Kate Bush - Something Like A Song (1973)

Paul at Albums That Should Exist has now got his new PC up and running, and has used his Photoshop to touch up the Kate Bush cover that I coloured, giving her hat a bit more punch, so if you prefer this one then grab it now.

Steven Wilson - Eyewitness (2020)

As you may have noticed from the Porcupine Tree albums that I've posted, I'm a huge fan of Steven Wilson, and we must be thankful to him for bringing progressive rock back into the mainstream in the 21st Century. As well as being the go-to engineer for remixing classic albums into 5.1, he's also had a successful solo career for over a decade, with five studio albums and a sixth on the way, as well as many remix albums, compilations and experimental outings. There have also been a number of EPs and singles released throughout this period, with some of them including exclusive b-sides, and the deluxe editions of the albums often have out-takes, demos and early renditions of the songs as bonus tracks. In fact, Wilson is so prolific that in his ten years of solo recordings there are over one and a half hours of non-album tracks that can be collected together for a superb progressive rock album in its own right. I've only omitted one track, which was a live cover of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' on the flip of 'Happiness III', but while it was a perfectly acceptable version, it wasn't progressive rock so I decided to leave it off. During 2003–2010 Wilson released a series of six two-track CD singles, each one featuring a cover version and a Wilson original, and they featured songs by Alanis Morissette, ABBA, The Cure, Momus, Prince, and Donovan. The complete collection was released as an album in 2014, and that would be the perfect place for his version of 'Space Oddity' to reside. If you're a fan of Porcupine Tree but are yet to sample Wilson's solo work, then this album will introduce you to the wealth of superlative progressive rock that he's produced in the last decade under his own name.   

Track listing

01 The 78 (b-side of 'Harmony Korine' 2009)
02 Vapour Trail Lullaby (given away with pre-orders of the 'Insurgentes' music DVD 2010)
03 Desperation ('Insurgentes' 2008 out-take completed 2010)
04 Stoneage Dinosaur (cover of a Cardiacs song, released as a single 2011)
05 Fluid Tap (bonus on 'Grace For Drowning' Blu-Ray edition 2011)
06 Home In Negative (bonus on 'Grace For Drowning' Blu-Ray edition 2011)
07 Map (from the 'Grace For Drowning' bonus disc 2011)
08 Raider Acceleration (from the 'Grace For Drowning' bonus disc 2011)
09 Black Dog Throwbacks (from the 'Grace For Drowning' bonus disc 2011)
10 The Old Peace (single with Mariurz Duda 2014)
11 Happiness III (single 2016)
12 Northern Cyclonic ('To The Bone' out-take 2017)
13 A Door Marked Summer ('To The Bone' out-take 2017)
14 Ask Me Nicely ('To The Bone' out-take 2017)
15 How Big The Space (single 2018)
16 Eyewitness (b-side of 'Eminent Sleaze' 12" single 2020)
17 In Floral Green (b-side of 'Eminent Sleaze' 12" single 2020)
18 Move Like A Fever (b-side of '12 Things I Forgot' 12" single 2020)
19 King Ghost (single 2020)

Peter Gabriel - And.... (1995)

I wasn't going to bother colourising this cover as I thought the black and white was quite stylish, but it came out much better than I thought it would so here's the upgrade for it.

Kate Bush - Something Like A Song (1973)

While uploading the albums to Soulseek I found another black & white photo that I'd used which would be nice to colourise, and although the original one didn't come out that great, this one from the same photo-shoot was even better, so as before, here's an upgrade to the cover, with more to follow.

The Beatles - Everyday Chemistry (2009)

Updated cover to replace the old one in your folder.I didn't think this one would work as it wasn't black and white to start with, but I'm amazed at just how good this now looks.

Come In Tokio - Nature Call (1983)

  Updated cover to replace the old one in your folder.

Band Of Gypsys - Stepping Stone (1969)

 Updated cover to replace the old one in your folder.

John Mayall - Double Trouble (1968)

 While I was helping Paul over at Albums That Should Exist with some of his album covers I found a great little programme that can colourise old black and white photos, and you'll see an astounding result in one of his future posts. The only B&W photo that I can remember having to use was for this album, so here is a revamped version of it if you want to replace the old one in your download. 

Leslie West - ...and on guitar (1993) R.I.P.

