George Michael - Trojan Souls (1993)

George Michael's second studio album 'Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1' was released in September 1990, with its title being an indication of his desire to be taken more seriously as a songwriter. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart, and peaked at No. 2 on the US Billboard 200, and spent a total of 88 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, being certified four-times Platinum by the BPI. The album produced five UK singles, and despite Michael refusing to do any promotion for the record, it won Best British Album at the 1991 Brit Awards. Later in 1991 he embarked on the 'Cover To Cover' tour in Japan, England, the US, and Brazil, where he performed at Rock in Rio, but this was not a proper promotion for 'Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1', but rather it featured Michael singing his favourite cover songs, one of which was released as a single that year, with his duet with Elton John on his 'Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me' reaching No. 1 in both the UK and US. An expected follow-up album, 'Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 2', was scrapped due to his lawsuit with Sony, with Michael donating three of the songs to the charity project 'Red Hot + Dance', for the Red Hot Organization which raised money for AIDS awareness. A fourth track 'Crazyman Dance' was released as the b-side of 1992's 'Too Funky', with Michael donating the royalties from 'Too Funky' to the same cause. Following the scrapping of 'Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 2', Michael started a new musical project with childhood friend Andros Georgiou, with 'Trojan Souls' being due to be released on their joint record label Hardback in 1993. Michael reportedly pitched 'Trojan Souls' to Sony and recorded the album between 1991 and 1993, during his legal fight with the label, but he stopped working on music after the death of Anselmo Feleppa, who he called the first love of his life, and who he met at the Rock in Rio concert in 1991. 'Trojan Souls' was to feature songs he would perform himself, as well as songs he wrote and planned to get Elton John, Sade, Seal, Stevie Wonder and Anita Baker to sing, although it is unknown if those artists ever recorded their vocals, apart from Elton John, whose track has leaked online. Fans have long circulated bootlegs of 'Trojan Souls' tracks, most of which are only in instrumental form, as the project was never finished, but there are enough tracks with vocals to gain some idea of what it might have sounded like, and by adding a couple of instrumentals it can be fleshed out to full album length. Prince's guitarist Wendy Melvoin was involved in the project, and 'Sketch For Wendy' was to be her showcase, while 'Pieces' is a mood piece which sits nicely on the album. After 'Trojan Souls' was scrapped, Michael spent the next three years working on new music, which eventually surfaced as the 'Older' album in 1996, but here is the chance to hear what he was working on directly after the massive success of 'Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1', and what, with a bit more work, could have been its follow-up record. 

Track listing

01 This Kind Of Love
02 One Day I'll Know
03 Lonely Nights
04 Sketch For Wendy
05 You Slipped Away From Me
06 Day And Night
07 Waiting For A Heart
08 Pieces
09 So Damn Hard

Bonnie McKee - Love Spell (2008)

Bonnie Leigh McKee was born in Vacaville, California, and raised in Seattle, Washington, studying classical piano and becoming a member of the Seattle Girls Choir Prime Voci at age 12. She recorded two albums with the choir, titled 'Jackson Berkey Meets The Seattle Girls' Choir' and 'Cantate', and with that as a background, McKee's mother gave a demo CD featuring her singing her songs, plus covers of Bette Midler and Fiona Apple, to a friend of hers Jonathan Poneman, who was the co-founder of the Sub Pop label. He was intrigued by her songwriting talents, and according to McKee, this was the moment when she realized she had to be "more than just a singer," but a songwriter, as well. By the age of 15, McKee was writing songs and performing in the Seattle area, and one of her demos reached Colin Filkow, an ex-Priority Records label executive, who recognized that she was a rare talent and signed her to his management company, Platinum Partners Artist Management. Although she was only 17 at the time, he flew her to Los Angeles and welcomed her into his family, inspiring her to sing and write songs and to trust her instincts. Filkow took her demos to dozens of labels, publishers, agents, and entertainment lawyers, and after more than a year, he managed to get her signed to Warner Bros. Records in one of the most lucrative signings ever for a new artist. Her debut album 'Trouble' was recorded across a period of two years by producers Bob Power and Rob Cavallo, and was commercially released in September 2004, but Reprise was unsure on how to sell her, so the label settled on a partnership with internet radio website LAUNCHcast, which would promote the lead single 'Somebody'. This soon became one of the most played tracks on the website, and its popularity with young females led to a strategy where McKee would be a subversive alternative to the teen pop demographic. 

