Genesis - From Genesis To Revelation (1969)

The founding line-up of Genesis consisted of guitarist Anthony Phillips, bassist Mike Rutherford, lead vocalist Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks, and drummer Chris Stewart, all pupils of Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey. The five had played in the school's two active bands; Rutherford and Phillips were in Anon while Gabriel, Banks, and Stewart made up Garden Wall. During the Christmas holidays of 1966, after both groups had split, Phillips and Rutherford wrote some songs together at Rutherford's grandmother's house and asked Banks to play piano on a demo they were planning to record, and Banks agreed under the condition that they also record a song he and Gabriel had written, 'She Is Beautiful'. During the Easter school holiday they entered a primitive recording studio run by Brian Roberts in Chiswick to record the material, and they assembled a tape of six songs originally intended for someone else to perform, as the group saw themselves foremost as a collection of songwriters. Banks described the material as "straight pop music" as it was the direction the band wanted to explore, and at this point they had renamed themselves The New Anon. The group sent the demo tape to two people, one being BBC radio presenter David Jacobs, and the other was sent to former Charterhouse pupil Jonathan King, who had scored commercial success as a singer-songwriter and producer with his UK top five single 'Everyone's Gone To The Moon' in 1965, and therefore seemed a natural choice. Following a visit to the school during Old Boys Day, where the group had a friend give the tape to him, he listened to it in his car on his drive home and, despite its roughness, was immediately enthusiastic, particularly about Gabriel's vocals. 

King offered his support to the band and paid them £40 to record four songs, but he pressed for more simple arrangements, and suggested that the group avoid playing electric instruments, as acoustic instruments were cheaper, rather than his personal taste. These early sessions took place between August and December 1967 at Regent Sound Studios on Denmark Street, London, with the intent on releasing them as singles, and King was happy with the results enough to sign them, offering a ten-year deal with his publishing company JonJo Music, and a five-year recording deal with Decca Records. However, the group's parents expressed concern as they were aged between 15 and 17 at the time and preferred their children to pursue careers away from music. Upon their intervention, family solicitors took charge and arranged for a new, one-year deal with an optional second. King noticed the band's tendency to expand and complicate their arrangements, which he disliked and suggested they stick to straightforward pop songs, and so he either trimmed Banks's solo spots or removed them entirely, much to his annoyance. Gabriel and Banks wrote 'The Silent Sun' as a pastiche of the Bee Gees, one of King's favourite bands, and it was recorded at Regent Sound studio A in December 1967, with a section arranged and conducted by Arthur Greenslade added later in production. It was released on 2 February 1968 with 'That's Me' on the b-side as the first Genesis single, after King came up with the group's name, thinking it marked the beginning of a "new sound and a new feeling". 

In May 1968, the second single, 'A Winter's Tale' backed with 'One-Eyed Hound', was released and, like their first, it flopped. Stewart then left the group to continue with his studies, but despite their lack of success King continued to support the group and, by mid-1968, suggested that a studio album might reverse their fortunes. They were a little overwhelmed with the longer available time of an LP, so King suggested the idea of a loose concept album that told a story about the Book of Genesis at the start and the Book of Revelation at the end, with linked instrumental tracks. The idea worked, and the group began to write at a faster pace, composing more than enough material to return to Regent Sound studio 2 in August 1968 to record 'From Genesis To Revelation'. With he addition of new drummer John Silver, the music was recorded in three days, and the album was put together in ten. King was the producer, and once the songs were recorded, Greenslade and Lou Warburton then added more string and horn arrangements to one stereo channel, while mixing the band's performance on the other. This was done without the band's knowledge, which they thought compromised the strength of the songs, and Phillips was particularly angered at the decision, expressing his feelings towards it by stomping out of the studio on the last day. His main issue was that due to the limitations of recording technology of the time, adding orchestration meant that everything else on the recording had to be reduced to mono. 

The album was released in March 1969 and failed to chart, and even the release of 'Where The Sour Turns To Sweet' as a single failed to stimulate new interest. Prior to its release, Decca discovered that an American act had also called themselves Genesis and asked the band to change its name to avoid confusion, but King reached a compromise so the band's name would be omitted from the sleeve, leaving the album's title written in gold text in a Gothic style, in order to evoke mystery when presented in music shops. However, this reputedly back-fired when some shops filed the album in their religious music sections, since the title 'From Genesis To Revelation' was the only descriptive text on the album. The album only sold 649 copies, and so original copies are now extremely rare, and when it failed to become a success, the group decided to split and resume education. This marked the end of their association with King, who had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the band directing their material away from mainstream pop, and in September 1969, Gabriel, Banks, Rutherford, and Phillips decided to make Genesis a full-time band and write on their own musical terms. As this is yet another case of additional instrumentation being added to an album against the band's wishes, then fans have often wondered what it would have sounded like had they been left to their own devices, and so here is 'From Genesis To Revelation' as played just by Genesis, with piano and organ boosted to replace the orchestration. To distinguish this version from the original I've used the cover from the vinyl edition that was issued in New Zealand in 1969. 

