoying, interrupting the flow of some great music. As such, I’ve only listened to the entire thing once or twice, and I decided to skip it when I posted selections from my box sets.
When I was thinking about posting something for Hendrix’s birthday, I thought back to this set. I gave it another listen and decided that not only is the music great, but it’s interesting
now to hear Jimi’s thoughts. The dialogue also provides you some information about the tracks you might not otherwise have known.
With that in mind, here are a few tracks from
Lifelines: The Jimi Hendrix Story, dialogue and all. I’ve also included the liner notes for each track.
I’m a Man (live).mp3 ~ with Curtis Knight and the Squires
Recorded live in Hackensack, NJ, in December 1965. One of the earliest examples of Hendrix singing in front of a band, this Bo Diddley classic demonstrates Jimi’s blues and R&B roots – as well as how his guitar playing was already becoming quite stylized.
Drivin’ South.mp3 Recorded in the BBC’s London studios on Oct. 17, 1967, this may well be the guitar showpiece of this collection. Jimi used to perform this in the early days with Curtis Knight, but he never released his own version.
Voodoo Child (Slight Return).mp3 The original version appeared on 1968’s Electric Ladyland album. This alternate take is take four of eight takes recorded at The Record Plant in New York on May 3, 1968. Of the eight takes of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” take four (this one) was the longest run-through before the selected master take (number eight).
Angel (home demo).mp3 Recorded on Jimi’s portable tape deck in early 1968, while he was composing songs for the Electric Ladyland project. “Angel” wasn’t recorded properly until 1970, during sessions for what would become The Cry of Love. A very intimate glimpse into Jimi’s songwriting process.
Send My Love to Linda.mp3 Recorded at The Record Plant in New York in August 1970, this comes from one of Jimi’s last recording sessions.
I Don’t Live Today (live).mp3 Recorded live at the Los Angeles Forum – Apr. 26, 1969
[No dialogue in this track.]
Labels: classic rock, demos, guitar heroes, holiday, live albums, outtakes
Untitled Zeppelin post (take 10)
A little more from
Physical Graffiti as I continue the voyage that is my temporarily recurring feature here at the Licorice Pizza: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Sessions disks.
This disk shows Zeppelin tightening down on the versions of the songs that would ultimately end up on the album. You can hear, though, some are still works in progress, i.e. this version of “In the Light.” While it is now recognizable as the classic from
Physical Graffiti, it’s still distinctly different from the final version.
While I didn’t include it as a separate track here (it’s in the zip), I found the instrumental version of “Kashmir” almost as interesting as the final version. “Kashmir” is one of my favorite examples of how great a drummer John Bonham was and without the vocals, it really seems like the drumming takes center stage. I’ll admit, though, I kept expecting to hear, “Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face...”
Another of my favorite Bonzo tracks is “Boogie With Stu,” more for its rhythm than its technicality. There are a few versions of that song represented here: For posting purposes, I pulled one of the final versions, as well as the shorter drum “outro” from the song.
You can
link backward to get some insight to the
Physical Graffiti sessions. The quality of these recordings is all pretty decent. The only one that sounds really bad is a live recording of “The Wanton Song.” It comes from a Jan. 1, 1975, WLIR radio broadcast, in Westbury, NY. Why it got included with the studio sessions I couldn’t tell you, but it’s here so it’s yours now.
As usual I’ve posted a few songs and also zipped up the whole thing for you.
Track List1.
Trampled Underfoot.mp3 2. Kashmir (intrumental track)
3.
Custard Pie.mp3 4.
In the Light.mp3 5. Midnight Moonlight
6.
Midnight Moonlight.mp3 7. Ten Years Gone
8.
Ten Years Gone.mp3 9-10. Ten Years Gone
11-12 Boogie With Stu
13.
Boogie With Stu (outro).mp3 14-17. Boogie With Stu
18.
Boogie With Stu.mp3 19-22. Night Flight
23.
Night Flight.mp3 24. Night Flight
25. The Wanton Song (live)
UnZip it all
here~~~~~~
NOTE: I think the RapidShare link is fixed. They reconfigured something that caused me to have to reload the file and save it a different way so more than 10 people could access it. Lame!
