Pete Townshend - Who Demos, Volume 5: 1970-1975

Here's a series that I started and then completely forgot about. But hey, no worries, I still plan to finish it off.

Pete Townshend of the Who has created lots of high-quality demos all through his music career. I've divided them into demos of songs later done by the Who, and all other songs. I've fallen behind on posting albums of his Who songs. In 1971, he recorded much for his planned rock opera "Lifehouse," which ultimately turned into the Who album "Who's Next." In 1973, the Who released another one of his big rock operas, "Quadrophenia." This album is meant be a grab-bag of all his Who demos from 1970 to 1975 that weren't part of either of those big projects. Even then, I have some stuff from those projects. The first four songs are all Lifehouse and/or Who's Next ones, but they're different demos than the ones I've put on a Lifehouse demos album. And tracks seven and eight are kind of Quadrophenia floatsam and jetsam.

As for the other songs, "Long Live Rock" ultimately appeared on the "Odds and Sods" compilation album in 1973. And tracks 9, 10, and 11 appeared on the 1975 Who album "The Who by Numbers." "Ordinary Fellow" never appeared anywhere, but apparently was considered for that album. And the last song, "Keep Me Turning," ultimately showed up on the "Rough Mix" album split between Townshend and Ronnie Lane. I'm putting that here because my albums of Townshend demos all contains songs not on his studio solo albums.

There are a lot of missing demos from this time period. For instance, it would be great to have more than just three "Who by Numbers" songs. But this is what's publicly available right now, as far as I know.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Behind Blue Eyes [Early Version] (Pete Townshend)
02 Going Mobile [Acoustic Mix] (Pete Townshend)
03 Baba O'Riley [Long Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
04 Let's See Action [Nothing Is Everything] [Incomplete Acoustic Demo] (Pete Townshend)
05 Long Live Rock (Pete Townshend)
06 Recorders [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
07 Unused Piano Quadrophenia [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
08 Slip Kid (Pete Townshend)
09 Squeezebox (Pete Townshend)
10 No Way Out [However Much I Booze] (Pete Townshend)
11 Ordinary Fellow [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
12 Keep Me Turning (Pete Townshend)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15309039/PeteT_1970-1975_WhoDmosVolume5_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows Townshend in his home recording studio around 1971.

Iwan Fals - Music Everywhere, Surabaya, Indonesia, 2013

Yesterday, I posted a concert with a full band by Indonesian singer-songwriter Iwan Fals. I mentioned that might not be the best album for first-time listeners, because it didn't contain many of his best known songs. That got me thinking what would be the best introduction to his music. That would be a collection of his best studio recordings. I'll have to put that together at a future date. But in the meanwhile, this is also pretty good.

First off, once again be warned that Iwan Fals is an Indonesian who sings entirely in Indonesian. So if you don't understand that language, you may not fully appreciate this. He's known as the "Bob Dylan of Indonesia" for his eloquent and often political lyrics, so you'll miss all of that if you don't speak the language. But I think he's very talented with melody and song construction as well. I believe he gets ignored by the "world music" crowd because most of his music has a Western music sound to it, just in a different language. 

Anyway, this is a short but good concert. It was recorded for the Indonesian TV show "Music Everywhere." And no, I don't know why that show has an English title. (That's very uncommon in Indonesia.) This concert was performed without an audience, with a small band. Again, it's not chock-a-block with hits, but it's all good, catchy songs. It may give you a general idea what he's about.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Ya atau Tidak (Iwan Fals)
02 Satu-Satu (Iwan Fals)
03 Nona (Iwan Fals)
04 Sore Tugu Pancoran (Iwan Fals)
05 Raya (Iwan Fals)
06 Negeri Kaya (Iwan Fals)
07 Surat Buat Wakil Rakyat (Iwan Fals)
08 Oemar Bakrie (Iwan Fals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15291756/IwanF_2013_MuscEverywhreSurabyaIndnesia__2013_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from this concert, which can be found on YouTube. Oh, and I added an Indonesian batik pattern to the text.

Rosanne Cash - Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, MN, 2-9-1991

I'm posting this Rosanne Cash bootleg concert even though it's rather similar to another one I posted, at Slim's in San Francisco, just two months before this. Both were promoting her 1990 album "Interiors." I just really like Cash, and I especially like "Interiors," which I think is her best album. But the concerts are actually fairly different. The Slim's one has three songs this was does not have, and this one has nine songs that one doesn't have (helped by the fact this one is about 20 minutes longer). Plus there's a lot of banter between songs, and all of that is different. Oh, and the Slim's concert featured her then-husband country star Rodney Crowell on some songs, and he wasn't present for this one.

Another key factor is that both concerts sound great. Like the Slim's one, this one is a pristine soundboard. The only thing I had to fix was that I boosted her vocals for all the banter. But I tend to do that for most concert recordings, since people don't talk nearly as loud as they sing. 

Cash played acoustic guitar, and was backed by a lead guitarist and bassist. But strangely, both of them had laryngitis at the time, so weren't able to sing much. For one song, she actually brought out her manager to sing harmony vocals!

One think I really appreciate about her "Interiors" album is that it's so emotionally honest and intense. I even liken it to John Lennon's great 1970 "Plastic Ono Band" album in that way. Her marriage to Rodney Crowell was falling apart, and she wasn't shy about documenting that in song. This concert has that in spades, with some unreleased songs like "Private Moments," "Bedroom Lies," and "Road Widow" that apparently were too revealing or embarrassing to include on the album.

This concert is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 Halfway House (Rosanne Cash)
02 What We Really Want (Rosanne Cash)
03 talk (Rosanne Cash)
04 Lookin' for a Corner (Rosanne Cash)
05 talk (Rosanne Cash)
06 Dance with the Tiger (Rosanne Cash)
07 On the Surface (Rosanne Cash)
08 talk (Rosanne Cash)
09 On the Inside (Rosanne Cash)
10 talk (Rosanne Cash)
11 Bedroom Lies (Rosanne Cash)
12 Private Moments (Rosanne Cash)
13 talk (Rosanne Cash)
14 Blue Moon with Heartache (Rosanne Cash)
15 talk (Rosanne Cash)
16 A Lover Is Forever (Rosanne Cash)
17 talk (Rosanne Cash)
18 This World (Rosanne Cash)
19 The Wheel (Rosanne Cash)
20 talk (Rosanne Cash)
21 Road Widow (Rosanne Cash)
22 talk (Rosanne Cash)
23 Second to No One (Rosanne Cash)
24 Hold On (Rosanne Cash)
25 Real Woman (Rosanne Cash)
26 Seven Year Ache (Rosanne Cash)
27 talk (Rosanne Cash)
28 Sleeping in Paris (Rosanne Cash)
29 talk (Rosanne Cash)
30 I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me (Rosanne Cash)
31 Tennessee Flat-Top Box (Rosanne Cash)
32 talk (Rosanne Cash)
33 The Real Me (Rosanne Cash)
34 talk (Rosanne Cash)
35 Come See about Me (Rosanne Cash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15291649/RosanneC_1991_GthrieTheatrMinneaplisMN__2-9-1991_atse.zip.html

Boy, did I get lucky with the cover photo, because it's from this exact concert. Furthermore, I thought this concert was from 9-2-1991, but I found out from the photo that it actually was from 2-9-1991, so I was able to fix that.

Imelda May - Acoustic Versions, Volume 2 (2017-2023)

Last month (April 2023), I posted Volume 1 of acoustic performances by Irish singer-songwriter Imelda May. Here's Volume 2.

For whatever reason, May hasn't been doing as many acoustic performances in recent years. (She did some during the Covid pandemic, but I posted that as a separate album.) So the first six songs are from 2017, then there's one from 2020, and the last three are from 2023.

All the songs here are officially unreleased. None of them were done in front of cheering audiences. Generally speaking, they come from in-person radio station appearances.

The album is 37 minutes long. That's a bit short, so if she does some more acoustic performances in the next year or so, I'll probably add those in here.

01 The Girl I Used to Be (Imelda May)
02 Black Tears [Solo Electric Version] (Imelda May)
03 Sixth Sense (Imelda May)
04 Call Me (Imelda May)
05 When It's My Time (Imelda May)
06 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Imelda May)
07 Don't Let Me Stand on My Own (Imelda May & Niall McNamee)
08 Can't Say (Imelda May)
09 Just One Kiss (Imelda May)
10 Dreaming (Imelda May)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15291480/ImeldaM_2017-2023_AcoustcVersionsVolume2.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos of her playing an acoustic guitar in recent years, so I just went with one of her smiling face. I forgot to keep track where this one is from exactly.

Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter - Kate Wolf Memorial Festival, Black Oak Ranch, Laytonville, CA, 6-29-2003

For a long time, I'd had this bootleg concert sitting in my huge pile of albums I want to listen to. Then yesterday, I posted a concert of the Allman Brothers Band playing with Eric Clapton for well over an hour, and that got me to remember this, as another rare example of two headliners playing a full concert with each other. Boy, am I glad I found this. If you're a fan of Shawn Colvin and/or Mary Chapin Carpenter at all, you need this. The sound quality is amazing and the performance is great.

There seems to be a kind of loose association of female singer-songwriters from a certain era. For instance, Colin, Carpenter, and Rosanne Cash harmonized together on a song for a Bob Dylan tribute concert in 1992. But it's rare to have a genuine collaboration that lasts for a whole concert like this one. You'd think the two of them were long time musical partners, with the way they play and sing harmonies together on all but a few of the songs here. 

But what I particularly like is how you can tell that they were having a ball, especially with all their joking. For instance, there was a running joke about one of them smoking crack backstage, and another running joke about the low voice of John Gorka (who apparently was the opening act). Near the end, of them even danced with a hula hoop while the riff of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" was played on guitar! Too bad we can only hear that and imagine, instead of getting to see it.

Listening to this, I got the sense that the two of them are good friends. I was pleased to see that they've occasionally played concerts together since this one. For instance, they did a tour in 2019 with both of them and Marc Cohn on stage for all of the concerts.

I also have the feeling that the set list was quite different than what they usually played in their solo concerts at the time. There was an emphasis on cover songs, including Donovan (two, actually), the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Simon and Garfunkel, the Flying Burrito Bros, John Gorka, and even the Backstreet Boys! Another female singer-songwriter, Tracy Grammer, also briefly joined them on stage to sing one of her songs, "Gentle Soldier of My Soul."

The concert is in acoustic format, but the were assisted by a lead guitarist. And damn, the sound quality is impressive, especially for a bootleg. One could practically hear a pin drop at times. I searched the Internet for mentions of this concert before posting it today, and I could find almost nothing. So I'm really glad that I saved it when I did, which probably was a bunch of years ago.

This album is two hours and three minutes long.

01 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
02 Catch the Wind (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
03 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
04 Someday (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
05 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
06 One Cool Remove (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
07 Dancing in the Dark (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
08 Shotgun Down the Avalanche (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
09 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
10 Keeping the Faith (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
11 Wichita Skyline (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
12 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
13 A Matter of Minutes (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
14 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
15 Good Night America (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
16 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
17 Grand Central Station (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
18 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
19 Gentle Soldier of My Soul (Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter & Tracy Grammer)
20 Colours (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
21 Even Here We Are (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
22 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
23 This Shirt (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
24 I'll Be Back (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
25 That's the Way Love Goes (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
26 Safe at Harbour (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
27 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
28 I Want It That Way (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
29 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
30 The Only Living Boy in New York (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
31 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
32 Smoke on the Water (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
33 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
34 Sin City (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
35 Quittin' Time (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Jg2aGU6X

I believe the photo is from this exact concert. I edited it in Photoshop to bring the two of them closer together.

Yes - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: QPR Football Stadium, London, Britain, 5-10-1975

First off, a minor administrative note: I had previously posted a 1978 BBC by Yes and called it "BBC Sessions, Volume 4," because I thought that one was the fourth. But then I discovered this one. So I've renamed the 1978 concert "Volume 5." Here's the link if you want to get it with the correct cover art and mp3 tags and such:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/07/yes-bbc-sessions-volume-4-friday-rock.html

Now, let's get to this bootleg album. In 1975, Yes was riding high. Their most recent album, "Relayer," released in 1974, was a critical and commercial success. Prog rock was all the rage. That would come crashing down in 1977, with the rise of punk rock, but that was still in the future. This was still the time of complicated epic songs often over 20 minutes, and there's no less than three of those here ("Ritual," "Gates of Delirium," and "Close to the Edge.")

It turns out this was a good time for a BBC concert, because there's no official live album from around this time period. This might be the best concert recording featuring keyboardist Patrick Moraz, because he was only with the band for one album (due to the guy he'd replaced, Rick Wakeman, wanting to come back).

The sound quality is very good, though not perfect. I helped a bit by using the audio program UVR5 to boost the vocals relative to the instruments.

This is a long concert. The album is two hours and 22 minutes long.

01 Sound Chaser (Yes)
02 Close to the Edge (Yes)
03 talk (Yes)
04 To Be Over (Yes)
05 talk (Yes)
06 The Gates of Delirium (Yes)
07 Your Move (Yes)
08 Mood for a Day [Instrumental] (Yes)
09 Long Distance Runaround (Yes)
10 Moraz Solo [Instrumental] (Yes)
11 The Clap [Instrumental] (Yes)
12 talk (Yes)
13 And You and I (Yes)
14 Ritual (Yes)
15 Roundabout (Yes)
16 Sweet Dreams (Yes)
17 Yours Is No Disgrace (Yes)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/38TaCq3r

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/b2sQ4iLEUjhJTPi/file

Sometimes when I make album covers, I'm torn between accuracy and quality. Meaning, should I choose a photo from that exact concert that's low-res, or another one from something else that looks a lot better? I'd be curious if people have a preference in situations like that. In this case, I went for the low-res. This cover is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert.

The Talking Heads - Jaap Eden Hal, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 12-11-1980

Here's a really rocking concert from the Talking Heads. Great sound quality, great set list, great performance. It's an unreleased bootleg, but you'd never know, because it's in great shape, with no flaws.

In 1982, the Talking Heads officially released the live album "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads." It's a double album, put together from concerts in 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980. But I much prefer hearing entire concerts like this one. Even a later expanded edition of that album has more songs from 1980, but from three different concerts.

The Talking Heads really expanded their sound in 1980. In their early years, they toured as just a four-person band. But on their 1980 tour, they added six backing musicians, including guitarist Robert Fripp, to promote their classic album "Remain in Light." I don't have much more to say, except his should make you want to get up and dance.

This concert is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
02 Warning Sign (Talking Heads)
03 talk (Talking Heads)
04 Stay Hungry (Talking Heads)
05 Cities (Talking Heads)
06 talk (Talking Heads)
07 I Zimbra (Talking Heads)
08 Drugs (Talking Heads)
09 Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads)
10 Animals (Talking Heads)
11 Houses in Motion (Talking Heads)
12 Born Under Punches (Talking Heads)
13 Crosseyed and Painless (Talking Heads)
14 Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)
15 talk (Talking Heads)
16 Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)
17 The Great Curve (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15301594/TTalkngHs_1980_JaapEdnHalAmsterdmNetherlnds__12-11-1980_atse.zip.html

I don't know much about the cover photo, except that it apparently was taken in August 1980. I picked it due to the unusual perspective, allowing you to see the band and part of the audience.

Iwan Fals - Coretan Musafir, Depok, Indonesia, 12-30-2020

So far, I've posted five albums by Indonesian musical legend Iwan Fals. I'm going to keep posting some more in the hopes that there are at least a few people out there who dig it. But be warned that he's an Indonesian who naturally writes and sings all his songs in the Indonesian language. So if you can't speak that, you might not fully appreciate it. Personally though, I lived in Indonesia a couple of years in the 1990s, and I really enjoyed his music even before I understood the language.

The previous five albums I posted were a series of acoustic home recordings. This also is a home concert with no audience, done during the height of the Covid pandemic. However, this one is different from the others because it was done with a band, and a particularly large band at that. You can see what I mean from the album cover.

So, if you're looking for an introduction to Fals' music, this is probably a better place to start than those five acoustic albums I posted, since he usually plays with a band. However, keep in mind that this isn't anything like a collection of his greatest hits. He's been called the "Bob Dylan of Indonesia," and like Dylan, he has such a deep discography that one would be hard pressed to present all the "greatest hits" in one concert. But he seemingly avoided most of his best known songs. This is more like the songs he felt like doing at the time that worked well with that particular group of backing musicians.

The concert starts in semi-acoustic mode, and then generally gets more lively as it goes on. By the way, this is unreleased, but was posted on the official YouTube channel for Iwan Fals. Oh, and one other thing. The title he gave for this concert, "Coretan Musafir," roughly translates into English as "a traveler's notes" or "a traveler's scribbles."

I've created two versions. The first version is an hour and 37 minutes long. It contains all the talking between songs, the same as the actual concert. But if you don't speak Indonesian, that talking would be a meaningless waste of time for you. So I've created a second version, with just the music, that's an hour and 22 minutes long.

