Van Morrison - Live in Boston 1968 (The Catacombs, Boston, MA, 8-1968)

Here's something very new, very great, and very unexpected. In November 1968, Van Morrison released the album "Astral Weeks," which is so acclaimed that on an average of greatest albums of all time lists, it ranks number 15. He spent most of 1968 living in Boston and developing the unique sound that would result in that album. There never have been any publicly available audio recording of his time in Boston that year... until now!

A few days ago (early November 2018), Morrison's record company released the album "Live in Boston 1968" that has long been the unattainable holy grail for Morrison fans. Unfortunately, they only released it on iTunes in Britain for about 24 hours, and it's already gone! This apparently was done to maintain legal rights to the recording, given that there is a European copyright law that says the rights are lost after 50 years unless the recording is made available for sale to the public somewhere in Europe, if only briefly. Since this recording dates from 1968, the deadline would be the end of 2018. This appears to have been an attempt to make the recording public but in the most low key, unnoticed method possible. Here's an article about it:

https://www.spin.com/2018/11/van-morrison-catacombs-1968-legendary-recording/

Here's another very interesting article from March 2018 on what Morrison was doing in Boston in 1968, and how this concert was recorded:

http://www.wbur.org/artery/2018/03/06/ryan-walsh-van-morrison-astral-weeks

It turns out that the show was recorded by none other than Peter Wolf, who was a Boston D.J. at the time, but would become the long time lead singer of the J. Geils Band. He used a reel-to-reel machine set up on the stage, at a small Boston club called The Catacombs in August 1968. So while it is an audience recording, to my ears it sounds as good as many soundboard recordings, especially considering the concert recording standards of 1968. If you're a fan of Morrison's music, you need to hear this!

It contains three songs that would appear on "Astral Weeks" later that year: "Beside You, "Madame George," and "Cyprus Avenue." Also, there's a version of a legendary still unreleased "Astral Weeks" outtake previously known as "Train," but which appears here under the title "Train, Train." He also does a Them song ("One Two Brown Eyes"), a song that would appear on a 1970 album ("Virgo Clowns"), and songs he released in 1967: "He Ain't Give You None," "T. B. Sheets" and "Brown Eyed Girl." The band consists of just Morrison on acoustic guitar plus a double bass and a flute, so the whole recording has an "Astral Weeks" vibe, even including "Brown Eyed Girl."

Unfortunately, the recording ends at the end of the last song, "Madame George," as one can hear the sound of the tape running out. So it's too bad we don't have the rest of the show. But still, it's a miracle that at least this much of Morrison live in 1968 was recorded at all, and with such quality sound.

This album needs to be heard by lots of people. If and when it's ever for legal sale in the U.S, I'll take this down. But it's quite likely that it's going to stay in the vaults after this one brief appearance in Britain, done for legal purposes only.

01 Virgo Clowns (Van Morrison)
02 Cyprus Avenue (Van Morrison)
03 Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
04 He Ain't Give You None (Van Morrison)
05 One Two Brown Eyes (Van Morrison)
06 Beside You (Van Morrison)
07 T. B. Sheets (Van Morrison)
08 Train, Train (Van Morrison)
09 Madame George (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2TGAdDEV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WsZIyWB26w6HQMq/file

For the cover, I used a handbill of the Morrison shows at The Catacombs where this was recorded. (For a very short time in 1968, his band was going by the name the "Van Morrison Controversy.") I resized the top left drawing of a female head so the best of the rectangular handbill could fit on a square album cover. I also replaced some text relating to other shows at the club on the upper right with the title of the album.

My version is posted above. I'm also posting an alternate cover, based on the same handbill, done by Reddiffusion. This one repositions things slightly and don't have the extra text I added.

On a different note, if you're new to this blog, please check out the many other Van Morrison albums I've posted here. There pretty much is an entire album of quality stray tracks for every year between 1969 and 1977. It's almost like a second career of prime Morrison material.

The Talking Heads - Melody Attack - Non-Album Tracks (1982-1983)

Out of all the albums I've posted here so far, this is one of my top favorites. If you're a Talking Heads fan at all, you should give this a listen.

In 1980, the Talking Heads released "Remain in Light," which is their most acclaimed album and frequently included on the best albums of all time lists. In 1983, the band released "Speaking in Tongues," which is widely considered another five star album. This era was the peak of the band's career, yet there was a three year gap between the two album releases. That was a long time for the band back then, when they generally released about an album a year. What happened during that long gap?

This album happened. The band members stayed busy, with David Byrne releasing two solo albums, Jerry Harrison releasing one, and Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth forming a side project, Tom Tom Club, that released two albums. I could do a lot with all that solo album material, but luckily I found enough material for me to make an album containing nothing but actual Talking Heads songs! So this really is the band's lost album that covers those gap years.

The reason I have all actual Talking Heads material for this is because the best of those solo songs were played live by the band in concert in 1982 and 1983. Four songs from Byrne's 1981 solo album "The Catherine Wheel" were done by the band live. Most of that album is made up of quirky instrumentals, but these four songs have lots of vocals and are very Talking Heads-like. ("What a Day that Was" in particular is one of my favorite Talking Heads songs, period.)

Additionally, the band did one song, "Slink," from Jerry Harrison's 1981 solo album that is the best song from the album, and was a minor hit. Harrison sings on the Talking Heads live version, but he sounds a lot like Bryne to begin with, and Bryne adds prominent backing vocals.

The situation with the Tom Tom Club songs I've included here is a bit more complicated. In 1981, Tom Tom Club released an album (also called "Tom Tom Club"). It resulted in two hits, including "Genius of Love," which is now considered an all-time classic that has been covered or sampled by dozens of artists, including a shameless rip-off by Mariah Carey called "Fantasy" that was a number one hit. What happened in 1982 and 1983 concerts is that Bryne would leave the stage for a while and the Talking Heads would temporarily "turn into" the Tom Tom Club. But it was the exact same band (complete with all the extra musicians and backing vocalists), just minus Byrne and plus two of Tina Weymouth's sisters helping on vocals. Generally, they only did "Genius of Love," but sometimes they were allowed more songs, and that's how I got a Talking Heads version of the other hit, "Wordy Rappinghood," from the first Tom Tom Club album.

On top of all that, I've also included a couple of Talking Heads studio outtakes that are really good songs. I edited one of them, "Two Note Swivel," by cutting the last three minutes or so. That's because the recording was never finalized, and while the first half of the song contained a lot of singing and interesting stuff, the second half was just the band going over the same two chords without any soloing or variety. I'm sure it was never intended to be released like that.

Although most of the songs here are from concert bootlegs, luckily I was able to find some high quality soundboard sources and eliminate all the audience noise, so it sounds like a studio album. For the song "Genius of Love," I decided to use the version from the "Stop Making Sense" official live album because the sound quality was a notch better than any other version I could find.

It's too bad David Byrne dominated the Talking Heads as much as he did, singing all the songs. The other three band members were very talented too, and this represents an alternate path the band could have taken, where the others were allowed songs on Talking Heads if they were strong enough. "Genius of Love" certainly would qualify! Chances are the band would have lasted longer and made stronger albums overall.

Now, I should explain the curious album title I've chosen, "Melody Attack." I went with this because it was the original intended album title for "Remain in Light," and the band came very close to using it. Look at the artwork on the back of that album, of three fighter planes flying over some mountains. That was originally planned for the front side, and was meant to illustrate the "Melody Attack" concept. That title was dropped at the last minute due to worries that it sounded too arrogant. But I think it's a fun title, and it fits here since the music on this album isn't far from the "Remain in Light" sound.