Puh-leeze let me know if there are any other problems. Thanks to everyone who left a comment!!!
Labels: classic rock, demos, guitar heroes, Led Zeppelin
STP for my birthday
I’m going out this evening to see the newly – and somewhat surprisingly,
still - reunited Stone Temple Pilots. And on top of that today is my birthday (yes, I am officially a crusty old dude now) so the night holds some promise.
This will be my first time seeing STP. A friend saw them open for someone a long time ago and said they were great. Weiland was great as Velvet Revolver’s front man, so I expect STP to put on a good show as well. I’ve looked at the set lists for previous shows on this tour and they seem pretty consistent as far as what the band is playing: The expected mix of hits from their five studio albums. It looks like the band is allowing fans to pick the set list by registering on their
Web site. I didn’t want to register, so if they play stuff I don’t want to hear, I have no one but myself to blame.
To get in the right frame of mind, I decided I should post some STP today. I hit up my collection and pulled one song from each CD. It was hard not to pick familiar songs, especially from the first three albums; it seems like they all got a lot of airplay. I also dug around a little and came up with a couple of things maybe you haven’t heard before including a demo from Mighty Joe Young (the band’s pre-Stone Temple Pilots name) and a so-so quality live recording from earlier this year.
Dead and Bloated.mp3 CoreBig Empty.mp3 PurpleArt School Girl.mp3 Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift ShopNo Way Out.mp3 No. 4Bi-Polar Bear.mp3 Shangri-La Dee DaDancing Days (Led Zeppelin cover).mp3 Encomium: A Tribute To Led ZeppelinNaked Sunday (demo).mp3 Mighty Joe Young (pre-STP, c. 1990) Plush (acoustic version).mp3 Thank You (The Greatest Hits) All in the Suit That You Wear (live).mp3 Rock on the Range; Columbus, Ohio, May 17, 2008Labels: covers, demos, grunge, live music, upcoming shows
Untitled Zeppelin post (take 3)
Live from Arizona, my temporarily recurring feature here at the Licorice Pizza: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Sessions disks.
I’ll be honest with you here: This set is probably going to appeal mainly to the hardcore Zeppelin fans. There are 45 tracks, of which 39 are named either “untitled instrumental” or “unknown song.” Of the instrumental tracks, the majority are less than a minute in length and consist of Jimmy Page playing and expanding on various riffs or just noodling. There are no songs here with the full band. The “unknown song” tracks are mainly Robert Plant working out some vocals alongside Page’s guitar playing. Unfortunately, there are no hidden treasures here.
In some respects it is interesting to hear a guitar genius like Page working out a riff and hearing some familiar chords in different contexts. Particularly interesting is hearing the evolution of "That's the Way." On the other hand, you truly have to be a Zeppelin fanatic to listen to Page strum the same few chords over and over. I’ll leave it to you to decide what group you’re in.
To help you out, what I’ve done is pull the tracks I feel are the most interesting and post those individually. I’ve dropped the entire thing into a zip file if you’re interested in hearing the recordings in their entirety.
According to the notes that came with the file, these were recorded at Bron-Yr-Aur Cottage, Machynlleth Gwynedd, Wales and Headley Grange Studios, Hampshire, England, in May and June 1970. That would put this as part of the
Led Zeppelin III sessions, probably early on, before John Bonham and John Paul Jones joined Plant and Page at Headley Grange.
Complete Track List1. I Wanna Be Her Man
2-19. untitled instrumentals
20. Hey Hey What Can I Do?
21-26. untitled instrumentals
27. Down By The Sea Side
28. unknown song
29. untitled instrumental
30-32. unknown songs
33-34. untitled instrumentals
35. Poor Tom
36-37. untitled instrumentals
38-41. That's The Way (four versions)
42. Bron-Yr-Aur
43-45. untitled instrumentals
Selected Track ListI Wanna Be Her Man.mp3 10. untitled instrumental.mp3 11. untitled instrumental.mp3 17. untitled instrumental.mp3 Hey Hey What Can I Do (inst).mp3 21. untitled instrumental.mp3 Down by the Sea Side.mp3 Down by the Sea Side.mp3 Poor Tom.mp3 That’s the Way.mp3 That’s the Way.mp3 That’s the Way.mp3 That’s the Way.mp3 Bron-Yr-Aur.mp3 43. untitled instrumental.mp3 44 untitled instrumental.mp3 Un"Zep" it all hereLabels: classic rock, demos, guitar heroes, Led Zeppelin, outtakes
Untitled Zeppelin post (take 2)
Part 2 of my temporarily recurring feature here at the Licorice Pizza: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Sessions disks.