Here's the complete version, that includes the talking:

01 Belum Ada Judul (Iwan Fals)
02 talk (Iwan Fals)
03 Ujung Aspal Pondok Gede (Iwan Fals)
04 talk (Iwan Fals)
05 Coretan Dinding (Iwan Fals)
06 Orang Pinggiran (Iwan Fals)
07 talk (Iwan Fals)
08 Lancar (Iwan Fals)
09 talk (Iwan Fals)
10 Ada Lagi Orang Yang Mati (Iwan Fals)
11 talk (Iwan Fals)
12 Rindu Tebal (Iwan Fals)
13 Si Bujang (Iwan Fals)
14 talk (Iwan Fals)
15 Oemar Bakrie (Iwan Fals)
16 talk (Iwan Fals)
17 Musafir Anthem (Iwan Fals)
18 talk (Iwan Fals)
19 Kuda Lumping (Iwan Fals)
20 Doa (Iwan Fals)
21 Bagimu (Iwan Fals)

The download link for this version has been split in two.

Part 1:

https://www.upload.ee/files/16068290/IwanF_2020_CoretnMusafirDepokIndnesia__12-30-2020_Pt1_atse.zip.html

Part 2:

https://www.upload.ee/files/16068329/IwanF_2020_CoretnMusafirDepokIndnesia__12-30-2020_Pt2_atse.zip.html

And here's the version with the music only:

01 Belum Ada Judul (Iwan Fals)
02 Ujung Aspal Pondok Gede (Iwan Fals)
03 Coretan Dinding (Iwan Fals)
04 Orang Pinggiran (Iwan Fals)
05 Lancar (Iwan Fals)
06 Ada Lagi Orang Yang Mati (Iwan Fals)
07 Rindu Tebal (Iwan Fals)
08 Si Bujang (Iwan Fals)
09 Oemar Bakrie (Iwan Fals)
10 Musafir Anthem (Iwan Fals)
11 Kuda Lumping (Iwan Fals)
12 Doa (Iwan Fals)
13 Bagimu (Iwan Fals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288357/IwanF_2020_CoretnMusafirDepokIndnesia__12-30-2020_MusicOnly_atse.zip.html

The cover is a screenshot of the video of this concert that I found on YouTube. Iwan Fals is pretty hard to see in this big group picture, but he's the guy in the upper right corner holding an acoustic guitar.

Lucinda Williams - Everything but the Truth - Non-Album Tracks (2013-2014)

This is the eleventh Lucinda Williams stray tracks album that I've posted. And, moving forward chronologically, I'm still only to 2014.

Most of the songs here are from various artists compilations. Four of those are from tribute albums, to John Denver, Slim Dunlop, Levon Helm, and Jackson Browne. Three of the songs are unreleased cover versions, and come from concert bootlegs: "Make the World Go Away," "It Tears Me Up," and "Pale Blue Eyes." However, all of those have really good sound quality comparable to the others.

One bootleg cover version sounded a bit worse, though, "River Man" (originally by Nick Drake). So I've only included that as a bonus track.

This album is 39 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 This Old Guitar (Lucinda Williams)
02 Everything but the Truth (Lucinda Williams)
03 Partners in Crime (Lucinda Williams)
04 Come On [Duet Version] (Lucinda Williams & Max Seymour)
05 Make the World Go Away (Lucinda Williams)
06 Whispering Pines (Lucinda Williams)
07 The Pretender (Lucinda Williams)
08 It Tears Me Up (Lucinda Williams)
09 Pale Blue Eyes (Lucinda Williams)

River Man (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288326/LucndaWllms_2013-2014_EverythngbutTrth_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I did something a little different this time. I found a nice concert poster, though I don't know where or when it's from. As usual with posters, I had to crop it to get the rectangular shape to fit into a square space. I redid the lettering, and added in the album title.

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1992-1994

For all of Paul Weller's career, first with the Jam, then the Style Council, and finally as a solo artist, he has frequently played for the BBC. The includes both full concerts and studio sessions. This is the first volume dedicated just to BBC studio sessions.

I like nearly all of Weller's music, but my favorite solo album of his is probably "Wild Wood," from 1993. I think he was having a creative rebirth around then, and even his B-sides and other stray tracks were really good. So this is a particularly solid collection of performances. 

There's a mix of band and solo acoustic versions. For the songs "Foot of the Mountain," "Out of the Sinking," and "Hung Up," I've included both versions. However, the other version of "Foot of the Mountain" will appear on a later volume. (These all appear in chronological order of when the sessions took place.)

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Fly on the Wall (Paul Weller)
02 Sunflower (Paul Weller)
03 Long Hot Summer (Paul Weller)
04 That's Entertainment (Paul Weller)
05 Has My Fire Really Gone Out (Paul Weller)
06 Pink on White Walls (Paul Weller)
07 Foot of the Mountain [Acoustic Version] (Paul Weller)
08 Amongst Butterflies (Paul Weller)
09 Wild Wood (Paul Weller)
10 Hung Up (Paul Weller)
11 Out of the Sinking (Paul Weller)
12 Clues (Paul Weller)
13 Whirlpools' End (Paul Weller)
14 Hung Up [Acoustic Version] (Paul Weller)
15 Black Sheep Boy (Paul Weller)
16 Out of the Sinking [Acoustic Version] (Paul Weller)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288307/PaulW_1992-1994_BBSessionsVolum2_atse.zip.html

I don't know anything about the cover photo except that it's from the early 1990s.

Al Stewart - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Golders Green Hippodrome, London, Britain, 6-27-1974

As I explained in my comments to Al Stewart's "BBC Sessions, Volume 3," I've completed an overhaul of Stewart's early BBC recordings. I had to redo the two albums I had previously posted in early 2022, thanks to the release of the mega-box set "The Admiralty Lights" in late 2022, which had lots of BBC material I didn't already have. 

I had previously included much of the material here on my album of early full band BBC recordings. But thanks to that box set, I now have the full concert, and with better sound quality. So I've made this separate volume. This is with a full band. I think he generally played solo acoustic up until this year, then generally played with a band from that point on.

Oddly, not everything here is from the box set. The banter before two of the songs (tracks 1 and 7) come from the unreleased version I had before. 

This is a fairly short concert, at 39 minutes. But it seems to be complete. Stewart had yet to make the big time with his 1976 hit "Year of the Cat," so I imagine the BBC didn't want to give him more air time.

01 talk (Al Stewart)
02 Soho [Needless to Say] (Al Stewart)
03 talk (Al Stewart)
04 Old Admirals (Al Stewart)
05 talk (Al Stewart)
06 Terminal Eyes - Post World War Two Blues (Al Stewart)
07 talk (Al Stewart)
08 Roads to Moscow (Al Stewart)
09 talk (Al Stewart)
10 Nostradamus (Al Stewart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288311/AlStwt_1974_BBSessionsVolum4InConcertGoldrsGreenHippodrmeLondnBritain__6-27-1974_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a concert in London in November 1976.

Al Stewart - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: More Solo Versions, 1969-1973

First off, it's important for you to realize this is only one piece of a larger picture. Early in 2022, I posted two albums of Al Stewart's early BBC sessions. One consisted of acoustic performances and the other one consisted of band performances. But then, later in 2022, the mega-box set "The Admiralty Lights" was released. And when I say "mega," I mean "mega" - it contains nearly 50 CDs! A handful of those are BBC performances. 

So I've finally overhauled my Al Stewart early BBC albums. There was so much new stuff that I split the early acoustic album in two. Earlier today, I posted the revised first part. Most of the material on it is new. So if you had the old version I made, please toss that and replace it. Here's a link to the new version, which now deals with the years 1965 to 1969:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/02/al-stewart-bbc-sessions-solo-versions.html

Furthermore, the album I made of early band performances for the BBC has also been drastically overhauled. Most of what I had there I'll be putting on a different album instead, so this also is mostly new stuff. Here's the link to that:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/02/al-stewart-bbc-sessions-band-versions.html

Now, I'll talk about what's on this album here. A majority of the material comes from the mega-box set. But given how thorough that was, I was surprised that it missed some stuff. Eight of the 18 tracks here are still unreleased. Since he acoustic performances of the same song didn't differ that much, I've only included one version of each song. In some cases, that allowed me to pick the best sounding version. So most of this sounds pretty good, but the sound quality does vary a bit from song to song.