By the way, I've added one song as a bonus track, "The Man with the 4-Way Hips." It's only a bonus track because it's the actual Tom Tom Club and not the Talking Heads pretending to be that band. But it was a hit in 1983, which fits this time frame, and I think it's as solid as the other songs here. As far as I know, the Talking Heads never played this song in concert, probably because the band stopped doing any concerts at all after the 1983 tour, even though they continued as a studio band until 1988.

01 What a Day that Was (Talking Heads)
02 Big Blue Plymouth [Eyes Wide Open] (Talking Heads)
03 Wordy Rappinghood (Talking Heads)
04 My Big Hands [Fall through the Cracks] (Talking Heads)
05 Slink (Talking Heads)
06 Big Business (Talking Heads)
07 Genius of Love (Talking Heads)
08 Two Note Swivel [Edit] (Talking Heads)
09 Popsicle (Talking Heads)

The Man with the 4-Way Hips (Tom Tom Club)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701087/TTALKNGHDS982-1983_MlodyAttck_atse.zip.html

Thanks a lot to The Lifehouse for the cover art.

Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog has taken the back cover to "Remain in Light" that I mentioned above and altered it to make an alternate cover option.

Robyn Hitchcock - Mr. Thrusty's Fruit Club - Non-Album Tracks (1988-1989)

Here's the second part of the double Robyn Hitchcock posting. As I just explained in the other post, for each of his official albums, I generally am able to come up with an album of acoustic versions and an album of stray tracks. This is the album of stray tracks to go with 1988's "Globe of Frogs."

Probably the first thing I need to address is the strange album title I've chosen! That's due to Hitchcock's spoken introduction to one of the unreleased songs here. Logically, the song should be called "Consider Her Ways," but he jokingly and randomly titles it "Mr. Thrusty's Fruit Club." That tickled my funny bone, so I couldn't resist giving the album that title too. ;)

There's a lot of variety on this album. About half of the songs are with a full band, and I tried to cluster those in the first half. The rest are acoustic. About half have been officially released as B-sides and such, and the other half are from bootlegs of concerts. Many, many times, I've been able to find acoustic versions of songs done with a full band, but this contains a rare case of the opposite: a full band version of the song "Globe of Frogs," which is done acoustically on the official "Globe of Frogs" album.

Three of the songs here are cover versions: "Kung Fu Fighting," "Wild Mountain Thyme," and "More than This." I've included them here instead of on my long album series of his acoustic covers because they're full band versions or officially released studio versions, or both.

01 Someday My Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Legalized Murder (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 A Globe of Frogs [Band Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Kung Fu Fighting (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Ruling Class (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 More Chinese Boys (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Consider Her Ways [Mr. Thrusty's Fruit Club] (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Wild Mountain Thyme (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Space Odessey (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 You're an Angel (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Element of Air (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 More than This (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122127/RobynH_1989_MrThrustyFruitClub_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using a drawing made by Hitchcock. He drew it as the cover art for another musician, John Hegley and the Popticians, and their 1988 single "I Saw My Dinner on TV."

Robyn Hitchcock - Globe of Frogs - Acoustic Versions (1988)

As I often do, for each of Robyn Hitchcock's official albums, I've been able to find acoustic versions of most of the songs, plus another album's worth of stray tracks from that time. Here's the acoustic versions for the 1988 album "Globe of Frogs."

This is pretty straight forward, if you've been following my other Hitchcock postings. Out of the ten "Globe of Frogs" songs, I was able to find acoustic versions for seven of them. In addition, I found acoustic versions of three of the stray tracks from that time period, for a total of forty minutes of music.

The sound quality is uniformly excellent. All songs come from soundboard live recordings (with the audience noise removed, as usual), except for one song from the official "You and Oblivion" compilation that best fits here.

01 Vibrating [Solo Electric Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Balloon Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Sleeping with Your Devil Mask (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Unsettled (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Chinese Bones (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 A Globe of Frogs (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Flesh Number One [Beatle Dennis] (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 September Cones (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 The Ghost Ship [Demo] (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Mr. Rock 'n' Roll (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Evil Guy (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Luminous Rose (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271928/RobynH_1988_GlobeofFrAcousticVersions_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using a Hitchcock concert poster from 1988. I added the album title at the bottom.

Elliott Smith - Miss Misery - Non-Album Tracks (1997)

Here's the next Elliott Smith stray tracks album to help you understand the method to my madness of splitting the "New Moon" official compilation up.

Two of the songs from that compilation were recorded in 1997 (with the rest from 1995 or 1996), so I've put those here, with all the other stray tracks from 1997. I'm sure when he recorded those he had no idea they would be singled out and lumped in with a bunch of earlier songs. It makes a lot more sense to be to organize things chronologically instead of the random whim of record company executives years after Smith died.

It so happens the number of stray tracks in 1997 is relatively small, so this album is only 30 minutes long. But the songs on it are strong, which should be no surprise since it's the same year he released "Either-Or," widely acclaimed as one of his best albums, and on some best albums of all time lists.

1997 was also the year Smith hit the big time, due to some of his songs appearing in the "Good Will Hunting" movie. One of the songs from that movie, "Miss Misery," didn't appear on "Either-Or," but did win Smith a Grammy Award! So it seemed fitting for me to name this album after that song, which of course is included here.

"Bottle Up and Explode" would appear on his next album, "XO." But this version is significantly different, and it's one of my favorite Smith songs, so I had to include it.

01 Miss Misery (Elliott Smith)
02 Division Day (Elliott Smith)
03 No Name No. 6 [This Time We Can't Lose] (Elliott Smith)
04 All Cleaned Out (Elliott Smith)
05 First Timer (Elliott Smith)
06 Bottle Up and Explode [Alternate Version] (Elliott Smith)
07 Punch and Judy [Other Version] (Elliott Smith)
08 The Enemy Is You (Elliott Smith)
09 Misery Let Me Down (Elliott Smith)
10 Unlucky Charm (Elliott Smith)
11 My New Freedom (Elliott Smith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16522891/ELLITTSMTH1997MssMisry_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used a photo of Smith playing "Miss Misery" at the Grammy Awards ceremony.

Elliott Smith - New Moon - Alternate Version (1996)

Normally, I'm against posting officially released albums. We'll get less good music released if record companies aren't making money. However, I'm making an exception in this case because Elliott Smith's double album "New Moon" works better if it's broken up into chunks.

I'm more interested in gathering songs that fit together due to chronology or musical theme or the like. "New Moon" is kind of too much of a good thing. It gathers up all the unreleased songs covering the time Smith was signed to a particular record company, from 1995 to 1997. Smith's music evolved during that time, so it makes more sense to be to sort the music by year. I've already posted the 1995 stuff, together with some other songs he did from then, here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/10/elliott-smith-angel-in-snow-various.html

This album covers all the "New Moon" songs just from 1996. But Smith was so prolific that year that I made an entire album of other stray tracks from 1996, here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/10/elliott-smith-i-figured-you-out-various.html

Then I'm putting the rest of the "New Moon" songs on a stray tracks album cover 1997. You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/11/elliott-smith-miss-misery-various-songs.html

So that's the reasoning. As for the content, the songs that remained unreleased until after his death are generally as good as the ones that were released when he was alive. That's the case here. But Smith is pretty emotionally powerful music, so I think it's better appreciated in limited doses of a normal album length, which is roughly 45 minutes. Remarkably, this album is 44 minutes and 59 seconds long1 ;)

01 New Monkey (Elliott Smith)
02 Looking Over My Shoulder (Elliott Smith)
03 Going Nowhere (Elliott Smith)
04 Go By (Elliott Smith)
05 Thirteen (Elliott Smith)
06 Placeholder (Elliott Smith)
07 New Disaster (Elliott Smith)
08 Seen How Things Are Hard (Elliott Smith)
09 Fear City (Elliott Smith)
10 Either-Or (Elliott Smith)
11 Pretty Mary K [Other Version] [Early Version of Everything's OK] (Elliott Smith)
12 Almost Over (Elliott Smith)
13 See You Later (Elliott Smith)
14 Half Right (Elliott Smith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16375924/ELLITTSMTH1996NwMonAltrnte_atse.zip.html

The album cover is just the same as the official one.

