Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck - Tacoma Dome, Seattle, WA, 7-8-1984

The great lead guitarist Jeff Beck died a couple of days ago (as I write this in January 2023). I wanted to post something to mark his death, and I decided on this. It's much more of a Rod Stewart concert, but Beck played guitar on six songs. I figure it's a lesser known thing that may be a surprise to many of his fans.

Stewart and Beck played together for a couple of years in the late 1960s in the Jeff Beck Group. They got along well musically but clashed on a personal level. Then Beck played on Stewart's single "Infatuation" in 1984. Beck then agreed to play in Stewart's next concert tour. I'll let Stewart explain what happened next, from his autobiography:

"The problem with this, from the outset, was that it all too obviously cast Jeff in a supporting role, which he was pretty much guaranteed to hate, however handsomely remunerated. The tour was set for 74 dates over four months. Behind the scenes, a lot of people were muttering and saying, 'This is doomed - he won’t last two shows.' But they were all wrong. He lasted three. And then he left, saying something about how the audience were all housewives, which was a little bit rude of the old scamp."

Stewart exaggerates a bit. Beck actually lasted six shows. This one was the fourth. But still, that wasn't long. Luckily, this bootleg exists of their brief 1984 reunion, and it's an excellent soundboard. There was only one problem with the sound: it was such an excellent soundboard that you couldn't hear much of the audience. So I boosted the cheering at the end of each song.

I lost most of my interest in Stewart after he went full disco with songs like his 1978 Number One single "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy." In the early 1980s, he went all the way into the synth-heavy new wave sound. That sound has not dated well for him. He did put out some good singles, but his 1980s albums generally get lower ratings than those from the 1970s or 1990s. Luckily, this concert is more of a throwback to his 1960s and 1970s blues rock sound. I'm sure a big part of that was due to the presence of Beck. I highly doubt he would have done songs like "Rock My Plimsoul" and "I Ain't Superstitious" - both from the Jeff Beck Group days - otherwise. But most of the other songs have more of a rock sound than being dated by 1984 sounds. However, there are exceptions, like the cover of the Free classic "All Right Now," redone in synth-heavy new wave style. 

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 talk (Rod Stewart)
02 Sweet Little Rock and Roller (Rod Stewart)
03 talk (Rod Stewart)
04 You Wear It Well (Rod Stewart)
05 talk (Rod Stewart)
06 Hot Legs (Rod Stewart)
07 talk (Rod Stewart)
08 Tonight's the Night [Gonna Be Alright] (Rod Stewart)
09 talk (Rod Stewart)
10 You're in My Heart [The Final Acclaim] (Rod Stewart)
11 talk (Rod Stewart)
12 She Won't Dance with Me (Rod Stewart)
13 talk (Rod Stewart)
14 All Right Now (Rod Stewart)
15 talk (Rod Stewart)
16 Young Turks (Rod Stewart)
17 Infatuation (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
18 talk (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
19 People Get Ready (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
20 talk (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
21 Rock My Plimsoul (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
22 I Ain't Superstitious (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
23 talk (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
24 The Pump [Instrumental] (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
25 talk (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
26 Bad for You (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
27 talk (Rod Stewart)
28 Passion (Rod Stewart)
29 talk (Rod Stewart)
30 Gasoline Alley (Rod Stewart)
31 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697094/RODSTWRT1984_TacmaDmeSettleWA__7-8-1984_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Stewart and Beck was taken in New York City in 1984. For once, I didn't use Photoshop to bring them closer together. Apparently they were hugging while at a press conference to start the concert tour.

Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-ups - Volume 1: 2017-2018

As the Monty Python comedy group used to say, "And now, it's time for something completely different." Here's something way off the beaten path of what I usually post here. I'll bet most people will either love it or hate it. Personally, I think it's brilliant.

I haven't paid much attention to the whole genre of people making mash-ups. Occasionally, I come across them, but I generally haven't been impressed. But I stumbled on a Bill McClintock mash-up while reading a social media forum that has nothing to do with music. The song was the first one here, "You Should Be Smoking." I was so impressed that I went and looked for more. I soon decided that Bill McClintock is some kind of freakin' mash-up genius. What he does is miles better than the usual, and turns mash-ups into an art form.

McClintock's specialty is taking two very different songs and merging them so well that I many cases a person who hadn't heard the originals would think the mash-up was a classic hit. He's really into heavy metal, and I'm not. But he frequently makes heavy metal songs palatable to me, and even very enjoyable by mashing them with something very different, often soul music. As a result, some commenters have claimed he's invented a new genre, "soul metal." Personally, I prefer the term "disco metal," because that better conveys the strange meshing of sounds that he somehow gets to work. (Note though that only a minority of his mash-ups included here involve heavy metal songs, though there are lots of hard rock ones.)

In my opinion, the key to his success is attention to detail. I can only imagine there's hours of painstaking work behind each mash-up he does, because he must spend hours figuring out how seemingly totally different songs actually share many musical commonalities. Then he carefully places even little bits, like snippets of backing vocals or brief musical riffs. He also tends to patch in solos, usually guitar solos, from yet other songs, and makes them fit perfectly. He posts all his mash-ups at YouTube, and he's taken great care to mash-up the videos for each song as well. If you like these, it's totally worth it to check out the video aspects as well. Here's his YouTube page:

Bill McClintock - YouTube

I like most, but not all, of the mash-ups he's done. The ones I don't like are generally the ones involving heavy metal songs with what I call "Cookie Monster vocals" - lots of rough screaming and groaning. So that's another reason to check out his YouTube page, to catch the songs I didn't include here. I found enough songs I like for four volumes, all at about this length. I've posted the songs in rough chronological order of when he posted them.

Due to the unique nature of mash-ups, I had to come up with my own style for the song titles and artist names. First comes the song title McClintock gave his mash-up. (Although in a few cases I've altered them. For instance, he simply called the second song here "Beat It/Urgent" whereas I thought "Beat It Urgently" worked better.) Then, in brackets, I've listed the two songs that have been mashed together with a "vs" separating them. Finally, I've put the two artist names in parentheses, also separated by "vs." The first song title matches the first artist name and so on. Occasionally, three songs are mashed together, though there aren't any cases of that with this volume.

If you open your mind to it, I think you'll find this a really entertaining listen. Some songs are amusing, some are interesting, and some legitimately stand up as impressive songs of those own. There are cases where I prefer the mash-ups to the originals. Hopefully, this will allow you to appreciate some songs in a brand new way.

As an aside, I also appreciate what is NOT here. And that's any hip hop or rap song. I've noticed a lot of mash-ups involve that genre. I would think that's easier to do when the source material is just rapping without a melody. I also like that he's avoided doing any Beatles songs. I love the Beatles so much that I don't think I'd like most mash-ups involving them.

I'll be curious what you all think of this, and if you know of other mash-up artists that are on this level. If you've read this far and you're on the fence about downloading this, I strongly suggest you do.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 You Should Be Smoking [You Should Be Dancing vs. Smoke on the Water] (Bee Gees vs Deep Purple)
02 Beat It Urgently [Beat It vs. Urgent] (Michael Jackson vs. Foreigner)
03 Fly like Kid Charlemagne [Fly like an Eagle vs. Kid Charlemagne] (Steve Miller vs. Steely Dan)
04 Billie Cocaine [Billie Jean vs. Cocaine] (Michael Jackson vs. Eric Clapton)
05 Break on Through [To the Funky Side] [Break on Through vs. Shakey Ground] (Doors vs. the Temptations)
06 I Heard It Round and Round the Grapevine [Round and Round vs. I Heard it Through the Grapevine] (Ratt vs. Marvin Gaye)
07 The Way the Bayou Makes Me Feel [The Way You Make Me Feel vs. Born on the Bayou] (Michael Jackson vs. Creedence Clearwater Revival)
08 I Wouldn't Want to Be like the Holy Diver [I Wouldn't Want to Be like You vs. Holy Diver] (Alan Parsons Project vs. Dio)
09 Living for the Paradise City [Living for the City vs. Paradise City] (Guns n Roses vs. Stevie Wonder)
10 I Can't Walk This Way Next to You [Walk This Way vs. I Can't Get Next to You] (Aerosmith vs. the Temptations)
11 Mother Was a Rolling Stone [Mother vs. Papa Was a Rolling Stone] (Danzig vs. the Temptations)
12 With a Rebel Yell, She Cried Get Up, Stand Up [Rebel Yell vs. Get Up, Stand Up] (Bob Marley vs Billy Idol)
13 Stayin' a Hollaback Girl [Stayin' Alive vs. Hollaback Girl] (Bee Gees vs. Gwen Stefani)
14 My World Is Empty without a Maneater [My World Is Empty without You vs. Maneater] (Hall & Oates vs. the Supremes)
15 Ice Cold Ground [Cold as Ice vs. Higher Ground] (Foreigner vs. Stevie Wonder)
16 We Are All Right Now [We Are Family vs. All Right Now] (Sister Sledge vs. Free)
17 Let's Dance, Let's Shout [Shake Your Body Down to the Ground vs. Stand Up and Shout] (Jackson 5 vs. Dio)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ujVL2SNf 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/vfujCqbnG9hHvmM/file