Around 1973 or 1974, it seems Stewart went from mostly doing solo acoustic performances to playing with a band. Plus, the BBC generally moved away from live studio sessions to playing more album versions. Thus, there's no further studio sessions that I know of after 1973. However, he did play some concerts for the BBC, and I'll be posting some of those in the future.

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 talk (Al Stewart)
02 Maybe Some Day (Al Stewart)
03 Bedsitter Images (Al Stewart)
04 talk (Al Stewart)
05 Manuscript (Al Stewart)
06 talk (Al Stewart)
07 In Brooklyn (Al Stewart)
08 Burbling [Instrumental] (Al Stewart)
09 Electric Los Angeles Sunset (Al Stewart)
10 Zero She Flies (Al Stewart)
11 talk (Al Stewart)
12 A Small Fruit Song (Al Stewart)
13 Blessed (Al Stewart)
14 Night of the 4th of May (Al Stewart)
15 Once an Orange, Always an Orange [Instrumental] (Al Stewart)
16 Amsterdam (Al Stewart)
17 Soho [Needless to Say] (Al Stewart)
18 Post World War II Blues (Al Stewart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15212382/AlStwt_1969-1973_BBSessionsVolum3MreSoloVrsions_atse.zip.html

The only thing I know about the cover photo is that it was taken in April 1973.

Ronnie Lane - What Went Down - Non-Album Tracks (1975-1977)

Boy, I sure do lose track of things sometimes. Back in 2019, I posted an album of Ronnie Lane stray tracks, called "How Come." Then... crickets. I totally forgot to follow through. But here we are, in 2023 finally, and I've got the next stray tracks album from him. Better late than never, I guess.

Here's the link to that first stray tracks album, if you don't have it already:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/05/ronnie-lane-how-come-various-songs-1971.html

Ronnie Lane is best known for being a key singer and songwriter in the Small Faces and the Faces, but he had a pretty nice solo career as well. Unfortunately, his health slowly declined due to multiple sclerosis. He was diagnosed as having that in 1977, but in retrospect he was feeling the effects as far back as 1973, or even earlier. But he was able to carry on with his music career pretty well all through the time period of this album. In 1977, he even had a highlight with the well received album "Rough Mix," that was a joint project between himself and Pete Townshend of the Who.

All the songs here are studio tracks except for "All of Nothing," which is a live version of a hit song he co-wrote for the Small Faces done at an unspecified time and locale. The first four songs are A- and B-sides. The next five come from an archival release called "Lucky Seven." The last three are from a bootleg. They're alternate versions of three of his songs that went on the "Rough Mix" album mentioned above. They're pretty close to the released versions, but they're all great songs, and I like having them here, to see how they fit in with the rest of his solo stuff at the time.

This album is 43 minutes long.

I have plans to post another stray tracks album after this. I also have no less than four BBC albums from him that I'll post as well.

01 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime (Ronnie Lane)
02 What Went Down [That Night with You] (Ronnie Lane)
03 Lovely (Ronnie Lane)
04 Well, Well Hello [The Party] (Ronnie Lane)
05 All or Nothing (Ronnie Lane)
06 Around the World [Grow Too Old] (Ronnie Lane)
07 Annie Had a Baby (Ronnie Lane)
08 Some Day (Ronnie Lane)
09 Walk On By [Instrumental] (Ronnie Lane)
10 Catmelody [Alternate Version] (Ronnie Lane)
11 April Fool [Alternate Version] (Ronnie Lane)
12 Nowhere to Run [Alternate Version] (Ronnie Lane)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288187/RonnieL_1975-1977_WhtWentDwn_atse.zip.html

Lane lived in the English countryside for a few years in the mid-1970s before his health issues forced him to move back to the city. This cover photo shows him with his wife and daughter on his farm around 1976.

Larkin Poe - Porch Pickin', Episode 3, Nashville, TN, 2-13-2021

When I recently posted a Larkin Poe album, I noted that I hadn't had anything new to post from them in a long time (at least a year) due to not having anything with worthy sound quality. But then I realized that that wasn't entirely true. In late 2020 and early 2021, they did four podcasts which they called "Porch Pickin'." They're somewhat repetitive, since they were all done to promote their 2020 album "Kindred Spirits." I think Episode 3 is the most interesting, since they did some unusual songs, so I'm posting that here.

I edited this quite a lot. There's a lot of talking between songs, and I edited that down quite a bit. There were lots of shout outs to supporters who were donating as the podcast went on, and I cut out nearly all of that. There also was some conversation that just wasn't that interesting and also got the cut. 

I also edited two songs, "Heart of Gold" and "Can't Help Falling in Love." These are covers of famous songs by Neil Young and Elvis Presley respectively. In both cases, they didn't really know the songs, and were just giving them a try based on suggestions from viewers. I edited out some of their mistakes, which is why both those songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. By the way, neither of those songs were done in their "Tip O' the Hat" series (or anywhere else I know of), although the other covers here, "You Can Close Your Eyes," "Bell Bottom Blues," and "Wildflowers," are.

I'm only planning on posting this episode. However, I might be persuaded to post one or more of the other three if there's enough interest. You can watch all four of them on YouTube.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 talk (Larkin Poe)
02 Back Down South (Larkin Poe)
03 talk (Larkin Poe)
04 Tears of Blue to Gold (Larkin Poe)
05 talk (Larkin Poe)
06 Stubborn Love (Larkin Poe)
07 talk (Larkin Poe)
08 You Can Close Your Eyes (Larkin Poe)
09 talk (Larkin Poe)
11 Bell Bottom Blues (Larkin Poe)
12 talk (Larkin Poe)
13 Heart of Gold [Edit] (Larkin Poe)
14 talk (Larkin Poe)
15 Wildflowers (Larkin Poe)
16 talk (Larkin Poe)
17 Can't Help Falling in Love [Edit] (Larkin Poe)
18 talk (Larkin Poe)
19 Easy Street (Larkin Poe)
20 talk (Larkin Poe)
21 Might as Well Be Me (Larkin Poe)
22 talk (Larkin Poe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15284695/LarkinP_2021b_PrchPickinEpsode3NshvilleTN__2-13-2021_atse.zip.html

Someone made a cover image for the YouTube videos of these, posted to the official Larkin Poe YouTube page. I took that cover image and cropped it. I also squished all the text horizontally, since the original cover was significantly wider. I added in the date as well.

The Velvet Underground - The Gymnasium, New York City, 4-30-1967

I recently wrote that I plan on posting what I consider all the live Velvet Underground (VU) recordings with really good sound quality. This one definitely counts, since it's a pristine soundboard. It was originally released as part of the super deluxe edition of the "White Light/White Heat" album in 2013. But I'm posting it here because I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the lead vocals, making this sound even better than the official release.

The band's years together led by Lou Reed can be divided into two phases: 1965 to 1968, when John Cale was in the band, and 1968 to 1970, when Cale was replaced by Doug Yule. The Cale years are more celebrated, helped by the fact that Cale went on to have a long and critically acclaimed solo career. But unfortunately, this is the sole live recording from the Cale years that doesn't sound like crap. (If anyone knows of any other good ones, please let me know.)

This is such a pristine recording that it makes me wonder if it really is a concert recording at all. What I mean is, no audience can be heard whatsoever, not even a single clap. Additionally, there's not a single word spoken between songs. If I hadn't been told otherwise by official sources, I would have assumed these are studio outtakes. But apparently there was a concert on this date, as the cover art shows, and this is what was played. If anyone knows the story behind this recording, and how it sounds like it does, please let us know.

Anyway, regardless of that, these are unique versions, and the sound quality is excellent, so what's not to like? Additionally, some of the songs are quite rare. This is the only known recording of the original "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore," and the best recording of the instrumental "Booker T." Additionally, this version of "Guess I'm Falling in Love" has lyrics that are sung, while the studio version is an instrumental. On the flip side, the studio version of "The Gift" has lyrics while this version is an instrumental.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Booker T [Instrumental] (Velvet Underground)
02 I'm Not a Young Man Anymore (Velvet Underground)
03 Guess I'm Falling in Love (Velvet Underground)
04 I'm Waiting for the Man (Velvet Underground)
05 Run, Run, Run (Velvet Underground)
06 Sister Ray (Velvet Underground)
07 The Gift [Instrumental Version] (Velvet Underground)

NOTE: Unfortunately, the download link was removed due to a copyright issue.

I couldn't find any good, fitting color photos of the band for the cover. However, I did find a playbill for this exact show. I made some edits to it, mainly cropping out some of it to get it to fit into a square shape, and adding the background color. But the text you see is largely unchanged. And by the way, although Nico was touted on the playbill, she didn't actually appear in the concert.