Paul Weller - Tales from the Riverbank - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (2003-2005)

I still have a ton of Paul Weller stray tracks albums to post, so here's the next one. As in the past, I've split his stray tracks into all acoustic albums and everything else. This is another all acoustic one.

This album covers 2003 to 2005, and right in the middle of that time, 2004, Weller released an all-covers album, "Studio 150." So cover versions were very much on his mind. Some of the songs here are acoustic versions of songs from that album, such as "Wishing on a Star" or "Early Morning Rain." Others are no doubt from that same album project but not on the album, such as "Corrina, Corrina" and "Let It Be Me."

But most of the songs are Weller originals. There are a couple of songs from his days with The Jam - "Tales from the Riverbank" and "In the Crowd." More are versions of songs from his recent albums "Illumination" in 2002 and "As Is Now" in 2005.

All in all, it adds up to a fairly long album at 53 minutes. But it's musically coherent, due to the all-acoustic nature of the songs.

01 Going Places (Paul Weller)
02 Who Brings Joy (Paul Weller)
03 Thinking of You (Paul Weller)
04 Wishing on a Star (Paul Weller)
05 Tales from the Riverbank (Paul Weller)
06 Corrina, Corrina (Paul Weller)
07 Early Morning Rain (Paul Weller)
08 Paper Smile (Paul Weller)
09 Come On-Let's Go (Paul Weller)
10 Oranges and Rosewater (Paul Weller)
11 All on a Misty Morning (Paul Weller)
12 Savages (Paul Weller)
13 He's the Keeper (Paul Weller)
14 In the Crowd (Paul Weller)
15 Bag Man (Paul Weller)
16 Let It Be Me (Paul Weller)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15265275/PaulW_2003-2005_TalsfromRivrbankAcoustc_atse.zip.html

I made the cover from a 2005 concert photo.

The Kinks - (Could It Be) You're Getting Old (Edited Song) (1968)

In my opinion, what the Kinks did from about 1966 to 1971 is one of the greatest bodies of music ever. Just about every single song they did in that time period was top notch, even the most obscure unreleased stuff. The only songs I'm not that keen on are are a couple of instrumentals, and even those probably would be great if they had words added to them.

Unfortunately, this time period has been thoroughly picked over over the years by all sorts of deluxe album versions, box sets, and the like, leaving few to no previously unreleased songs to be uncovered. I'm kind of disappointed in the new "super deluxe version " of "The Village Green Preservation Society" in that there were a bunch of unreleased songs known to have existed (for instance some songs Ray Davies wrote for some BBC shows), but they weren't included, apparently because recordings of them haven't survived. Only one all new song has been touted, "Time Song," and it's a nice song, but it actually is from 1973 (at a time when Ray Davies briefly revived his interest in VGPS, which resulted in him doing the "Preservation" concept albums).

So I was pleasantly surprised when I got the super deluxe version and played a track called "Home Demos Medley." It's nine minutes long, and contains Ray Davies solo with just piano or guitar playing edited snippets of demos of nine of his songs from that era. Buried in this medley actually are two previously unreleased songs: "(Could It Be) You're Getting Old" and "Happy Lena." The "Happy Lena" snippet is less than a minute long and doesn't sound to be that great of a song in the first place. But the "(Could It Be) You're Getting Old" snippet is longer, a minute and a half, and it's quite a nice song, in my opinion.

I'm not sure if the snippet of it is the whole song or not - it does seem to contain a proper beginning and an end, but at only a minute and a half it sounds incomplete, especially because the chorus is only played once, after the first verse. So I've made an edit where I've squeezed in a repeat of the chorus (mostly consisting of lots of wordless "ba ba ba" singing) after the second verse and before the outro. This results in the song still being on the short side - only a few seconds longer than two minutes - but it feels like a complete song now.

I also fixed a flub at the end of the first verse, where Davies hits the wrong chord on the piano at the end of the first verse. (It sounds off, and he does it right in the second verse).

I updated my "Where Was Spring" stray tracks collection to include this song:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-kinks-where-was-spring-1969.html

If you want "Happy Lena," you should get the super deluxe edition. That also contains a nice, previously unknown instrumental called "Egg Stained Pyjamas" that might be the best of the instrumentals from this time period. And of course there are plenty of great alternate versions of other Kinks songs.

Let's hope that someday Ray Davies will allow the release of more of his demos, and not just as snippets in a medley! It sounds like there's a Kinks version of the Beatles' "White Album" Esher acoustic demos waiting to be heard someday. But at least this one intriguing song slipped out.

Due to a request, I've included all of the nine minute demo, but broken up into individual tracks. That includes "Happy Lena." It's a pity that's only 40 seconds long, and most of the other snippets are similarly short.

Dave Davies - When the Wind Blows - Acoustic Songs (1996-1999)

A few days ago, a five CD "super deluxe edition" of the Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society" album was released. I just am hearing it now, and it's put me in a Kinky mood. I want to do something to celebrate the great Kinks mood from that era, but approach it from a different angle.

In the late 1990s, key Kinks member Dave Davies was in an acoustic mood much of the time, and redid some of his older songs in acoustic format in the studio or live. This collects all of his acoustic material from that time. None of the songs here actually appeared on "Village Green Preservation Society," but most of them are from the late 1960s and are good enough to have fit on that album. That's very high praise, since it's one of my favorite albums of all time.

In addition, Dave wrote some new songs that were every bit as good as his late 1960s songs. I've included three of them here ("Fortis Green," "When the Wind Blows" and "Unfinished Business"), even though I've also included them on the "Fortis Green" album I posted here some time back:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-kinks-fortis-green-various-songs.html

I normally am against any duplication, but these fit the acoustic format and time frame of this album. If you don't want them in both places, just delete them here and you'll still have a very nice album.

By the way, the version of "Fortis Green" album here is different than the one included in that album, because this is a live version (with the audience noise removed, as I usually do). I've made three edits to the song. In two cases, I got rid of some unwanted feedback lasting just a couple of seconds, and in the third case I fixed a flub that lasts a few seconds where Dave wanted to go to one part of the song and the rest of the band wanted to go to another.

I ran into a problem in that some of the songs here were recorded in the studio and others in concert, and two songs - "Love Gets You" and "This Man He Weeps Tonight" - were done in both contexts. They're fairly different, since the studio versions are done with a small acoustic band while the live versions are just Dave and his acoustic guitar. So I've included the latter as bonus tracks.

As an aside, most of the live acoustic versions here come from an officially released album, but it's a really weird and obscure one. It's called "When the Wind Blows - Solo Live: Live Solo Performance at the Marian College Todd Wehr Alumni Center." The problem with it is that two-thirds is just Dave Davies talking, with less than 20 minutes of music sprinkled in. So I'm glad to rescue the songs from that for people who don't want to hear all that talking every time.

01 When the Wind Blows [Emergency] (Dave Davies)
02 Love Gets You [Acoustic Version] (Dave Davies)
03 This Man He Weeps Tonight [Acoustic Version] (Dave Davies)
04 Death of a Clown [Acoustic Version] (Dave Davies)
05 Hold My Hand [Acoustic Version] (Dave Davies)
06 Susannah's Still Alive [Live Acoustic] (Dave Davies)
07 Strangers [Live Acoustic] (Dave Davies)
08 Living on a Thin Line [Live Acoustic] (Dave Davies)
09 Young and Innocent Days [Live Acoustic] (Dave Davies)
10 Fortis Green [Live Acoustic] (Dave Davies)
11 Get Back in Line (Dave Davies)
12 Unfinished Business (Dave Davies)

Love Gets You [Live Acoustic] (Dave Davies)
This Man He Weeps Tonight [Live Acoustic] (Dave Davies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15109407/DaveDvs_1996-1999_WhentheWindBlwsAcoustic_atse.zip.html

The cover is from the album "Solo Live." I changed the text.