The album received positive reviews in Blender, Nylon, The Los Angeles Times, and Teen People, but was commercially unsuccessful, and she was devastated when the album didn't happen, saying later "I realized there are so many steps from getting a deal to having a hit...and I didn't get there. It was a huge let-down." Despite this she started work on a second studio album, but her life started on a downward-spiral, and she began to abuse crystal meth, an addiction with which she struggled for several years. She was dropped from the label after defacing the CEO's car with lipstick during the middle of the night, and her cancelled second album became the stuff of legend. Following her release from Reprise Records, McKee managed to get a job at Pulse Recordings' publishing arm, Check Your Pulse, through her boyfriend and longtime collaborator, Oliver "Oligee" Goldstein, and while living in poverty, without hot water, a cell phone, or a car, she spent many hours in the recording studio, learning how to use Pro Tools and crafting new songs alongside Elliott Yamin and Leighton Meester. In 2009, she was introduced to music producer Dr. Luke by her manager Josh Abraham, and as Dr. Luke had collaborated with McKee's longtime friend Katy Perry on her second album 'One Of The Boys', he was able to put her name forward when Perry expressed interest in having a co-writer. Together, along with Max Martin and Benny Blanco, they began writing songs, ultimately producing the hits that would appear on Perry's third album 'Teenage Dream', including the three singles from the album, 'California Gurls', 'Teenage Dream', and 'Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)', the last of which was inspired by McKee and Perry's misadventures in their teenaged years. 

Each of the singles topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and they earned McKee several BMI Pop Awards in 2011 and 2012 for her role as a songwriter. She also co-wrote two more chart-toppers for Perry, 'Part Of Me' and 'Roar', and four other songs that hit number one on either the Hot 100 or the UK Singles Chart, being Britney Spears' 'Hold It Against Me', Taio Cruz's 'Dynamite', Rita Ora's 'How We Do (Party)' and Cheryl's 'I Don't Care'. On June 22, 2017, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that 'Roar' had received an RIAA Diamond certification award for 10 million copies sold. With her new career as a songwriter now firmly established, she didn't feel the need to release her own music, but her fans felt differently, and the forums have been filled with chat for years about the albums that they would love to hear from her. A possible 2014 album for Epic Records is top of the list, but her abandoned second album is often mentioned, and with her backlog of hundreds of unreleased songs she could easily release half a dozen albums full of the sort of songs that were hits for other artists. I've managed to get hold of a huge number of these unreleased recordings, and so am able to piece together some of these sought-after records, and I'm starting with that shelved second album from 2008, now titled 'Love Spell'. 

Track listing

01 Love Spell
02 Thunder Of My Heartbeat
03 Deja Vu
04 Make It Through Another Day
05 Head On
06 Friends
07 Mine
08 Worst In Me
09 Stars In Your Heart
10 To Find You
11 Infatuation
12 Teenage Heart

Swing Out Sister - Filth And Dreams (1999)

Swing Out Sister started as a trio of Andy Connell (keyboards), Martin Jackson (drums) and later Corinne Drewery (vocals). Connell and Jackson, outside of their usual roles as Manchester musicians in A Certain Ratio and Magazine, were producing electro tracks for Morgan Khan's Streetwise label with a degree of underground success, and this activity triggered interest from a few major labels, including Phonogram/Mercury Records. Vocalised songs were asked for, so Connell, who knew Diane Charlemagne through Factory Records, approached her to sing on the Phonogram demos. These demos helped secure Connell and Jackson's major label contract, but Charlemange's band 52nd Street moved from Factory Records to Virgin, and as a result her involvement with Swing Out Sister ended, and Drewery was recruited as a replacement.  Together with their producer, Paul Staveley O'Duffy, they signed with Mercury Records, and released the 'Blue Moon' single, but it failed to chart. In late 1986 they released their second single 'Breakout', and this time it reached number four on the UK Singles Chart. When they released their debut album 'It's Better To Travel' in May 1987, it reached number one on the UK Albums Chart, with the record blending real horns, synths (arranged subtly, to sound like strings), drums, and xylophones, all scored by producer/ arranger Richard Niles. The follow-up single 'Surrender' rose to number seven on the UK charts, while the more serious and jazzy 'Twilight World' was subject to many remixes and was a dance club favourite worldwide. Building on this early success the band released four further albums over the next 10 years, all to critical acclaim and commercial success, and by the time that 'Shapes And Patterns' came out in 1997 the band had become extremely popular in Japan, with the album being released in that country a full year before anywhere else in the world. Their song 'Now You're Not Here' was used as the theme to the Japanese TV programme 'Mahiru No Tsuki', and was ranked at No.1 in the Japanese chart, receiving a Japanese 'Grand Prix' (the equivalent of a Grammy Award) for best international single in 1997. It also marked the beginning of the band's use of Japanese musicians in their studio sessions. 'Filth And Dreams', their sixth album, proved yet again that Swing Out Sister were eager to reinvent themselves, and it was released in Japan in March 1999, and it remains the only album not released in any other country. This album featured stronger jazz leanings than some of their early pop-oriented albums, and is restrained in mood. The track 'Who's Been Sleeping' was promoted as a single and released with several remixes, and some of the songs adapted to the growing popularity of hip-hop in the late 90's, while other used background noises, from telephone conversations to child's play, to enrich the record. As the album could only be obtained from Japan, there could be fans out there who didn't even know it existed, or have been unable to get their hands on a copy, and so for all fans here it is for you to enjoy. 