Elvis Costello & Flip City - The Red Cow, London, Britain, 11-30-1975

"Flip City" is the name of Elvis Costello's first band, before he started to get famous with his first solo album in 1977. Back in January 2023, I posted an album of Flip City demos, with nearly all of the songs sung by Costello. You can get that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/01/elvis-costello-flip-city-flip-city.html

Around the time I posted that, my musical associate MZ had the idea of also posting the sole decent sounding (bootleg) concert recording by Flip City, which took at a small venue called "The Red Cow" in London on November 30, 1975. I wasn't that keen, because the sound quality is merely decent, and not up to my usual standards. However, MZ was keen, and he utilized his editing skills to make the recording sound better. I then also helped a bit, boosting the lead vocals with the UVR5 audio editing program. The sound quality still isn't fantastic, but it's improved. So what the hell, I'm posting it here. If you like this, mainly thank MZ for making it happen.

Back when this concert took place, in 1975, "pub rock "was still a popular musical genre. It basically would get forgotten thanks to the rise of both punk rock and disco around 1977. But at the time, Nick Lowe's band Brinsley Schwarz was the best known pub rock band, and Flip City definitely was following in their footsteps. Costello's songwriting was still a work in progress, so the vast majority of the songs here are covers. I believe the only Costello songs here are: "Sweet Revival," "Radio Soul" (which is an early version of "Radio, Radio"), "Imagination [Is a Powerful Deceiver]," "Pay It Back," "Miracle Man," and possibly "Flatfoot Hotel." (I couldn't find any info about that last one.) So maybe six out of the seventeen songs here.

Still, in addition to hearing these early songwriting efforts by Costello, it's interesting to hear him sing the covers, many of which he would never sing in public again. By the way, I think the sound quality starts off extra rough, but getting better a few songs in, so please stick with it.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Don't Lie to Me (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
02 Sweet Revival (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
03 You Win Again (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
04 Before I Grow Too Old (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
05 Bring It on Home to Me (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
06 Another Saturday Night (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
07 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
08 Radio Soul [Early Version of Radio, Radio] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
09 I Love the Life I Live (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
10 Third Rate Romance (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
11 Gone Dead Train (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
12 Pay It Back (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
13 One More Heartache (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
14 Imagination [Is a Powerful Deceiver] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
15 On the Road (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
16 Flatfoot Hotel (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
17 Miracle Man (Elvis Costello & Flip City)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17363132/ELVISCSTLLO1975FlpCtyRedCowLndnBrtin__11-30-1975_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qSrSNzdF

There are very few good color photos of Flip City, but I managed to find a decent one. This is from the Stepney Festival in 1974. Costello is on the left in the red shirt.

The Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton - Beacon Theatre, New York City, 3-20-2009

There aren't many cases of musical greats meeting up in a prolonged manner like this, so if you're a fan of the Allman Brothers Band and/or Eric Clapton, you should have this. 

In 1970, Clapton's short lived band Derek and the Dominos made the classic album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs." Slide guitarist Duane Allman was a member of that band while still being a member of the Allman Brothers Band (ABB) at the same time. Clapton has said that he considered Duane to be kind of a musical soul mate. But tragically, Duane died less than a year after the release of that album, so further collaborations never came to pass.

Duane's brother Gregg Allman kept on with the Allman Brothers Band, to great success. Gregg had jammed some with Derek and the Dominos during the making of the "Layla" album. But the musical paths of Clapton and the ABB never really crossed paths again until two special nights in 2009, March 19th and 20th, at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The ABB was doing a series of 15 shows at that venue that year, with a focus on remembering Duane Allman, and including lots of special guests who had a connection to him. Clapton joined in for about half the concert for both of those nights. He sang five songs, all from the "Layla" album, and played on three other songs led by the ABB.

I found a Rolling Stone Magazine article about the 2009 Beacon Theatre concerts, with some quotes from ABB lead guitarist Derek Trucks about the two Clapton shows. Here are some excerpts.

The ABB had made it a yearly tradition to do a long run of concerts at the Beacon every year. Trucks said that "since I joined the band, there was a rumor that Eric would play." When he finally showed up in 2009, "there was a palpable buzz in the place - and in the band, like there was unfinished business. For the Allmans, in a sense, it was something to prove. And it happened in the best spirit. ... It was a magical night." Trucks said that during "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" on March 20th, Clapton took a solo "that was a different side of him, that I hadn't seen. Where he normally would have gotten to his point, stayed and got out, he got in, stayed and realized he wasn't nearly finished. He kept plowing. There was a freedom and unhinged element to it that I really dug."

Derek Trucks Goes Behind the Allman Brothers’ Beacon Box Set – Rolling Stone

It's generally considered that Clapton collaboration on March 20th was the better one (something that the quote from Trucks above supports), so that's what I've included here. However, there was one song played by the ABB and Clapton on March 19th only, "Anyday." So I slipped that in after the track in which Clapton got introduced. Blues singer Susan Tedeschi also helped with the lead vocals on that song.

The entire performance here has been officially released. Normally, I don't post officially released stuff unless it's rare and/or I change or reorganize it in some important way. In this case, I'm doing it because this has only been available as part of the "Beacon Box," a box set containing no less than 47 CDs, with a cost of $500! Because of that, it seems very few people have this, or even know about it. 

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 talk (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
02 Anyday (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton with Susan Tedeschi)
03 Key to the Highway (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
04 Call It Stormy Monday (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
05 Dreams (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
06 Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
07 Little Wing (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
08 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
09 talk (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
10 Layla (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)

NOTE: The download link has been removed due to a copyright issue, sorry. But check the comments below.

The cover photo shows the ABB and Clapton on March 19, 2009. Left to right: Gregg Allman, Jaimoe, Marc Quinones, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Butch Trucks, and Eric Clapton.

Sheryl Crow - Collide - Non-Album Tracks (2009-2010)

I continue to gradually make my way chronologically through Sheryl Crow's music career with stray tracks albums. Here's the next one.

This one happens to consist mostly of live performances, generally unreleased. The songs "Murder in My Heart," "Need a Little Love," "Collide," and "Lean on Me" are studio versions, generally from various artists compilations. The last two, "Our Love Is Fading" and "Got to Give It Up," are semi-released in that they're from DVDs, but not audio releases. The rest are all from concert bootlegs. However, the sound quality is high, at the soundboard level.

There were a couple of exceptions to that sound quality though. "Back in the U.S.A.," a duet between Crow and Elvis Costello of a Chuck Berry song, sounded rougher. However, I used the UVR5 audio editing program and that helped enough for me to decide to include it. I did the same with her cover of the Beatles song "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away." But while that sounds pretty good now, I decided it's still not up to snuff with the others, so I've only included it here as a bonus track.

There are lots of covers of classic songs here. There are only a few exceptions, like "Need a Little Love" and "Collide."

This album is 47 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Murder in My Heart (Sheryl Crow)
02 Back in the U.S.A. [Edit] (Sheryl Crow & Elvis Costello)
03 One Love (Will.I.Am, Sheryl Crow & Herbie Hancock)
04 Can't Find My Way Home (Sheryl Crow & the Allman Brothers Band)
05 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Sheryl Crow & the Allman Brothers Band)
06 My Sweet Lord (Sheryl Crow with Ben Harper)
07 Need a Little Love (Sheryl Crow & Hannah Montana)
08 Collide (Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow)
09 Lean On Me (Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban & Kid Rock)
10 All Down the Line (Sheryl Crow with Chuck Leavell & the Roots)
11 Our Love Is Fading (Sheryl Crow with Eric Clapton)
12 Got to Give It Up (Sheryl Crow)

You've Got to Hide Your Love Away [Edit] (Sheryl Crow)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281198/SherylC_2009-2010_Cllide_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in 2010, but I don't know other details.

Morgan James - Acoustic Cover Songs, Volume 7, 2020-2022

It's been a while since I've posted any albums by Morgan James, but I'm back with more. I'm glad to see from the download numbers that a lot of people appreciate her considerable vocal talents.

This is another album consisting entirely of cover versions done acoustically. It gets a bit confusing, because I first posted six albums of her acoustic covers from the years 1994 to 2020. Then, in 2020, due to being stuck at home thanks to the Covid pandemic, she did 100 covers in a row, which she called the Quanatunes series. I posted seven albums of that. This picks up where that left off, back to more acoustic covers that aren't specifically part of that Quarantunes series.

There's not much to say here that I didn't say with earlier volumes. Although I'll note that she was especially bold with her song selection this time, covering some of the most iconic songs of all time, including "Layla" and "Stairway to Heaven!" It's interesting to hear songs like that backed only by a single acoustic guitar.