 
Track listing

01 Where The Sour Turns To Sweet
02 In The Beginning
03 Fireside Song
04 The Serpent
05 Am I Very Wrong
06 In The Wilderness
07 The Conqueror
08 In Hiding
09 One Day
10 Window
11 In Limbo
12 Silent Sun
13 A Place To Call My Own

The Orange Bicycle - Lavender Girl (1969)

The Orange Bicycle evolved from the beat group, Robb Storme & the Whispers, also known as the Robb Storme Group, who had recorded a handful of harmony pop singles for Pye, Piccadilly, Decca, and Columbia Records during the early '60s, but with little success. In 1966, the Robb Storme Group covered the Beach Boys' 'Here Today', which was arranged by the band's own multi-talented keyboardist/producer Wilson Malone and produced by Morgan Music's co-owner Monty Babson at Morgan Studios in the Willesdon area of London. With psychedelic music at its zenith, the group decided to change its name, and in 1967 they re-emerged as The Orange Bicycle. After signing a deal with Columbia Records, their fist single was 'Hyacinth Threads' in August 1967, which remains their best-known recording. 'Laura's Garden' followed in November 1967, and they continued to release singles sporadically over the next three years, including a cover of The Beatles' 'Carry That Weight' in 1969. In late August/early September 1968 they performed at the Isle of Wight music festival wearing matching black and orange suits, reportedly covering songs by Love and the Rolling Stones. In 1970, already somewhat past their prime, they recorded their only album, 'The Orange Bicycle', but it was made up largely of covers, including Elton John's 'Take Me To The Pilot', Bob Dylan's 'Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You', and Denny Laine's 'Say You Don't Mind', which was a wasted opportunity considering they had the writing talent of Wil Malone on board. By 1970 psychedelic pop music was on the wane, or transmogrifying into heavier prog or hard rock, so the group decided to call it a day, breaking up in 1971. As a sidenote, Malone went on to form the heavy psych-prog trio Bobak Jons Malone with celebrated engineer/producer Andy Jons and guitarist producer Mike Bobak, and their sole album 'Motherlight' is a classic which needs to be heard. During their career the band released many fine recordings as singles, and they also laid down some great unheard demos, and instead of waiting until 1970 to release a disappointing album they should have issued this one in 1969, which is a much better representation of their sound.

Track listing

01 Hyacinth Threads
02 Nicely
03 Lavender Girl
04 Competition
05 Laura's Garden
06 Go With Goldie
07 Trip On A Orange Bicycle
08 Jenskadajka
09 Soft Winds
10 Amy Peate
11 Carpet Man
12 Message For Mary
13 Early Pearly Morning
14 Dropping Out

Nikki Flores - This Girl (2006)

Nikki Flores was born Brandi Nichole Flores on 17 October 1988, and began writing songs and performing at eight years old. Her parents, who are both musicians, built a home studio to allow her to perform, and at aged 16 she signed to Epic Records. She recorded her debut album for the label in 2005, and 'This Girl' was due to be released in late 2005/early 2006, but Epic pushed back the release date numerous times, until in 2009 she was eventually dropped by the label. No singles were released from the album, but it did include 'Strike', which was written and produced by Ryan Tedder, and she collaborated with producer Brian Kennedy for a song entitled 'Let It Slide', which she uploaded to her Myspace page, receivinh over 19 million views and reaching No. 1 on the Myspace Top 100 charts. In 2010 she signed to Ryan Tedder's Patriot Records, but they soon parted ways, and from then on she concentrated on writing for other artists, co-writing and being featured on 'Roses' by Nas, and contributing lyrics and melodies to 'Coolin'' by Mýa, 'Empty Words' by Christina Aguilera, and 'One Bad Night', 'Palace', and 'Sleepover' by Hayley Kiyoko, as well as having multiple collaborations with JoJo. To get an idea of her song-writing ability, here is her cancelled 'This Girl' album from 2006. 

Track listing

01 Let It Slide
02 Painkiller (feat. Hitmaka)
03 This Girl
04 Suffocate
05 I Wanna Know You Like That 
06 Selfish
07 Beautiful Boy
08 Anyone Can Say 
09 I Got You 
10 Love (What You Do To Me) (feat. Novel)
11 Strike
12 Regret #99 
13 It's OK
14 Insecure
15 Could You Ever Love Me That Way

The Clientele - Last Orders (2024)