Track listing

01 Who's Been Sleeping
02 Closer Than The Sun
03 Sugar Free
04 Filth And Dreams
05 Happy When You're High
06 If I Had The Heart
07 When Morning Comes
08 Invisible
09 World Out Of Control
10 Make You Stay

Foeniks - Sentimental Journey (2019)

Foeniks, also known as ELectroBin, is a French electronic music producer who has released a couple of albums on Bandcamp over the last few years. He's been described as not being defined by a genre but by his creativity. His affinity with music began when learning how to play guitar that he patiently taught himself via an insatiable amount of practice and dedication. Blending different styles of music ranging from classical, soul, funk, jazz, trip-hop, metal and others, Foeniks first discovered music production way back in 2001. Throughout the intervening years, fellow producers, sound engineers, and DJs, have accompanied him and helped tremendously in nurturing his sound and making him grow as an artist. Despite the fact that he has never pursued a specific genre of music, he dabbles in trance, techno, electro-rock, drum 'n' bass, breakcore, and cinematic music. He recently posted an album's worth of unreleased music, and it's a fascinating mixture of all the above-mentioned genres, from the idiosyncratic opening cover of 'Sentimental Journey' to the cinematic soundscape of 'Troubles And Melodies' . I'd never heard of him before discovering this album, but I really like it, in particular his inventive use of samples, film dialogue and old jazz records of the 40's, and it's returned to the playlist more than a few times since I found it. 

Track listing

01 Sentimental Journey
02 No Sympathy
03 Deleste (feat. Favo)
04 From Me To You
05 Holiday's Interlude
06 Ils S'en Vont
07 Dark Days
08 Honey
09 We Think Too Much
10 Childish Interlude
11 I Can Dream
12 Troubles And Melodies

The Rolling Stones - Gathered Up Moss Vol. II (2020)

The second volume of Auran's comprehensive collection of The Rolling Stones' non-album singles and b-sides picks with a legendary out-take from 1970 and goes right through to a non-album single from 2020. Mixed in are a number of previously unreleased songs which were added to various compilation albums in 1981, 2002 and 2012, plus a couple of tracks from their 1991 live album which never made it into the studio. As mentioned in the first post, she's omitted tracks from super deluxe editions of albums that have been coming out lately, but that's mostly due to personal preferences, and the fact that this was meant to be a collection of songs which were released at the time, but just not on a studio album. So we now have every non-album song from the band's whole career to enjoy, and once again many thanks to Auran for putting it together.   

Track listing

Gathered Up Moss Vol. II: Disc I 1970-1991
01 Cocksucker Blues (unreleased, from the 1984 German boxset 'The Rest Of The Best')
02 Through the Lonely Nights (b-side of 'It's Only Rock 'n' Roll' 1974)
03 Everything Is Turning To Gold (b-side of 'Shattered' 1978)
04 If I Was A Dancer (Dance Pt. 2) (from 'Sucking In The Seventies' compilation 1981)
05 I Think I'm Going Mad (b-side of 'She Was Hot' 1984)
06 Fancyman Blues (b-side of 'Mixed Emotions' 1989)
07 Cook Cook Blues (b-side of 'Rock And A Hard Place' 1989)
08 Wish I'd Never Met You (b-side of 'Terrifying' 1990)
09 Highwire (from 'Flashpoint' live album 1991)
10 Sex Drive (from 'Flashpoint' live album 1991)

Gathered Up Moss Vol. II: Disc II 1994-2020
01 The Storm (b-side of 'Love Is Strong' 1994)
02 So Young (b-side of 'Love Is Strong' 1994)
03 Jump On Top Of Me (b-side of 'You Got Me Rocking' 1994)
04 I'm Gonna Drive (b-side of 'Out Of Tears' 1994)
05 Anyway You Look At It (b-side of 'Saint Of Me' 1998)
06 Don't Stop (from 'Forty Licks' compilation 2002)
07 Keys To Your Love (from 'Forty Licks' compilation 2002)
08 Stealing My Heart (from 'Forty Licks' compilation 2002)
09 Losing My Touch (from 'Forty Licks' compilation 2002)
10 Hurricane (single 2002)
11 Watching The River Flow (with Ben Waters, from 'Boogie 4 Stu: A Tribute To Ian Stewart' 2011)

12 Doom And Gloom (from 'GRRR!' compilation 2012)
13 One More Shot (from 'GRRR!' compilation 2012)
14 Living In A Ghost Town (single 2020)

And as a bonus for those who want it, 'Vol. 1: Disc III' in now on Soulseek, and has been added to the first post on Mega. 