I almost didn't include "Son of a Preacher Man," because it had some big problems. The song broke down in the middle, as she and her guitarist, her husband Doug Wamble, forgot how the bridge went. However, I did some heavy editing that snipped out the problem area. There still are some bits of Wamble talking that I don't like, but I couldn't remove them because it overlapped with her singing. The song also was cut off right at the end, but I found a way to patch in a final guitar strum to give it a decent finish. All of that is why the song has "[Edit]" in the title. 

By the way, I'm most of the way to having a Volume 8, but I'm still a few songs short.

This album is 47 minutes long.

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

01 Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin
02 Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
03 The Dark End of the Street - James Carr
04 The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
05 With or Without You - U2
06 Son of a Preacher Man [Edit] - Dusty Springfield
07 Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd
08 Gethsemane - Jesus Christ Superstar Soundtrack
09 Better Man - Pearl Jam
10 Layla - Derek & the Dominos
11 Wild Horses - Rolling Stones
12 Sweet Bitter Love - Aretha Franklin

And here's the usual song list:

01 Chain of Fools (Morgan James)
02 Stairway to Heaven (Morgan James)
03 The Dark End of the Street (Morgan James)
04 The Middle (Morgan James)
05 With or Without You (Morgan James)
06 Son of a Preacher Man [Edit] (Morgan James)
07 Simple Man (Morgan James & Nicole Zuraitis)
08 Gethsemane (Morgan James)
09 Better Man (Morgan James & Nicole Zuraitis)
10 Layla (Morgan James & Nicole Zuraitis)
11 Wild Horses (Morgan James & Nicole Zuraitis)
12 Sweet Bitter Love (Morgan James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15282129/MorganJ_2020-2022_AcoustcCoverSongsVolume7_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is of her performing in concert outdoors in Michigan in August 2022. I found some of the background distracting, so I cleaned it up using Photoshop.

The Grateful Dead - Equinox - Non-Album Tracks (1974-1979)

I'm puzzled why I haven't posted this until now, since it's been in my music collection for ages. But then again, I could say that about a lot of music. There's just too much good stuff out there that need posting here, in my opinion. That's definitely true of the Grateful Dead. I realized I've fallen behind posting albums from them, so I'll try harder to get on that.

Anyway, I already posted a lost album Grateful Dead album of sorts, from 1976. Those songs hang together, more or less, whereas this is more of a stray tracks grab-bag from a much wider time period. Nearly all are rare studio tracks, mostly originals, that fell by the wayside for one reason or another. This doesn't compare with their best stuff, but considering that they put some pretty dodgy songs on their late 1970s albums like "Shakedown Street," it's a shame some of these stayed in the vaults.

Generally speaking, from about 1969 to 1973, the Dead had an explosion of creativity, creating dozens of original songs, and covering dozens more. For the time period here, 1974 to 1979, they went back to more typical level of creativity, probably coming up with an average of about an album of new material, if you add in original songs on Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir solo projects. But the Dead as a whole played surprisingly few new cover songs during this time (although they kept playing lots of covers they knew from before). Just about the only one done in concert that I could find was "Let It Rock," originally by Chuck Berry. "Catfish John" and "K. C. Moan" are also covers, but were never or almost never played live during this time.

"Fire on the Mountain" need a little more explanation. The studio version first appeared on the Dead album "Shakedown Street" in 1978, and it became a classic, frequently played in concert. However, it was actually first written by lyricist Robert Hunter, which was common, and drummer Mickey Hart, which was not at all common for the band. Hunter usually wrote with Jerry Garcia, and this might be the only co-write with Hart. Hart attempted to record a second solo album in 1973 and then again in 1974, after putting out a solo album in 1972. However, that album was never released. Hart isn't much of a singer, so he rapped his way through this still unreleased early version, meant for that second solo album. I actually really like this rap version, done long before rap music was popular, although the usual way the Dead played it is great too. Not all members of the Dead played on this version, but he was joined by others, most importantly Jerry Garcia, so I stretched it a bit to credit it to the Dead.

Most of the other songs are studio outtakes that later appeared as bonus tracks. "K. C. Moan" and "This Time Forever" are from a rare acoustic concert. "Ollin Arageed" was only done when the band played in Egypt in 1978. "Hollywood Cantata" is an early version of "The Music Never Stopped," which came out on the "Blues for Allah" album in 1975, but it's different enough that I consider it a separate song. Garcia put out a solo album in 1974 called "Compliments." But it only had one original song (co-written with Robert Hunter, as usual), "Midnight Town." So I've included that here.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Fire on the Mountain [Rap Version] (Grateful Dead)
02 Let It Rock (Grateful Dead)
03 Midnight Town (Jerry Garcia)
04 Hollywood Cantata [Early Version of The Music Never Stopped] (Grateful Dead)
05 Showboat (Grateful Dead)
06 Catfish John (Grateful Dead)
07 K. C. Moan (Grateful Dead)
08 Equinox (Grateful Dead)
09 The Ascent [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
10 This Time Forever (Grateful Dead)
11 What'll You Raise (Grateful Dead)
12 Ollin Arageed (Grateful Dead with Hamza El Din)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281159/TGratefulD_1974-1979_Equinx_atse.zip.html

Since I decided to name this album after the song "Equinox," I chose to do something different for the album cover. Instead of having a picture of the band members, I Googled the word "Equinox," and found this photo of the Milky Way visible at sunset at a science website. You also can see a shooting star underneath the "G" in "Grateful Dead."

Ike & Tina Turner - Hits a Go Go, Zurich, Switzerland, 12-14-1973

Tina Turner died four days ago as I write this in May 2023. She was 83 years old. I've been asked to post something in tribute. I'd already posted something from her solo career (a 1984 concert, check it out), so I went looking for something from her Ike and Tina Turner days. There isn't much in the way of rare or unreleased, but I did find a couple of things. I'm going to start with this one.

I found this concert on YouTube. The sound quality is excellent, and if you watch the video, the visual quality is excellent too. But it's frustrating in that I'm pretty sure the date is incorrect, and the location may be wrong too. What I do know is that this short performance was filmed for the TV show "Hits a Go Go." I can also tell from the set list that it's from 1973, since there are songs from that year but nothing from 1974 or since. But December 14, 1973 is the broadcast date. I don't know when it was actually filmed. And I found a pretty accurate concert list from a Tina Turner fan site, and it looks like she didn't play any concerts in Zurich, Switzerland, or anywhere else in Switzerland, in 1973. 

However, she did play some concerts in Germany in November 1973. So this could have been filmed there. This was broadcast on German TV, so it makes sense if it was filmed in Germany too. But the person who posted it claims it was filmed in Zurich, Switzerland. It's very possible the concert lists I've seen are incomplete, and that's true. Who knows. I watched the video, and there's nothing in it, like an emcee or credits, to give any clues. If anyone can pin this down any better, please let me know.

Anyway, given that this is a relatively short concert, it's frustrating that Tina Turner doesn't appear in the first five songs at all. The first and fifth songs are instrumentals. The second, third, and fourth songs are sung by the backing singers, the Ikettes. It was standard for them to sing some songs in Ike and Tina Turner concerts at the time, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. But once Tina Turner got on stage, she definitely shined.

There was only one problem. The last song, "I Want to Take You Higher," cut off as soon as the music came to an abrupt halt. So it was good no music was lost, but there was no audience response. So I patched in some cheering from some of the other songs.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 El Burrito [Instrumental] (Ike & Tina Turner)
02 Everyday People (Ike & Tina Turner)
03 Will It Go Round in Circles (Ike & Tina Turner)
04 Listen to the Music (Ike & Tina Turner)
05 Standing on the Verge of Getting It On - Gimme Some Lovin' [Instrumental] (Ike & Tina Turner)
06 Sweet Soul Music (Ike & Tina Turner)
07 talk (Ike & Tina Turner)
08 River Deep, Mountain High (Ike & Tina Turner)
09 With a Little Help from My Friends (Ike & Tina Turner)
10 Proud Mary (Ike & Tina Turner)
11 A Love like Yours [Don't Come Knocking Everyday] (Ike & Tina Turner)
12 I Want to Take You Higher (Ike & Tina Turner)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15278217/IkenTinT_1973_HtsaGoGoZrichSwitzerland__12-14-1973_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from the video of this concert. The "Hits a Go Go" text was also taken from a screenshot at the very start of the video. I added some more text with the same colors. For the band name at the top, I took that from an unrelated concert poster. 

