Jason Crest - The Senile Mysteries Of Black Mass (1969)

Formed in Tonbridge, Kent from the ashes of The Good Thing Brigade, Jason Crest were signed to Philips in the latter part of 1967 after being discovered by former Four Pennies bassist Fritz Fryer, who got them a recording contract. The label thought that their name was a little inappropriate so this was duly changed with a slight amendment from one of the group's tracks, 'The Collected Works of Justin Crest'. Within weeks of being spotted, the newly named Jason Crest were in the studio recording their first single, 'Turquoise Tandem Cycle', a debut dubbed by Philips on advertisements as "the first new group of 1968". Over the years this song has often linked them to such bands as Procol Harum and Tomorrow, especially with the former for it's distinctive organ sound, but despite a fair measure of airplay the single failed to click. The same thing happened with their second single 'Juliano The Bull' , nice enough but banned by Radio One after some bright spark suggested it was "promoting blood sports", although they could have just flipped the single, as on this release the b-side, 'Two By The Sea', was actually the stronger of the two songs. After two flopped singles, Philips pulled the plug on the groups original songs and opted for a cover version, the song in question being The Move's '(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree', but the record company's choice of single ended up with the same fate, despite considerable radio play. Bassist Ron Fowler quit around this time, as working in a band and a full time job time didn't mix, especially when the band toured Germany, and so he was replaced by John Selley. After three flops, Philips were desperate for a hit, so Fryer got the band to record one of his own numbers, and a fourth single, the more commercial 'Waterloo Road', was recorded and promptly bombed, which was probably just as well as it's one of their weakest tracks. 

With one single left on the contract, 'A Place In The Sun' was released in 1969, but despite being one of their best recordings, the public were still not convinced, and once again it flopped, although rather surprisingly the strange 'Black Mass' found it's way onto the flip, as Philips had earlier decided that the song was unfit for public consumption. With no success after five singles, the proposed Philips album was cancelled, even though it had already been given a title of 'The Senile Mysteries of Black Mass', and gradually the band drifted apart. Fryer already had a new interest in the emerging The Open Mind, and Philips were in no mood to renew their contract after a series of flops, so Terry Clarke was the first to leave, joining up with London-based outfit Orang Utan, whilst the remaining members continued with new vocalist Brian Prebble and ex-Mike Stuart Span/Leviathan guitarist Brian Bennett under the name of High Broom. In 1971 Clark, Smallcombe and Siggery all sorted out their differences and formed Holy Mackerel, releasing their self-titled album in 1972. There have been two compilations of the band's work released over the years, plus a collection of their radio sessions on the Tenth Planet label, but no-one has ever tried to piece together their cancelled album, so that's what I decided to do, as that way we could just use the best recordings and ditch the lesser singles like 'Waterloo Road' and 'Juliano The Bull'. I've also added in one of their radio sessions which fitted nicely into the running order, and it's all housed in the original artwork, which had already been commissioned before the album was cancelled.   

Track listing

01 Turquoise Tandem Cycle
02 My House Is Burning
03 Two By The Sea
04 Patricia's Dream
05 Black Mass
06 A Place In The Sun
07 Charge Of The Light Brigade 
08 What's It Like?
09 Good Life
10 Teagarden Lane
11 King Of The Castle
12 The Collected Works Of Justin Crest

Sam Smith - To Die For (2020)

Samuel Frederick Smith was born on 19 May 1992 Cambridgeshire, and both parents encouraged his singing at a young age, after the budding vocalist impressed them with a rendition of Whitney Houston's 'My Love Is Your Love'. Smith pursued vocal training and soon appeared in local theatre productions and with Youth Music Theatre UK, going through six managers before ultimately moving to London at age 18 to pursue opportunities there. Smith's breakthrough came as a vocalist on Disclosure's 'Latch', which peaked at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart, and the following year they performed on Naughty Boy's 2013 single 'La La La', which became a UK number one single. Smith's debut studio album, 'In The Lonely Hour', was released in May 2014 through Capitol Records UK, and the second single from the record, 'Money On My Mind', became their second number one single in the UK, as did its follow-up 'Stay With Me'. The album won four awards at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year, while the song 'Writing's On The Wall' served as the theme for the 2015 James Bond film 'Spectre', and it won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Smith's second studio album, 'The Thrill Of It All', was released in November 2017 and debuted at number 1 on the UK and US album charts, and its lead single, 'Too Good At Goodbyes' also topped the UK charts. 

On 13 February 2020, they revealed that a third studio album, then titled 'To Die For', was scheduled to be released on 1 May, but a few weeks later it was announced that due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the release of the third album would be delayed, and there would also be a number of changes to the album track list and title, although it would still be released sometime within 2020. 'I'm Ready', a collaboration with American singer Demi Lovato, was released on 16 April and charted well in the top 40 of several countries, and on 6 July, Smith released a cover of Coldplay's 'Fix You', followed in September by another single, 'Diamonds', following which the new title for the third album was announced as 'Love Goes', and it was released on 30 October. With the release of 'Love Goes', thoughts of 'To Die For' faded away, but tracks meant for it but which were removed were kept, and some appeared as bonus tracks on special editions of 'Love Goes'. There is a tentative track listing for the album out there, which includes some songs which appeared on 'Love Goes', along with a cover of Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love', and a few otherwise unreleased tracks, and so here is an approximation of what could have been Sam Smith's third album 'To Die For' from 2020. 