Alasdair MacLean and James Hornsey both grew up in Hampshire, England, and began collaborating musically while still in school, after MacLean saw that Hornsey had written the name of the band Felt on his pencil case. They formed a band in 1991, with Innes Phillips sharing singing and song-writing duties with MacLean, under the name of The Butterfly Collectors, and they recorded an album's worth of material, but failed to get any label interest. Innes then left the band and the remaining two members regrouped in 1997 as The Clientele, adding drummer Mark Keen to the line-up, after which they moved to London. After debuting on the Fierce Panda label's 'Cry Me a Liver' compilation, the Clientele released a slew of singles, compilation contributions, and EPs in short order, on a variety of indie labels, including Pointy Records, Johnny Kane Records, Motorway, Elefant Records, and March Records. In 2000 March Records released the compilation EP 'A Fading Summer', and later the full-length compilation album 'Suburban Light' was issued by Pointy. It was to be three more years before the band released their debut album, with 'The Violet Hour' appearing in 2003 on Pointy in the UK and Merge in the U.S., and it achieved some acclaim, but little commercial success. August 2005 saw the release of their second album, 'Strange Geometry', and it was the first that the band recorded with a producer, Brian O'Shaughnessy, who had previously produced Primal Scream. It was notable for a much cleaner production sound than the reverb-heavy sound that had previously been their defining characteristic, and it was also the first time the band had used a string section. 

'Strange Geometry' was quickly followed by a collection of recordings from 1991 to 1996, featuring Innes Phillips, called 'It's Art, Dad'. After a U.S. tour in August 2006, The Clientele became a four-piece again, adding Mel Draisey on violin, keys and percussion, who became their first female member, and this line-up recorded the album 'God Save The Clientele' with producer Mark Nevers, known for his work with Merge labelmates Lambchop. The album was released in May 2007 in the United States, and 'Bonfires On The Heath', another release on Merge, was issued in late 2009. The Minotaur EP, which followed in mid-2010, was made up of leftover songs recorded during the sessions for 'Bonfires On The Heath'. Despite the Clientele's claims of giving up touring after their worldwide jaunt promoting 'Bonfires On The Heath', they returned to the U.S. for live gigs after the EP's release, but soon after these dates were completed the group members announced they were going on an indefinite hiatus. MacLean formed a new band called Amor de Dias, and the rest went their separate ways until re-forming (minus Draisey) to play a one-off show in 2013 at the Pop Revo Festival in Denmark. Things remained quiet on the recording front, and the band surprised many fans by scheduling a U.S. tour in early 2014 to coincide with Merge's 25th birthday festivities and the deluxe reissue of 'Suburban Light'. 

It later emerged that MacLean had been working with an old friend, Anthony Harmer, on new songs, with MacLean coming up with words and music and Harmer working out arrangements. Hornsey and Keen soon joined them and the band went to work on their fifth album, which would be their first in seven years. 2017's 'Music For The Age Of Miracles' featured the core trio plus Harmer on guitars, vocals, and keyboards, with a guest appearance by harpist Mary Lattimore. The album was released by Merge and Tapete in September of 2017. The core trio of MacLean, Hornsey, and Keen began work on a new album in 2019, working slowly as they undertook recording on a computer for the first time. It allowed them to tinker more, using samples and loops, and taking their sound in some new directions as they worked out song structures and arrangements before heading into the studio to complete the songs. Along the way, they gathered inspiration from electric Miles Davis albums, added narration by Jessica Griffin of Would-Be-Goods, and generally took a more avant-garde, experimental approach that added some new shades to their typically autumnal sound. 'I Am Not There Anymore' was released by Merge in mid-2023 to almost universal acclaim, with critic Tim Sendra writing this is "another pitch-perfect album from the band, certainly one of their best and most devastatingly pretty works". To hear how they reached that point in their career, here are all the non-album sides they've recorded since their formation in 1997, including singles, b-sides, compilation appearances and split singles. 

Track listing

Disc I - 1997-2000
01 We Could Walk Together (from the 'Cry Me A Liver' various artists compilation 1997)
02 What Goes Up (single 1998)
03 Five Day Morning (b-side of 'What Goes Up')
04 I Had To Say This (single 1999)
05 Monday's Rain (b-side of 'I Had To Say This')
06 An Hour Before The Light (b-side of Reflections After Jane' 1999)
07 Lace Wings (single 1999)
08 Saturday (b-side of 'Lace Wings')
09 (I Want You) More Than Ever (single 2000)
10 6 a.m. Morningside (b-side of '(I Want You) More Than Ever')
11 Driving South (from the 'A Fading Summer' EP 2000)
12 Bicycles (from the 'A Fading Summer' EP 2000)

Disc II - 2002-2004
01 Fear Of Falling (b-side of 'A Haunted Melody' 2002)
02 North School Drive (from the 'Lost Weekend' EP 2002)
03 Boring Postcard (from the 'Lost Weekend' EP 2002)
04 Emptily Through Holloway (from the 'Lost Weekend' EP 2002)
05 Kelvin Parade (from the 'Lost Weekend' EP 2002)
06 Last Orders (from the 'Lost Weekend' EP 2002)
07 Breathing Soft & Low (b-side of 'House On Fire' 2003)
08 Enigma (from the 'Ariadne' EP 2004)
09 Summer Crowds In Europe (from the 'Ariadne' EP 2004)
10 The Sea Inside A Shell (from the 'Ariadne' EP 2004)
11 Ariadne Sleeping (from the 'Ariadne' EP 2004)

