Opal - Early Recordings Vol. 2 - (1991)

I'm a big fan of the Paisley Underground genre of the early 80's, as you might have gathered by my posts from The Dream Syndicate, but there were others bands that were just as good, most notably The Rain Parade, Green On Red, The Three O'Clock, and even The Bangles, and in this case Clay Allison. Clay Allison was an offshoot band composed of David Roback and Will Glenn of The Rain Parade, Kendra Smith of The Dream Syndicate, Sylvia Juncosa of The Leaving Trains, and Keith Mitchell of Monitor, and they released one single before changing their name to Opal and releasing some of their old recordings on the 1984 'Fell From The Sun' and 1985 'Northern Line' EPs. In 1987 they issued their only album 'Happy Nightmare Baby', but Smith left the group during the Happy Nightmare tour after a show in Providence, Rhode Island, and so Roback continued with vocalist Hope Sandoval, playing shows as Opal and planning an album to be titled 'Ghost Highway'. In 1989 they decided on a name change and became Mazzy Star, and 'Ghost Highway' was presumably released as their debut album 'She Hangs Brightly' in 1990. In 1989 the 'Early Recordings' album was released, collecting some songs from their EPs, a couple of Clay Allison tracks and some previously unreleased recordings. It showed what a great band they were, and what a shame it was that they didn't stay together longer. As further proof of this, here's a second volume of early recordings, mixing some songs from a 1984 promo sampler by Clay Allison with some great unheard tracks by an early Opal. Kendra Smith released a number of solo singles, EPs, and one album before retiring to the woods of northern California, and David Roback died in Los Angeles on February 24 2020 from metastatic cancer, at the age of just 61. 

Track listing

01 My Canyon Memory
02 Sisters Of Mercy
03 Sailing Boats
04 Vespers
05 Lisa's Funeral
06 This Town
07 Freight Train
08 Wintertime
09 Little Bit Of Rain
10 What You've Done
11 Cherry Jam
12 Indian Summer