Track listing

01 To Die For
02 Dancing With A Stranger (feat. Normani)
03 How Do You Sleep
04 You Will Be Found
05 I Feel Love
06 Love Goes (feat. Labrinth)
07 I'm Ready (feat. Demi Lovato)
08 Sober
09 Promises (feat. Calvin Harris & Fessie Reyez)
10 Heart On My Sleeve
11 Laurel Canyon
12 Fire On Fire
13 Diamonds

The Rolling Stones - Keep It Cool (1982)

The second album extracted from the 'Fully Finished Studio Outtakes' set is dedicated to 1982, as all the tracks come from early sessions in November and December 1982, for what was to be the 1983 'Undercover' album. Once again, notes are from Zen Archer's Aural Surfing Odyssey blog, with corrected years of recording, and when he mentioned that the vocals on 'Keep It Cool' were a little low, I quickly fixed them to sound more audible.  
01 Dreams To Remember (1983)
A classic Stones take on country tonk, Jagger's vocals are variously spoken and screamed while the band bar-room it up in the background. The guitar licks flicker and squeak while the whole track has a cataclysmic tone of collapse. A certain 1970's sound in the vein of John Lennon's 'Walls And Bridges' album. Should be 1982.
02 Still In Love With You (1982)
While we discuss tracks that share DNA with a certain era, this track fits straight in to it's date line. Ponderous, warm, reflective piano and sleepy pedal-steel are enveloped in this delicately produced ballad. Correct year. 
03 I Tried To Talk Her Into It (1982)
A sweet country influenced piece with a great slice of steel guitar. It skips along merrily and wouldn’t sound out of place of any nu-country album released this side of the year 2000. This is longer than the 'Dirty Work Sessions' version too. Correct year. 
04 Part Of The Night (1976)
Also known as 'Golden Caddy' from the Pathé Marconi sessions (as heard on 'Foxes In The Boxes'), this track might as well be 'Never Make You Cry' part two but one where the piano takes the place of the guitar instead. Much later than 1976, at 1982.
05 Keep It Cool (1982)
A clean little number, light piano lines with barely there guitars which drifts at an almost glacial pace. Jagger whispers his vocals at a volume that just barely breaks over the backing. Originally released on 'Foxes In The Boxes', this is the shortest version at just over 5 minutes. Correct year. 
06 Eliza Upchink (1983)
Regards a certain lady of no scruples, this dash of blues runs slightly longer than previously bootlegged at 4:38. Just one year out, as 1982.
07 (You Better) Stop That (1983) 
Short but sweet, very much of it's time and sounding like 'Neighbours', the type of angsty, punky ripple with stabs of electric piano in the background. As above, one year out at 1982. 
08 Can't Find Love (1983)
I think this sounds like George Harrison's/Bob Dylan's 'If Not For You' in the smallest way. At nearly 7 minutes, it's one of the longest tracks on this collection. The mixture also features a Buddy Holly-esque chiming guitar line over a strolling beat. Should be 1982.
09 Cooking Up (1983)
One of the speedier efforts to this set, short speedy guitar riffs as Ronnie and Keith dance around each other and Nicky Hopkins peddles away along side. A curious title to the track, however, it's almost impossible to make out what Mick is singing about. As with all the other tracks, should be 1982.

Track listing 

01 Dreams To Remember 
02 Still In Love With You 
03 I Tried To Talk Her Into It 
04 Part Of The Night 
05 Keep It Cool 
06 Eliza Upchink 
07 (You Better) Stop That 
08 Can't Find Love
09 Cooking Up

The Green Pajamas - The Perfect Chill (2021)