Leslie Weinstein was born on 22 October 1945 in New York City to Jewish parents, and after his parents divorced, he changed his surname to West. His musical career began in 1966 with The Vagrants, an R&B/blue-eyed soul-rock band influenced by the likes of the Rascals, who had two minor hits in the Eastern United States with 'I Can't Make A Friend' in 1966 and a cover of Otis Redding's 'Respect' the following year. Some of The Vagrants' recordings were co-written and produced by Felix Pappalardi, who was also working with Cream on their album 'Disraeli Gears'. In 1969, West and Pappalardi formed the pioneering hard rock act Mountain, which was also the title of West's debut solo album of that year, and which Rolling Stone described as a band who were a "louder version of Cream". With Steve Knight on keyboards and original drummer N. D. Smart, the band's original incarnation saw West and Pappalardi sharing vocal duties and playing guitar and bass, respectively. New drummer Corky Laing joined the band shortly after their appearance on the second day of the Woodstock festival, and they had success with their single 'Mississippi Queen' in 1970, which reached No. 21 on the Billboard charts and No. 4 in Canada, and later with 'Theme For An Imaginary Western' in 1973, which was written by Cream bassist Jack Bruce. After Pappalardi left Mountain to concentrate on various production projects, West and Laing produced two studio albums and a live release with Jack Bruce under the name West, Bruce and Laing. West and keyboard player Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat & Tears recorded with The Who during the March 1971 'Who's Next' sessions laying down a cover of Marvin Gaye's 'Baby Don't You Do It', as well as early versions of 'Love Ain't For Keepin'' and 'Won't Get Fooled Again', as well as adding guitar to albums by Mylon, Bobby Keys and Felix Cavaliere during the early 70's. Mountain reformed in 1973 only to break up again in late 1974, after which West played guitar on 'Bo Diddley Jam' on Bo Diddley's 1976 '20th Anniversary Of Rock 'n' Roll' all-star album. Since 1981, Mountain has continued to reform, tour and record on a regular basis, while in 1991 West teamed up with Deep Purple's Ian Gillan to co-write and play guitar on 'Hang Me Out To Dry' on Gillan's 'ToolBox' album, and in 1993 he played guitar on three tracks from Billy Joel's last studio album 'River Of Dreams'. West suffered a heart attack in his home near Daytona, Florida, on December 20, 2020 and was rushed to hospital in nearby Palm Coast where he never regained consciousness, and died shortly afterwards. He was 75. 

Track listing

01 A Sunny Summer Rain (single by The Vagrants 1967)
02 Hellhound On My Trail (from 'Maverick Child' by David Rea 1969)
03 Gray Afternoon (from 'Home' by Jolliver Arkansaw 1969)
04 Blue Suede Shoes (from 'Over The Influence' by Mylon 1972)
05 Key West (from 'Bobby Keys' by Bobby Keys 1972)
06 Love Ain't For Keeping (recorded 1971, from 'Odds And Sods' reissue by The Who 1999)
07 Hit And Run (from 'Destiny' by Felix Cavaliere 1975)
08 Masquerade (from 'Our Pleasure To Serve You' by Stanky Brown Group 1976)
09 Hey Bo Diddley (from 'The 20th Anniversary Of Rock & Roll' by Bo Diddley 1976)
10 Let Me Out'a Here (from 'Guitar Speak' 1988)
11 Hang Me Out To Dry (from 'ToolBox' by Ian Gillan 1991)
12 No Man's Land (from 'River Of Dreams' by Billy Joel 1993)

Thanks to Fredrick for the suggestion.

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Suzi Quatro - Daytona Demon (1978)