I put these albums together a few weeks ago. But I was stumped as to what I could do for the album covers. In the end, I used the circular logo that McClintock uses for his YouTube page. I also found a photo of him, and put that in the middle.

Cliff Richard - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 12-5-1981

I thought I was all done with posting anything from Cliff Richard. But then I was sent some additional BBC material from a kind commenter at this blog. I have one more in this series to post after this, then possibly something else a bit different.

This concert took place in 1981, and it definitely sounds it. Richard certainly new how to keep up with the times and keep having hits. In the early 1980s new wave was all the rage, and a lot of the songs fit that sound. I wasn't familiar with most of this material before hearing this album, and I was surprised some of it was actually by him. There are some throwbacks to earlier eras, especially ballads, but most of it would have sounded current in 1981. Frankly, I like this kind of music better, with less schmaltzy stuff (other than those ballads I mentioned).

As you'd expect from the BBC, the sound quality is excellent. Thanks to Phil for the music. I don't think this concert has been available on the Internet until now, at least not anywhere I could find.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Son of Thunder (Cliff Richard)
02 Young Love (Cliff Richard)
03 talk (Cliff Richard)
04 Wired for Sound (Cliff Richard)
05 Summer Rain (Cliff Richard)
06 Dreamin' (Cliff Richard)
07 talk (Cliff Richard)
08 Once in a While (Cliff Richard)
09 The Next Time (Cliff Richard)
10 talk (Cliff Richard)
11 The Day I Met Marie (Cliff Richard)
12 talk (Cliff Richard)
13 Don't Talk to Him (Cliff Richard)
14 Miss You Nights (Cliff Richard)
15 talk (Cliff Richard)
16 We Don't Talk Anymore (Cliff Richard)
17 Move It (Cliff Richard)
18 Stood Up (Cliff Richard)
19 Daddy's Home (Cliff Richard)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16621668/CLIFFRCHRD1981BBSssonsVlum7InCncrtHmmrsmthOdeonLndnBritn__12-5-1981_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at this exact venue, the Hammersmith Odeon, in 1981. However, he played there multiple times that year, so I don't know if it's from this exact concert or not.

Pete Townsend with Raphael Rudd - Oceanic Studios, London, Britain, 11-19-1979

By 1979, Pete Townshend of the Who had only done one full solo concert, in 1974 (which I've posted here.) Then he did this acoustic concert in late 1979.

This has been officially released as the album "The Oceanic Concerts," so the sound quality is great. That release is credited to both Pete Townshend and Rafael Rudd, a pianist and harp player who was just starting his musical career. He would release a solo album in 1980 (produced by Townshend), another in 1983, and then would join the band Renaissance for a few years. The official album is split between Townshend songs and Rudd songs.

The reason I'm posting this is because I've removed all the Rudd songs to make this much more of a Townshend album. The Rudd songs are all instrumentals, generally played on the harp. They have very little to do with Townshend's style of music, and they're not my cup of tea. I'm pretty sure the only reason Townshend collaborated with Rudd at this time is that they were both followers of the religious leader Meher Baba. (In a similar way, Townshend collaborated on an album with another follower of Baba, Ronnie Lane, on a 1977 album, "Rough Mix.") Rudd does play piano or harp on some of Townshend's songs, but his contributions are relatively minor on them, in my opinion. What's left here is basically a Townshend solo acoustic concert. If you're a Townshend/Who fan, I believe in this case less is more.

The concert took place in the Oceanic Studios, which was a facility Townshend built that also doubled as a kind of center for followers of Baba. I assume the audience was made up of such followers. Fittingly, most of the songs he played related to his religious beliefs in some way, even though that might not be obvious on the surface. For instance, although "Drowned" was a part of the Who rock opera album "Quadrophenia," it has been a very religious song for Townshend, so much so that he played it to another audience of Baba followers on a pilgrimage he made to India in 1976. (The video of that performance is on YouTube, by the way.)

Some of the songs here were rarely done in concert, especially in an acoustic format, such as "The Ferryman" or "Sleeping Dog." It's especially neat that he played "A Little Is Enough" and "Let My Love Open the Door." Both of those songs would be released a year later on his "Empty Glass" album. I strongly suspect these were their first public performances. "Let My Love Open the Door" would be his biggest solo hit, but he has almost never played it acoustically like this.

After removing all the Rudd songs, the album was rather short, at just 41 minutes long. It so happens he played three other acoustic songs at the "Secret Policeman's Ball" benefit concert earlier in the year. So I've added those at the end. The one snag is that he played "Drowned" in both shows. I've kept both versions.

Including the three extra songs at the end, this concert is 55 minutes long.

01 Drowned (Pete Townshend)
02 The Seeker (Pete Townshend)
03 talk (Pete Townshend)
04 The Ferryman (Pete Townshend with Raphael Rudd)
05 A Little Is Enough (Pete Townshend with Raphael Rudd)
06 Sleeping Dog (Pete Townshend with Raphael Rudd)
07 talk (Pete Townshend)
08 Bargain (Pete Townshend)
09 talk (Pete Townshend)
10 Tattoo (Pete Townshend with Raphael Rudd)
11 Let My Love Open the Door (Pete Townshend with Raphael Rudd)
12 talk (Pete Townshend)
13 Parvardigar (Pete Townshend with Raphael Rudd)
14 Pinball Wizard (Pete Townsend)
15 Drowned (Pete Townsend)
16 Won't Get Fooled Again (Pete Townsend & John Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zufYdxqj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yRBIU6MAL4kRfRk/file

The cover photo here doesn't have the greatest picture quality, but it's from this exact concert. In January 2025, I upgraded it somewhat with the Krea AI program.

Belle & Sebastian - Sessions, Volume 8: John Peel Show, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-27-2004

Here's yet another Belle and Sebastian BBC album. This is a full concert bootleg.

There's not much to say for this one. The sound quality is excellent, as you'd expect from the BBC. I believe it's the full concert, and there were no problems to fix. The performance was solid as well.

Oh, video footage for part of this can be seen on YouTube.

This concert is an hour and 11 minutes long.

01 I Fought in a War (Belle & Sebastian)
02 Step unto My Office, Baby (Belle & Sebastian)
03 Wrapped Up in Books (Belle & Sebastian)
04 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
05 The Model (Belle & Sebastian)
06 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
07 Judy and the Dream of Horses (Belle & Sebastian)
08 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
09 Jonathan David (Belle & Sebastian)
10 You Don't Send Me (Belle & Sebastian)
11 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
12 Dog on Wheels (Belle & Sebastian)
13 The Boy with the Arab Strap (Belle & Sebastian)
14 I'm a Cuckoo (Belle & Sebastian)
15 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
16 She's Losing It (Belle & Sebastian)
17 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
18 Stay Loose (Belle & Sebastian)
19 Roy Walker (Belle & Sebastian)
20 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
21 Legal Man (Belle & Sebastian)
22 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
23 Time of the Season (Belle & Sebastian)
24 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
25 Sleep the Clock Around (Belle & Sebastian)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15602440/BellenS_2004_BBSessionsVolume8JhnPeelShowGlstonbury_Festival__6-27-2004_atse.zip.html

The cover photo does come from this exact concert. Unfortunately, I could only find a good picture showing two of the band members: Stuart Murdoch (in a green T-shirt) and Stevie Jackson (in the big brown jacket). I used Photoshop to move them closer together.