The Green Pajamas have been one of my favourite bands since I first discovered them in the mid-1980's, and since then I've bought every single, EP and album that they've released in their 40 year career. They are still going strong today, issuing their most recent long-player 'This Floating World Is A Dream' just last year, and I've been wanting to post something from them for years, to introduce them to people who have never heard of them, and also to offer some rare and hard to find music to the fans. But in fact they have looked after their fans extremely well over the years, as every so often they would gather up all the freebies given away to magazines and tribute albums, as well as rare one-off singles and b-sides, and anything else they felt worthy of hearing, and release them on a mopping-up compilation album, so if you own 'Indian Winter', 'Narcotic Kisses', 'Through Glass Colored Roses', 'Hidden Minutes', or 'Edge Of The Night' then you probably own nearly every track that they've ever recorded. However, leader Jeff Kelly has recently raided his archives and dug out some of his old cassette recordings, radio shows, live outings, demos and alternate takes and remixes, and issued them in a three volume bootleg series, two of which were rarities collections, and the third comprising various live recordings. By cherry-picking the best recordings from the two studio sets, at last I have something to post from them. 
The Green Pajamas were founded in Seattle in 1984 by Joe Ross and Jeff Kelly, who had begun composing his first songs at the age of 11, and forming a group called the Electric Garbage Cans. His parents bought him a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and he spent his teenage years compiling literally hundreds of cassettes of original material. After graduating from college, Kelly briefly joined a new wave band dubbed the Larch, but when he met Ross at a party the two formed the Green Pajamas, informed by their mutual love of the Beatles, and inspired by the Los Angeles "paisley underground" community. The group debuted in 1984 with the cassette 'Summer Of Lust' on the Green Monkey label, and issued a flurry of tapes before recording their proper full-length debut, 'Book Of Hours', in 1987. After 1990's 'Ghosts Of Love', the Green Pajamas went on hiatus, during which time Kelly issued the solo LP 'Coffee In Nepal' in 1991, but in 1997 the band resurfaced with the single 'Doctor Dragonfly' as well as 'Indian Winter', a collection of singles and compilation tracks. 'All Clues Lead To Meagan's Bed' followed in 1999 and 'Seven Fathoms Down And Falling' arrived in 2000, being a couple of their very best records, and the following year they released the 'In A Glass Darkly' EP, which was inspired by J.S. Le Fanu's writing, as well as the full-length 'This Is Where We Disappear', another simply superb record. 

A mishmash of discarded singles and outtakes, 'Narcotic Kisses', was released in 2002 along with a full-length album, 'Northern Gothic', and they celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2004 with a 14-track retrospective disc, 'Through Glass Colored Roses', and a live in-studio album, 'Ten White Stones', which featured some great Neil Young-style guitar playing. Another full-length studio effort, the unabashedly psychedelic '21st Century Séance', was released the following year, and in 2006, the band released yet another compilation disc, 'Night Races Into Anna', followed by a companion piece to 'Northern Gothic', 2007's 'Box Of Secrets: Northern Gothic Season Two', while the all-new conceptual piece 'Poison In The Russian Room' dropped in 2009, and it's still one of my favourite albums from the band. For their next project, they penned a set of songs about drinking and heartache with a slight rootsy feel, released in 2011 as 'Green Pajamas Country!', but they were back in dark but more musically familiar territory with 2012's 'Death By Misadventure', while nautical themes dominated 2012's 'To the End Of The Sea', and the off-cuts collection 'Supernatural Afternoon', which brought together rare single sides and unreleased material, followed in 2017. 

A third instalment in the Northern Gothic series, 'Phantom Lake: Northern Gothic 3', appeared in 2018, followed by 2021's 'Sunlight Might Weigh Even More', and then 2022's 'Forever For A Little While', which was re-issued as a vinyl release the next year as 'This Floating World Is A Dream'. The recent bootlegs start right at the beginning of the group, with a live recording from 1984, but I wanted to post just the songs that I'd never heard before, so I've picked out the demos and out-takes, and added in a number of contributions to tribute albums and magazine freebies that have never appeared on their own compilations, and so this collection should complete the most die-hard fan's discography of the group, so that they now own every song that they've ever recorded. The only track which has appeared before on CD is 'Missing Miss MacColl', which was Kelly's humble and sincere tribute to the singer Kirsty MacColl, who had recently died in an accident. When he recorded it for inclusion on the 'More Tell-Tale Signs Of Earworm' compilation album he had a cold, and had to keep his voice low in the mix, and so on this first mix the lyrics are much easier to hear. If you already know the band then you'll love this mopping-up collection, and if this is the first thing you hear from them then I hope that it will encourage you to investigate their huge back catalogue, and to discover the best kept secret that is The Green Pajamas.  

Track listing

01 You're Losing Me (Out-take 1988)

02 Such A Lovely Daughter (from Unhinged magazine flexi-disc 1990)

03 Dr. Dacey (Demo 1987)

04 Love Song (Demo 1990)

05 Woman, Woman (Demo 1996)

06 Cathy (Demo 1997)

07 Agent 99 (Out-take 1997)

08 The Perfect Chill (Demo 1999)

09 A Rose For Emily (from 'Wake Up Your Windows, Let's Do The Zombies' 7" 2000)

10 She Took A Long Cold Look (from 'Asyd Vinyl (A Tribute To Syd Barrett)' 2000)

11 Missing Miss MacColl (re-recording of track from 'More Tell-Tale Signs Of Earworm' 2001)

12 Got To Get You Into My Life (from the Mojo magazine CD 'Revolver Reloaded' 2006)

13 La Folie (out-take 2006)

14 A Long Way From Home (from the Mojo CD 'The Modern Genius Of Ray Davies' 2006)

15 XXXI (from 'Chamber Music: James Joyce (1907)' tribute album 2008)

16 Ring Around The Sun Medley (Out-take 2012)

17 William (Demo 2021)

18 Copper Eyed Girl (2021 remix of contribution to 'A Spoonful Of Sugarbush' 2017)

19 Such A Lovely Daughter (Reprise) 

The cover is a painting by Jeff Kelly's wife Susanne Kelly, who has provided the artwork for a number of the band's albums. 