Susan Kay Quatro was born on 3rd June 1950 in Detroit, and being the descendant of an Italian immigrant to the US, her family name of 'Quattrocchi' was shortened to Quatro. She has three sisters, a brother, and one older half sister, and her parents also fostered several other children while she was growing up. She was influenced at the age of six by seeing Elvis Presley perform on television, and received formal training in playing classical piano and percussion, but she taught herself how to play the bass and guitar. She played drums or percussion from an early age as part of her father's jazz band, the Art Quatro Trio, but in 1964, after seeing a television performance by the Beatles, Quatro's older sister Patti formed an all-female garage rock band called the Pleasure Seekers with two friends, and she invited her sister to join, singing and playing bass under the name of Suzi Soul. Later on another sister Arlene joined the band, and their performances were mainly in cabaret, where attention was initially focused more on their physical looks than their actual music, but eventually they became well-known fixtures in the burgeoning Detroit music community. The band recorded three singles and released two of them, 'Never Thought You'd Leave Me'/'What A Way To Die' in 1966 and 'Light Of Love'/'Good Kind Of Hurt' in 1968, although other recordings later turned up and were compiled on the 'What A Way To Die' album. Towards the end of their career their songs took on a more progressive element, of which 'Mr Power' is a good example, and in 1969 the band changed their name to Cradle and pursued a heavier style of music. Quatro moved to England in 1971, after being spotted by the record producer Mickie Most, who was at the time running his Rak Records label and was looking for new talent. Most had been persuaded to see Cradle by Suzi's bother Michael, as he was seeking a female rock singer who could fill the void that the death of Janis Joplin had created. Most had no interest in the other members of the band, and he also had no idea at that time of how he might market Quatro, so her first year in the UK was spent in a hotel, with Most nurturing her while she developed her skills. 
Her first single was released in 1972, with 'Rolling Stone' reaching number 1 in the Portuguese charts, but failing everywhere else. This was actually a solo single, with the backing coming from Duncan Browne, Peter Frampton and Alan White among others, but after the failure of the single Most allowed her to audition for a band to accompany her. At the same time he introduced her to the songwriting and production team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who could write songs specifically to align with her image, which at the height of the glam rock period of the 1970's was leather clothes, a wild androgynous persona, and chugging hard rock music. In May 1973, her second single (and first Chinnichap composition) 'Can The Can' was a No. 1 hit in parts of Europe and Australia, and this was followed in quick succession by three further hits in '48 Crash', 'Daytona Demon' and 'Devil Gate Drive', all charting within an eight month period. By 1975 her chart success had started to falter, with 'Your Mamma Won't Like Me' only being a moderate success in the UK, while both 'I Bit Off More Than I Could Chew' and 'I May Be Too Young' failed to reach the UK Top 50. It would be 1978 before the more mellow 'If You Can't Give Me Love' returned her to the charts, and later that year a duet with Smokie's Chris Norman on 'Stumblin' In' gave her a No. 4 hit in the US. She has continued to record and release albums, right up to 'No Control' in 2019, but she also has parallel careers as a stage actress in shows like 'Annie Get Your Gun' and 'Tallulah Who?', and as a radio DJ with her own rock and roll radio show on BBC Radio 2. Like many artists for whom Chinnichap wrote hit singles, Quatro was allowed to write the songs for the b-sides of her singles (so as not to waste another potential Chinnichap hit), and these tended to be very different from the glam-rock A-sides, showing her own songwriting skills, either on her own or with her band. This overview of her career takes in tracks from The Pleasure Seekers and Cradle, a 1971 demo that she recorded for Mickie Most, both sides of that Portuguese Number 1, three big UK hits that never appeared on her albums, and numerous self-penned b-sides.   

Track listing

01 Mr Power (by The Pleasure Seekers 1968)
02 Living Machine (by The Cradle 1969)
03 Curly Hair For Sale (demo 1971)
04 Rolling Stone (single 1972)
05 Brain Confusion (For All The Lonely People) (b-side of 'Rolling Stone')
06 Ain't Got No Home (previously unreleased)
07 Can The Can (single 1973)
08 Ain't Ya Somethin' Honey (b-side of 'Can The Can')
09 Little Bitch Blue (b-side of '48 Crash' 1973)
10 Daytona Demon (single 1973)
11 Roman Fingers (b-side of 'Daytona Demon')
12 Devil Gate Drive (single 1974)
13 I Wanna Be Free (b-side of 'Too Big' 1974)
14 In The Morning (b-side of 'Devil Gate Drive')  

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Yello - Blue Nabou (1988)