Disk 2 features music from the
Led Zeppelin III sessions, which took place between January and August 1970. Many of the songs on the album were conceived in mid-1970 at Bron-Yr-Aur, an 18th century cottage in Gwynedd, Wales. There, Plant and Page spent time writing and playing new music. This remote setting had no running water or electric power, which encouraged a slight change of direction for the band towards an emphasis on acoustic arrangements.
After preparing the material that would emerge on the album, Page and Plant were joined by John Bonham and John Paul Jones at Headley Grange, a run-down mansion in East Hampshire, to rehearse the songs. With its relaxed atmosphere and rural surroundings, Headley Grange proved to be the favored alternative to the discipline of a conventional studio.
*Some programming notes: The first 12 tracks – various takes of “Jennings Farm Blues” – would ultimately become “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp.” Most of these takes are electric instrumentals, as opposed to the acoustic version that would become the final version.
The “Feel So Bad” medley bears a lot of stylistic similarity to the
III’s “Hats Off to (Roy) Harper.”
(Tracks 1-12: Olympic Sound Studio, Barnes, London, England; Nov. 1969)
Jennings Farm Blues (take 1).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 2).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 3).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 4).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 5).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 6).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 7).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 8).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 9).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 10).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 11).mp3
Jennings Farm Blues (take 12).mp3
(Tracks 13-23: Unclear recording place and date. Notes that came with the recordings say Bron-Yr-Aur Cottage, Machynlleth Gwynedd, Wales Apr.-May '70 not Olympic Sound Studios, London, England May 5 '70)
Feel So Bad medley, incl. Fixin’ to Die and That’s Alright Mama.mp3
That’s the Way (first note cut).mp3
Since I’ve Been Loving You.mp3
Since I’ve Been Loving You (vocal track).mp3
Friends.mp3
Out on the Tiles.mp3
Immigrant Song.mp3
Bron-Yr-Aur.mp3
Poor Tom.mp3
Hey Hey What Can I Do.mp3
Friends.mp3
(Track 24: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England May 5 1970)
Poor Tom.mp3
And, since there are so many tracks involved here, I thought it’d be nice to put the whole thing in a
zip file for you. You're very welcome.
Labels: classic rock, demos, guitar heroes
Dreams of a Tortured Stratocaster
I had a weird dream last night about seeing a Jimi Hendrix iMax concert movie. I don’t know what prompted the dream; I haven’t listened to a full Hendrix album in weeks. But I remember in the dream being completely awed by the power of seeing him play live. And while I am getting to be pretty damn old, I was seven when Jimi died, so I’ve only ever seen him play in the grainy footage of the times in which he lived.
The dream has kind of stuck with me while I’ve gone through my usual Sunday morning routine, so I thought it might be kind of cool to post up some Hendrix today. I was going to just pick a couple of live songs from a commercial release, but then I thought I’d dig around a little and see if I could come up with something a little more interesting.
What I found is a boot titled, variously,
Jimi Hendrix Demos 1967, or
Jimi Hendrix Demos 1968. I guess it depends on what source you use, but I think it’s also better known as
Out of the Studio: Demos from 1967. I’ll assume it dates from 1967, since most of the tracks ended up on the Experience’s debut album,
Are You Experienced
I don’t have too much other information about this disk, but here are the notes that came with the file:
Purple Haze (2:39) Incredible psychedelic version with Hendrix's overdubbed voice.
Red House (10:45)
Various takes.
La poupée qui fait non (3:35)
An unheard version of the Michel Polnareff song.
I Don't Live Today (16:10)
Four different takes (vocal and instrumental) where Hendrix really showed what he was capable of at that time.
Fire (2:35)
Unreleased version.
The Wind Cries Mary (3:30) Unreleased version.