La Toya Jackson - Startin' Over (2002)

Following her escape from an abusive marriage and her subsequent divorce, La Toya Jackson was reduced to performing in Europe and South America to start making money to pay off the huge debts which her ex-husband had accumulated in her name while they were married. In the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001, Jackson was moved to write 'Free The World', and the song's positive reception spurred her on to write more songs, ending up with a full album. The album's title, 'Startin' Over' was a reference to the six years that she'd spent out of the public's view in order to rebuild her life after divorcing husband/manager Jack Gordon. The original album was completed in September 2002 and issued as a promotional CD the following year in order to secure a distribution deal, but in 2006 the promo was leaked to the internet, and the official release was beset with years of delays, while in the interim Jackson recorded entirely new material that might be released in the future. 'Startin' Over' includes autobiographical tracks about her relationship with her abusive ex-husband and former manager, and several of them hint towards brutal beatings and plans to have her family killed, and one of the tracks, 'Mafia Style', is a reference to Gordon's meetings with mobsters on New York's Mulberry Street. In 2006 Jackson recorded a new song titled 'Starting Over', but plans to release it as a single that year were scrapped, and instead it was reconstituted as a jingle for Australian beverage maker Star Ice. In June 2011 she released the 'Starting Over' EP, which included the 2006 song of the same name, plus six tracks from the aborted album, and it's issue was timed to coincide with her book of the same name, with the EP being subtitled 'Songs That Inspired The Book'. This confirmed that the 'Startin' Over' album was finally consigned to the vaults, and so for fans who want to hear the rest of the scrapped record, here is the full 'Startin' Over' album, including a bonus dance remix of 'Free The World'. 

Track listing

01 No More Drama  
02 Just Wanna Dance  
03 C'est La Vie 
04 Anger Management (Skit)  
05 Don't Want You No More  
06 Home 
07 Call Me  
08 That's Why I Love You  
09 Something About You 
10 Mafia Style (Skit)  
11 Should've Left You 
12 Free The World  
13 Player  
14 You're So Nasty  
15 Sorry Lies  
16 Tropical Breeze  
17 Free The World (Dance Remix) 

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Gordon Lightfoot's 'Did She Mention My Name?' (2023)

Gordon Lightfoot's second album 'The Way I Feel' was released in 1967, and to kick off Canada's Centennial year, the CBC commissioned Lightfoot to write the 'Canadian Railroad Trilogy' for a special broadcast on January 1, 1967. This was the centre-piece of his new album, which was generally well-received, if perceived as slightly inferior to its predecessor, and 'Did She Mention My Name?' followed in 1968, being his first to feature orchestration, and it included 'Black Day In July', about the 1967 Detroit riot. Weeks later, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, radio stations in 30 states pulled the song for "fanning the flames", even though it was actually a plea for racial harmony. Lightfoot's reputation as a songwriter of note was still in evidence, confirmed by the fact that nearly every track on the album had been attempted by other artists by 1970, and so here are some of the best versions of the songs from Gordon Lightfoot's third studio album from 1968, with two songs from the same era added to the end to make up for 'May I' and 'Boss Man' not having available cover versions.    

Track listing

01 The Wherefore And The Why (The Johnstons 1968)
02 The Last Time I Saw Her (Glen Campbell 1971)
03 Black Day In July (The Tragically Hip 2003)
04 Magnificent Outpouring (The Triban 1969)  
05 Does Your Mother Know (The Sandalwood Candle 1970)
06 The Mountain And Maryann (Kenny Rankin 1969)
07 Pussywillows, Cat-tails (Pat Hervey 1970) 
08 I Want To Hear It From You (Lou Rawls 1968)
09 Something Very Special (Dylan Bell 2023)
10 Did She Mention My Name (George Hamilton IV 1968) 
11 Bitter Green (The Idle Race 1971)
12 The Gypsy (Petula Clark 1974)

Justin Bieber - JB6 (2021)