Swiss electronic band Yello is led by Dieter Meier (born 4 March 1945 in Zurich, Switzerland), the son of a millionaire banker, sometime professional gambler, performance artist, and member of the Switzerland national golf team, and Boris Blank (born 15 January 1952, Switzerland) who writes the music to Meier's concepts. Previously Meier had been a member of the band Fresh Color and had released two solo singles, but teamed up with Blank and tape manipulator Carlos Peron to form Yello, and in 1979 they released the 'I.T. Splash' single on the Periphery Perfume label, before signing a recording contract with Ralph Records, home of The Residents. The following year they released their debut album 'Solid Pleasure', and in the UK they signed to the Do It label, releasing a couple of singles before moving to Stiff Records and having their first success with 'Bostich', a track which had already become an underground club classic in America. The trio proved popular with the Futurist and New Romantic crowds, but their most lasting influence would be on the nascent dance music scene. In 1983 they released their third album 'You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess', which was to be their last album to feature Peron, and after a brief spell with Elektra Records they moved to Mercury Records in the mid-80's, where they released their most popular albums 'Stella' and 'One Second', the latter featuring collaborations with Shirley Bassey and Billy MacKenzie of The Associates. 'Oh Yeah' provided the duo with their sole US chart entry, thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack of the movies 'Ferris Bueller’s Day Off' and 'The Secret Of My Success', while in the UK their biggest hit was 'The Race', hitting the UK Top 10. Next came a move into film, and their soundtrack work includes 'Nuns On The Run', 'The Adventures Of Ford Fairlaine', 'Senseless', and the Polish-filmed 'Snowball', a fairytale whose creative impetus is entirely down to Yello. Although their releases became less frequent in the new century, the duo became even more successful in their homeland, and in 2016 they gave their first live show in front of an audience. The re-issues of their records have featured many bonus tracks, including club mixes of album tracks, but there were also some unique b-sides and some previously unreleased songs, which are all collected here, together with that debut single and a rare limited edition b-side from 1983.  

Track listing

01 I. T. Splash (12" single 1979)
02 Glue Head (b-side of 'I. T. Splash')
03 Thrill Wave (previously unreleased 1980)
04 Smirak's Train (previously unreleased 1980)
05 There Is No Reason (b-side of 'She's Got A Gun' 1981)
06 Tub Dub (previously unreleased 1981)
07 Desire For Desire (b-side of 'You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess' 1982)
08 Base For Alec (b-side of 'Lost Again' 1983)
09 Haunted House (b-side of 'Let Me Cry' limited edition single 1983)
10 Rubber West (b-side of 'I Love You' 1983)
11 Blue Nabou (b-side of 'Vicious Games' 1985)
12 L'Hotel (b-side of 'Call It Love' 1987)
13 Life Is A Snowball (from a Swiss promo CD 1987)
14 Tool In Rose (b-side of 'The Rhythm Divine' 1987)
15 Wall Street Bongo (b-side of 'Tied Up' 1988)

The 101ers - A Bit A Rockin' (1976)

A recent comment on a Clash post prompted me to investigate Joe Strummer's first band The 101ers, as even thought I'm a massive fan of The Clash, I'd never gone further back to see how Strummer started out, as I'm not really that keen on pub-rock, which I always thought was the 101ers forte. The group was named after the squat where they lived together at 101 Walterton Road, Maida Vale, and consisted of John 'Woody' Mellor (aka Joe Strummer) on guitar/vocals, Clive Timperley on guitar/vocals, Dan Kelleher on bass, guitar, and lead vocal on 'Surf City', and Richard Dudanski on drums. Their early gigs included several at the Windsor Castle pub, and a residency at the Elgin, which is why they were bundled together with other pub-rock bands of the period, but by the time their debut single 'Keys To Your Heart' was released in 1976, Strummer had joined The Clash and the 101ers were no more. During their short career they'd recorded a number of demos in 1975 and 1976, all of which were original songs, and these were collected together on the 'Elgin Avenue Breakdown' compilation in 1981, along with a number of live recordings of rock 'n' roll covers. By extracting just the demos and adding in a couple of live originals which didn't make the first issue of the compilation, plus an alternate, rawer take of 'Keys To Your Heart', we can approximate what an album could have sounded like had one been issued in 1976.   

 

Track listing

01 Letsagetabitarockin'  
02 Silent Telephone  
03 Steamgauge 99  
04 Rabies (From The Dogs Of Love)  
05 Keys To Your Heart   
06 Lonely Mother's Son  
07 Sweet Revenge  
08 Motor Boys Motor  
09 5 Star R 'n' R Petrol  
10 Keep Taking The Tablets  
11 Surf City 
12 Hideaway  
13 Sweety Of The St. Moritz  

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A1 and D:REAM sum up 2020

Happy New Year