(Note: I don’t know whether or not the tracks marked as “unreleased” or “unheard” really are; that’s just what the notes in the file said.)
Purple Haze.mp3 Red House.mp3 Ma Pouppee Qui Fait Non.mp3 I Don’t Live Today.mp3 Fire.mp3 The Wind Cries Mary.mp3 On a related note, if Martin Scorsese wants to make a Hendrix concert film, I’m available to assist. Call me.
Labels: classic rock, demos, guitar heroes
Beaten with an Uglystick
Got a little more new, unsigned punk for you.
Los Angeles’ The Uglysticks are a great sounding trio that manage to combine the melodic sound of pop punk with a rough edge that will probably keep them out of Hot Topix.
“It's amazing how something as simple as five songs can restore someone’s faith in punk,” wrote Johnny Taint for Punk Rock Review. “It's emotional, energetic, powerful and was just what I needed to pull myself out of a serious case of robotically walking through the day. This demonstrates music's true power - the ability to kick your ass out of a rut and get you excited about life again.”
The Uglysticks are originally from Oahu, Hawaii. They relocated to California a couple of years ago and have played up and down the coast at various festivals, clubs, parties, etc. They’ve gone on hiatus, they’ve gone off hiatus, and they’ve released music you can have for free. “We like booze and punx,” they describe themselves. “We all have bad haircuts and are usually a little smelly. None of us want to have to spend our lives working at a shitty job, doing things we hate, for people we can't stand. Fuck that shit.”
A Couple Punk Kids.mp3 Fuck Work!.mp3 Go
here to download The Uglysticks’ 14-track demo album released last year.
Labels: demos, punk
How Dirty Girls Get Clean
On her
MySpace space, Courtney Love has posted a couple of new songs – things I believe she co-wrote with Linda Perry and/or Billy Corgan. The songs are rough versions; demo-type things, but if they’re indicative of the music that’s going to be on her new album, it should be a great disk.
One song in particular that I really, really liked was “Sunset Marquis.” It’s a haunting demo, recorded with just vocals and piano, and lyrics such as “I can tell this is a dark night of my soul / And I’m too old to be this lost / And I'll be thankful if I'm breathing when you leave / Oh baby, you weren't worth the cost.”
Courtney’s 2006 memoir, Dirty Blonde, includes an apology note addressed to both her husband and daughter, written on letterhead from the Sunset Marquis: “I love you. Please forgive me. ... You are both too beautiful for me. I love you forever.”
There’s two other new songs on Courtney’s MySpace: “Whose Porno You Burn,” which is not mentioned (at least by that name) as a potential track for her upcoming album; and “Dirty Girls,” also a Love/Perry/Corgan collaboration. NME called the song a “hard rocking autobiographical...and ‘totally indulgent’ tour de force.” They wrote that the biggest surprise, though, is “that it’s all brilliant.” It’s also the only downloadable track on the page.
Courtney Love’s second solo disk, tentatively titled
Nobody’s Daughter, is due for release sometime this year.
Along with the new track, I’ve also posted a version of Nirvana’s “You Know You’re Right,” which comes from a November 1994 Hole show at the Hollywood Palladium, in Hollywood, Calif.
Dirty Girls.mp3 You Know You’re Right (live).mp3Labels: covers, demos, live music, new stuff, unplugged
Open Up and Bleed
I’ve been posting a lot of new stuff lately, so I thought I’d take a trip back a few years for tonight’s post. I picked up a couple of Stooges disks when I was in Germany last month – they’re on the American label BOMP!, so I imagine they were released here, but I hadn’t seen them before, so I went ahead and bought them.
Through the 90s
BOMP! released “The Iguana Chronicles”: about a dozen disks of Stooges demos, rehearsals, and live shows. I picked up two of the later ones,
Rough Power and
Open Up and Bleed.
Open Up and Bleed, from whence comes tonight’s music, is a collection of songs that would likely have made up the Stooges' fourth album. During 1972-73, the band were recording demos for
Raw Power. While eight of these tracks were perfected and appeared on the final album, many were left unfinished and unused.
Open Up and Bleed proves that many of these leftovers were worthwhile. The sound is of varying quality (lo-fi throughout), but with better sonics, the material would easily be on par with the Stooges’ officially released albums.