Mega update

It didn't take me as long as I thought it would to move all the files to Mega, so everything from June 2021 is now on Mega, and the Archive is on Yandex, although I've a horrible feeling that my subscription runs out tomorrow, so if it does then I'll start moving the Archive to Mega after Christmas.

 
pj

Ke$ha - Lost Weekend (2010)

Kesha Rose Sebert was born in Los Angeles, California on 01 March 1987 to Rosemary Patricia "Pebe" Sebert, who is a singer-songwriter who co-wrote the 1978 single 'Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You', as featured on Dolly Parton's 1980 album 'Dolly, Dolly, Dolly'. Pebe, a single mother, struggled financially while supporting herself and her two children, sometimes having to look after them onstage while performing. In 1991 Pebe moved the family to Nashville, Tennessee after securing a new publishing deal for her songwriting, and she frequently brought her children along to recording studios and encouraged Kesha to sing when she noticed her vocal talent. Kesha attended Franklin High School and Brentwood High School, playing the trumpet and later the saxophone in the school marching band, and after attaining a near-perfect score on her SATs, she attended Barnard College, dropping out after three months to pursue her music career. In addition to taking songwriting classes, Kesha was also taught how to write songs by her mother, and they would often write together when she returned home from high school. Eventually she began recording demos, which her mother would give to people she knew in the music business. Around this time, Pebe answered an advertisement from the American reality TV series 'The Simple Life', looking for an "eccentric" family to host Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, and the episode featuring the Sebert family aired in 2005. Kesha's demos were gaining interest in the music business, and in 2005, at age 18, she was signed to Kemosabe Records, and later to David Sonenberg's management company, DAS Communications Inc. Working with several writers and producers while at Kemosabe she co-wrote Australian pop group The Veronicas' single 'This Love' with producer Toby Gad, while at the same time earning a living as a waitress, and it was around this time that she added the 'ironic' $ to her name. In 2008 she appeared in the video for her friend Katy Perry's single 'I Kissed A Girl', and also sang background vocals for the song 'Lace And Leather' by Britney Spears. A deal with Warner Bros. Records fell through due to her existing contract with Kemosabe, and after failing to negotiate deals with Lava Records and Atlantic in 2009, she finally signed a multi-album deal with RCA. 

Having spent the previous 6 years working on material for her debut album, she chose the best of the 200 songs that she'd written in the preceding years, and the resulting 'Animal' sold two million copies and was certified Platinum in the United States. The lead single, 'Tik Tok', broke the record in the United States with 610,000 digital downloads sold in a single week, the highest ever by a female artist since digital download tracking began in 2003. Subsequent singles from the album - 'Blah Blah Blah', 'Your Love Is My Drug' and 'Take It Off' - achieved similar commercial success, each reaching the top ten in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Kesha's deliberately unpolished aesthetic and juvenile stage persona quickly made her a deeply polarizing figure, with some of her critics finding her output to be unsophisticated, while others felt that she was manufactured and lacked credibility. In November 2010, 'Animal' was re-released with a companion EP 'Cannibal'. The lead single taken from Cannibal, 'We R Who We R', debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, and with two number ones and four top ten hits Kesha was named Hot 100 Artist of 2010 by Billboard magazine, with 'Tik Tok' ranked as the best-performing song of the year in the US. With a backlog of 200 songs, it's not surprising that they started to leak onto the internet after the huge success of her first few releases, and so here is just a small selection of the ones that didn't make 'Animal'/'Cannibal'.

Track listing

01 TV To Talk About  
02 Who Do You Love?   
03 This Is Me Breaking Up With You  
04 True Love (feat. Katy Perry) 
05 Booty Call  
06 Butterscotch   
07 Boy Like You (feat. Ashley Tisdale)   
09 Mouth  
09 Red Lipstick   
10 Lovers In the Deep End 
11 Paper Airplane 
12 Bad Dream  
13 Heart Fall Out  
14 Boys Just Suck  
15 Shots On the Hood Of My Car 
16 Lost Weekend 
17 Run Devil Run 

Diamond Head - Play It Loud (1983)

Diamond Head are a well-respected heavy metal band, who were at the forefront of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal movement of the late-70's, and are acknowledged by thrash metal bands such as Megadeth and Metallica as an important early influence, with the latter including the band's 'Helpless' on their classic EP 'The $5.98 E.P. - Garage Days Re-Revisited' in 1987. Diamond Head was formed by Brian Tatler and Duncan Scott while they were both still at school in June 1976, and although they soon found singer Sean Harris, they had to go through three bass players before settling on Collin Kimberley in 1978. The band recorded two self-financed demo tapes on a four-track recorder in 1979, and they sent the demo to Geoff Barton at Sounds magazine, which was perfect timing with the emergence of a new genre coined by Barton as The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. In 1979/80, Diamond Head were managed by budding local managers Dave Morris and Ian Frazier, with Morris putting some money into the band and trying to get them a record deal, and Frazier driving the band around the UK when on tour. The band's demos and live reputation gained enough attention for them to get two support dates with AC/DC, and also one with Iron Maiden at The Lyceum, London. Although several record companies expressed interest in signing the band, none were deemed worthy by Harris's mother Linda Harris, who was by now taking an interest in her son's band, and advising him on important decisions, along with her boyfriend Reg Fellows. Following a difference of opinions about how to manage the band, Morris and Frazier quit their roles, leaving the job solely to Linda Harris and Reg Fellows, and so while other young heavy metal bands were signed to major labels and headlining their own tours, Diamond Head remained independent. Guitarist Brian Tatler thinks that their joint managers had unrealistic expectations about the kind of record deal the band should sign, and so when no deal lived up to this, Fellows decided that the band should record an album quickly and cheaply at a local 24 track studio, where they had recorded their first single 'Shoot Out the Lights', in a deal which gave studio owner Muff Murfin 50 percent of the bands publishing for fifteen years in exchange for use of his studio. 