Van Morrison - All Around the World - Non-Album Tracks (1976-1977)

Here's the next in my long line of Van Morrison stray tracks albums. This one is kind of a twist, because every single song on it remains unreleased, and every single song is a cover version.

I've written in the past how, from about 1969 to 1976, there's about one full album worth of stray tracks for every single year. That's truly incredible, especially considering how consistently good those songs are, as well as the fact that there's probably still more from this period that has remained unreleased and unbootlegged. But it seems Morrison's creative fire started to burn lower around 1976. That year, he hardly recorded anything at all. His next album, 1977's "A Period of Transition," is widely considered to be just okay, after a long uninterrupted string of classics.

I'm guessing the fact that all the 1977 stray tracks I can find are covers are a sign that Morrison was having an extended songwriting dry spell, but he still wanted to try out new songs to stay fresh. Luckily, Morrison remained a great live performer, so these performances are all strong. Most of the songs here come from a performance in the Netherlands for the Dutch radio show "Wonderland." Pianist Dr. John and guitarist Mick Ronson were part of the backing band.

Morrison messed up on one song, "Hallelujah, I Love Her So." He forgot the words to the second verse, and quietly mumbled his way through some incorrect words instead. So I patched in his singing from another verse to cover his mistake.

01 Grits Ain't Groceries [All Around the World] (Van Morrison)
02 Who Do You Love (Van Morrison with Eric Clapton & the Band)
03 Call It Stormy Monday (Van Morrison with Eric Clapton & the Band)
04 Hallelujah, I Love Her So [Edit] (Van Morrison)
05 Nobody's Fault but Mine (Van Morrison)
06 Fever (Van Morrison)
07 I'll Go Crazy (Van Morrison)
08 Baby, Please Don't Go (Van Morrison)
09 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Van Morrison)
10 Shakin' All Over (Van Morrison)
11 Misty (Van Morrison with George Benson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15257414/VanMrsn_1977_AllArundWrld_atse.zip.html

The cover is from a bootleg called "Wonderland Rehearsals" that covers much of this music. I changed the text.

The Talking Heads - A Clean Break - Non-Album Tracks (1975-1977)

The Talking Head are great. But they're the kind of band that made their albums definitive statements and didn't leave a lot of stray tracks lying around.

That's not to say there aren't any, though. I was able to come up with three albums' worth, and here's the first one. It covers 1975 to 1977, a pivotal time in music when the punk revolution was happening and new wave was just getting started.

The songs here fall into two categories. There are seven songs which are Talking Heads originals. Some should be familiar to fans of the band, such as "Love Goes to a Building on Fire" or "A Clean Break," having appeared on various live albums or compilations. Others are extremely obscure, such as "Questions for Lovers" and "Theme."

Then there are six songs that are cover versions. The early Talking Heads had a curiosity strong interest in 1960s pop songs, especially "bubblegum pop," which one would think would be about as uncool as it gets in the musical environment they were playing in. "Sugar on My Tongue" and "1 2 3 Red Light" are examples of that.

All in all, I think this makes a very nice 41-minute long album.

However, I've added no less than four bonus tracks. I'm not that keen on including them even as bonus tracks, but I feel obliged to do so for completist types. They are three more covers, plus one song that appears to have been made up on the spot ("I'm Not Ready Yet"). The original is just a silly goof. The problem with the covers is subpar sound quality. But they're here if you can handle that.

01 I Want to Live (Talking Heads)
02 Sugar on My Tongue (Talking Heads)
03 96 Tears (Talking Heads)
04 Love Is All Around (Talking Heads)
05 Theme [Instrumental] (Talking Heads)
06 Questions for Lovers (Talking Heads)
07 I Can't Control Myself (Talking Heads)
08 1 2 3 Red Light (Talking Heads)
09 Love Goes to a Building on Fire (Talking Heads)
10 I Feel It in My Heart (Talking Heads)
11 I Wish You Wouldn't Say That (Talking Heads)
12 A Clean Break [Let's Work] (Talking Heads)
13 These Boots Are Made for Walking (Talking Heads)

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (Talking Heads)
I'm Not Ready Yet (Talking Heads)
Pablo Picasso (Talking Heads)
So Much in Love (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15261697/TTalkngHs_1975-1977_ACleanBrk_atse.zip.html

Thanks to The Lifehouse for making the cover art.

Led Zeppelin - Swan Song - Non-Album Tracks (1974-1980)

This is the last of my stray tracks albums for Led Zeppelin. For some reason, there don't seem to be as many quality stray tracks in the second half of their career, since there's just this one album for their last six years compared to four stray tracks albums for their first six years.

The last stray tracks album (covering 1971 to 1973) was almost entirely covers songs. But this time around it's mostly originals. Only three of the songs are covers ("Don't Start Me Talkin' - Fattening Frogs for Snakes," "Mystery Train," and "Money (That's What I Want)." Four of the songs are from the official rarities compilation "Coda" and the rest are still unreleased.

I know I've complained about this before, but I have to do it again: it's a shame about all the bonus tracks the band has released over the years, because so many of them are just slight variations of already released songs, and yet they still have never released some really nice songs at all. The first song here, "Swan Song," is a great example. They should have put that on their "Coda" rarities album, and then given it the title "Swan Song" instead, since that's a perfect title for the last album the band puts out.

There's one original song I've only included here as a bonus track. It goes by the name "She Left" and "Take Me Home." There are two reasons it only got bonus track status. One is because it is related to the released "The Wanton Song," though it is significantly different. But the bigger one is that the vocals are frustratingly quiet, loud enough so it can't be appreciated as an instrumental, but too quiet to really hear the singing.

01 Swan Song [Midnight Moonlight] [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
02 Mojo [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
03 Don't Start Me Talkin' - Fattening Frogs for Snakes (Led Zeppelin)
04 Bonzo's Montreux [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
05 Mystery Train (Led Zeppelin)
06 It'll Be Me (Led Zeppelin)
07 Darlene (Led Zeppelin)
08 Ozone Baby (Led Zeppelin)
09 Wearing and Tearing (Led Zeppelin)
10 Fire [Say You're Gonna Leave Me] (Led Zeppelin)
11 Money [That's What I Want] (Led Zeppelin)

She Left [Take Me Home] [Early Version of The Wanton Song] (Led Zeppelin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16693865/LEDZPPLN1974-1980_SwnSong_atse.zip.html

Thanks to Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog for the cover art.

Beck - Stereopathic Soulmanure - Alternate Version (1994)

Sometimes, less is more. In my opinion, this is one of those times.

In 1994, Beck actually released three albums of original material: his big hit "Mellow Gold," and two under the radar releases, "Stereopathic Soulmanure" and "One Foot in the Grave." ("Mellow Gold" and "Stereopathic Soulmanure" actually came out only one week apart!) The mostly acoustic and bluesy "One Foot in the Grave" is solid all the way through, especially the bonus tracks version, which doubles its length.

"Stereopathic Soulmanure" is much more of a mixed bag. Wikipedia calls it "anti-commercial," because that's what most of it is. It has some songs that are just blasts of feedback or other noise experiments. It is also contains some random found sounds, including a couple of songs that feature a random homeless guy singing instead of Beck. Some people like all that stuff, in which case the full length 63 minute album is for them. But for me, some of the songs were only worth a couple of listens.

I've cut the album is half here, from 63 minutes to 35 minutes. All I did was remove songs, with nothing added. I think the result is a much more solid and listenable album. There are some great songs here that tend to be forgotten due to the noise experiments they were mixed with. Most famously, "Rowboat" was covered by Johnny Cash, and it's one of Beck's best songs in my opinion.