Robyn Hitchcock - Relix Studio, New York City, 11-8-2022

Here's a Robyn Hitchcock acoustic concert that took place just two months ago as I write this (in January 2023). It's unreleased but professionally recorded for the Relix record company, so the sound quality is excellent.

In late 2022, Hitchcock released the studio album "Shufflemania." This concert features five songs from that album. The album is rather rocking, done with a full band, so it's interesting to hear solo acoustic versions of those songs. He also did a Nick Lowe song I never heard him do before, "Lately I've Let Things Slide."

There also is a lot of talking between songs, with Hitchcock's always entertaining stream of consciousness verbal style. The audience was extremely small. Judging by the clapping, it sounds like he played for about eight people! He was playing more for an Internet audience, since this was broadcast live over the Internet, and sometimes he checked on-line feedback and responded to it.

By the way, I lost track of his home concerts in late 2020. If anyone has those going into 2021 and wants to share them with me, please let me know. 

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long.

01 The Shuffle Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 The Inner Life of Scorpio (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 The Feathery Serpent God (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 It Is Obvious (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Tonight (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Chinese Bones (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Mexican God (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Lately I've Let Things Slide (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 My Wife and My Dead Wife (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Up to Our Nex (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Autumn Sunglasses (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 All I Wanna Do Is Fall in Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Noirer than Noir (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 The Man Who Loves the Rain (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15292570/RobynH_2022b_RelixStdioNewYrkC__11-8-2022_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

John Mellencamp - Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH, 7-25-1984

I'm not a huge John Mellencamp fan, but he's had a career he should be proud of. This bootleg concert is from early in his career, before he'd written many of his classic hits. But it's a worthy and interesting show even if you're not a big Mellencamp fan because A) it has great sound quality, B) it consists mostly of cover versions, and C) it's entirely performed solo acoustic. That last one is particularly notable. At this point in his career he almost never performed in acoustic mode. I'm guessing it was the only full show he did in that format for many years before this and many years after.

I don't know what the occasion for the acoustic format was, but I'm guessing it was a benefit concert or something like that. It was broadcast live on the radio, which is why it sounds professionally recorded. It's also rather odd in that a radio DJ came up on stage halfway through the show and briefly interviewed Mellencamp right there. I left that in. (It's only a couple of minutes long.) However, the same DJ returned and talked during the wait for the encore and then after the encore. I cut all that out since most of it was just a lame effort to stall for time and keep the audience engaged.

At this point, Mellencamp was having trouble being taken seriously, as he was originally packaged as a teen pop star. That can be reflected by his name changes towards his real name, from "Johnny Cougar," to "John Cougar," to "John Cougar Mellencamp," to "John Mellencamp." The "Johnny Cougar" name was imposed on him by his record company without his knowledge or permission. One year before this concert, he'd become "John Cougar Mellencamp." Anyway, given his reputation at the time, his song selection here is interesting. Only a few of the songs were written by him: "Crumblin' Down," "Authority Song," "Taxi Dancer," "Thundering Hearts," "Pink Houses," and "Jack and Diane." He didn't play his biggest hit at that point, "Hurts So Good." Instead, he had a lot of relatively obscure choices, such as two songs written by John Prine ("Please Don't Bury Me" and "Sam Stone") and two by Elliott Murphy ("Last of the Rock Stars" and "White Middle Class Blues").

The album is 56 minutes long. Perhaps his time slot was limited, because he almost never spoke between songs, or even paused that long for applause.

01 talk (John Mellencamp)
02 Crumblin' Down (John Mellencamp)
03 All Along the Watchtower (John Mellencamp)
04 Please Don't Bury Me (John Mellencamp)
05 Little Honda (John Mellencamp)
06 Authority Song (John Mellencamp)
07 The Spider and the Fly (John Mellencamp)
08 talk - interview (John Mellencamp)
09 Mercedes Benz (John Mellencamp)
10 talk (John Mellencamp)
11 Sam Stone (John Mellencamp)
12 Taxi Dancer (John Mellencamp)
13 Five O'Clock World (John Mellencamp)
14 Street Fighting Man (John Mellencamp)
15 Thundering Hearts (John Mellencamp)
16 Early Bird Cafe (John Mellencamp)
17 Pink Houses (John Mellencamp)
18 talk (John Mellencamp)
19 Last of the Rock Stars (John Mellencamp)
20 White Middle Class Blues (John Mellencamp)
21 Jack and Diane (John Mellencamp)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16693367/JOHNMLLNCMP1984_AgraBallromClvelndOH__7-25-1984_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good photos of Mellencamp with an acoustic guitar from 1984. So instead I went with one taken at the Farm Aid concert in 1986.

R.E.M. - Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, 6-9-1984

Here's a very nice R.E.M. concert I just came across, so it goes to the top of my pile of albums to post.

I was looking for R.E.M. BBC material as part of my larger BBC project. I didn't find anything really good from the band's very early years, but this is of similar excellent sound quality, despite being officially unreleased. That's because it's the audio to an MTV show called "Rock Influences: Folk Rock." One nice thing about it is that it has a couple of guest stars at the end: Roger McGuinn of the Byrds and John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful. I suppose that ties in with the name of the TV show, since those are folk rock stars who influenced R.E.M.

Nearly all the songs come from a pristine soundboard bootleg. However, the three songs at the end with guests McGuinn and Sebastian do not. But that's okay, because I found a YouTube video of the show that includes them as well, and the sound quality of those tracks are also excellent. The one snag is that there's no intro to those (and I imagine there was some kind of reaction when the guests came on stage), and the applause was quickly cut off after each song. For those three songs, I patched in more applause from other songs earlier in the show, so hopefully that sounds normal. But if anyone has a different bootleg with the intros to those last songs, please let me know.

By the way, one more thing regarding those songs with the guests. The Byrds song "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" was basically sung by McGuinn, with R.E.M. chiming in on backing vocals. That's the same case with Sebastian singing "Do You Believe in Magic." But for the final song, "Gloria," R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe sang it. McGuinn was on stage, as can be seen in the YouTube video, but he just helped with backing vocals and strummed along with his guitar.

The songs "Hyena," "Old Man Kensey," and "Driver 8" were played in public for the first time in this concert.

This concert is an hour and ten minutes long.

01 talk (R.E.M.)
02 Pale Blue Eyes (R.E.M.)
03 Second Guessing (R.E.M.)
04 Hyena (R.E.M.)
05 Letter Never Sent (R.E.M.)
06 Harborcoat (R.E.M.)
07 talk (R.E.M.)
08 Seven Chinese Brothers (R.E.M.)
09 talk (R.E.M.)
10 Pretty Persuasion (R.E.M.)
11 So. Central Rain (R.E.M.)
12 Gardening at Night (R.E.M.)
13 9-9 (R.E.M.)
14 Windout (R.E.M.)
15 Old Man Kensey (R.E.M.)
16 Sitting Still (R.E.M.)
17 talk (R.E.M.)
18 Driver 8 (R.E.M.)
19 Carnival of Sorts [Boxcars] (R.E.M.)
20 talk (R.E.M.)
21 Radio Free Europe (R.E.M.)
22 Little America (R.E.M.)
23 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (R.E.M. & Roger McGuinn)
24 Do You Believe in Magic (R.E.M. & John Sebastian)
25 Gloria (R.E.M. with Roger McGuinn)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697045/REEEM1984_CapitlTheatrePssaicNJ__6-9-1984_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a bit low res. That's because it's a screenshot I took from the YouTube video of this exact concert.

The Jam - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: Hammersmith Palais, London, Britain, 12-14-1981

Here's another album of the Jam performing for the BBC. It's a live concert this time.