After releasing his fifth studio album, 'Changes' in 2020, Justin Bieber was interviewed by Apple Music DJ Zane Lowe, and said that he wanted his next record to reflect the things that he had learned about commitment and building trust. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Bieber was in quarantine at his house in Toronto, he was sent a plethora of demos submitted to his management team by songwriters, managers, publishers and producers. He recorded the songs he liked in his home studio and sent them back to his inner circle, and work on what was to become the 'Justice' album intensified once he got back to Los Angeles a couple of months later. While his last album was R&B oriented, for this record nothing was off limits, and by December 2020 he had amassed at least an albums worth of material, and so by January 2021 he was able to announce on Twitter that he was going over the track listing for the album. He finally announced the release of the album on 26 February 2021, and along with that announcement, an EP titled 'JB6' was released for digital download and streaming. The EP includes the original versions of three of the already-released singles -  'Holy' (featuring Chance The Rapper), 'Lonely' (with Benny Blanco) and 'Anyone', as well as acoustic versions of the former two. 'Justice' dropped on 19 March 2021, and was a decent addition to Bieber's catalogue, seeing a return to his pop roots, and being distinguished by a variety of modes that includes vaporous synth-rock and strumming acoustic ballads, hip hop gospel and bedroom EDM, and sun-dazed R&B and contemporary Afrobeat. Since the release of the album, a number of unreleased songs have surfaced, with some of them carrying on the R&B sound of 'Changes', while others sound more like out-takes from 'Justice', so I've gathered up the best of them, and added in a couple of out-takes/rarities from a few years earlier if it felt like they fitted, to make up a companion album to 'Justice', named after, and featuring two acoustic tracks from, the 'JB6' EP.    

Track listing

01 Hit The Ground
02 Double Negative
03 Holy (Acoustic) (feat. Chance The Rapper)
04 No Pain
05 Long Way Home
06 Over & Over
07 Swag Mean
08 You And Me (feat. will.i.am)
09 Lonely (Acoustic)
10 Change The Weather
11 No One

12 Unconditional
13 I Wanna Be (feat. Nasri)
14 We Were Born For This

I'm no Bieber expert, but I did later discover that a few Youtube posts were not actually him, such as 'Raise The Bar' (actually 'My Reasons' by 3in) and 'Letter To A Broken Heart' by Zion Foster, so if any of these are not really Bieber then can you let me know.  

Catch - Victim Support (1997)

Catch were an English indie pop band consisting of singer and keyboardist Toby Slater, bassist Wayne Murray and guitarist Ben Etchells, and evolved from Slater's first band Brattish, who were active in 1994–95. That band featured bass guitarist and backing vocalist Matthew Harding, who was briefly a member of Catch, but reputedly left when Slater refused to give him a writing credit. Brattish rehearsed the Catch material extensively, paid for by interested A&R men, but never gigged, and after the name change they released their debut single 'Bingo' in 1997, which saw them appearing on Top of the Pops, Light Lunch, The Paul Ross Show (performing three songs live), The Jack Docherty Show and various Saturday morning UK TV shows. The band's debut album was rush released in Indonesia due to their sudden popularity there, and they visited Jakarta for a promotional tour and performed acoustically for fans, but the UK release was delayed due to Slater being unhappy with it at the time. Before any remedial work could be done on the record, Catch split up, and Slater moved to Los Angeles to pursue a solo career. This led to the album being denied a release in any form in the UK, and the tentatively titled 'Victim Support' was cancelled by Virgin. When Slater returned to the UK he formed a group featuring former members of the UK band Salamanda, and began recording and gigging under his own name. The Toby Slater Band released one single, 'Consumption', and some other songs were made available online via Slater's own website, but fans of the 'Bingo' single really want to hear the record that should have followed it, and so here is that shelved album by indie-poppers Catch from 1997. 

Track listing

01 Dive In 
02 Bingo 
03 Half The World Away 
04 Don't Wait Up 
05 Pity The Man 
06 Expensive Kiss 
07 Start Of Something 
08 Over Again 
09 Maybe Tonight 
10 My Burst Balloon 
11 A New Soul 
12 Goodbye

Azealia Banks - Fantasea II: The Second Wave (2018)

Following the release of her debut studio album 'Broke With Expensive Taste' in 2014, Azealia Banks' next project was a follow-up to her first mixtape 'Fantasea'. 'Fantasea II: The Second Wave' had been worked on alongside the recording of 'Broke With Expensive Taste', and had been intended to be released in July 2014, following the 2013 single 'Count Contessa', but it was eventually put on hold so that Banks could concentrate on her studio album. In 2017 she released the second promotional single 'Escapades' in support of the upcoming album, and in 2018 she signed to eOne Music and released the singles 'Anna Wintour' and 'Treasure Island', as well as the promotional single 'Movin' On Up (Coco's Song, Love Beats Rhymes)' in anticipation for the album. In mid-2018 she cancelled the project, although she carried on working on it, and in August it was announced that it would still be released someday. In June 2019 she took to her Instagram to say she would never release a full body of work as she felt the world was not deserving of her music, but a few days later she posted pictures working in a studio with Russian producers. In the same month, she shared a snippet of 'Icy Pisces', and said that she was looking for a singer to feature on it, thus proving the album was still in development, and in April 2021 she told fans that it would be released in the summer. However, to date it has still not appeared, and so I've collected up all the tracks that are available to put something together to tide us over until it does eventually appear. 