Disc III - 2005-2014
01 Devil Got My Woman (b-side of 'Since K Got Over Me' 2005)
02 I Believe It (b-side of 'Since K Got Over Me' 2005)
03 Six Foot Drop (split single with Clock Strikes Thirteen 2002)
04 The Fire (b-side of 'Bookshop Casanova' 2007)
05 Girl From Somewhere (b-side of 'Bookshop Casanova' 2007)
06 Retiro Park (from the 'That Night, A Forest Grew' EP 2008)
07 Share The Night (from the 'That Night, A Forest Grew' EP 2008)
08 George Says He Has Lost His Way In This World (from the 'That Night, A Forest Grew' EP 2008)
09 That Night, A Forest Grew (from the 'That Night, A Forest Grew' EP 2008) 
10 On A Summer Trail (split single with Birdie 2014)
11 Orpheus Avenue (b-side of 'Falling Asleep' 2014)

Disc IV - 2016-2024
01 Breathe In Now (from the 'A Sense Of Falling: Strange Geometry Outtakes' EP 2016)
02 Losing Haringey (from the 'A Sense Of Falling: Strange Geometry Outtakes' EP 2016)
03 One Hundred Leaves (from the 'A Sense Of Falling: Strange Geometry Outtakes' EP 2016)
04 Since We Last Spoke (from the 'A Sense Of Falling: Strange Geometry Outtakes' EP 2016)
05 Spanish Night (from the 'A Sense Of Falling: Strange Geometry Outtakes' EP 2016)
06 When I Came Through (from the 'A Sense Of Falling: Strange Geometry Outtakes' EP 2016)
07 All Alone (single 2017)
08 Lyra In August (b-side of 'All Alone')
09 Closer (single 2020)
10 Orpheus Beach (single 2020)
11 Still Corridor (b-side of 'Claire's Not Real' 2024)
12 Trains In The Night (single 2024)

The Fourmost - Just In Case (1964)

Guitarist/vocalist Brian O'Hara and best friend guitarist/vocalist Joey Bower formed The Two Jays in 1957, changing its name to The Four Jays in September 1959 when bass guitarist/singer Billy Hatton and drummer Brian Redman joined the group. The Four Jays played around Liverpool in 1961, including the Cavern Club in March, and in November rhythm guitarist/singer Mike Millward joined the Four Jays in November 1961, followed by drummer/singer Dave Lovelady in September 1962. The band changed its name to The Fourmost in October, and the following year they signed a management contract with Brian Epstein, which led them to an audition by George Martin, who signed them to EMI's Parlophone record label. With Epstein as their manager, The Fourmost had access to early Lennon–McCartney compositions before they were recorded by The Beatles, and their first two singles were written by John Lennon. 'Hello Little Girl' was released on 30 August 1963 and reached No. 9 in the UK Singles Chart, and the follow-up single, Lennon/McCartney's 'I'm in Love', was released on 15 November 1963 and reached No. 17 in the UK. It was also notable as one of the earliest Beatles-penned songs to be released in the United States but, as with The Fourmost's other singles, it failed to chart there. Their biggest hit was their next single, with Russ Alquist's 'A Little Loving' reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart in mid-1964. From then on, none of the group's singles cracked the Top 20 in the UK, and they tried covers of other's hits, such as the Four Tops' 'Baby I Need Your Loving' and Elvis Presley's 'Girls Girls Girls', even though they had a talented songwriter in the group, with O'Hara penning most of their songs, many of which were used as b-sides, including 'Waitin' For You', 'That's Only What They Say', and 'You Got That Way'. 

In 1965 they released their only 1960's album, with 'First And Fourmost' appearing in September 1965, and it included Jackie DeShannon's, 'Till You Say You'll Be Mine', alongside Jimmy Radcliffe's 'My Block', and their take on 'The In Crowd', which featured the brass section from Sounds Incorporated. In early 1966, the band was rocked by the sudden death of rhythm guitarist/vocalist Millward from leukaemia, and so they recruited George Peckham as replacement, and in August 1966 they re-visited the Beatles' songbook, covering 'Here, There And Everywhere. followed by a cover of George Formby's 'Auntie Maggie's Remedy' in November 1966, which highlighted the comedic element to some of the group's recordings. By 1968 they had moved to CBS Records, where they recorded 'Apples, Peaches And Pumpkin Pie', an R&B hit by Jay & the Techniques, followed by 'Rosetta' (suggested by Paul McCartney, who played piano on it), and 'Easy Squeezy'. Around 1969 the group stopped recording, and became popular on the cabaret circuit, but they will mostly be remembered for their early run of hits singles. It's surprising that after three Top 20 hits in the UK that Parlophone didn't offer them an album before their 1965 debut, as they could easily have scraped together enough material for a 1964 release, which could have sounded something like this. It's a fairly typical record of the period, containing fourteen tracks, and yet only running to just over half an hour. 