Actually, it's kind of two concerts. I had a 1981 concert all ready to go from a while back. Earlier today, when I was getting ready to post this, I went to look up some more info on it, and I stumbled on the fact that there two concerts the Jam did for the BBC in 1981, both in December. In fact, they were only done five days apart. The one I had ready to go was only 38 minutes long, but I found a different one that's an hour and five minutes long. The longer one has all the songs of the short one, and then some. So I'm posting the long one.

The Jam didn't release a studio album in 1981. But they had released one in late 1980, "Sound Affects," after the last concert they did for the BBC in 1979. So this concert naturally has a lot of songs from that album, plus two hit singles from 1981 ("Absolute Beginners" and "Funeral Pyre") and one of their B-sides ("Tales from the Riverbank"). But also, the band's next (and last) album, "The Gift," would be released in early 1982, and they played a few songs from that as well. One of those was the classic "Town Called Malice," which would hit Number One in the British charts. This apparently was only the third time that song was played in public, according to setlist.fm.

As mentioned above, this album is an hour and five minutes long. It was officially released as part of the "Fire and Skill" live box set.

01 The Gift (Jam)
02 Down in the Tube Station at Midnight (Jam)
03 Man in the Corner Shop (Jam)
04 talk (Jam)
05 Ghosts (Jam)
06 talk (Jam)
07 Absolute Beginners (Jam)
08 talk (Jam)
09 Town Called Malice (Jam)
10 Set the House Ablaze (Jam)
11 talk (Jam)
12 That´s Entertainment (Jam)
13 Tales from the Riverbank (Jam)
14 talk (Jam)
15 Precious (Jam)
16 talk (Jam)
17 Happy Together (Jam)
18 In the Crowd (Jam)
19 David Watts (Jam)
20 talk (Jam)
21 Boy about Town (Jam)
22 talk (Jam)
23 Pretty Green (Jam)
24 talk (Jam)
25 Funeral Pyre (Jam)
26 talk (Jam)
27 Circus [Instrumental] (Jam)
28 talk (Jam)
29 Going Underground (Jam)
30 talk (Jam)
31 Big Bird (Jam)
32 Little Boy Soldier (Jam)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701296/TJAMM1981b_BBSessonsVolum6HmmersmthPlais__12-14-1981_atse.zip.html

The cover was taken at a concert in the Palladium in New York City in 1980.

Aimee Mann & Michael Penn - Joe's Pub, New York City, 2-19-2000

In 1993, singer-songwriter Aimee Mann began dating singer-songwriter Michael Penn. They married in 1997, and have remained married ever since (as I write this in 2023). Both of them have had one big hit - "Voices Carry" in 1985 when Mann was the lead singer of 'Til Tuesday, and "No Myth" for Penn in 1989 - but they're better known for their critically acclaimed albums. Despite being married, they generally have kept their musical careers separate. But they did collaborate more around the year 2000, doing a few songs for various artists compilations, as well as going on tour together.

That brings us to this album. Their joint tour was called "Acoustic Vaudeville," and was an usual one in a couple of respects. First, Mann and Penn didn't just take turns performing sets or even take turns on a song by song basis. They stayed on stage together the whole time and sang backing vocals and played instruments on the other's songs. But also, stranger still, they didn't speak much between songs, and hired comedians to do most of the talking instead. They got many great comedians to act as emcee for various concerts on the tour, such as Patton Oswald, David Cross, and Paul F. Tompkins. For this concert, they had two comedians, Janeane Garafalo and Andy Kindler. The result is an interesting mix of serious and often sad songs with funny interludes. For instance, there's a running joke that Penn can't speak English, so instead he speaks a made-up language and Kindler "translates" what he said.

Unfortunately, the sound quality of this concert is good, but not great. It was recently posted at a file-sharing site and claimed to be a soundboard bootleg. Unfortunately it's not, and no shows from this tour are. But it's the best audience bootleg from the tour that I've come across. Furthermore, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to improve every single track, even the talking ones. Generally speaking, I boosted the vocals, improved the mix, and also remove extraneous "woo-hoo" and clapping sounds during songs. It still has some issues, but it's markedly better than before, and is very listenable.

It's too bad Mann and Penn haven't toured together in all years since this. Since they're still married, maybe they'll get around to it again. I also really like the idea of comedians as emcees. This tour is the only example of that I know of, but I hope others will take up the idea. In the meantime, enjoy this one.

This concert is an hour and 55 minutes long.

01 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
02 Fourth of July (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
03 Long Way Down [Look What the Cat Drug In] (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
04 Red Vines (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
05 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
06 You Could Make a Killing (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
07 Choice in the Matter (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
08 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
09 Out of My Hands (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
10 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
11 Bunker Hill (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
12 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
13 Me Around (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
14 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
15 Save Me (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
16 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
17 The Fall of the World's Own Optimist (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
18 That's Just What You Are (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
19 Long Shot (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
20 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
21 Wise Up (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
22 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
23 Try (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
24 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
25 High Time (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
26 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
27 Whole Truth (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
28 Perfect Candidate (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
29 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
30 Brave New World (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
31 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
32 I Got You Babe (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
33 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
34 The Other End [Of the Telescope] (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
35 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
36 Bucket Brigade (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
37 No Myth (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
38 talk (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
39 Voices Carry (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)

https://www.imagenetz.de/h7FSn

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZT5exnWM

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vD5y108e1gl3fRa/file 

The cover photo is of Mann and Penn performing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in January 2002. They were standing further apart, but I used Photoshop to bring them closer together.

Kaleidoscope - BBC Sessions (1967-1971)

I recently posted a stray tracks album by Kaleidoscope (the British psychedelic band by that name, not the American one). This is a collection of their BBC recordings.

Everything here is officially released. Most of the songs are from "Please Listen to the Pictures: The BBC Sessions." But two songs, tracks five and six, are from "Shapes and Sounds." If I recall, there were a couple more songs on the official album that I didn't include because the sound quality was bad. Everything here sounds very good.

As you may notice from all the songs with "[Edit]" in their names, I had to make a lot of edits. These are more cases of BBC DJs talking over the music. I did the usual thing of using the X-Minus audio editing program to wipe the talking while keeping the underlying music.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Flight from Ashiya [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
02 The Murder of Lewis Tollani (Kaleidoscope)
03 A Dream for Julie (Kaleidoscope)
04 Dive into Yesterday [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
05 Jenny Artichoke [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
06 Music [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
07 Bless the Executioner (Kaleidoscope)
08 Snapdragon [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
09 Do It Again for Jeffrey [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
10 Jump in My Boat [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
11 Balloon [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
12 Bordeaux Rose [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
13 Free (Kaleidoscope)
14 By Your Bedside [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
15 Aries (Kaleidoscope)
16 Monkey (Kaleidoscope)
17 Long Way Down (Kaleidoscope)
18 Diary Song [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
19 The Matchseller [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15847876/Kleidoscpe_1967-1971_BBSessions_atse.zip.html

There are precious few color photos of this band. I found one, but I made a lot of adjustments in Photoshop to make it look good. I don't know where or when it's from exactly.

The Posies - Burn and Shine - Acoustic Radio Station Performances (1987-1993)

I'm a big fan of the Posies. I think they are very underrated. I posted one album of their music back in April 2018, but then failed to follow up. I'll try to post more soon.

Since I'm a big fan of acoustic music, I especially appreciate their acoustic performances, which highlight their great harmonies. All of the songs here were done with just the acoustic duo of Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, the band's two singers and songwriters. Most of them are from in person radio station appearances. But the first song is from a concert, and tracks five and six are demos made for their record company.

All of the performances here are unreleased, with two exceptions. Tracks one and ten come from the band's box set, "At Least, at Last."

