The Gun - Gunsight - Alternate Version (1969)

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

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

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

Here's the Wikipedia entry on the Gun:

Gun (1960s band) - Wikipedia

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

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

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

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

This album is 40 minutes long.

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

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

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