NME called this album “a testament to rock'n'roll played to its ultimate limits, and for anyone with even a passing interest in unhampered, visceral and pestilent punk rock.”
Open Up and Bleed.mp3 CBS rehearsals, NY, 1973Cock in My Pocket.mp3 CBS rehearsals, NY 1973Rich Bitch.mp3 Latin Casino, Baltimore, 1973Rubber Legs (version 2).mp3 CBS rehearsals, NY 1973Labels: demos, Detroit, garage rock, live music, punk
The Music Must Change
The question came up the other day at some disreputable forum I frequent: What movie, book, and album would you take with you to a deserted island? The very first disk that came to my mind was
Who Are You.
Who Are You is one of the few albums I can – and have – listened to over and over and just never get tired of hearing. It’s hard for me to say exactly what it is that has had such lasting appeal to me. I just find the band sounding extremely powerful and the lyrics among the best Pete Townshend has written.
I first got
Who Are You for my sixteenth birthday, about a year after it had been released. I think my journey towards hard-of-hearingness started when I would put headphones on and blast this music night after night. I reset the needle time and again to hear all of the weird sounds of “Music Must Change,” from the creaking to the fluttering. I puzzled over the weird irony of “Not to be Taken Away,” the stencil on the chair in which Keith Moon sits on the album cover. And of course I just stood in awe of the entire album.
There are very few other albums that, 30 years later, I can still listen to start to finish, knowing that I know every note and every beat, and still look forward to hearing them.
When I found this collection of
Who Are You demos, I immediately grabbed it, knowing it would be fascinating listening. I wasn’t disappointed. Townshend performs all of the songs solo, mostly on guitar and keyboard, along with what I assume to be prerecorded backing tracks.
According to the information I could gather, these were recorded during 1977-78 (
Who Are You was released in August ’78). Most of these songs would end up on
Who Are You, while others would appear on Townshend’s 1980 solo album,
Empty Glass. The last two tracks, “Affirmation” and “Baba O’Riley” are older, of course, from 1971. This version of “Baba O’Riley” is a synthesizer demo. Some of these tracks, I think, have seen commercial release as bonus tracks on various Who reissues.
Who Are You.mp3 
Love is Coming Down.mp3New Song.mp3 Sister Disco.mp3 Never Ask Me.mp3 I Like It the Way It Is.mp3 Love is Wine.mp3 Broken Nails.mp3 Keep on Working.mp3 Guitar and Pen.mp3 Music Must Change.mp3 Empty Glass.mp3 No Road Romance.mp3 Affirmation.mp3 Baba O’Riley.mp3Labels: classic rock, demos
Kiss - '79 Tour rehearsal
I found this Kiss rehearsal recording a couple of weeks ago and thought it would be cool to share. I know there’s some closet Kiss fans still out there!
This rehearsal doesn’t come from when the band was at its peak – the
Alive era – but from what I consider as the beginning of the end: The
Dynasty era. The fondness I have for this era, though, is that when I saw Kiss on this tour, it was my very first concert. That said, I’m willing to overlook “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” and remember the good songs.
This tour rehearsal recording was made in Lakeland, Fla., sometime between June 11-14, 1979. The tour started there on June 15, at the Lakeland Civic Center. Five long months later, Nov. 7, my cousin and I got my parents to drive us to the Forum in Los Angeles to see our very first concert. I wish I could remember back 30 years and tell you every sight and every sound. I know we had close to the worst seats in the arena – somewhere near the back and the top. It’s odd (well, considering it’s Kiss, maybe not), but the little I remember is more of the spectacle than the music. I sort of remember the fire breathing and Ace’s guitar shooting out sparks. I was too far away to see the blood spitting. There were, of course, tons of pyrotechnics. You could see that even from the cheap seats.
One of the Kiss bootleg sites I checked wrote that you could hear Peter Criss fussing about a lot of things in this recording. I didn’t notice a lot of that, but maybe I wasn’t listening close enough. It was about a month later that Peter would leave the band, after years of growing tension.