I've had this album in my music collection, and I've always called it "Burn and Shine," after one of my favorite songs by them. So I've kept that title here.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Believe in Something Other [Than Yourself] (Posies)
02 I May Hate You Sometimes (Posies)
03 Compliment (Posies)
04 Suddenly Mary (Posies)
05 Everyone Moves Away (Posies)
06 You Avoid Parties (Posies)
07 Any Other Way (Posies)
08 Flavor of the Month (Posies)
09 Earlier than Expected (Posies)
10 Burn and Shine (Posies)
11 Solar Sister (Posies)
12 Dream All Day (Posies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271501/TPosies_1987-1993_BurnShneAcoustcRdioStationPerformances_atse.zip.html

I wanted a photo of just the band's two key members, Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, since they're the only two performing on these songs. I couldn't find any from the right time period. However, I did find a good group photo from 1993. I then used Photoshop to crop out one band member, and then edited out another who happened to be standing between Auer and Stringfellow.

Belle & Sebastian - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: 2003-2004

Here's Volume 7 of Belle and Sebastian at the BBC. This one is just composed on BBC studio sessions.

To call this an album of BBC sessions is a bit of a stretch. Only the last four songs were actually done for the BBC. The rest were done for other radio shows. Most notably, the first five songs are from a session on the US radio show "Morning Becomes Eclectic."

Everything here is officially unreleased. But the sound quality is uniformly very good, because all the songs were done in the studio for radio sessions.

There were problems with three songs (the ones with "[Edit]" in their names. Each of these had strange glitches in them. I'm not sure what caused them, and I've rarely come across this exact problem before, but they sounded annoying. So I patched them up as well as I could, usually using material from other versions of the songs to fix trouble spots that were only a couple of seconds long. The problem was especially severe with "Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying," which had a bunch of trouble spots. I fixed most of them, but there are a couple minor glitches in instrumental sections that I couldn't fix due to other versions sounding too different during those sections.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Step into My Office, Baby [Edit] (Belle & Sebastian)
02 Scooby Driver (Belle & Sebastian)
03 [I Believe In] Travellin' Light (Belle & Sebastian)
04 Judy and the Dream of Horses [Edit] (Belle & Sebastian)
05 The State I Am In (Belle & Sebastian)
06 Stay Loose (Belle & Sebastian)
07 Ransomed by Tuesday (Belle & Sebastian)
08 Your Secrets (Belle & Sebastian)
09 Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying [Edit] (Belle & Sebastian)
10 Meat and Potatoes (Belle & Sebastian)
11 Frog in My Throat (Belle & Sebastian)
12 I Took a Long Hard Look (Belle & Sebastian)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15832465/BellenS_2003-2004_BBSessionsVolume7_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a concert held in Wembley Arena, in November 2004. I was only able to include three of the band members, due to them being spread out on stage. Even then, I used Photoshop to move them closer together.

Brandi Carlile - Cover Songs, Volume 7: 2020-2021

It's been a while since I posted cover albums by Brandi Carlile. I recently did a search for more, and found enough for two more volumes. This is Volume 7, and Volume 8 will follow soon.

All but four of the songs here have been officially released. Those four are: "Who Know Where the Time Goes," "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," "Hard Candy Christmas," and "Blue." But those all sound very good, because they generally are from TV or radio station appearances. Note that "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" is only half of the song, because it was performed that was as part of a medley with other artists doing a tribute to Elton John.

I used the MVSEP audio editing program to remove most of the crowd noise on the songs that had crowd noise. 

The rest of the songs are from typical sources for this type of thing. There are A-sides (three of them), a B-side, a movie soundtrack song, songs from tribute albums, and a duet from an Elton John album.

I have a duet version of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" on Volume 2 in this series. This is a solo version done in an unusual style for this song.

This album is 53 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Who Know Where the Time Goes - Sandy Denny / Fairport Convention
02 A Beautiful Noise - Alicia Keys
03 Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver
04 Same Devil  - Brandy Clark
05 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me - Elton John
06 We Belong - Pat Benatar
07 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] - Elton John
08 Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
09 Searching with My Good Eye Closed - Soundgarden
10 I Remember Everything - John Prine
11 Run to Me - Bee Gees
12 Simple Things - Elton John
13 I Put a Spell on You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
14 Hard Candy Christmas - Carol Hall (first used in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas)
15 Blue - Joni Mitchell

Here's the usual song list:

01 Who Know Where the Time Goes (Brandi Carlile & Rufus Wainwright)
02 A Beautiful Noise (Alicia Keys & Brandi Carlile)
03 Take Me Home, Country Roads (Brandi Carlile)
04 Same Devil (Brandy Clark & Brandi Carlile)
05 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Brandi Carlile)
06 We Belong (Brandi Carlile)
07 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] (Brandi Carlile & Sheryl Crow)
08 Black Hole Sun (Brandi Carlile)
09 Searching with My Good Eye Closed (Brandi Carlile)
10 I Remember Everything (Brandi Carlile)
11 Run to Me (Barry Gibb & Brandi Carlile)
12 Simple Things (Elton John & Brandi Carlile)
13 I Put a Spell on You (Brandi Carlile & Renee Elise Goldsberry)
14 Hard Candy Christmas (Brandi Carlile)
15 Blue (Brandi Carlile)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gf2V62LE 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/JlwezwR4GWYTScA/file

The cover photo is from a rehearsal for a TV show filmed in December 2021.

Kaleidoscope - A Dream for Julie - Non-Album Tracks (1967-1970)

There are two 1960s psychedelic bands called "Kaleidoscope." There was a U.S. based band, probably best known for having guitarist David Lindley as a member. But I'm more interested in the British band of the same name, so that's the music here. 

The British Kaleidoscope only released two albums, "Tangerine Dream" in 1967, and "Faintly Blowing" in 1969. Then they changed their name to "Fairfield Parlour" (despite having the exact same band members) and released one more album in 1970, "From Home to Home." Furthermore, there was a fourth album, "White Faced Lady," that should have come out in 1971, but it wasn't and the band broke up. It eventually got released a couple of decades later. I'm ignoring the band name "Fairfield Parlour" since the only adds confusion. The band members later regretted the name change anyway, for instance releasing their archival album "White Faced Lady" with the "Kaleidoscope" name even though they were known as "Fairfield Parlour" at the time it was recorded.

Although the band didn't release much material, what they did put out is of a high quality. There are little to no live recordings that survive, unless you could BBC material, which I will deal with in another post. But they do have enough for a stray tracks album, which is this. The vast majority of songs here are A-sides (seven of them) or B-sides (six of those). There's also one song they only ever did for the BBC ("Jump in My Boat") and a bonus track, "Eye Witness."

This makes up a very solid album, more so than most stray tracks albums. A couple of the band's best known songs are here because they were only released as singles: "A Dream for Julie" and "Jenny Artichoke."

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 A Dream for Julie (Kaleidoscope)
02 Jenny Artichoke (Kaleidoscope)
03 Just How Much You Are (Kaleidoscope)
04 Jump in My Boat [Edit] (Kaleidoscope)
05 Do It Again for Jeffrey (Kaleidoscope)
06 Balloon (Kaleidoscope)
07 Bordeaux Rose (Kaleidoscope)
08 Just Another Day (Kaleidoscope)
09 Caraminda (Kaleidoscope)
10 I Am All the Animals (Kaleidoscope)
11 Song for You (Kaleidoscope)
12 Let the World Wash In (Kaleidoscope)
13 Medieval Masquerade [Instrumental] (Kaleidoscope)
14 Baby, Stay for Tonight (Kaleidoscope)
15 Eye Witness (Kaleidoscope)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16693430/KLEDOSCPE1967-1970_ADremfrJlie_atse.zip.html

I take it this band kept a low profile, because there are very few color photos of them, and most of those are used for album artwork already. I don't know where or when this photo is from, but at least it's in color and has decent resolution. For the text, I thought it was only fitting to use the font known as "kaleidoscope," so I did. :)

Elton John - BBC Sessions, Volume 13: Earl's Court Arena, London, Britain, 5-13-1993

Here's yet another in a very long series of Elton John BBC albums. This is the only BBC concert I found from the 1990s, but it's an especially good one.

In the early 1990s, John got clean after many years of drug problems. This concert was to support his 1992 album "The One." It got mixed reviews, but that doesn't matter much, because he only played three songs from it here: "Simple Life," "The One," and "The Last Song." Instead, by this time he had oodles of hits, and most of the concert was spent playing those. He also played two unexpected cover versions: "The Show Must Go On" by Queen and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones.

