Gun - BBC Sessions and Live (1967-1968)

I posted an alternate version of the Gun's second album, "Gun Sight," a few days ago. This is the second and final thing I want to post from the band, because they only existed a short time and don't have much material. The first half contains what little BBC studio sessions that exist. The second half is what remains of a concert in France in 1968.

Only parts of three BBC sessions survive. The first three songs come from an officially released by obscure album that compiles BBC sessions by lesser known artists, called "Sights and Sounds, Volume 2." Those sound very good.

The fourth song come from an official album of the band's rarities, called "Reloaded." I don't know what BBC session that one is from exactly, except that it's different from the rest here, and sometime in 1968.

Tracks five through seven, plus the bonus track, come from a different BBC session. These versions are unreleased, except for "The Man Who Paints Pictures," which is also from "Reloaded." The sound quality of these songs is more variable. The song "Unlock My Door" didn't meet my sound quality standards, even though it's also from "Reloaded," so I demoted that one to bonus track status. "The Man Who Paints Pictures" just barely qualified. I used the X-Minus audio editing software to boost the vocals, which helped some. 

The other songs with "[Edit]" in their titles were edited with X-Minus to remove the BBC DJ's talking over the music. In a couple of cases, I also made some other edits while I was at it in hopes they would improve the sound quality a bit.

By the way, note that the songs "Hold On," "A Most Peculiar Man," "The Man Who Paints Pictures" and the bonus track "Unlock My Door" were apparently never properly recorded, other than in these BBC sessions. They are originals (and "Hold On" was covered by Sharon Tandy and others) except for "A Most Peculiar Man," which is by Simon and Garfunkel. I think that one shows the range of this band, because not many bands known for their hard rock sound would cover a Simon and Garfunkel song.

The last four songs are from a mysterious concert in France in 1968. I say "mysterious" because the only information I could find about it is that they come from a concert in France in 1968 - no venue, no town, no date. I found them from a video posted on YouTube by the child of one of the band members. You can find it and watch it on YouTube, which is probably the only concert footage in existence by this band. This is also the only live recording of them I could find, so we're lucky that the sound quality is pretty good. Clearly, the concert was longer than this, as the recording often stops and starts between songs. (I edited a bit to make those transitions less obvious.) But I don't know if any more footage of it survives. 

Two of the songs, "Take Off" and "Race with the Devil," are here both from BBC sessions and live versions. Normally I don't like having two versions of the same song on one album. But the versions here are significantly different. That's especially true of "Take Off," which is two and a half minutes long in the BBC version, and ten minutes long in the live version! 

"I'm So Glad" is a blues song originally done by Skip James, and later covered by Cream and Deep Purple. This is the only known version of the Gun doing it, inspired by the Cream version.

This album is 43 minutes long, not including the bonus track. If you have this album, the alternate version of "Gun Sight" that I posted here, and the band's first album "The Gun," you'll have all the worthy music the band put out in the short time they were together.

01 Hold On [Edit] (Gun)
02 The Lights on the Wall [Edit] (Gun)
03 A Most Peculiar Man [Edit] (Gun)
04 Take Off [Edit] (Gun)
05 Race with the Devil [Edit] (Gun)
06 Sunshine [Edit] (Gun)
07 The Man Who Paints Pictures [Edit] (Gun)
08 talk (Gun)
09 Drives You Mad (Gun)
10 Take Off (Gun)
11 I'm So Glad (Gun)
12 Race with the Devil (Gun)

Unlock My Door [Edit] (Gun) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15119187/TGun_1967-1968_BBSessionsandLive_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a 1968 photo session. For the band's name, I included the logo styled version that appears on their two albums.

The Gun - Gunsight - Alternate Version (1969)

The Gun are a British hard rock trio that I feel are underappreciated these days. I plan on posting a BBC album from them soon, but first I want to post this one. (By the way, the band is also known just as "Gun" - both names have been used on their albums. I prefer "The Gun.")

They released two albums in the short time they were together: "The Gun" in 1968 and "Gunsight" in 1969. "The Gun" is a solid album, so there's no need for me to do anything with it. But "Gunsight" had issues, and isn't as well regarded. By making this alternate version, and then posting their BBC sessions later, I think you'll have three albums from the Gun that are solid through and through.

First, a little more about the Gun. Their main claim to fame is the 1968 song "Race with the Devil," which was a top ten hit in Britain. Jimi Hendrix played it in concert, which is a rare honor indeed. The band was led by brothers Paul Gurvitz, on lead guitar and vocals, and Adrian Gurvitz, on bass. In the 1970s, they would be in the bands "Three Man Army" and then "The Baker Gurvitz Army."

Here's the Wikipedia entry on the Gun:

Gun (1960s band) - Wikipedia

Getting back to the "Gunsight" album, the general consensus is that it's hit and miss. Most of the songs were good, but there were a few weak ones. It so happens that the band did four songs in the studio that didn't appear on either of their two albums, which I've added here. "The Lights on the Wall" was supposed to be their debut single in 1967, but it wasn't released until the archival album "Reloaded" decades later. "Drives You Mad" and "Runnin' Wild" were unsuccessful A-sides, and "Don't Look Back" was a B-side.

I also removed what I consider the weakest songs. "Drown Yourself in the River" is a generic blues with inane, repetitive lyrics, so that one got the axe. "Angeline" is an overly long ballad that is way out of place with the rest of the album, so I axed that too. Those are the only ones I removed - the album was rather short to begin with. 

But I made a major edit to another song. "Lady Link" is a nice classical guitar instrumental, but on the album it was cut in two, with each half separated by another song. I've merged the two halves together. Even so, it's only a minute and a half long. Finally, I changed the track order a bit, moving the song "Oh Lady You" to the end. Like "Angeline," it's a ballad that doesn't have much to do with the rest of the album. But I think it's a better one, and it works better as the last song, kind of like the calm after the stormy hard rock of the rest of the album. Besides, being the last song, if you don't like it, you can easily remove it.

There were a zillion hard rock bands in the late 1960s, due to the success of Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and the like. But the Gun was a cut above most of them, in my opinion. Paul Gurvitz could bring it with his lead guitar skills, but crucially, the band could also write good songs. I think they would be much better known today if they'd stuck together instead of splitting after just two albums. Anyway, if you like this one, I highly recommend you get their 1968 album, "The Gun." Their BBC sessions will follow soon.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 The Lights on the Wall (Gun)
02 Drives You Mad (Gun)
03 Don't Look Back (Gun)
04 Runnin' Wild (Gun)
05 Head in the Clouds (Gun)
06 Dreams and Screams (Gun)
07 Hobo (Gun)
08 Situation Vacant (Gun)
09 Lady Link [Instrumental] [Edit] (Gun)
10 Long Hair Wildman (Gun)
11 Oh Lady You (Gun)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15119188/TGun_1969_GnSightAlternate_atse.zip.html

I could have just used the official album cover, but I didn't like it much, so I made my own. There are very few good color photos of the band, but I found one from a promotional photo shoot in November 1968. I also used the band's logo for their name up in the upper right.