Tapes were passed around various labels, but when the album, now titled 'Lightning To The Nations', failed to secure a record deal, the band's management decided that they would release 1000 copies of the record on Muff Murfin's independent Happy Face Records label. The album was packaged in a plain white sleeve with no title or track listings, and 250 copies were signed by each band member. The management thought that it should be perceived as a 'demo' album, so no fancy sleeve was required, making it very cheap to produce. The first 1000 copies were pressed and made available at concerts and via mail-order for £3.50, with a mail-order advertisement appearing in Sounds for six weeks, but which the band's management neglected to pay for, and which resulted in them being sued. The original stereo master tapes were lost after they were sent to the German record company Woolfe Records, for them to release a vinyl version of the album with a new sleeve, and they were eventually tracked down by Lars Ulrich and Phonogram Germany for inclusion on the 1990 compilation album 'New Wave Of British Heavy Metal '79 Revisited'. In 1980, Pete Winkelman from Wolverhampton got involved and tried to sign Diamond Head to his new label, Media Records, along the way advising the band to change management,  but this advice was not heeded, and in the end Diamond Head agreed to make just one single for Winkelman, which was a re-recorded version of 'Sweet & Innocent' b/w 'Streets Of Gold', appearing around October 1980. In January 1981, Diamond Head successfully opened for April Wine on their UK tour, and the 'Diamond Lights' EP was quickly recorded to help pay towards the expenses of an ambitious UK tour which was planned for the summer. However, their management tried to save money by bypassing promoters and booking the venues with local agents, and so with little promotion for the tour, it lost money. The only A&R man who was determined to sign the band was Charlie Eyre, who quit his job at A&M and joined MCA in order to sign Diamond Head and Musical Youth. Discussions went on for around six months until the band finally inked a five-album deal on 1 January 1982. 

First on the agenda was to record and release the 'Four Cuts' EP, which contained two early era songs, 'Shoot Out The Lights' and 'Dead Reckoning', alongside new songs 'Call Me' and 'Trick Or Treat'. Their first MCA album 'Borrowed Time', housed in a lavish Rodney Matthews-illustrated gatefold sleeve based on the album's Elric theme, was commercially successful, climbing to No 24 in the UK Albums Chart, and it enabled the band to perform a full-scale UK tour at premier venues such as London's Hammersmith Odeon. Once the two-week UK tour was over, they were told to start writing the next album, and they tried a more experimental sounding follow-up, tentatively titled 'Making Music', and which was later re-named 'Canterbury' in 1983. Using top engineer Mike Shipley at an expensive London studio put immense pressure on the band, and Scott struggled to adapt to this new level of scrutiny and was fired, after completing just six drum tracks in three weeks. Then once all the bass parts had been recorded, Kimberley also quit, leaving just Harris and Tatler to complete the recording, and resulting in Tatler almost having a nervous breakdown. The initial success of the album was stalled as the first 20,000 copies suffered vinyl pressing problems, causing the LP to jump, but it still made number 32 in the UK Albums Chart, although it sold less than their debut, possibly because the sound was so different to 'Borrowed Time', and fan were somewhat confused by it. The band were invited to open that year's Monsters of Rock Festival, and toured Europe as special guests of Black Sabbath, but in early 1984 they were dropped by MCA records, and after an 18-date UK tour which lost money they put the band on hold. Harris and Tatler still continued to write together, and in October/November, they re-convened in a purpose-built studio in Stambermill, West Midlands, to record their next album, but it was never finished, and the band fell apart in early 1985. Diamond Head were one of the better exponents of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, but just didn't seem to have the luck of Judas Priest or Iron Maiden, although 'Borrowed Time' is rightly considered a classic of the genre. This post brings together their singles and EP's which led up to that record, excluding the songs which were later re-recorded for it, and including a handful of demos for their second album. It's a great collection of heavy metal from one of the best bands of the period. 