The sound quality is excellent. However, there was one problem: I felt the lead vocals weren't loud enough. So I used the X-Minus audio editing program to boost the vocals for every song here.

I suspect some of the banter between songs was removed by the BBC, because there isn't much. There also were two spots between songs when the cheering faded down to nothing and then started again with the next song. I patched in some applause from other songs to cover the faded areas. No music was lost, but those could have been more spots were banter was removed.

This album is two hours and 34 minutes long.

01 Pinball Wizard (Elton John)
02 The Bitch Is Back (Elton John)
03 Take Me to the Pilot (Elton John)
04 I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (Elton John)
05 Philadelphia Freedom (Elton John)
06 Empty Garden (Elton John)
07 Simple Life (Elton John)
08 The One (Elton John)
09 I Don't Wanna Go On with You like That (Elton John)
10 talk (Elton John)
11 Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters - Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Part 2 (Elton John)
12 talk (Elton John)
13 Come Down in Time (Elton John)
14 Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word (Elton John)
15 talk (Elton John)
16 Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Elton John)
17 The Last Song (Elton John)
18 Funeral for a Friend - Love Lies Bleeding (Elton John)
19 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] (Elton John)
20 Bennie and the Jets (Elton John)
21 Sad Songs (Elton John)
22 talk (Elton John)
23 The Show Must Go On (Elton John)
24 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Elton John)
25 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)
26 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Elton John)
27 talk (Elton John)
28 Your Song (Elton John)
29 Sacrifice (Elton John)
30 Candle in the Wind (Elton John)

https://www.imagenetz.de/bMbHd

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xShm5ZER

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mfqdJKgKx09rkjF/file 

The cover photo was taken in Sun City, South Africa, in 1993.

Belle & Sebastian - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: John Peel Show, Maida Vale Studios, London, Britain, 12-18-2002

I'm lucky with this post, almost. I've been steadily moving through the BBC sessions of Belle and Sebastian in chronological order, and this is the sixth album. It also happens to be a Christmas-themed one. So I'm lucky this is getting posted so close to Christmas, 2022. But I'm only "almost" lucky, because I'm posting this two days after Christmas. I should have been more on the ball and posted it earlier. But hopefully you'll still be in the Christmas spirit for a little longer.

This is an unusual album, because it's a single BBC studio session, but long enough for a whole album. Plus, it has a Christmas theme. BBC DJ John Peel was a very big fan of Belle and Sebastian (he died in 2004), and this was done for John Peel's BBC show. I gather it went down much like a party, with lots of talking and joking between songs, but all I have here is the music.

It's a pretty fun album as Christmas albums/shows go. There are three kinds of songs here. One are some of Belle and Sebastian's best known songs, which seem to have no Christmas connection, such as "Step into My Office, Baby" or "The Boy with the Arab Strap." Another batch are traditional, well known Christmas songs, such as "Christmas Time Is Here," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." The third kind of songs are Christmas-themed, but very little known. For instance, "Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto" is a funky song originally done by James Brown. "Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me" was done by Elvis Presley, and sounds like his style. As another example, "Santa Claus" was done by the Sonics and sounds like 1960s garage rock. "I Took Some Time for Christmas" is especially interesting, because it's a Belle and Sebastian original that apparently was only performed for this show. (Note that I also put this on the stray tracks album I made called "Ransomed by Tuesday," as well as "Santa Claus" and "Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto.")

There are three songs performed for this show that I didn't include: "O Come All Ye Faithful," "Silent Night" and "The Twelve Days of Christmas." These are well known Christmas songs that the band did in a typical way. There was nothing particularly special or interesting about their versions. Sometimes, less is more, and I felt this was a better album without them. In particular, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is a song that gets old fast, so it doesn't stand up to many repeat listenings.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Christmas Time Is Here (Belle & Sebastian)
02 Santa Claus (Belle & Sebastian)
03 Step into My Office, Baby (Belle & Sebastian)
04 Jonathan David (Belle & Sebastian)
05 Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto (Belle & Sebastian)
06 Photo Jenny (Belle & Sebastian)
07 O Little Town of Bethlehem (Belle & Sebastian)
08 Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me (Belle & Sebastian)
09 If You Find Yourself Caught in Love (Belle & Sebastian)
10 The Boy with the Arab Strap (Belle & Sebastian)
11 O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Belle & Sebastian)
12 Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying (Belle & Sebastian)
13 I Took Some Time for Christmas (Belle & Sebastian)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15602301/BellenS_2002_BBSessionsVolume6JhnPeelShow__12-18-2002_atse.zip.html

I don't know what the deal is with the cover photo I've included here. I found it on the Internet by searching for Belle and Sebastian and Christmas. It was a black and white photo with color Santa hats and a color Christmas tree added. I don't know if it was made by a fan, or if it was something the band did for some reason. Either way, I think it fits better than anything else I could come up with. I tinted the whole thing green, since I usually don't like black and white covers.

Aimee Mann - Prospect Park, New York City, 6-21-2018

I've mentioned previously that excellent sounding Aimee Mann live recordings are few and far between. She's released only one live album, in 2006, and the vast majority of concert bootlegs are audience recordings were merely okay sound. So when I came across this concert the other day, I thought I should post it. It was professionally recorded in order to be broadcast live on the radio (and Mann makes a few comments about being broadcast live), so the sound quality is great.

As far as song selection goes, there aren't any big surprises, such as rarities or unusual covers. But it does what you'd expect, presenting songs from her latest album at the time, plus her best known songs going all the way back to "Voices Carry" with her band Til Tuesday.

Other than that, there's not much to say. There were no problems that needed fixing. She played with a small band.

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

01 talk (Aimee Mann)
02 4th of July (Aimee Mann)
03 talk (Aimee Mann)
04 Little Bombs (Aimee Mann)
05 talk (Aimee Mann)
06 Patient Zero (Aimee Mann)
10 talk (Aimee Mann)
07 The Moth (Aimee Mann)
08 Labrador (Aimee Mann)
09 Humpty Dumpty (Aimee Mann)
11 Rollercoasters (Aimee Mann)
12 talk (Aimee Mann)
13 You Never Loved Me (Aimee Mann)
14 talk (Aimee Mann)
15 Goose Snow Cone (Aimee Mann)
16 Save Me (Aimee Mann)
17 Going through the Motions (Aimee Mann)
18 Borrowing Time (Aimee Mann)
19 talk (Aimee Mann)
20 Long Shot (Aimee Mann)
21 One (Aimee Mann)
22 Wise Up (Aimee Mann)
23 talk (Aimee Mann)
24 Voices Carry (Aimee Mann)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15601850/AimeMn_2018_ProspectPrkNewYorkCity__6-21-2018_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert in Red Rocks, Colorado, in September 2018.

Chris Isaak - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Town and Country Club, London, Britain, 3-12-1991

Here's something else I came across as part of my BBC project, Chris Isaak performing a concert for the BBC in 1991.

This concert arguably took place at Isaak's commercial peak. His biggest hit is "Wicked Game," which was released in 1989. However, it only made a minor impact at the time. Then it was included in the movie "Wild at Heart" in 1990, and got enough buzz to get re-released as a single. It finally reached the US Top Ten in January 1991, just two months before this concert.

When I first posted this album in 2022, I wrote that the sound quality wasn't up to usual BBC standards. But in 2025, a kind commenter sent me a better sounding version, so that's what you hear here. 

This album is 58 minutes long.

UPDATE: As mentioned above, I redid the mp3 download file, with a better sounding version of all the songs. Specifically, I changed it on November 15, 2025. I also changed the title to "Volume 1" after finding material for a "Volume 2."