Oh, and I purposefully didn't include Ike Turner in the picture, or say anything about him, because screw that wife-beating asshole. The less said about him, the better.

The Who - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 9-29-1969

Having posted a BBC concert by the Who recently made me realize I haven't posted that much live music by them. So I'm going to post some more. This bootleg is a must-have if you're a Who fan.

In posting more live Who music, I want to fill in important gaps. 1968 is well covered with the official album "Live at the Fillmore East 1968" (which is excellent, by the way), and 1970 is well covered with the classic "Live at Leeds," plus "Live at Hull" and "Live at the Isle of Wight Festival." But there really isn't a live album from 1969, the year they did their "Tommy" concert album. 

I think if you want one 1969 Who concert, it should be this one. It was the first time they played "Tommy" in concert all the way through, and it's the only compete recording from 1969 (at least that's publicly available). The sound quality is also very good, since this is a soundboard. There were some audio issues, but I'm using a version improved by Prof. Stoned.

I also made some minor improvements. As far as the music goes, the only significant thing I did was an edit to the song "Eyesight to the Blind." There were a couple of vocals lines that sounded strangely muffled and distorted. So I patched in bits from the Who's Woodstock performance a month earlier to fix those. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title.

But I made more changes with all the banter between songs. Unfortunately, there's a noticeable hum through the entire recording. You can't really hear it during the actual songs, unless there are very quiet parts, so I didn't mess with the songs at all. But the hum was very noticeable and annoying to me during the banter. Happily though, I split the talking tracks into individual instruments using the UVR5 audio editing program, and I found that nearly all of the hum was on the drum track. Since there's no drumming for those tracks, I was able to wipe out the hum almost entirely. I also cut off a little dead air here and there, like guitar tuning, and an intro by an emcee in Dutch.

I must say that I'm a little bit sick of "Tommy." I think the Who have played it way too many times. It's nice to have this version when it was fresh, before they played it a zillion times. But also, note that there's 40 minutes of music before "Tommy" begins, and another 30 minutes after it ends. So you get basically an entire concert worth of music - an hour and ten minutes - and then 50 minutes of "Tommy" on top of that. 

I thought it was a bit weird that there was no banter and no clapping through all of the "Tommy" section. Even after big songs like "Pinball Wizard," there's seemingly no audience reaction. But I checked with other 1969 recordings like the Woodstock one, and it was exactly the same: the band played "Tommy" all the way through, and the audience held their applause until the end.

This album is a two hours and one minute long.

01 talk (Who)
02 Heaven and Hell (Who)
03 I Can't Explain (Who)
04 talk (Who)
05 Fortune Teller (Who)
06 Tattoo (Who)
07 talk (Who)
08 Young Man Blues (Who)
09 talk (Who)
10 A Quick One, While He's Away (Who)
11 talk (Who)
12 Substitute (Who)
13 Happy Jack (Who)
14 I'm a Boy (Who)
15 talk (Who)
16 Overture [Instrumental] (Who)
17 It's a Boy (Who)
18 1921 (Who)
19 Amazing Journey (Who)
20 Sparks [Instrumental] (Who)
21 Eyesight to the Blind [The Hawker] [Edit] (Who)
22 Christmas (Who)
23 The Acid Queen (Who)
24 Pinball Wizard (Who)
25 Do You Think It's Alright (Who)
26 Fiddle About (Who)
27 Tommy Can You Hear Me (Who)
28 There's a Doctor (Who)
29 Go to the Mirror (Who)
30 Smash the Mirror (Who)
31 Miracle Cure (Who)
32 Sally Simpson (Who)
33 I'm Free (Who)
34 Tommy's Holiday Camp (Who)
35 We're Not Gonna Take It - See Me, Feel Me (Who)
36 Summertime Blues (Who)
37 Shakin' All Over (Who)
38 talk (Who)
39 My Generation (Who)
40 See Me, Feel Me - Naked Eye - Pinball Wizard - Overture - Sparks (Who)

https://www.imagenetz.de/iE9YP

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7WvJW8dt

I'm happy to say the cover photo comes from this exact concert. Or I should say "cover photos." I found two good photos from this concert, one of Roger Daltrey and the other of Pete Townshend. So I used Photoshop to combine them into one. But both are from this exact concert.

The Soft Boys - The Astoria, London, Britain, 1-13-1994

I recently commented here that I hadn't posted enough (a.k.a. any) live albums from the Soft Boys, so here's concert from them. The Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock's first band, broke in 1981. But they've reunited occasionally since then. This was part of a very brief reunion in 1994 to help promote the release of a best of compilation called "1976-81."

This was officially released, so the sound quality is great. But I'm posting it because it's long out of print. In fact, it was only ever released on cassette in a limited way. I don't even think anyone makes new cassettes anymore.

Although Hitchcock went on to have success with a solo career between 1981 and the year of this concert, 1994, this was strictly a reunion concert, with all the original members. Only Soft Boys songs were played. It's really nice to have this, because there are so few Soft Boys recordings from their main time together with this level of sound quality.

This album is 54 minutes long. I suspect this is edited down, especially since there's almost no banter between songs.

01 Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole (Soft Boys)
02 The Face of Death (Soft Boys)
03 Queen of Eyes (Soft Boys)
04 The Pigworker (Soft Boys)
05 Underwater Moonlight (Soft Boys)
06 Old Pervert (Soft Boys)
07 Hear My Brane (Soft Boys)
08 Where Are the Prawns (Soft Boys)
09 Insanely Jealous (Soft Boys)
10 Kingdom of Love (Soft Boys)
11 talk (Soft Boys)
12 Give It to the Soft Boys (Soft Boys)
13 Only the Stones Remain (Soft Boys)
14 Zipper in My Spine (Soft Boys)
15 talk (Soft Boys)
16 I Wanna Destroy You (Soft Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274766/TSoftBys_1994_AstriaLondnBritain__1-13-1994_atse.zip.html

The original cover was a weird doodle by Hitchcock. But I found this nice image of a ticket from the exact concert here, so I decided to use that instead.

Download Links Update: All Links Working!

Good news! It was a big pain in the rear, but after several days of uploading zip files nearly every waking hour, I have all the download links working again. As I mentioned previously, about 350 Imagenetz links died for no apparent reason, so I had to replace them with Upload.ee links.

Although it was a hassle for me, this was actually a good thing in the long run, I think. I had to go through all my download zip files to figure out which ones were missing. As part of that process, I was able to figure out some cases were I had pointed to the wrong link, and I made sure that every album had a valid link. So this is probably the first time ever when I can say that 99 plus percent of the links should be correct and working. Before, when I was using ZippyShare, it was a constant game of whack-a-mole, with links dying due to inactivity or for no apparent reason at all. And in the month of two since then, all those Imagenetz links died. But I've been keeping an eye on the total number of Imagenetz links for the last week, and that has stayed stable. So, knock on wood, if that continues, all these links should last. 

In case you're curious, I now have about 850 Upload.ee links, 1050 Imagenetz links, and about 250 Mega links, for a total of about 2100 links. Next, I plan to replace the remaining Mega links with Upload.ee ones, because I still don't trust Mega with their harsh copyright violation policies. But I don't have to rush to do that, now that all the links are working.

Thanks again for your patience through this long process. Let's hope it's all over, with no more unpleasant surprises. By the way, now is a great time to go digging back through all the past albums I've posted, since all the music should actually be available for download.

Larkin Poe - Tip O' the Hat, Volume 8 - Various Cover Versions (2021-2023)

It feels like it's been a long time since I've posted any music from Larkin Poe. They've been busy, but I haven't come across anything with really high sound quality. And their acoustic cover versions series "Tip O' the Hat" seemed to have slowly petered out. But I'm glad to say that's no longer the case, with a few new songs in recent weeks, allowing me to finish off this volume. Let's hope they stay inspired to do more.

There's not much else to say. If you've been following this blog for a while, I hope you know this sisterly duo and have listened to other volumes in this series. As usual, they do acoustic versions of famous songs, although they have a few relative obscurities this time, such as "Sally's Song" (from the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack) and "O I Long to Feel Your Arms Around Me" by Father John Misty.

Note that I had previously been giving increasingly long titles to the album in this series. The last one was "Yet Additional Even Still More Further Tip O' the Hat." But that grew increasingly unweildy. To be honest, I didn't expect there to be this many volumes, and I hope there will be more to come. So I've resorted to simply "Volume 8" this time. 

"Money" is a relatively simple version, with just Rebecca Lovell on guitar and no Megan Lovell slide guitar solos as usual. That's probably because it's a very rare instance of Megan singing lead vocals. It also probably is from some earlier time, but it only appeared on-line for the first time in 2023, so that's where I've put it chronologically with the others.