So here's my version of the album. I've kept a few of his stranger things, such as little spoken word bits, to give more of a flavor of the album as a whole. But mostly these are actual well-constructed songs.

01 Rowboat (Beck)
02 Thunder Peel (Beck)
03 Dialogue from 'Normal' (Ross Harris)
04 The Spirit Moves Me (Beck)
05 Crystal Clear [Beer] (Beck)
06 One Foot in the Grave (Beck)
07 Today Has Been a Fucked Day [Lonesome Day] (Beck)
08 Puttin' It Down (Beck)
09 Cut in Half Blues (Beck)
10 Jagermeister Pie [Instrumental] (Beck)
11 Ozzy (Beck)
12 Satan Gave Me a Taco (Beck)
13 8.4.82 (Beck)
14 Tasergun (Beck)
15 Modesto (Beck)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288875/BeckH_1994a_StreopathticSoulmnureAltrnate_atse.zip.html

Since this is just a shortened version of the album, I'm using the exact same album cover.

Beck - Heartland Feeling - Non-Album Tracks (1992-1993)

I want to move on to posting Beck's great stray tracks from the 2000s to today. However, I still have more from the 1990s to cover.

Beck started writing songs in the late 1980s and recording then in a non-professional way on cassettes.  There are lots of these early cassettes floating around, most from the 1990s. To be honest, there was a learning curve and most of his early songs just aren't that good. A lot of them are experimental and/or novelty songs.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of his early efforts. Luckily, his songwriting improved dramatically around 1993. So even though I've listened to dozens of his songs from 1988 to 1993 (before his big "Mellow Gold" breakthrough in 1994), all the songs here are from 1992 or 1993, thanks to that improvement in his songwriting. This is a really boiled down "greatest hits" from his early years. I probably could have posted four of five albums' worth of songs if I was being thorough, but instead it's just one album of about 50 minutes of music.

Note that I have two versions of the song "MTY Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack." I think it's hilarious, and one of his best early songs. The version that starts this album is the one released as a single. The one that ends the album was played on a radio show, and I like it even better. He mocks his own song and performs a swinging lounge version of it.

I've included a couple of songs from a radio show that was actually in early 1994, even though this album focuses on 1992 and 1993. That's because one 1993 song, "Heartland Feeling," has some great dialogue about the heartland music concept. Then, as an introduction to one of the 1994 radio performances ("It's All Gonna Come to Be"), he makes reference to some of that dialogue. So I thought those two belonged on the same album.

01 MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack (Beck)
02 To See that Woman of Mine (Beck)
03 Mexico (Beck)
04 Heartland Feeling (Beck)
05 Super Golden Black Sunchild (Beck)
06 Gettin' Home (Beck)
07 Whimsical Actress (Beck)
08 Deep Fried Love (Beck)
09 Steve Threw Up (Beck)
10 Death Is Coming to Get You (Beck)
11 Whiskeyfaced, Radioactive, Blowdryin' Lady (Beck)
12 Dead Man with No Heart (Beck)
13 Its All Gonna Come to Be (Beck)
14 MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack [Lounge Version]  [Live Vocals Over Instrumental Recording] (Beck)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15124583/BeckH_1992-1993_HeartlndFeeling_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used the cover of a remix single and change the text.

Elliott Smith - I Figured You Out - Non-Album Tracks (1996)

Here's the next stray tracks Elliott Smith album.

As I said with the last Smith posting, I'm not a big fan of his work as part of the band Heatmiser in general. But his songs gradually improved within that band. In 1994 and 1995 he put out two acclaimed acoustic solo albums. So by the time the band's last album came out in 1996, "Mic City Sons," his songs on it were less the loud grunge rock typical of the time that didn't suit him. They were more influenced by his new acoustic style, although some of them were still definitely rocking.

As I result, I've included all but one of the songs he wrote on "Mic City Sons," plus an A-side, after including almost nothing from Heatmiser on the previous stray tracks album. One can tell Smith was happier with this last batch of Heatmiser songs because he played most of them in concert as a solo artist while pretty much giving up on nearly all of his earlier Heatmiser songs.

The rest of the songs on this album are Elliott Smith solo songs from a variety of sources, generally just him and his guitar.

You may note that I didn't include any songs from "New Moon" after including a bunch last time. That's because my next posting here will be an entire album of songs from that source, all from 1996. As I said previously, I think the songs from that album are better served if they're broken up into chunks based on the years they were recorded.

01 Plainclothes Man (Heatmiser)
02 Get Lucky (Heatmiser)
03 The Fix Is In (Heatmiser)
04 You Gotta Move (Heatmiser)
05 Half Right (Heatmiser)
06 Everybody Has It (Heatmiser)
07 You Make It Seem like Nothing (Elliott Smith)
08 I Figured You Out (Elliott Smith)
09 The Real Estate [Solo Version] (Elliott Smith)
10 I Don't Think I'm Ever Gonna Figure It Out (Elliott Smith)
11 Coast to Coast [Early Version] (Elliott Smith)
12 Plainclothes Man [Solo Version] (Elliott Smith)
13 Abused (Elliott Smith)
14 Burned Out, Still Glowing (Elliott Smith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15175129/EllittS_1996_I_FigurdYouOut_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art from a photo of Smith in concert in 1996.

Los Lobos - La Bamba - Alternate Version (1987)

I've always considered "La Bamba," the soundtrack to the 1987 movie about Richie Valens, a de facto Los Lobos album. However, I've had a couple of problems with it. One, it's rather short, at only 31 minutes long. And two, it has 12 songs, and four of them aren't Los Lobos at all, but other musicians featured in the movie. So I made some changes.

I don't consider any of those four songs by other artists essential, especially the imitation of Jackie Wilson by a fairly obscure singer. So I cut all four of them. This made the album only 20 minutes long. Luckily, it turns out that Los Lobos did a number of other 1950s covers around this time, even if they weren't Richie Valens songs per se. Two songs come from a Los Lobos box set, and I was able to find five more from soundboard bootlegs of concerts from 1985 to 1987. I also included another Los Lobos cover of a Richie Valens (see the explanation below.) Adding those songs doubles its length, to 42 minutes, and makes it a real, all-Los Lobos album.

Well, almost all Los Lobos. One of the four songs I discarded from the original soundtrack is a remake of "Who Do You Love" by Bo Diddley. It turns out that after the soundtrack was released, there was a concert filmed for TV in which most of the artists on the soundtrack played their songs. The others went on their own, but Diddley was backed by Los Lobos when he did "Who Do You Love." I've included that, so really you're only missing three songs from the original.

Note that this post has been updated on December 28, 2018. Originally, there was one song I wanted to include, but I couldn't find: the Los Lobos version of "That's My Little Suzie." It's an actual Richie Valens song, so it couldn't fit the theme of this album any better. I wasn't able to find it at first, but now I have, so the zip file and song listing have been updated to include it. I found it on an official but extremely rare live album called "Chuy's Tape Box, Vol.1." Apparently, this was meant to be the start of a series of official bootleg releases by Los Lobos, but so far they've only released the one, which is of a 1984 concert.

01 La Bamba (Los Lobos)
02 Come On, Let's Go (Los Lobos)
03 Ooh, My Head (Los Lobos)
04 We Belong Together (Los Lobos)
05 Framed (Los Lobos)
06 Donna (Los Lobos)
07 Charlena (Los Lobos)
08 Goodnight My Love (Los Lobos)
09 Who Do You Love (Bo Diddley & Los Lobos)
10 That's My Little Suzie (Los Lobos)
11 Rip It Up (Los Lobos)
12 I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday (Los Lobos)
13 The Town I Live In (Los Lobos)
14 Walking with Frankie (Los Lobos)
15 Farmer John (Los Lobos)
16 Buzz, Buzz, Buzz (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262425/LosLbs_1987_LaBmbaAlternte_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I just used the original cover, but I erased the names of the other artists on it, since they no longer appear on the album.