Track listing

01 Along The Coast
02 Taste's State (feat. Busta Rhymes)
03 Treasure Island
04 Anna Wintour
05 Count Contessa
06 Pyrex Princess
07 Escapades
08 Venus
09 Movin' On Up (Coco's Song, Love Beats Rhymes)
10 Playhouse
11 Blossom
12 In Excelsis
13 Chi Chi

The Beach Boys - SMiLE (1967)

For visitors to blogs like this one, Albums That Never Were, Albums That Should Exist, or Albums Reconstructed etc, the holy grail of unreleased albums has to be The Beach Boys' 'SMiLE'. Originally planned as a follow-up to 'Pet Sounds', the 1967 recording sessions collapsed under the weight of Brian Wilson's perfectionism, mental instability and drug use. The Beach Boys shelved the project and released the simplified 'Smiley Smile' in 1967, and since then there have been many, many fan reconstructions of the record posted on blogs the world over. In fact, the very first CD that I ever bought was a 'SMiLE' bootleg - yes, I bought a bootleg CD before I'd even tested out my new CD player on an actual album. Since then audio editing has become much more accessible for the amateur enthusiast, and so, for instance, soniclovenoise over at Albums That Never Were has posted four versions of the album, and there are many, many reconstructions of varying quality available on Youtube. Not only that, but the sessions have been officially released, and Brian Wilson has even played it live, so what more can possibly be said about it. Well, how about a remix where AI has been trained to sing like Brian, using a recent singing voice conversion model, and then to add his 1967 vocals to the tracks where Brian himself never sang. It took over 100 hours of work, and he was prepared for a backlash from fervent purists who would class this as sacrilege, but Dae Lims has now posted his completely remixed version of 'SMiLE' on Youtube, and as the download link keeps being deleted then I'm posting it here so that BB fans can at least hear it once to make up their own mind. I'm not yet convinced about whether AI is a saviour or a menace to the arts, but when you hear what it can do in the right hands then I start to think that it could be a part of the future of music if used ethically. Give this a listen and decide for yourself if it's the best ever version of 'SMiLE', or if it's a complete and utter abomination. 

Track listing

01 Our Prayer
02 You're Welcome
03 Heroes And Villains
04 I'm In Great Shape
05 Barnyard
06 Do You Like Worms
07 Cabinessence
08 The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
09 Wonderful
10 Fire/I Wanna Be Around 
11 Vega-Tables
12 Wind Chimes
13 Child Is Father Of The Man
14 I Love To Say Dada/In Blue Hawaii
15 Surf's Up

All songs remixed using AI de-mixing technology.
Tracks 3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12,13,14,15 contain new AI vocals.
Tracks 3,4,7,9,10,12 contain AI enhanced vocals.
'Do You Like Worms' contains new melodies, partially based on 'Little Pad' by The Beach Boys.
'Child Is Father Of The Man' contains new lyrics and melodies, inspired by the original and 2004 versions of the song.

The Rolling Stones - Trouble's A-Coming (1979)