Here are the original artists for each song:

01 Hideaway [Instrumental] - Freddie King
02 Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel
03 Bring It on Home to Me - Sam Cooke
04 Peter Gunn Theme [Instrumental] - Henry Mancini
05 Rockin' in the Free World - Neil Young
06 Sally's Song [Instrumental] - Danny Elfman
07 Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
08 Rich Girl - Hall & Oates
09 Start Me Up - Rolling Stones
10 The Joker - Steve Miller Band
11 Wind of Change - Scorpions
12 Money - Pink Floyd
13 O I Long to Feel Your Arms Around Me - Father John Misty
14 Never Been to Spain - Hoyt Axton / Three Dog Night
15 Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House

And here's the usual song list:

01 Hideaway [Instrumental] (Larkin Poe)
02 Sledgehammer (Larkin Poe) (Larkin Poe)
03 Bring It on Home to Me (Larkin Poe)
04 Peter Gunn Theme [Instrumental] (Larkin Poe)
05 Rockin' in the Free World (Larkin Poe)
06 Sally's Song [Instrumental] (Larkin Poe)
07 Total Eclipse of the Heart (Larkin Poe)
08 Rich Girl (Larkin Poe)
09 Start Me Up (Larkin Poe)
10 The Joker (Larkin Poe)
11 Wind of Change (Larkin Poe)
12 Money (Larkin Poe)
13 O I Long to Feel Your Arms Around Me (Larkin Poe)
14 Never Been to Spain (Larkin Poe & Mark Agnesi)
15 Don't Dream It's Over (Larkin Poe)

This album is 46 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15267699/LarkinP_2021d-2023_TpOtheHatVolum8_atse.zip.html

The cover appears to be a promo photo from around 2022 or 2023.

Download Links Update

I mentioned a few days ago, that one of the file sharing services I've started using recently, Imagenetz, has been letting me down. I've used that in the last month or two for over a 1,000 albums, but about 300 of the links have mysteriously died recently. 

I'm happy to say that I'm about halfway done replacing those with Upload.ee links, which seem more stable. I've pretty much fixed the links for all the really famous musical artists that had dead links. I anticipate finishing off the rest in the next few days.

The Velvet Underground - Max's Kansas City, New York City, 8-23-1970

I recently posted a couple of Velvet Underground (VU) concerts here, both from the End of Cole Ave. club in Dallas, and those have gotten a lot of downloads. (Although, oddly, way more people have downloaded the one from October 19, 1969 than the one from October 18, 1969. Their sound quality is similar, so if you like one you should like the other.) Just as a reminder, here are the download links to both:

October 18, 1969:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-velvet-underground-end-of-cole-ave_11.html

October 19, 1969:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-velvet-underground-end-of-cole-ave.html

Anyway, putting those together has put me in a Velvet Underground mood lately, so I've decided to do my best to try to improve some of their other live recordings. The next one I tackled in this Max's Kansas City show, so here it is. In my opinion, this version sounds significantly better than other versions.

The official album "Live at Max's Kansas City" is based on this concert. It was the very first official live VU album, being released in 1972. That's a bit odd in my opinion, because the sound quality was not great. But perhaps it was all that was at hand at the time. The concert was recorded by Brigid Polk (a.k.a. Brigid Berlin) who was a well known New York City high society socialite and associate of Andy Warhol. She recorded it on a mono portable cassette player, but perhaps it was an unusually good and expensive one, because the sound quality is very good for an audience recording. 

However, there were problems, and I've tried to fix them here. I've based this off the 2004 version, which is the only complete one. But actually it wasn't entirely complete, because the first minute or so of the song "Who Loves the Sun" was missing. But I got a lucky break with that. There's a bootleg of some band rehearsals from a couple of months earlier. The sound quality sucks for nearly all of the songs on that boot, except for two songs which sound much better, and one of those is a version of "Who Loves the Sun." So I used that version to patch in the missing first verse. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title.

I also used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the lead vocals of all the songs. I think that helped a lot. And I used that program to do a lot of work on all the talking tracks. The concert was recorded in the middle of a crowd, so there was a lot of ambient noise, and especially talking nearby. I managed to cut out some, but not all, of that noise, and boost the voice of Reed doing the talking from stage. Now, you can pretty easily hear nearly all of his comments, which often had been buried in muck on all the official versions. 

I also edited out some comments by people next to the recorder that were unusually loud. I believe the microphone was being held by none other than Johnathan Richman, who would later have success as the leader of the band the Modern Lovers. For instance, on the official live album version, his voice could be heard ordering a glass of wine at one point. But I cut all that out, because my goal was to try to make this sound more like a soundboard quality recording.

A more difficult problem was that, occasionally, some loud talking by crowd members occurred during the songs. I cleaned that up whenever I could. But this was particularly bad for the song "Candy Says." In the middle of the song, some guy began talking to someone else, possibly his date, about the movie "Patton," which was in the movie theaters at the time. One could clearly hear the two of them discuss their opinions about the movie, which ruined much of the song. I was able to wipe out most of that discussion using UVR5, whenever it happened during instrumental sections. But there were some points when that talking overlapped with the singing. For that, I patched in bits from other parts of the song, or, failing that, from the version of "Candy Says" on the October 18, 1969 End of Cole Ave. concert I posted recently. I also wiped out some crowd noise on the song "Femme Fatale" using some patch work, though the problem wasn't nearly as bad. So that's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

This happens to be the very last VU concert with Lou Reed (not counting much later reunions). The band continued on the next night and beyond, with band member Doug Yule on lead vocals. The last album with Reed, "Loaded," would be released a couple of months after this concert. But the band slowly lost more key members and then fizzled out altogether in 1973. However, you'd never know this was Reed's last concert from listening to this recording, as there were no public good-byes or final dramatic gestures. But perhaps we missed those, because I have my doubts that the last song here was the actual last song of the night. "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" seems like an odd choice for the last song, especially since "Sister Ray" was the band's usual closer. It's very possible that the recorder's cassette tape ran out, which was a common problem for tapers in that era.

This also was a concert without drummer Moe Tucker. She'd temporarily left the band in early 1970 for the duration of her first pregnancy. She was replaced on drums by Billy Yule, the younger brother of Doug Yule. Some VU fans knock this recording because of the lack of Tucker's unique drumming style, while also claiming that Reed lost his enthusiasm and thus didn't sound as good. But I disagree. I think the band kicked ass right until Reed left, at which point it ceased being the VU in my opinion, since he wrote and sang nearly all of the songs. Decide for yourself by listening to this.

This concert consisted of an early show and a late show. You can hear the band announce they were taking a break at the end of the song "Beginning to See the Light." There are two songs in the late show that were also played in the early show: "Sweet Jane" and "Lonesome Cowboy Bill."

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 talk (Velvet Underground)
02 I'm Waiting for the Man (Velvet Underground)
03 talk (Velvet Underground)
04 White Light-White Heat (Velvet Underground)
05 talk (Velvet Underground)
06 I'm Set Free (Velvet Underground)
07 talk (Velvet Underground)
08 Sweet Jane (Velvet Underground)
09 talk (Velvet Underground)
10 Lonesome Cowboy Bill (Velvet Underground)
11 talk (Velvet Underground)
12 New Age (Velvet Underground)
13 talk (Velvet Underground)
14 Beginning to See the Light (Velvet Underground)
15 Who Loves the Sun [Edit] (Velvet Underground)
16 Sweet Jane [Version 2] (Velvet Underground)
17 talk (Velvet Underground)
18 I'll Be Your Mirror (Velvet Underground)
19 talk (Velvet Underground)
20 Pale Blue Eyes (Velvet Underground)
21 talk (Velvet Underground)
22 Candy Says [Edit] (Velvet Underground)
23 talk (Velvet Underground)
24 Sunday Morning (Velvet Underground)
25 talk (Velvet Underground)
26 After Hours (Velvet Underground)
27 talk (Velvet Underground)
28 Femme Fatale [Edit] (Velvet Underground)
29 talk (Velvet Underground)
30 Some Kinda Love (Velvet Underground)
31 Lonesome Cowboy Bill [Version 2] (Velvet Underground)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264157/TVelvtUnd_1970a_MaxsKnsasCityNYC__8-23-1970_atse.zip.html

It's very hard to find any good photos of the band in concert, especially color ones. However, there was an ad for this series of shows, so I used that, cropped but otherwise unchanged. I cleaned it up some, and added the yellow background.