Mike Oldfield & Maggie Reilly - Moonlight Shadow - The Best of Mike Oldfield and Maggie Reilly (1982-1996)

I absolutely adore the song "Moonlight Shadow" by Mike Oldfield, sung by Maggie Reilly. Every note and word in it is perfect. I especially like the fact that I only discovered the song a few years ago despite being a huge music fan, and despite it being a top five hit all over the world, suggesting to me there are still some great songs out there I haven't discovered yet.

But what I love the most about the song is Maggie Reilly's voice. As soon as I heard the song, I immediately wanted to seek out more by this great vocalist. To my disappointment, there wasn't that much. Reilly was in an obscure 1970s band that put out one album in a style that didn't suit her. In the 1980s, she sang on a bunch of songs for Oldfield, but he mainly does instrumentals, and when he uses vocalists, Reilly has been only one of many he's chosen, both male and female. Reilly went on to finally start a solo career in 1992, but unfortunately I don't find her that talented of a songwriter, and only found a few of her solo songs that I liked. It's the combination of Oldfield with his songwriting, instrumental work, and production, and Reilly with her voice, that works best.

So what I've done here is collected nearly all the songs where Oldfield and Reilly teamed up. (I skipped a couple, which were basically unremarkable instrumentals with Reilly singing wordlessly, like another instrument.) Naturally, "Moonlight Shadow" is the highlight, but there are a few other worthy hits here as well. ("Family Man" was a hit for Hall and Oates, but this is the original version.) I've also included the three Reilly solo songs I like the best, including her one hit (in certain countries), "Everytime We Touch." Altogether, it makes up just under one hour of music.

I like the song "Moonlight Shadow" so much that I've included a second version at the end. It's an unreleased live version done acoustically with just Oldfield and Reilly for a benefit concert in 1986.

01 Five Miles Out (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
02 Family Man (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
03 [It Was A] Mistake (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
04 Ireland's Eye (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
05 Moonlight Shadow (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
06 Foreign Affair (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
07 To France (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
08 Tricks of the Light (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly & Barry Palmer)
09 Crystal Gazing (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
10 Talk about Your Life (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
11 Blue Night (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)
12 Everytime We Touch (Maggie Reilly)
13 Wait (Maggie Reilly)
14 Listen to Your Heart (Maggie Reilly)
15 Moonlight Shadow [Live Acoustic] (Mike Oldfield with Maggie Reilly)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16696660/MIKEOLDFLD1982-1992_MonlghtShadwThBst_atse.zip.html

I had a really hard time finding a good photo of Oldfield and Reilly together. I had to resort to capturing a screenshot from a YouTube video of them playing "Moonlight Shadow" on Top of the Pops.

Also, note that Blue Jinn has made an alternate cover. I think it's pretty good, so I'm including that here too, to give you an option. See the comments below for more information on it.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Heartland - Non-Album Tracks (2000-2002)

Last week, I posted my version of the 1999 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album "Looking Forward." There were just too many songs to put on that, because I liked all of the songs on the original version of the album (though I generally chose different versions) and there were a bunch of songs from that time that I wanted to include too. Thus, I put five songs on their next album, this one, plus other songs they came up with through 2002.

It's my strong belief that CSN(Y) still wrote and sang lots of excellent songs well beyond their 1960s and 70s heyday, it's just that they kept failing to bring it all together on record, over and over again. This album is further proof of that. CSNY went on tour in 2002 after doing so in 2000, despite having no new album to promote. As this album shows, they definitely had lots of good new songs for such an album. It's just that the usual problems (especially ego clashes) got in the way again.

Like my revamp of "Looking Forward," most of the songs here are live versions (with the audience noise removed) to get around the seemingly inevitable production problems latter day CSN(Y) has suffered from. The three Neil Young songs are all done live with CSNY but are taken from his 2002 album "Are You Passionate?" It was a very disappointing album, but luckily he salvaged the three best songs from it here. (CSNY did a fourth in concert, "You're My Girl," but I felt it wasn't good enough of a song to include.)

Eight of the 12 songs on the album are performed by CSNY. Of the remaining four, two come from a Graham Nash solo album, one from a David Crosby solo album, and one from a Stephen Stills album (with Young a key participant on the song).

The album is an hour long, which is longer than I would like, but all of the songs seemed worthy of inclusion.

I still have four more stray tracks albums to post before CSNY called it quits around 2015, but Young's role as a creative participant dropped way off after this point, so the remaining albums are all just CSN.

01 Faith in Me (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
02 Let's Roll (Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young)
03 Stand and Be Counted (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
04 Blizzard of Lies (Graham Nash)
05 Goin' Home (Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young)
06 Round the Bend (Stephen Stills with Neil Young)
07 The Chelsea Hotel (Graham Nash)
08 Dream for Him (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
09 Two Old Friends (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
10 Seen Enough (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
11 Heartland (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
12 Just like Gravity (David Crosby)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16408174/CROSBSTLLSNSHYNG2002Hrtlnd_atse.zip.html

I happened to have a copy of a fun parody of Picasso's "Three Musicians" painting featuring CSNY, so I made the cover out of it. I don't know who made the art for it.

Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Soft Boys Songs (1987-2016)

I still have a bazillion Robyn Hitchcock albums to post. But here's something a little different from the types of albums I've been posting so far. I've already posted one album of Hitchcock covering other artists, and I have a lot more of that coming. Here he is covering himself - meaning doing acoustic versions of songs from his days leading the Soft Boys.

The Soft Boys were definitely a rock and roll band. Hitchcock's solo career often bounces between rocking and acoustic albums, but he's been much more acoustic-based, especially with tons of solo acoustic concerts. Generally speaking, he hasn't drawn much on his Soft Boys material in those concerts. But from time to time he has pulled out an acoustic version of a Soft Boys song. This album has a very wide range, from 1987 to 2016. By scouring nearly his entire solo concert career, I've managed to find about an hour's worth of sounds in high sound quality that fit this theme.

If you like Hitchcock at all, you should check this out. In my opinion, the Soft Boys' "Underwater Moonight" is a definite five star album, and he does most of the songs from it, but giving them an acoustic twist. The other songs are reborn in their new arrangements too. As usual, I removed all the crowd noise I could, so it sounds like Hitchcock is playing your favorite Soft Boys songs on an acoustic guitar in your living room.

UPDATE: On December 16, 2021, I updated the mp3 download file. Previously, I'd only included "Rock N' Roll Toilet" as a bonus track because it had lively drums on it, which pushed the envelope of the theme here. But I used the audio editing program Spleeter to drastically reduce the loudness of the drums, making it fit in better. So I've included it in the regular song list. By the way, how can you not love a guy who writes a song with the title "Rock N' Roll Toilet?" ;)

01 Sandra's Having Her Brain Out (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Strange (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Old Pervert (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Tonight (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Queen of Eyes [Solo Electric Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Kingdom of Love [Solo Electric Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Insanely Jealous (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 I Got the Hots (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Give It to the Soft Boys (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Rock 'N' Roll Toilet [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Only the Stones Remain (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 I Wanna Destroy You (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Give Me a Spanner, Ralph (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Human Music (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 I Like Bananas [Because They Have No Bones] (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697091/ROBYNHTCHCK1987-2016_AcusticSoftBysSngs_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using the Soft Boys crab logo plus some text.

Belle & Sebastian - Paper Boat - Non-Album Tracks (1998-2000)

Here's the next Belle and Sebastian stray tracks album, covering 1998 to 2000. I like all their music, but many think they peaked in the late 1990s, so this is the band during their prime.