Track listing

01 Shoot Out The Lights (single 1980)
02 Streets Of Gold (b-side of 'Sweet & Innocent' 1980)
03 Waited Too Long (single 1981)
04 Play It Loud (b-side of 'Waited Too Long')
05 Diamond Lights (from the 'Diamond Lights' EP 1981)
06 We Won't Be Back (from the 'Diamond Lights' EP 1981)
07 I Don't Got (from the 'Diamond Lights' EP 1981)
08 Dead Reckoning (from the 'Four Cuts' EP 1982)
09 Trick Or Treat (from the 'Four Cuts' EP 1982)
10 Can't Take No More (demo 1983)
11 Time's On My Side (demo 1983)
12 Come To Hear You Play (demo 1983)

Even As We Speak - Falling Down (1993)

Even As We Speak were formed in Sydney, Australia in the mid-1980's by founding members Matthew Love (guitar, banjo, vocals) and Mary Wyer (vocals, guitar), who were later joined by Rob Irwin (bass) Anita Rayner (drums, banjo, mandolin), Paul Clarke (guitar, vocals) and Julian Knowles (keyboards, guitar, production). After a series of vinyl releases on Australian independent labels including Phantom Records, and success on the Australian indie scene, they came to the attention of BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel who started to play the band's Phantom Records single 'Goes So Slow' on his show. This brought them to the attention of UK audiences and began a relationship with UK indie label Sarah Records, releasing several singles and the superb 'Feral Pop Frenzy' album on the label. Between 1992 and 1993 the group recorded three sessions for John Peel and one session for Mark Goodier for BBC Radio 1, and were one of the few Australian bands to record Peel Sessions, alongside The Birthday Party, The Triffids, The Go-Betweens and Laughing Clowns, and all of the recordings were released as the album 'Yellow Food: The Peel Sessions' in June 2014. After the release of their sole album the band broke up, and Wyer formed a pop rock band, Her Name in Lights, which issued their debut album 'Into The Light Again' in October 2004. In 2016, the band reformed (minus Paul Clarke) to play NYC Popfest and added some further shows to mark the release of 'Yellow Food: The Peel Sessions'. This led to the band recording and releasing a 5 track EP of new material, 'The Black Forest', on 10" vinyl and CD through Emotional Response Records in the US in September 2017, and they followed this three years later with their second album 'Adelphi', which was released 24 July 2020 on Shelflife Records. Before they signed to Sarah Records, the band had released a significant amount of material on Australian indie labels, and few of these songs appeared on that debut album, so this post collects them together so that every non-album track is now all in one place.   

Track listing

01 Looking Over Your Shoulder (from the 'Small Fish In A Big Machine' EP 1986)
02 By The Side Of The Road (from the 'Small Fish In A Big Machine' EP 1986)
03 I Can Do Without (from the 'Small Fish In A Big Machine' EP 1986)
04 Falling Down (from the 'Small Fish In A Big Machine' EP 1986)
05 Blue Suburban Skies (single 1987)
06 Bizarre Love Triangle (b-side of 'Blue Suburban Skies')
07 I Won't Have To Think About You (single 1987)
08 Single To Central (b-side of 'I Won't Have To Think About You')
09 Galveston (b-side of 'I Won't Have To Think About You')
10 Goes So Slow (single 1989)
11 Nothing Ever Happens (b-side of 'Goes So Slow')
12 A Stranger Calls (b-side of 'Goes So Slow')
13 100 (from 'Outgrown This Town' 12" 1990)
14 Pleasure Circles (from 'Outgrown This Town' 12" 1990)
15 Brain (from 'Outgrown This Town' 12" 1990)
16 Outgrown This Town (from 'Outgrown This Town' 12" 1990)
17 Must Be Something Else (from the 'One Step Forward' EP 1991)
18 Best Kept Secret (from the 'One Step Forward' EP 1991)
19 Nothing Much At All (b-side of 'Beautiful Day' 1991)
20 Blue Eyes Deceiving Me (from the 'Blue Eyes Deceiving Me' EP 1993)
21 (All You Find Is) Air (from the 'Blue Eyes Deceiving Me' EP 1993)
22 Getting Faster (from the 'Blue Eyes Deceiving Me' EP 1993)

Mega update

It looks like most people get on pretty well with Mega, so I've uploaded all the files from April this year to date, and just about used up the 20GB of free space. It does seem that despite Yandex saying that my files will remain active until 27th January, it's not letting people download them, so this should tide you over. I'll purchase some extra storage and carry on uploading to Mega, and the plan was that when I've stored 50GB with them, I'll then delete 43GB of files from Yandex and that will take me below my limit, and the archived files will become downloadable again. However, as the Yandex files cannot currently be downloaded then there's no point in putting that off so I've deleted the files and so the Archive is now available again on Yandex. There might be a few files missing, as the dates seemed a bit odd in December 2021, but let me know if it's not there and I can add it back in. I don't know how long that subscription lasts for, so I will eventually have to move them all to Mega, but that's going to take a very long time, so I hope it lasts until I've finished. 

Soulseekers can carry on as if nothing has happened. 

For now, it seems like we have a solution, so let me know how it all goes. 

For anyone new to the site, there is a downloadable file under the disclaimer on the right that says NO MUSIC IS STORED ON THIS SITE, and links to all the albums are in there.