01 Dancin' (Chris Isaak)
02 Lovers Game (Chris Isaak)
03 talk (Chris Isaak)
04 You Owe Me Some Kind of Love (Chris Isaak)
05 Wicked Game (Chris Isaak)
06 Gone Ridin' (Chris Isaak)
07 Wild Love (Chris Isaak)
08 Don't Make Me Dream about You (Chris Isaak)
09 talk (Chris Isaak)
10 Beautiful Homes (Chris Isaak)
11 talk (Chris Isaak)
12 Diddley Daddy (Chris Isaak)
13 A Town without Pity (Chris Isaak)
14 In the Heat of the Jungle (Chris Isaak)
15 talk (Chris Isaak)
16 Blue Hotel (Chris Isaak)
17 talk (Chris Isaak)
18 Caldonia (Chris Isaak)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BqJsPyDg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5dv4qHBQImDq4dA/file

The cover photo appears to come from this exact concert, as it was taken at the Town and Country Club, in London, in 1991.

The Who - The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA, 12-4-1973

A lot of live music from the Who has been officially released. But an issue I have is that they tended to do the same songs over and over, especially songs from "Tommy." A really great album they did was "Quadrophenia" in 1973. But usually they only did songs from the album in the 1973 tour, other than a few of the best known songs from it, like "Love Reign O'er Me." And no full concert from that 1973 has ever been officially released, despite the release of a super deluxe edition of the "Quadrophenia" album. So here's the live album they should put out.

The Who's 1973 had many musical problems. Most of them related to the use of prerecorded tapes in order to capture the full complexity of the music from the "Quadrophenia" album. But playing along to prerecorded tapes hadn't been done much before, and they kept having technical problems. But luckily, the second to last show of the tour, in Philadelphia, is considered of the best shows of the tour, if not the best. And that one happened to be professionally recorded for a radio station broadcast. The last night of the tour, in Landover, Maryland, was also recorded for the same reason, but that performance isn't considered as good, and it had technical issues. Also, the Philadelphia concert has an extra encore of "Naked Eye" that the Landover show doesn't have.

At first, only parts of both shows were broadcast, combined into one highlights show for the "King Biscuit Flower Hour." But eventually, bootlegs of all of both shows appeared. However, the Philadelphia one is missing the key song "Love Reign O'er Me." So I've used the Landover version to fill in that gap.

There also were some mixing issues with the Philadelphia recording. Specifically, some of the vocals weren't prominent enough. This was especially the case when John Entwistle or Pete Townshend were singing. It seems their microphones weren't set to the same volume as the band's usual lead singer, Roger Daltrey. So for a few songs, I used the X-Minus audio editing program to boost some of the vocals (the ones with "[Edit]" in their names). This recording is a soundboard, which is great, but one could hear so little of the audience that the reaction after each song seemed muted. So I boosted the applause after each song. I also think there's some missing bits between a few of the songs, especially towards the end. One could tell for instance when loud applause was suddenly cut to near total silence. I made some more edits to make those transitions sound natural.

I think "Quadrophenia" was one of the band's best albums, and this live version is excellent. If you're a Who fan, you should get this.

This album is an hour and 51 minutes long.

01 I Can't Explain (Who)
02 Summertime Blues (Who)
03 talk (Who)
04 My Wife [Edit] (Who)
05 My Generation (Who)
06 talk (Who)
07 I Am the Sea (Who)
08 The Real Me (Who)
09 The Punk and the Godfather [Edit] (Who)
10 talk (Who)
11 I'm One (Who)
12 talk (Who)
13 5;15 (Who)
14 talk (Who)
15 Sea and Sand [Edit] (Who)
16 talk (Who)
17 Drowned (Who)
18 Bell Boy [Edit] (Who)
19 talk (Who)
20 Doctor Jimmy [Edit] (Who)
21 Love Reign O'er Me (Who)
22 Won't Get Fooled Again (Who)
23 Pinball Wizard (Who)
24 See Me, Feel Me (Who)
25 Naked Eye (Who)

https://www.imagenetz.de/mgHR2

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6rPMfmWn

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/14kqspZSK5FmhwS/file

The cover photo was taken in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 27, 1973.

Brandi Carlile - Home Concerts 5: Still Home for the Holidays, Maple Valley, WA, 12-13-2020

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it, but there still are albums from the lockdown phase of the Covid pandemic that I haven't posted yet. In this case, it's a lucky thing, because I happened to notice this one with less than a week until Christmas, and it's a Christmas themed album.

This is just like the other Brandi Carlile home concerts I've posted, same location, same acoustic format. But since it took place in mid-December 2020, it's all Christmas songs. Two of the songs are originals: "Christmas 1984" and "The Heartache Can Wait." Carlile is backed by her long-time collaborators, "the twins," Phil and Tim Hanseroth. For "Baby, It's Cold Outside," she duets with her wife, Catherine Carlile.

For two songs, they're joined by the "Compound Kids," which just means the kids of the people living in the compound she lives in. They're horribly out of tune most of the time, as little kids usually are, but I left those songs in because the kids are very cute (as well as wanting to present the entire show).

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long.

01 talk (Brandi Carlile)
02 What Christmas Means to Me (Brandi Carlile)
03 talk (Brandi Carlile)
04 All I Want for Christmas (Brandi Carlile)
05 talk (Brandi Carlile)
06 Christmas 1984 (Brandi Carlile)
07 talk (Brandi Carlile)
08 Last Christmas (Brandi Carlile)
09 talk (Brandi Carlile)
10 O Holy Night (Brandi Carlile)
11 talk (Brandi Carlile)
12 River (Brandi Carlile)
13 talk (Brandi Carlile)
14 Hard Candy Christmas (Brandi Carlile)
15 talk (Brandi Carlile)
16 Baby, It's Cold Outside (Brandi Carlile & Catherine Carlile)
17 talk (Brandi Carlile)
18 Instrumental (Brandi Carlile)
19 talk (Brandi Carlile)
20 The Heartache Can Wait (Brandi Carlile)
21 talk (Brandi Carlile)
22 Mary (Brandi Carlile)
23 talk (Brandi Carlile)
24 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Brandi Carlile with the Compound Kids)
25 talk (Brandi Carlile)
26 Jingle Bells (Brandi Carlile with the Compound Kids)
27 talk (Brandi Carlile)
28 Hallelujah (Brandi Carlile)
29 talk (Brandi Carlile)
30 Silent Night (Brandi Carlile)
31 talk (Brandi Carlile)
32 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Brandi Carlile)
33 talk (Brandi Carlile)
34 The Heartache Can Wait (Brandi Carlile)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9Vp9LH6z

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bXgQh8PuU0cuqgn/file

The cover photo shows Carlile flanked by "the twins." It comes from an article promoting the concert. I also took the text at the top from more promo material.

The Jam - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: 1981-1982

This is the fifth album of the Jam playing for the BBC. It's also the second and last album of studio sessions.

Unfortunately, by this time, the Jam had become very successful, and I've noticed that the more successful a musical act tends to get, the less likely they are to do BBC studio sessions. So I felt obliged to look for different TV or radio shows to fill in the missing gaps, especially since there are no BBC studio sessions at all from the band's last year together, 1982.

The first two songs come from a British TV show called "Get Set for Summer." Those are unreleased. The next four are from an actual BBC studio session, and have been included on the official album "At the BBC." 

All the remaining songs, except for the last one, are from a Danish TV show called "Spil Op." The Jam hardly played live for any TV or radio shows in 1982, arguably their most commercially successful year, but for some odd reason they did do this one TV appearance in Denmark. There was a studio audience, but I very carefully removed as much crowd noise as I could, so these songs would fit with the other studio versions on this album. For some songs, I used the X-Minus audio editing program to remove some of the cheering over the music.

I was all set to post this album when I realized I hadn't included a version of "Beat Surrender." That was a Number One hit in Britain and one of the band's best songs, so I didn't want to leave that out. Luckily, it turns out they played it live on a British TV show once. So that unreleased version ends this album.