Belle and Sebastian has mostly been led by Stuart Murdoch, but a number of other band members have been have been key contributors too, much like George Harrison's role in the Beatles. Some of these band members have released solo albums. I generally have found those solo albums to be significantly weaker than B&S albums, but most of them have at least a song or two that are of a high caliber. So I've gone through all of those albums and have selected the best tracks for these stray track albums. This is the first album in which we get some of those, in the form of a couple of Isobel Campbell songs.

Most of the rest of this album comes from a B&S EP and single ("This Is Just a Modern Rock Song" and "Legal Man," respectively). But I've also included three unreleased songs. One is a French song sung by Campbell. The other two are actually quality B&S originals that were inexplicably never released in any form: "Paper Boat" and "Landslide." By the way, the latter is often identified on bootlegs as a cover of the famous Fleetwood Mac song, but just one listen will make clear it's a totally different song.

By the way, I have more B&S songs from 2000, but those will be on the next album in this series.

01 Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son (Belle & Sebastian)
02 Paper Boat (Belle & Sebastian)
03 This Is Just a Modern Rock Song (Belle & Sebastian)
04 I Know Where the Summer Goes (Belle & Sebastian)
05 The Gate (Belle & Sebastian)
06 Slow Graffiti (Belle & Sebastian)
07 Landslide (Belle & Sebastian)
08 Weathershow (Isobel Campbell & the Gentle Waves)
09 A Chapter in the Life of Mathiew (Isobel Campbell & the Gentle Waves)
10 Legal Man (Belle & Sebastian)
11 Winter Wooskie (Belle & Sebastian)
12 Judy Is a Dick Slap [Instrumental] (Belle & Sebastian)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122142/BellenS_1998-2000_PaprBoat_atse.zip.html

The cover art comes from the cover of the "This Is Just a Modern Rock Song" EP. I added the title at the bottom.

Elliott Smith - Angel in the Snow - Non-Album Tracks (1983-1995)

I've been on a big Elliott Smith kick in recent days, so I'm going to start posting some of his music, even though I already have a ton of other artists I've started dealing with and haven't finished off. I'll get to all of them in time, I promise. Smith was a musical genius. I've got a lot of his stuff to post because he left all sorts of quality songs off his official albums.

As I usually do, I want to start at the beginning and move forward chronologically. One might think of this as a 35 minute album covering his stray tracks from 1993 to 1995, plus four songs at the start of the album, from six to ten years earlier. Those first four songs are kind of juvenilia - Smith was only 14 at the time of the first one, and he was still finding his style and his voice. Heck, he wasn't even Elliott Smith yet, as he was still going by his birth name "Steve Smith." But they're all good songs, so I've included them.

As for the rest of the album, by 1993, Smith was living in Portland and was in a loud "alt. rock" band called Heatmiser. He wrote and sang about half of their songs. Unfortunately, most of their music wasn't very good. And that's not just my opinion - Smith himself felt the same way, calling his singing on their early albums as "embarrassing" and his songs with the band "loud rock songs with no dynamic." Here's a longer quote from him about his time in the band:

"I was being a total actor, acting out a role I didn't even like. I couldn't come out and show where I was coming from. I was always disguised in this loud rock band. [In the beginning] we all got together, everyone wanted to play in a band and it was fun, then after a couple of years we realized that none of us really liked this kind of music, and that we didn't have to play this way. You didn't have to turn all these songs you wrote into these loud... things."

Heatmiser put out two albums and an EP in the time period covered by this compilation, but I've only chosen to include one song from any of that. However, they did put out a final album in 1996, "Mic City Sons," that's much better. I'll include a bunch of Smith's songs from that on my next stray tracks album. Also, some of the Heatmiser songs will reappear on later stray track albums done in Smith's more fitting acoustic style.

Smith also released his first two solo albums in this time frame, "Roman Candle" in 1994 and "Elliott Smith" in 1995. I'm not including any songs from either of those, because any Smith fan should have them already. But there is an official album that I am using: "New Moon." That's an archival double album released four years after Smith died. All the songs on it are good, but I don't think it hangs well as an album, since it covers four years of his career, and the only reason those songs were packaged together is because those were the years he was signed to a particular record company. Instead, I've divided the songs on that album into the different years they were recorded. The first chunk appears here.

01 Untitled Guitar Finger Picking [Instrumental] (Elliott Smith)
02 I Love My Room (Elliott Smith)
03 The Machine (Stranger than Fiction)
04 The Real Estate (Stranger than Fiction)
05 Where I Get It From (Elliott Smith)
06 Antonio Carlos Jobim (Heatmiser)
07 No Confidence Man (Elliott Smith)
08 Crazy Fucker [Another Standard Folk Song] (Elliott Smith)
09 Angel in the Snow (Elliott Smith)
10 High Times (Elliott Smith)
11 Riot Coming (Elliott Smith)
12 Georgia, Georgia (Elliott Smith)
13 Whatever [Folk Song in C] (Elliott Smith)
14 Big Decision (Elliott Smith)
15 Talking to Mary (Elliott Smith)
16 Some Song (Elliott Smith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328236/EllittS_1983-1995_AnglinSnw_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art from a photo of Smith playing in concert in 1995.

Imelda May - Dealing with the Devil - Non-Album Tracks (2002-2006)

Imelda May is a great talent, and I plan to post a lot of her music here. She also is a character out of time. She was born and raised in Ireland, where her family listened to lots of music from the 1950s and earlier. So even though she got her career rolling in the early 2000s when she was still in her mid-20s, for most of her career her music sounds like lost recordings from the 1950s or earlier. Heck, look at the album cover here - she even looks like a star from an earlier era.

I love Imelda May because she's got a fantastic voice, and also is a talented songwriter. Since the 1980s, the likes of Whitney Houston and Celine Dion have made oversinging all the rage, especially for female vocalists, where one shows off vocal gymnastics instead of doing what best suits the song. The musical "America's Got Talent" type TV shows have made this misuse of talent even more popular. Thankfully, May never oversings.

The music on this album mostly dates to 2004. At that time, May was an unknown, and she got started by latching onto musicians who already had recording contracts. So three of the songs here are from albums headlined by rockabilly artist Darrel Higham (who would become her husband and band member for many years). But more of the songs come from the 2004 album "Almost Grown" by Mike Sanchez, who has a long career as an R&B artist. Sanchez is definitely musically talented, but unfortunately I find his voice utterly ordinary, while I find May's voice exceptional. Sanchez is the lead singer on seven of the album's songs, and May is the lead singer on the other seven (including one in which they both sing). I simply included the May-led songs only.

At this stage, May was doing nearly all cover songs, mostly rockabilly, but also soul and R&B. Later on, she would develop into a songwriter and expand her musical range. But if you want retro rock, a la the Stray Cats, this is as good as it gets, in my opinion.

By the way, the song "Dealing with the Devil" can also be found on the 2003 Imelda May album "No Turning Back," but this is a live version done with a different band. If you like this album, I highly recommend you get that one too. It's very little known because it was done well before May became famous (unfortunately in Ireland and Britain only, so far), back when she was known by her birth name Imelda Clabby.

Oh, and "Drown in My Own Tears" is on a different album also ("Talk to Me"), but this too is a live version done with a different band.

This album is 36 minutes long.

01 Dealing with the Devil (Darrel Higham with Imelda May)
02 Stop Whistlin' Wolf (Darrel Higham with Imelda May)
03 Let the Good Times Roll (Mike Sanchez & Imelda May)
04 Voodoo Voodoo (Mike Sanchez & Imelda May)
05 I'll Go Crazy (Mike Sanchez & Imelda May)
06 If I Can't Have You (Mike Sanchez & Imelda May)
07 Matchbox (Mike Sanchez & Imelda May)
08 Easy Easy (Mike Sanchez & Imelda May)
09 My Man (Mike Sanchez & Imelda May)
10 Drown in My Own Tears (Mike Sanchez & Imelda May)
11 Temptation (Darrel Higham with Imelda May)
12 Do What I Want to Do (Imelda May)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15845322/ImeldaM_2004_DealingwiththeDvil_atse.zip.html

This cover is based on a photo from the early 2000s.

