Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Gun - BBC Sessions and Live (1967-1968)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unlock My Door [Edit] (Gun) 

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

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

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