Track listing

01 Just In Case
02 I Love You Too
03 Waitin' For You
04 Hello Little Girl
05 Baby I Need Your Loving
06 Why Do Fools Fall In Love
07 A Little Loving
08 You Got That Way
09 That's Only What They Say
10 I'm In Love
11 Respectable
12 How Can I Tell Her
13 My How The Time Goes By
14 If You Cry

2wo Third3 - Doppelganger (1994)

2wo Third3  were a gay four-piece 1990's electropop group, with three performing members, Lee, Victor and Danny, and one non-performing songwriter, Richard "Biff" Stannard. They were called 2wo Third3 because out of the performing members, the two backing members dressed in identical clothing, usually with rubber gloves, and the frontman, Lee, did not, normally wearing a trademark 2wo Third3 plaster on his face. The fourth member was represented by a cartoon character called "Biff", who appeared in the band's promotional material and record covers. The group were managed by East 17/Bros manager Tom Watkins and signed to Sony Music UK's Epic label, and the design aspect of the group was very important, with customised yellow rubber gloves being sent out with promotional records, and a free Biff plaster being issued to fans. They released four singles in 1994, all very much in a Pet Shop Boys vein, and recorded an album titled 'Doppelganger', which was never released. After the band broke up, Lee disappeared for a few years and then re-emerged as 4th Child, Dan went into music publishing and licensing, Victor went back to plumbing, but Biff went on to bigger, better things in the world of music production, writing most of the Spice Girls' number one singles. At their peak they were a perfect pocket of super-stylised pop, and it's a shame that the album never appeared, as it had some great songs on it, so here it is for you to judge if they could have been as big as the Pet Shop Boys, given the right breaks. 

Track listing

01 Dangerous Game
02 A Change Of Heart
03 Now I Found You
04 Been This Way For Years
05 A Different Story
06 Prince Albert
07 Lover And Best Friend
08 Hear Me Calling
09 I Want To Be Alone
10 Ease The Pressure
11 I Want The World

Moby Grape - Wow (1968)

Moby Grpae was formed in September 1966 in San Francisco at the instigation of Skip Spence and Matthew Katz, both of whom had previously been associated with Jefferson Airplane, Spence as the band's first drummer, playing on their first album, 'Jefferson Airplane Takes Off', and Katz as the band's manager. After they were both dismissed from the group, Katz encouraged Spence to form a band similar to Jefferson Airplane, with varied songwriting and vocal work by several group members, and with Katz as the manager. The band name was chosen by Bob Mosley and Spence, and came from the punch line of the joke "What's big and purple and lives in the ocean?". Lead guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson (both formerly of the Frantics), joined guitarist Peter Lewis (ex-The Cornells), bassist Bob Mosley (of the Misfits), and Spence, now on guitar instead of drums. While Miller was the principal lead guitarist, all three guitarists played lead at various points, often playing off against each other, in a guitar form associated with Moby Grape as "crosstalk". All band members wrote songs and sang lead and backup vocals for their debut album, 'Moby Grape', which was released in 1967. Mosley, Lewis, and Spence generally wrote alone, while Miller and Stevenson often wrote together,  and the album is a classic of the period, being ranked at number 121 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In a marketing stunt, Columbia Records immediately released five singles at once, but this back-fired and the band was perceived as being over-hyped. 

The record was critically acclaimed and fairly successful commercially, with The Move covering the album's 'Hey Grandma' on their self-titled first album. Their second album, 'Wow/Grape Jam', released in 1968, was generally viewed as a critical and commercial disappointment, even though the album charted at No. 20 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts, partially due to the special low price double-album packaging. 'Wow' has a more heavily produced sound than the first Moby Grape album, and string and horn arrangements were added to many of the songs by producer David Rubinson. 'Murder In My Heart For The Judge' is a blues rock tune written by drummer Don Stevenson that was later recorded by other rock musicians such as Lee Michaels, Three Dog Night and Chrissie Hynde, while 'Bitter Wind' remains one of the group's most popular songs, even though it contains an ending that includes harsh wind noises and backward vocals. Other stand-out tracks include Jerry Miller's rocking shuffle 'Can't Be So Bad', Skip Spence's darkly comedic roots rocker 'Motorcycle Irene' and Peter Lewis's lush ballad 'He'. The album also includes an electrified re-arranged version of "Naked, If I Want To", which was on the first album as an acoustic track, while the most unusual track on the album is 'Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot', which was a 1930s-style tune written and sung by Spence, but which was cut into the LP at 78 rpm, with added scratchy sound effects to give it an authentic period effect. This meant that if your record player didn't have a 78rpm speed then you couldn't listen to the song. 