Although this is all of the band's studio sessions, they did do two more BBC concerts before breaking up, one in 1981 and the other in 1982. So expect those soon.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Boy about Town (Jam)
02 Pretty Green (Jam)
03 Absolute Beginners (Jam)
04 Tales from the Riverbank (Jam)
05 Funeral Pyre (Jam)
06 Sweet Soul Music (Jam)
07 Running on the Spot (Jam)
08 Circus (Jam)
09 Happy Together (Jam)
10 Ghosts (Jam)
11 In the Crowd (Jam)
12 Town Called Malice (Jam)
13 Pity Poor Alfie - Fever (Jam)
14 Precious (Jam)
15 Just Who Is the 5 O'clock Hero (Jam)
16 The Gift (Jam)
17 Move On Up (Jam)
18 Trans-Global Express (Jam)
19 Beat Surrender (Jam)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700761/TJAMM1981a-1982_BBSessonsVolum5_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from 1981. I don't know where it was taken. I used Photoshop to move the band members closer together.

Aretha Franklin - Duets, Nederlander Theatre, New York City, 4-28-1993

By the 1990s, Aretha Franklin had fallen from her golden era (1960s and 1970s) when it came to new material, but her mighty voice was still strong. A problem was that she suffered production issues, due to trying to sound current. That wasn't nearly as much of a problem when it came to live performances. Here's a very interesting one, because it's chock-a-block with duets with other big name musicians.

This was a benefit concert done for AIDS research. It was broadcast on national TV in the US as "Duets." As such, it was professionally recorded, and the sound quality is excellent. It also means that things moved very quickly, to make the best use of every second of screen time. Typically, even before the clapping from one song had finished, someone started had started to introduce the next one. Apparently, in real time, the show lasted four hours, with big delays between songs and multiple retakes. But then things were edited down for an hour-long show.

However, I found a review of the concert at the time in the New York Times, which you can read here:

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/29/arts/review-pop-aretha-franklin-in-stellar-company-and-on-her-own.html

From that, it sounds like this contains all of the songs performed, or at least all of the good stuff. (There's mention of a song Franklin lip-synced to at the end, strangely enough.) According to that review, Franklin sang circles around nearly all of her star guests, and I agree.

Musically, she wisely stuck to doing her classic songs, avoiding any songs from her latest album at the time, "What You See Is What You Sweat" (which wasn't very good). She also did two Motown songs she'd never done before, "Just to See Her" and "This Old Heart of Mine."

This seems like the sort of thing that was designed for an official release, but I see no sign of that having ever happened. By the way, it's rather odd in my opinion (since I don't see a logical Aretha connection), but actor Robert De Niro introduced one of the songs. And actor Dustin Hoffman also was on stage, but whatever role he had must have been cut from this recording.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Chain of Fools (Aretha Franklin with Elton John, Smokey Robinson & Rod Stewart)
02 talk (Aretha Franklin & Elton John)
03 Border Song [Holy Moses] (Aretha Franklin & Elton John)
04 talk (Gloria Estefan)
05 Coming Out of the Dark (Aretha Franklin & Gloria Estefan)
06 talk (Smokey Robinson)
07 Just to See Her (Aretha Franklin & Smokey Robinson)
08 talk (Robert De Niro)
09 I Never Loved a Man [The Way I Love You] (Aretha Franklin)
10 Think (Aretha Franklin & P.M. Dawn)
11 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
12 Since You've Been Gone [Sweet Sweet Baby] (Aretha Franklin & Bonnie Raitt)
13 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin with Bonnie Raitt & Gloria Estefan)
14 talk (Rod Stewart)
15 This Old Heart of Mine (Aretha Franklin & Rod Stewart)
16 People Get Ready (Aretha Franklin & Rod Stewart)
17 Spirit in the Dark (Aretha Franklin & Elton John)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289916/ArethaF_1993_DuetNederlandrTheatreNewYrkC__4-28-1993_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. Franklin is in front with her hand held up. Behind her, from left to right, is: Smokey Robinson, Gloria Estefan, Rod Stewart, and Bonnie Raitt. The font, including the colors, comes from one of her albums. I replicated that for the additional writing.

Belle & Sebastian - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Mandela Hall, Queens University, Belfast, Ireland, 12-21-2001

Here's the fifth of many Belle and Sebastian BBC albums. This one is another full concert.

Out of all of the Belle and Sebastian BBC albums I've posted or plan on posting, this is the only one that is fully released material. But I'm posting it for the sake of completeness. This makes up one of two discs of the album "The BBC Sessions." As such, the sound quality is excellent.

There's not much else to say. There were no problems or complexities. However, one interesting tidbit concerns the cover of "I'm Waiting for the Man," originally by the Velvet Underground. As you'll hear from the talking before the crowd, the band invited a random person from the crowd to come up and sing a song. That person suggested a Velvet Underground, and then did a good job singing that song. That might sound staged, but it's a real thing that happened. I know because I listened to a lot of covers by this band while putting together my covers albums by them, and there are a whole bunch of them that were sung by audience members. Apparently, this was a thing they sometimes did around this time period, though they seem to have stopped doing that a short time after this. The audience member was a guy named Barry Bartholomew. There was an article or two about him in the news after he heard himself singing once the official BBC album was released.

In addition to "I'm Waiting for the Man," "Here Comes the Sun" and "The Boys Are Back in Town" are also cover versions.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
02 Here Comes the Sun (Belle & Sebastian)
03 There's Too Much Love (Belle & Sebastian)
04 The Magic of a Kind Word (Belle & Sebastian)
05 Me and the Major (Belle & Sebastian)
06 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
07 Wondering Alone (Belle & Sebastian)
08 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
09 The Model (Belle & Sebastian)
10 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
11 I'm Waiting for the Man (Belle & Sebastian with Barry Bartholomew)
12 The Boy with the Arab Strap (Belle & Sebastian)
13 The Wrong Girl (Belle & Sebastian)
14 Dirty Dream No. 2 (Belle & Sebastian)
15 The Boys Are Back in Town (Belle & Sebastian)
16 talk (Belle & Sebastian)
17 Legal Man (Belle & Sebastian)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15602317/BellenS_2001c_BBSessionsVolume5MandlaHall__12-21-2001_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of band leader Stuart Murdoch was taken in San Francisco in September 2001. The background was originally red, but I changed that to make it differ more from the red lettering (which I'm keeping consistent for all the albums in this series).

Kirsty MacColl - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-26-1992

In searching for more BBC material, I keep coming across tons of great music that I'd otherwise missed. One thing I've discovered is the music of Britain's yearly Glastonbury Festival. This festival has been taking place every summer since 1970. Since around the start of the 1990s, the BBC has been broadcasting most or all of it, usually after the festival is over. So expect many more Glastonbury Festival posts in the future. Here's one.

Kirsty MacColl was shy about performing in public, and didn't tour that much. There are only a few live recordings by her with excellent sound quality. So it's a lucky thing that the BBC recorded this Glastonbury Festival performance in 1992. It finally got officially released as part of a box set in 2023.

The song selection for this concert is about what one would expect. However, she did surprise with a cover of the Clash song "Train in Vain (Stand by Me)."

The main concert is 38 minutes long.

UPDATE: On November 26, 2023, I changed the album title and cover art. The music of the concert is still the same, but I've made this Volume 2 in a series of BBC albums. I also removed the last two songs, because they weren't part of the concert. They were from a BBC TV show, so they've been moved to a different BBC album in this series.

01 A New England (Kirsty MacColl)
02 Innocence (Kirsty MacColl)
03 talk (Kirsty MacColl)
04 You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby (Kirsty MacColl)
05 Fifteen Minutes (Kirsty MacColl)
06 Happy (Kirsty MacColl)
07 Don't Come the Cowboy with Me, Sonny Jim (Kirsty MacColl)
08 Tread Lightly (Kirsty MacColl)
09 Train in Vain [Stand by Me] (Kirsty MacColl)
10 Walking Down Madison (Kirsty MacColl)
11 Free World (Kirsty MacColl)
12 talk (Kirsty MacColl)
13 There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis (Kirsty MacColl)
14 Soho Square (Kirsty MacColl)
15 Angel (Kirsty MacColl)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260616/KirstyMacC_1992_BBinConcertGlastonuryFestivl__6-26-1992_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is undated, but I'd guess it comes from the early 1990s. The lettering of her name comes from one of her albums, but with the color changed.