The achive is back with it's own Yandex file. 

pj

The Rolling Stones - Gathered Up Moss Vol. 1 (1969)

As a special Christmas treat we have a guest post from fellow blogger Auran, who decided that she wanted to put together a series of albums which collected up every non-UK album track that The Rolling Stones released between 1963 and 2020, and this near-comprehensive compilation of every studio recording the band released outside of their core UK album catalogue is sourced from singles, US albums, bonus tracks on live albums and compilations, and some bootlegs. The band have had many, many compilations released over the years, but because of things like label issues, or the fact that they wanted to concentrate on just the hits, a comprehensive overview of their non-album songs has never been done, and The Rolling Stones are in a not dissimilar situation to The Beatles in regards to the sheer amount of non-album singles and alternate cuts they released throughout their career. However, unlike The Beatles, there isn't any compilation that compiles them all together, so Auran took it upon herself to aggregate something and come up with a title and cover for it, and what she came up with was a two volume series that she called 'Gathered Up Moss'. The first volume covers the 60's, and the second volume the 70s' onwards (which is much less voluminous than the 60's on the front of non-album cuts, but there's still enough to fill up two discs). For that one she did omit tracks from super deluxe editions of albums that have been coming out lately, but that's mostly due to personal preferences, and it still left plenty to be going on with. 
One thing to note is that tracks from the 1964 self-titled EP and the 'Five By Five' EP have not been included, as they stand just fine on their own, and are worth being a part of any hardcore Stones fan's collection as more than just part of a compilation like this. The files that Auran sent included a third volume of 60's tracks, which repeated those of the second volume but in stereo or with alternate takes. Unless you're listening intently on headphones I don't think the casual listener will notice much difference, and so to avoid duplication I'm just including the mono versions, as to be honest, the Stones in the 60's will always be mono to me. If anyone is interested in hearing the third volume then I can always post it later, after Vol. 2.
On a personal note, there are tracks on here that even I had never heard before, especially early b-sides, and so I think even the most avid Stones fan will appreciate the work that Auran has put into these collections. 

Track listing

Gathered Up Moss Vol. I: Disc I 1963 - 1965

01 Come On (single 1963)
02 I Want To Be Loved (b-side of 'Come On')
03 I Wanna Be Your Man (single 1963)
04 Stoned (b-side of 'I Wanna Be Your Man')
05 Fortune Teller (from Decca Records "Saturday Club" compilation)
06 Poison Ivy (from Decca Records "Saturday Club" compilation)
07 Not Fade Away (single 1964)
08 It's All Over Now (single 1964)
09 Good Times, Bad Times (b-side of 'It's All Over Now')
10 Time Is On My Side (US single 1964)
11 Congratulations (b-side of 'Time Is on My Side')
12 Little Red Rooster (single 1964)
13 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (from US album 'The Rolling Stones, Now!' 1965)
14 Surprise, Surprise (from US album 'The Rolling Stones, Now!' 1965)
15 The Last Time (single 1965)
16 Play With Fire (b-side of 'The Last Time')
17 I've Been Loving You Too Long (from 'Got Live If You Want It!' with crowd overdubs 1966)

18 The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man (extended version from early copies 

                                                                               of the UK 'Out Of Our Heads' album 1965)
19 (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (single 1965)
20. The Spider And The Fly (b-side of '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction')
21 One More Try (from US album 'Out of Our Heads' 1965)
22 Get Off Of My Cloud (single 1965)
23 The Singer Not the Song (b-side of 'Get Off Of My Cloud')
24 Look What You've Done (from US album 'December's Children (and Everybody's)' 1965)
25 As Tears Go By (from US album 'December's Children (and Everybody's)' 1965)
26 Blue Turns To Grey (from US album "December's Children (and Everybody's)' 1965)

Gathered Up Moss Vol. I: Disc II 1966 - 1969
01 19th Nervous Breakdown (single 1966)
02 Sad Day (b-side of '19th Nervous Breakdown')
03 Con le Mie Lacrime (Italian version of 'As Tears Go By' 1966)
04 Paint It Black (single 1966)
05 Long, Long While (b-side of 'Paint It Black')
06 Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? (single 1966)
07 Who's Driving Your Plane? (b-side of 'Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby....')