Part IKing Of The Nighttime World
Radioactive
Move On
Christine Sixteen
Firehouse
New York Groove
Calling Dr. Love
Tossin' & Turnin'
Love Gun
2000 Man
Ace Frehley guitar solo
I Was Made For Lovin' You
Gene Simmons bass solo
God Of Thunder pt. 1
Peter Criss drum solo
God Of Thunder pt. 2
Unzip Part IPart IIShout It Out Loud.mp3 Rock and Roll All Nite.mp3Beth.mp3 Detroit Rock City.mp3 Black Diamond.mp3Labels: demos, live music, rock
Edgeplay
Last night, I watched this documentary called “Edgeplay: A Film About The Runaways.” It was interesting for a number of reasons, but also disappointing due to a couple of omissions. The largest omission was Joan Jett, perhaps the most successful of the band’s alumnae. I don’t know if she refused to participate or if there is still animosity between her and Victory Tischler-Blue, nee Vicki Blue, the film’s producer and Runaways bassist during 1977-78. Leaving out Joan’s perspective, to me, left a large gap in the story.
The other thing missing was the inclusion of any of the Runaway’s original music. There were live clips of “Wild Thing” and “Rock and Roll,” but the soundtrack was mostly music by Suzi Quatro or solo Lita Ford. Although the band wrote or co-wrote their songs, I don’t know – and the movie doesn’t mention – who owns the rights, so maybe that was the issue with using the music.
One surprising inclusion was the participation of Kim Fowley, the band’s former manager. I say surprising because there is a
lot of straight-up hate between the band members and the man they claim manipulated and exploited them. At one point during the film singer Cherie Currie discusses telling her parents about Fowley: “I didn’t tell them everything he had done; my father would have absolutely taken out a gun and blown his brains out. I still hope one day someone does.”
Fowley, meanwhile, looked at the band as a business or a sports team, where several totally different individuals get together for the benefit of a bigger cause. He was the catalyst that put the band together (they were not pre-fabricated, but rather, as Fowley got word of the individual girls, he worked to put them in touch with each other). He ran herd over them like a drill instructor, using fear and belittlement to keep them in line. To him, the band seems to have been nothing more than project from which he could make money. (There is a stark contrast between this and Lita Ford looking back at how much she had believed in what Fowley told her about being a rock star and how much she really wanted that to happen.) The exploitation and alleged psychological and physical abuse of the girls was something Fowley seems not to have been concerned about. He talks about it as if it were just part of the process, like the military boot camps (yes,
camps – plural) he claims to have gone through because he “enjoyed” them.
The Runaways’ story is a fascinating look at a band that came up at the time punk rock was being born in the U.S. Because of their youth, their legitimacy is often overlooked, but the fact is they toured with the Ramones and Blondie, and ultimately were to become as much associated as the New York punks as they were with the California scene.
The Runaways’ full history, as well a link to help get them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is at the band’s Web site
here.
For some music, I’ve pulled a couple of tracks from the Runaways’ 1977 album
Live in Japan and a couple from a 1993 demos compilation titled
Born to Be Bad. The demos, I believe, are from the time when the Runaways were just starting out and were a trio with Jett, drummer Sandy West, and bass player Micki Steele.
Queens of Noise (live).mp3 Rock and Roll (Velvet Underground cover) [live].mp3 Cherry Bomb (live).mp3 All Right Now (Free cover) [demo].mp3Rock and Roll (Velvet Underground cover) [demo].mp3 You Drive Me Wild (demo).mp3Labels: covers, demos, live albums, movies, rock
Exile Stones
There are at least a couple of boots in circulation from the Rolling Stones
Exile on Main Street sessions. Probably the best known is
Taxile on Main Street. One of the others,
Exile Stones, which is tonight’s post, has some of the same tracks as
Taxile, but there are also a few tracks unique to this recording.
The Stones’ 1972 double album is, without a doubt, one of the greatest rock albums ever. Even the circumstances surrounding the recording have become the stuff of legend.
Exile was recorded, for the most part, in the south of France at Villefranche-sur-Mer, near Nice. It was there where Keith Richards had rented Nellcôte, a 16-room mansion he claimed was a former Gestapo headquarters. Photographer Dominique Tarlé, in her book “The Making Of Exile On Main Street,” confirmed Keith’s claim: “I found a box [in the basement] with a big swastika on it, full of injection phials. They all contained morphine. It was very old, of course, and our first reaction was, ‘If Keith had found this box....’ So one night we carried it to the end of the garden, and threw it into the sea.”