In a retrospective review for Rolling Stone magazine, music critic Robert Christgau felt that the album suffered from "Pepper-itis" because of how worthy songs such as 'Can't Be So Bad' and 'Murder In My Heart For The Judge' were diminished by superfluous effects such as horns, strings, stereo separations, and musique concrète. The general opinion of the album is that it suffers from far too much gimmicky production, and it is well overdue for a reappraisal based on the music alone. For this new version, 'The Place And The Time' is a more guitar-orientated alternate take, and although I couldn't hear any strings or brass on 'Murder In My Heart For The Judge' I stripped it back to just the band in case I'd missed them. The cacophony at the end of 'Bitter Wind' is now gone, by using an earlier, more gutsy take, and 'Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot' has been completely removed and replaced with an undeservedly omitted out-take from the album sessions. I couldn't pitch-correct the 'chipmunk' vocals on 'Funky-Tunk' so I've removed them completely, at no detriment at all to the song, which now has the remaining vocals more up-front. The horns are gone from 'Miller's Blues', giving it a rawer blues feel, and anywhere else that strings and horns had been added, they have now been removed, apart from one solo on 'Can't Be So Bad' which nicely filled an empty space. I've also boosted the guitars on that track where the horns previously drowned them out. To my ears it now sounds like a completely different record, and one that I can play repeatedly without dreading the next piece of distracting, gimmicky production.

Track listing  

01 The Place and the Time
02 Murder In My Heart For The Judge
03 Bitter Wind
04 Can't Be So Bad
05 Loosely Remembered
06 He
07 Motorcycle Irene
08 Three-Four
09 Funky-Tunk
10 Rose Colored Eyes
11 Miller's Blues
12 Naked, If I Want To

The Bystanders - This World Is My World (1968)

The Bystanders formed in 1962, when two local Merthyr Tydfil groups, The Rebels and The Crescendos, merged together, with a line-up of Mickey Jones on guitar, Ray Williams on bass, Lynn Mittell on vocals, Clive John on organ, and Jeff Jones on drums, and while they looked for a name they called themselves The Mystery Men. The group became successful locally and did gigs with Unit Four Plus Two, Sounds Incorporated and Bert Weedon, but balancing  work and gigs became too strenuous and the group decided to go professional, giving up their day-jobs. Now called The Bystanders, they fashioned themselves musically along the lines of US harmony pop groups such as The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons and The Tokens, and when the group played in Swansea, local hairdresser Wynn David, who had a successful business there, became their financial backer due to his love of music. In 1965, with David's financing, the band travelled to ITC Studios in London to record a debut single, and 'That's The End' b/w 'This Time' was released on the Pylot label, which was created by David. The disc only sold in local shops, and without major distribution it received no airplay and consequently did not sell well. After Mittell left the group, Vic Oakley became the new vocalist, and their manager George Cooper took them to Pye Records, who signed them to their subsidiary Piccadilly label. The group moved to London and played gigs in the area to re-establish themselves, and their first Piccadilly release was a cover of '(You're Gonna) Hurt Yourself', which featured on Frankie Valli's first solo album. 

Their next release was 1966's 'My Love - Come Home', but this too failed to gather significant sales, which could have been because these two singles were quite middle of the road fare, due the fact Cooper was booking the group into cabaret clubs, and he felt these tracks would appeal to this audience. Their fourth single was a cover of Keith's '98.6', which was released in 1967, and although it was an improvement musically, it still failed to chart, and so they filled their time by recording demos at R.G.Jones Studios for songwriters signed to the George Cooper Organisation. Ronnie Scott wrote the group's next release 'Royal Blue Summer Sunshine Day', and this was followed by a cover of Jimmy Webb's 'Pattern People', and so their song choices did seem to taking a paisley pop turn . The Piccadilly imprint folded after the release of this single and the band moved to the parent Pye label, which released 1968's 'When Jezamine Goes', which was written by Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott under the pseudonym of Maston and Gellar, but it was a dismal failure, even though The Casuals version soared to number two on the UK charts just three months later. Hidden on the flip side of 'When Jezamine Goes' was the brilliant 'Cave Of Clear Light', which is now considered a psych classic, but even that was not enough to make it a hit, and so they had one last stab at success with the recording of Albert Hammond's 'This World Is My World'. When this went the same way as the others, the band continued to gig on the cabaret circuit as The Bystanders, but eight months after the release of their last single, 'Sudden Life' was issued on Pye under the new group name of Man, following the recruitment of Deke Leonard on guitar and vocals. Martin Ace then came in to replace bassist Ray Williams and Terry Williams took over the drums following the departure of Jeff Jones, and this completed the transformation of The Bystanders to the newly-formed progressive rock artists Man. Even though some of The Bystander's singles were a bit pop-orientated, they did also produce some great psyche and rock tracks, and so as the band never managed to record an album in their lifetime, this is what one released around 1968 could have sounded like.  