There is currently a quite superb Rolling Stones bootleg doing the rounds, with the self-explanatory title of 'Fully Finished Studio Outtakes', and it does exactly what it says on the tin. Over the course of three CDs it collects some of the best quality Stones left-overs that I've ever heard, spanning most of their career from 1967 through to 1998, with a couple of 2002 jams added on at the end of CD3. If there's just one criticism, it's that some of the recording dates seem to be the result of guesswork rather than research, and so I've used the expertise of the Zen Archer's Aural Surfing Odyssey blog to work out the correct chronology, so that I can re-order them into a set of four themed posts. As the three earliest takes are one-offs from 1967, 1968 (which is included on my earlier 'Hillside Blues' post), and 1969, I've skipped them and gone straight for the first track from 1970 to begin one whole album of outstanding outtakes from the 70's, starting with 'Walk With Me Wendy' from 1970 and ending with 1979's 'Trouble's A-Coming'. As this timeframe includes the 'Some Girls' period, a couple of the tracks have already appeared on my 'Some More Girls' post, and so I've omitted 'You Win Again', and 'Fiji Jim' to avoid duplication, but that still leaves a great 55-minute album to start the series. With each post I'm going to add Zen Archer's notes as to why they changed the recording date (following the title), and also because they are quite informative. For instance, they mention that a couple of tracks have the vocals low in the mix, and although 'Fast Talking Slow Walking' from this set wasn't one of them, I thought that they were and so I've boosted them to sound clearer, along with those on 'Trouble's A-Coming'. 
01 Walk With Me Wendy (1974)
A 'Dog Shit' style track but replacing the horns with electric piano. Jagger bellows over the head of it all. Most likely 1970.
02 Tell Her Now It Is (1971)
OK, you'll hit the first few notes of this very well known bootleg placement (otherwise known as 'Potted Shrimp'), it's upgraded – not by a million miles, accepted, but it’ll be an upgrade, that’s good enough, surely? No! 0.17 in – vocals! Much like the 'Exile' tracks that got us stoked on the deluxe treatment of a few years earlier, this track is now replete with an extra pinch of Jagger salt and he sounds crazed! The vocals are of the fact that they sound vintage enough to be of the time – the beauty of looking after your voice for the past 60 years, I guess – we could ponder the fact that they could also have been recorded for the reissue but this stuff is better than we could have imagined. Sounds more 1970 than 1971.
03 Living In The Heart Of Love (1974)
Very easily a mid-70’s production, it’s a close brother to 'Silver Train' and 'Brown Sugar', a repeated refrain starts the track before blossoming in to a broader chorus. Correct year.
04 Fast Talking Slow Walking (1972)
A woozy, swooning bar-room lament with a joyous piano undercurrent underneath the spacey guitar lines and pattering, jazzy drum beats. An exceptional piece of work. Generally agreed to be a 'Goat's Head Soup' outtake from 1974.
05 Scarlet (1975)
So we remember the debacle of this piece on the GHS reissue – none of the Stones or Jimmy Page (apparently) remember sneaking in to the studio in the prime of their careers and putting this to tape – over two nights, granted, but maybe that's how you measure time when you're a rock star. The suns up or it's not. Some of the overdubs present on the CV seem to be missing here from half way, so this may be one of the tracks that was laid down the first night, maybe? It's far too good to be forgotten, far too good to be erased. Maybe if it had lingered for much longer the full session tape might have made it out .. it'd be nice to think. Probably 1974, as GHS is mentioned. 
06 Built That Way (1984)
Something rather different here – A 'Heatwave' style swing with a Queenish guitar line occasionally popping up through the background. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if this was a Style Council cover in all honesty. It's really very different but cruisingly good. However, 1975 rather than 1984.
07 Every Time I Break Her Heart (1977)
A space-effect country lilt, the kind that the Stones seem to have perfected through the years.  Remains unreleased and hasn't appeared on any other bootleg before. Correct year. 
08 Not The Way To Go (1977)
A punky, ramshackle, 50's surf romp with a lean line in lyrics (Jagger seems to give up part way through and riffs on the title instead). This version fades out quicker than previous versions in 'The Harder They Come' (Idol Mind) or Yellow Cat's 'From Paris To LA'. Probably one year later at 1978.
09 Never Make You Cry (1977)
Another of those late, rain soaked Saturday ballads, spiked with a little rock . Blissfully dreamy, warm and regretful, it's perfect. It's also cleaner sounding that previously booted versions. Correct year. 
10 Covered In Bruises (vocal Ronnie Wood / Mick Jagger 1981)
A split combination of force between the Glimmer Twins recorded at the Pathé Marconi sessions – Barrel big and chunky with a fat bass line that drives. It’s an odd amalgam of a track but it really, really works. The Pathé Marconi sessions were in 1977.
11 It's A Lie (1978)
Another left over from the Paris Match sessions and also recently released on the 'Foxes In The Boxes' collection. Part Stones template, slide guitar and muted piano line. Should be 1979.
12 Trouble's A-Coming (1972)
Not 1972, surely but from much later in the decade - 1979? An incredible, insistent groove with a solid march – the chorus is fantastic in and of it's own! Jagger's vocals are mixed much lower in the mix than they should be so assume this to be an earlier rehearsal/working take that never came to fruition. 

Track listing

01 Walk With Me Wendy 
02 Tell Her Now It Is 
03 Living In The Heart Of Love
04 Fast Talking Slow Walking
05 Scarlet
06 Built That Way
07 Every Time I Break Her Heart
08 Not The Way To Go
09 Never Make You Cry
10 Covered In Bruises 
11 It's A Lie
12 Trouble's A Coming 

Daryl Hall, Robert Fripp & Guests - Sacred Songs Live From Daryl's House (2023)

Time for another guest spot from Mike Solof, featuring music from one of his favourite albums.