Most of
Exile dates to the years from 1968 to 1972, outtakes culled from other sessions, with some originally recorded at Olympic Studios in London.
Exile Stones catches those sessions in progress, presenting an even grittier, dirtier Stones than what appears on the final product.
A lot of these tracks will probably be familiar to you. “Good Time Woman” I hadn’t heard of before I got this boot, but the guitar riff and melody sounds strangely like “Tumbling Dice.” The “Highway Child” track is straight up one of the rockinest Stones’ songs I’ve ever heard. I don’t think this saw official release, unfortunately. “Exile on Main Street Blues,” whether intentional or not, sounds like an old blues recording. This whole set has a loose, bluesy feel – like the way you want a Stones record to sound.
Shine a Light.mp3 Sweet Virginia.mp3 Good Time Woman.mp3 Loving Cup.mp3 Stop Breaking Down.mp3 Shake Your Hips.mp3 Let it Loose (instrumental).mp3 Sweet Black Angel (instrumental).mp3 Know the Reason Why.mp3 Highway Child.mp3 All Down the Line.mp3 I Ain’t Lying.mp3 Ventilator Blues.mp3 Exile on Main Street Blues.mp3Labels: classic rock, demos, outtakes, Rolling Stones
něk'rə-fĭl'ē-ə
I recently got my hands on what I think is a Rolling Stones rarity. Although these days, nothing’s really rare - you just need to look a little bit. I will admit, though, I had never heard of this album until I found it.
Necrophilia is a Stones outtake sort of disk – it was actually planned to follow
Hot Rocks 1964-1971 as yet another compilation issued by ABKCO Records. This set was to have featured 17 previously-unreleased tracks including alternate takes of “Heart of Stone,” “Out of Time,” and “Pay Your Dues,” which was the original version of “Street Fighting Man.”
The story goes that the Stones’ then manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, and their recently discharged manager, Allen Klein, had a major disagreement on the track selection – specifically the vulgar “Andrew's Blues.” It would have been unprecedented at the time for such a song to be released to the public.
While that project failed to materialize – with
More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) being released in its place – most of the unreleased songs were held over for a future project. In 1974, in order to give it an air of authority, Bill Wyman involved himself in compiling an album he titled
Black Box. However, Allen Klein wanted more Mick Jagger/Keith Richard songs in the project for monetary reasons, and Wyman's version remained unreleased.
Metamorphosis was issued in its place, including nine of the tracks originally slated for
Necrophilia.
Although
Necrophilia was never released, it was given an ABKCO catalogue number (AB4224), and cover art and an acetate were made. I believe today's posted music may originally be from an acetate, as it sounds a little less than high fidelity, although certainly listenable.
I’m listing all of the tracks on
Necrophilia, but I’m only posting the ones not included on
Metamorphosis. To the best of my knowledge, these songs were not officially released anywhere else. And while I could be wrong about some of the songs, I’ll betcha I’m
not wrong about “Andrew’s Blues.”
Out of Time
Don't Lie to Me
Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby (Standing in the Shadows).mp3Think
Hear It (instrumental).mp3Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind
Aftermath (instrumental).mp3I'd Much Rather Be With The Boys
Andrew’s Blues.mp3 Pay Your Dues.mp3Let the Good Times Roll.mp3Heart of Stone
Each and Every Day of the Year
Sleepy City
Try a Little Harder
Blue Turns to Gray.mp3We're Wasting Time
Labels: classic rock, demos, outtakes, Rolling Stones
Despite all qualifications, I happened recently to run up on some newer Aerosmith that’s pretty good. So I think I’ve found the problem: They need to cut out the shit in the studio. I found a couple of disks of demos and damned if even the crap songs from the later albums sound decent when they’re unadorned by studio fluffery. Prime example: “Living on the Edge,” which was, in my opinion, a typical late model, Aerosmith pop song. The demo shows the song stripped down and raw, before Bruce Fairburn glossed it up and turned it into mainstream mediocrity. 