Van Morrison - Not Working for You - Non-Album Tracks (1975-1976)

Before I say anything else, if you've downloaded the last Van Morrison album I've posted, "Mechanical Bliss," please downloaded it again, because I've added another song to it. The reason is because right as I was about to post this album, I randomly stumbled upon another song for it which I never knew even existed - "Oh, Didn't He Ramble." (Morrison does all the vocals for it, and it dates to 1976, but it actually appears on a 2011 anthology album by Chris Barber.) This addition made this album over 50 minutes long, and the previous one was just over 40 minutes long, so I moved one song ("John Henry") to make both albums within the reasonable album length limits of the time.

Anyway, with this album, we're finally getting to the end of an era, from about 1968 to 1976, in which Van Morrison pretty much had an unreleased album's worth of quality material for every single year! I do have one more stray tracks album from 1977 to post, but it's entirely made of cover versions. After that, I only have one more stray tracks album covering the late 1970s and early 1980s.

I read that Bob Dylan claimed that up until about the start of 1968, new songs came to him easily and often, but ever since then he's had to put a lot of mental effort into writing a new song. I think we can surmise that something similar happened to Morrison around 1975, since there's a noticeable drop in both the quantity and quality of his songwriting right after that, in my opinion. (Only two of the songs here actually date from 1976, and both of them are covers.) Of course, he still had lots of great music to make after 1976, but it was usually more hit and miss. From 1967 to 1975, he must have had one of the greatest songwriting runs of any musician, ever!

For the album title, I once again stole one of the titles he was considering at the time, but never used. It's close to the title of the first song here. Plus, it's a reflection of his longstanding antagonism towards his record companies. I think it's a safe bet that he's written more songs about feeling ripped off by his corporate overlords than any other major musician.

By the way, the last song here, "Tura Lura Lural," is a traditional Irish song he did for "The Last Waltz" in 1976. But the version that made that album is a live one, and this is a much less well known (but still excellent) rehearsal version.

01 I'm Not Working for You (Van Morrison)
02 Western Plain (Van Morrison)
03 Feedback on Highway 101 (Van Morrison)
04 Come On Out Child (Van Morrison)
05 Oh Didn't He Ramble (Van Morrison with Chris Barber & Dr. John)
06 Down to Earth (Van Morrison)
07 It Hurts to Want It So Bad (Van Morrison)
08 You Move Me (Van Morrison)
09 Tura Lura Lural [That's an Irish Lullaby] (Van Morrison & the Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15257412/VanMrsn_1976_NtWrkingforYu_atse.zip.html

The photo on the cover comes from the Last Waltz concert in 1976.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Looking Forward - Alternate Version (1999)

I remember when "Looking Forward" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young came out in 1999. I'd been very hopeful that CSNY would put out something great, and I was disappointed by what actually came out. In retrospect, it isn't a bad album, it's just that it couldn't live up to the standards set by earlier works such as the "Deja Vu" album.

Taken one by one, the songs were actually pretty good, but something seemed off. I think the production was one big problem. It wasn't outright bad, like the production on some earlier CSN albums, but there was something off about the sound. Maybe it was too slick and digital. The backing vocals in particular were odd. They sounded massed and processed, so one couldn't make out the interaction of the individual voices.

I've done two things to fix the problems of the original album. First off, I've changed some of the songs on it. Actually, I like nearly all of the songs. However, CSNY in its various permutations recorded some songs in the late 1990s that deserved to be on the album. For example, in 1998, CSN released "Half Your Angels," but only for free through their website. The CSNY song "Climber" only came out on the David Crosby compilation "Voyage." So I've included a total of six songs not originally on the album. To make room, I'm bumped five of the original songs onto my next CSNY album, which I imagine could have come out in 2002.

Secondly, I tried to address the production problems. Luckily, in 2000, CSNY went on tour and played all but three of the songs from the album. Also luckily, a high quality soundboard bootleg exists of one of the concerts. I've used that to replace all the songs I could, while also removing all the audience noise. This results in more of a rough, "warts and all" sound, but I much prefer that to the overproduction, and especially over whatever weird thing they did with the massed backing vocals.

I wouldn't say this is a great replacement for the original "Looking Forward," since five of the songs from it are on the 2002 album I've made, and they're some of the better songs. Instead, hopefully you'll listen to that one too once I post it, and judge what CSNY was doing around the turn of the millennium as a whole.

By the way, there are only three songs here that are the exact performances on the original album: "No Tears Left," "Queen of Them All," and "Sanibel." I did find a live version of "No Tears Left," but it was only performed rarely in concert, and the sound on the bootlegged version is merely okay, so I stuck with the original,

01 Looking Forward (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
02 Wounded World (Stephen Stills with Graham Nash)
03 Climber (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
04 Half Your Angels (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
05 Acadienne (Stephen Stills with Graham Nash)
06 Slowpoke (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
07 Time Is the Final Currency (Crosby & Nash)
08 No Tears Left (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
09 Out of Control (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
10 Morrison (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
11 Someday Soon (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
12 Queen of Them All (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
13 Sanibel (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16408173/CROSBSTLLSNSHYNG1999LokngFrwrd_atse.zip.html

The cover art comes from a press conference in 1999 to promote the new album.

Tracy Chapman - Where the Soul Never Dies - Non-Album Tracks (1988-1991)

In 1988, Tracy Chapman released one of the most remarkable debut albums of all time, simply titled "Tracy Chapman." It went on to sell nearly 20 million copies. Wouldn't it be great if she'd done another album just like that, which hasn't been made public until now?

Well, that's kind of the case with this album. It turns out that Chapman actually wrote many songs prior to her first album, and just about all of them have remained unreleased. I remember some years ago, when I was putting this album together, lists of dozens of her songs from before 1988, nearly all of which have never even been bootlegged. Hopefully, someday she'll be willing to share what she has in her private archives. In the meantime, luckily, there are an album's worth of songs that have been bootlegged, and even more luckily, nearly all of them were recorded in very high quality.

Are these songs as good as the ones on her debut album? Unfortunately, no. But still, I prefer these over the songs on most of her later albums. Eight of the songs here are Chapman originals. The rest are generally covers of all-time classics ("Imagine," "A Change Is Gonna Come," "Amazing Grace") or lesser known covers ("Where the Soul Never Dies" and "Troubles, Troubles, Troubles"). I included her song "Give Me One Reason," which would become a big hit for her in 1995, because this song is done in solo acoustic style.

Unfortunately, for one song, "When We Talk," I could only find a version with middling sound quality. So I've added that as a bonus track at the end.

01 Where the Soul Never Dies (Natalie Merchant & Tracy Chapman)
02 No Time (Tracy Chapman)
03 Why You Do Me Wrong (Tracy Chapman)
04 Be My Baby (Tracy Chapman)
05 Sweet One (Tracy Chapman)
06 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles [Leaving Blues] (Tracy Chapman)
07 Give Me One Reason (Tracy Chapman)
08 What Child Is This (Tracy Chapman)
09 A Change Is Gonna Come (Tracy Chapman)
10 Missile Blues (Tracy Chapman)
11 Still I Cry (Tracy Chapman)
12 Imagine (Tracy Chapman)
13 Amazing Grace (Tracy Chapman)

When We Talk (Tracy Chapman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15126433/TracyC_1988-1991_WheretheSoulNevrDies_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used the cover to the "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution" single, and changed the text.