Track listing

01 Make Up Your Mind
02 My Love - Come Home
03 98.6
04 Royal Blue Summer Sunshine Day
05 Cave Of Clear Light
06 Stay A Little While
07 (You're Gonna) Hurt Yourself       
08 Pattern People
09 My Way Of Thinking
10 This World Is My World
11 Have I Offended The Girl
12 Green Grass
13 When Jessamine Goes
14 Painting The Time

Fogey - Sea Elvis (2007)

Fogey is masterminded by Kevin Crow, who writes and sings the songs, and plays most of the instruments himself. 'Sea Elvis' is his second album, recorded in 2007 and posted to Spotify as a follow-up to his 2004 CD release 'It's Fun In The Green Room'. While 'It's Fun In The Green Room' was a more folky effort, 'Sea Elvis' could almost be called progressive rock, with its fuller sound and wider variety of instruments being used, and the result is a great indie-rock album. It's a shame that it was only ever posted to Spotify as it deserved the wider audience that could have been achieved with a physical release, and so to try and gain it that exposure, here is the second album from Kevin Crow's Fogey.  

Track listing

01 Let It Shine
02 In the Fog
03 Dead
04 Whiskey
05 Hellbound Train
06 Peninsula
07 Beautiful
08 Lay Me
09 Waiting
10 I'll Do It Tomorrow
11 Smoke

Kendrick Lamar - unfinished unreleased (2023)

In December 2014, while preparing for the release of his third album 'To Pimp a Butterfly', Kendrick Lamar performed an unreleased, untitled track as a musical guest on an episode of 'The Colbert Report', and in January 2016 he did the same again, and performed another untitled song on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'. Following his acclaimed performance at the 2016 Grammy Awards, which included aspects of another new untitled track, Lamar revealed the existence of a collection of tracks that did not make it onto 'To Pimp A Butterfly', mostly because of issues with sample clearances. Following hints of a potential new release from Lamar's label Top Dawg Entertainment, he issued a collection of these tracks called 'untitled unmastered' in March 2016, which comprised eight untitled tracks, but with a date when the songs were written and recorded at various points between 2013 and 2016. 'unfinished unreleased' is an unofficial follow-up to that album, containing 18 more rare and unreleased songs from Lamar's vaults, but this time with actual titles. The tracks come from the sessions for the 'DAMN' and 'Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers' albums, and so span the years 2017 to 2022, making it a perfect companion to the official release. 

Track listing

01 Talk To Me
02 I'm Better
03 Make Me Happy
04 Bitchface
05 Lack Of Better Words
06 Real One
07 Don't Jump
08 Somebody
09 New Couple Alert
10 Handsome
11 One Of You
12 Want U 2 Want
13 Sexy Pause
14 Pure
15 Tranquilizer
16 Prayer
17 Loved Ones
18 Style 

Plato And The Philosophers - Thirteen O'Clock Flight To Psychedelphia (1967)

In 1962, 14-year old multi-instrumentalist Ken Tebow took up the bass guitar and formed a group called The Checkmates. He was joined by the similarly aged guitarist Mike Imbler, and the pair played mainly in Church basements and Jr. High School Proms until around 1965. The Checkmate's manager suggested a name change in 1965 as there was another popular group with the same name, and he suggested coming up with a name that sounded like Paul Revere and The Raiders or Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs, so the band became Plato and The Philosophers. By this time the line-up had expanded to include Barry Orscheln on keyboards and Mark Valentine on drums. Initially Tebow suggested they go on stage dressed in togas and sandals, and they did this twice, but just before they were to perform a third time in the outfits, he went out to the parking lot and saw a fire, where the other members were burning the outfits! The band's first single was 'C.M. I Love You', released in 1966 on the It Records label, and Tebow was intent on getting the band signed to a major label, so many of the 500 copies were mailed to other record labels, and eventually a company in Chicago called GAR Records got in touch , and was interested in issuing the record on their label. The band received statements from the label which stated that it had sold 10,000 copies, but no-one knows for sure how many it shifted. 

After the success of their first single, Tebow got in touch with a well respected studio in Columbia, Missouri called Fairyland Studios, and worked out a deal with the studio to issue a record on the Fairyland Records label by paying for all the studio and record pressing costs. About four hundred copies were pressed of their second single 'Wishes', but sales were not good enough for a re-pressing, although this was the first outing for the brilliantly-titled psyche effort 'Thirteen O'Clock Flight To Psychedelphia', which appeared on the b-side of the single. The band went back into Fairyland Studios in September 1967 to record two more sides for a single, but the 'Doomsday Nowhere City'/'I Knew' record never appeared, as once the recording time was paid for they couldn't afford to press up the discs. In 1968 Plato and The Philosophers began to change to a heavier sound, influenced in part by their admiration for Iron Butterfly, and their keyboard player studied that band's 'In A Gadda Da Vidda' intently, and persuaded the other members to play the full eighteen minute version at every gig. The next recording sessions were done in 1968 in Pekin, where they recorded 'Ima Jean Money' and 'Take It Easy', before moving to Buffalo and taping another clutch of songs. These demos got the band a tentative agreement with Cedarwood Music for an album and single release, but despite recording some more tracks in Nashville, neither the single not the album materialised, and by the end of 1970 Plato and The Philosophers was no more. If they had released an album in 1969 then it would have sounded very different to those early singles, and as they are the sides that I prefer then I would have liked to hear a long-player some time in 1967, and so that's what this record is. 