Welcome back to a sequel of sorts. A while back in August of 2022, I posted a set called Robert Fripp - 'Triple Exposure' which took the trifecta of all the solo albums that he produced in (roughly) 1979 for himself, Daryl Hall, and Peter Gabriel and gave you the highlights along with many bonus and alternate cuts. Over the past seventeen years, since way back in 2007, Daryl Hall has presented an online music series called 'Live From Daryl's House', (simply known as 'Daryl's House' and often abbreviated as 'LFDH'), which sees the singer-songwriter performing with his band and various guest artists at his home in Millerton, New York. It provides a performance space that is an alternative to live concerts and studio sessions for popular artists, and allows the artists to "have fun and be creatively spontaneous". The majority of shows include a segment in which Hall and the guest artist prepare food from different cuisines for everyone to eat, and then they play songs of their choosing, which are often covers of Hall's own songs from his long career. I'm pleased to report that for Episode 87, recorded in November 2023, Robert Fripp got back together with Hall after 44 years, and they played together for the first time since making those original albums (fun nit-pick fact: Hall was just the vocalist on Fripp's 'Exposure' album, so they never actually "played together" before this "reunion"!) The results were stunning! Fripp himself said it was the best day of his life except for the day he married his wife! I'm pleased to present tracks from those sessions plus some cool bonus recordings, as I could have just left it at the Hall/Fripp cuts, but I love Hall's original Fripp-produced solo album so much, and he so rarely (if ever!) plays cuts from it, that I had to fill the album up with bonus cuts. These are taken from performances that Hall recorded with other artists on his radio show, and feature non-Fripp versions of more songs from Hall's 'Sacred Songs' album. Each guest added their own spin to the original version and I dig that!
Here's a track by track breakdown of what is included:
01 Sacred Songs - Daryl Hall with Kitty, Daisy & Lewis Durham.
02 Babs And Babs - Daryl Hall with Robert Fripp. A song Hall wrote for his first solo album. Fun Fact #2: Babs and Babs are what Hall calls the right and left side of his brain!
03 NYCNY - Daryl Hall with Robert Fripp. Another song written by Hall and Fripp, this one was done on both Fripp's solo and Hall's first solo albums which, by the way, was recorded in 1977 but not released until 1980.
04 The Further Away I Am - Daryl Hall with Robert Fripp. Another cut from Hall's first album.
05 Why Was It So Easy - Daryl Hall with Butch Walker.
06 Don't Leave Me Alone With Her - Daryl Hall with Ben Folds.
07 Survive - Daryl Hall with Charlie Starr.
08 You Burn Me Up I'm A Cigarette - Daryl Hall with Robert Fripp. This was originally presented on Fripp's 1979 debut solo album 'Exposure'. A song written by Hall and Fripp.
09 Heroes - Daryl Hall with Robert Fripp. A song Fripp originally recorded with David Bowie for his 1977 release of the same name. Fripp asked Hall if they could play it during these sessions.
10 North Star - Daryl Hall with Monte Mongomery, on a track from Fripp's 'Exposure'
11 Red - Daryl Hall with Robert Fripp. A song Fripp wrote and recorded in 1974, from the King Crimson album of the same name. Hall's house band did not rehearse this (or anything they recorded that day for the sessions). Fripp was amazed because it took three days of rehearsals for King Crimson to learn all the intricate chord changes for the song every time they played it. IT'S A BEAST!!
I hope you enjoy this selection of great musicians playing mostly unrehearsed (so the pressure was on to impress Hall with their playing) songs, that never, if ever, see the light of day!
Until next time...
Michael

Track listing

01 Sacred Songs
02 Babs And Babs
03 NYCNY
04 The Further Away I Am
05 Why Was It So Easy
06 Don't Leave Me Alone With Her
07 Survive
08 You Burn Me Up I'm A Cigarette
09 Heroes
10 North Star
11 Red

Tracks 1-7 from 'Sacred Songs' by Daryl Hall

Tracks 8 and 10 from 'Exposure' by Robert Fripp

Track 9 from 'Heroes' by David Bowie

Track 11 from 'Red' by King Crimson

Eden xo - Dirty Blonde (2016)

Following her stint in Shut Up Stella in 2007, and an attempt at a solo career in 2008, Jessica Eden Malakouti formed Jessie And The Toy Boys in 2011, which was actually more of a solo project, with the Toy Boys being mannequins. She said in a 2011 interview that she wanted plastic bandmates that could not get in the way of her creative vision, and under that name she independently released the 'Show Me Your Tan Lines' five-song EP. 'Push It (feat. Yelawolf)' hit the Top 10 on the Billboard dance charts, and during the summer of 2011 she opened for Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj on the North American leg of the Femme Fatale tour. The band's debut album, 'This Is How Rumours Start', should have followed, but it was pushed back to summer 2012, and despite some of the songs appearing as videos on Youtube, the album itself has failed to materialise. In May 2013 she released 'White Girl Wasted' under her own name, and this sparked rumours that she would no longer be releasing music under the name Jessie And The Toy Boys. This was confirmed when she announced that she'd signed to Virgin, changed her name to her middle name of Eden, followed by xo, and released her first single under this name with 'Too Cool To Dance'. It hit the Top 40 on the Billboard chart and the Top 20 on the club charts, and in 2014 it was featured on 'So You Think You Can Dance' to mark National Dance Day. 'The Weekend' was another hit single, as was a remix of the track that featured Lil Jon, and she also recorded a version of the Thompson Twins song 'Hold Me Now' in 2015. Her next release was intended to be an EP titled 'Dirty Blonde', but due to label problems she ended up being dropped by Virgin and the project was shelved. During her time at Virgin Records she had sessions with Ron Fair, Toby Gad, Fred Falke, Sean Paul, and Jesse Shatkin, and had enough songs for an album at the time that the EP was cancelled, and so if she hadn't left the label in 2017 then she could have expanded the EP into her debut album. As she didn't do that then I have, and so here is Eden xo's first and only album, which should have come out around 2016.

 
Track listing

01 Dirty Blonde  
02 Too Cool To Dance  
03 Drips Gold (feat. Raja Kumari) 
04 Finger
05 All Day Every Day 
06 Sideline (feat. Swick)
07 Torn (Don't Stop Believing) 
08 Cinematic Goodbye
09 Say That Again (feat. Travis Mills)  
10 El Barrio 
11 Hold Me Now  
12 Color Me In (feat. The Hot Damns) 
13 The Weekend