08 Let's Spend The Night Together (single 1967)
09 Ruby Tuesday (b-side of 'Let's Spend The Night Together')
10 Out Of Time (from US compilation 'Flowers' 1967)
11 My Girl (from US compilation 'Flowers' 1967)
12 Ride On, Baby (from US compilation 'Flowers' 1967)
13 Sittin' On A Fence (from US compilation 'Flowers' 1967)
14 We Love You (single 1967)
15 Dandelion (b-side of 'We Love You')
16 Jumpin' Jack Flash (single 1968)
17 Child Of The Moon (b-side of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash')
18 Street Fighting Man (single 1968)
19 Honky Tonk Women (single 1969)
20 You Can't Always Get What You Want (b-side of 'Honky Tonk Women')

If you're a fan of the Canterbury scene of the 70's then check out Auran's blog The Soft Machine Rigmarole

Yandex update 2

So Turbobit doesn't seem to be very popular, but then I haven't used the free version for years so don't know how bad it is. I've had a look through the other file-hosting services, and despite the fact that they banned me from their site a few years ago, I think Mega is worth a shot. I use the free version a lot and never have any issues, so I've uploaded the last two dozen posts as a test so see how you all get on with it. I'll give it a week or so to see what comments I get, and if it seems to be working then I'll upload some more posts over the next few weeks, and I might even try to upload everything in time, as their annual subscription seems fairly reasonable. Yandex have told me that my files will stay available for another month, although people seem to be having issues downloading already, so not exactly sure what's happening there. Let me know what you think of Mega, and I hope they don't look too closely at the files and try to ban me again. 

pj

 

Dr. Dre & Ice Cube - Helter Skelter (1995)

After his acrimonious and very public departure from NWA, the possibility of Ice Cube ever re-entering the same circles as other members of 'The World’s Most Dangerous Group' felt like a pipe dream. Slighted by the "Benedict Arnold" moniker that they’d given him after he left the group, the release of his infamous 'No Vaseline' diss drove a wedge that seemed as though it could never be healed. However, Dr. Dre's decision to follow his former friend's lead and depart from Jerry Heller's Ruthless Records would help repair the rift between the two, and as he was now at the forefront of his own G-funk-tinged musical revolution at Suge Knight's Death Row Records, he then reached out to Ice Cube to make a hilarious cameo in the iconic video for The Chronic's 'Let Me Ride', and this led to speculation over the status of both Dre and Cube's personal and professional relationship. When Snoop Doggy Dogg's 'Doggystyle' album was released it seemed that a collaboration was on the cards, as when listeners flipped over to the back of the album they found a list of records 'soon to be released on Death Row', including one titled 'Dr Dre/Ice Cube "Helter Skelter"'. 

In 1994 Dre and Cube started to tease fans about their collaboration, even selling T-Shirts hyping the album up. One track did appear, with 'Natural Born KIllaz' featuring on the soundtrack to Snoop Dogg's short film 'Murder Was The Case', but the deadline of summer 1995 came and went without another hint of new music from the duo. On account of Dre's well-publicized perfectionism, this didn't necessarily dash hopes that the record would ever see the light of day, but this delay did open up the door for someone else to take over the concept. While he was with Death Row Records, the The D.O.C. would often ghost-write lyrics for Dr. Dre, but he always felt that his contributions were treated dismissively, and so when he left Death Row he decided to release his own album using the title 'Helter Skelter', and featuring a lot of the lyrics that he'd written for the Dre/Cube collaboration. Although his vocals had been irrevocably damaged in a car accident in the years since his landmark debut album 'No One Can Do It Better', he still decided to go ahead with the album, as for him it was never about bringing his own vision to life, but it was more important to take Dre's idea from under him, admitting to longtime collaborator Erotic D that he simply wanted to name the record before Dre could release his own version of it. 

This could have been the final straw for the Dre/Cube version, which has never seen the light of day, and is seldom, if ever, mentioned any more by either party. Some scattered fragments of it do remain out there, with 'My Life' first surfacing online in the early 2000's, and while Cube doesn't appear on the track in its present form, fans believe that it was earmarked for their joint effort. It's also been said that the instrumental used on 'Can't C Me' from Tupac's seminal 'All Eyez On Me' was initially allocated for 'Helter Skelter', while the sinister tones used in Scarface's 'Game Over', (featuring Dre, Cube, and Too $hort), were first laid down during the sessions for the shelved album. Ice Cube has his own theory of why 'Helter Skelter' stalled, and he lays the blame at the door of Eminem and 50 Cent, who he felt took up too much of Dre's time when they joined Interscope, and by the time those artists had become established on the label, they'd missed the boat on their collaboration. However, fans who really wanted to hear the album have gone to great lengths to piece it together, and one of the very best efforts is by Nas The Judge on Youtube, who has taken the tracks where we know they collaborated, plus some where they are both present, and remixed others, to produce perhaps the closest that we'll ever get to hearing the original 'Helter Skelter'. There's only one poor quality scan of the cover online, so I've done my best to improve it, and we can now all hear an album that we really do wish existed.    

Track listing

01 Intro
02 Die Mutha Fucka Die (Dr. Dre)
03 Chin Check (NWA)
04 Started This (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube)
05 Natural Born Killaz (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube)
06 Game Over (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube/Scarface)
07 My Life (Smoke Weed 4 Hours) (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube - NTJ remix)
08 California Love (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube - NTJ remix)
09 Can't C Me (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube feat. G Clinton - NTJ remix)
10 Better Recognize (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube - NTJ remix)