Track listing

01 Today I Died
02 In Good Time
03 Doomsday Nowhere City
04 Ima Jean Money
05 Take It Easy
06 Back Room Bar
07 C.M. I Love You
08 Wishes
09 I Knew
10 Through Your Heart
11 I Don't Mind
12 How I Won The War
13 Thirteen O'Clock Flight To Psychedelphia

The Stripes - The Stripes (1980)

Gabriele Susanne Kerner is better known by her stage name Nena, under which she rose to international fame in 1983 as the lead vocalist of the band Nena with the Neue Deutsche Welle song '99 Luftballons'. Later that same year, the band re-recorded this song in English as '99 Red Balloons', and it became a world-wide hit single. But she didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere, and had been paying her dues for some years as part of the band The Stripes. Her musical career began on in July 1979 when guitarist Rainer Kitzmann founded the Stripes and, on the basis of having seen her dancing at a local disco, asked her to audition for the position of the lead singer. The group were based in Hagen, and performed songs with English lyrics, acheiving a minor hit with the song 'Ecstasy', but never gaining mainstream success, and so they disbanded in March 1982. They had recorded an album for CBS in 1980, from which 'Ecstasy' was lifted as a single, and so when the band split, CBS offered Nena a record deal if she would move to Berlin and make music with German lyrics. In May 1982 she and her then-boyfriend Rolf Brendel moved to West Berlin, where they met future band members guitarist Carlo Karges, keyboard player Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, and bass player Jürgen Dehmel, and together, they formed the band Nena. In June 1982, they released their first single, 'Nur geträumt', which became an instant hit in Germany after the band appeared on the German television show 'Musikladen', and the following year the band released its first album 'Nena', which contained the singles '99 Luftballons' and 'Leuchtturm', and from that point on they never looked back. Combined with the success of the Nena band years, she has sold over 25 million records, making her the most successful German pop singer in chart history, but everyone had to start somewhere, and so here is The Stripes' one and only album, featuring a young Nena on lead vocals. 

Track listing

01 Strangers
02 Tell Me Your Name
03 Observer
04 Don't You Think That I'm A Lady
05 Leaving The Suburbs
06 I'm Not...
07 Tres Chichi
08 You Must Be Good For Something
09 On The Telephone
10 Weekend Love
11 Kicks In Berlin
12 1:59
13 Radio In Stereo

Elvis Presley - He Touched Me (1972)

Elvis Presley recorded three gospel albums during his career, and this is the third and final of them, being distinct from both of his previous LPs as it was not only recorded five years after the prior album, but included a far different set of songs and musicians. This is his contemporary gospel record, including material from Bill Gaither (the title song), Andraé Crouch ('I've Got Confidence'), and Dallas Frazier ('He Is My Everything'), with vocal backgrounds from the Imperials and J.D. Sumner & the Stamps, and the instrumental arrangements leave space for electric guitar and electric bass. Though it's spiritual, it doesn't have the sacred feel of 1960's 'His Hand in Mine' or the first half of 1966's 'How Great Thou Art', and a number of the tracks were overdubbed with strings and horns after recording was completed. On a recent box set of Nashville sessions, the original undubbed versions of the songs were included, which was a thrill for the Elvis Today blog....until they heard them. Here is their opinion of the undubbed versions:

Having listened to the undubbed Christmas masters from Elvis 'Back In Nashville' all through the Holidays, I decided to turn my attention to the undubbed religious masters on the same CD set. Just like the Christmas masters, the track order is identical to the original album, in this case 'He Touched Me' released in 1972. The exception is 'Amazing Grace' which is included on disc one among The Country/Folk Sides. Unlike the Christmas material, the religious songs were recorded with background singers present in the studio, and most of the tracks were then left undubbed for release on the 'He Touched Me' album. I guess this was a decision on producer Felton Jarvis part, mimicking the sound of Elvis singing gospel privately with his friends and backup singers to help unwind after a show. A look in my well thumbed copy of 'Elvis Session III' by Joe Tunzi revealed that only four of the religious songs on the 'He Touched Me' album were overdubbed: 'Amazing Grace' and 'I, John' (both with more backup vocals), 'He Is My Everything' (with strings) and 'A Thing Called Love' (with strings and horns). Still, I was looking forward to the whole undubbed 'He Touched Me' experience, and it started well. The title track and album opener was as moving and soothing as ever, and the sound crystal clear. Then followed the more modern up tempo Christian number 'I've Got Confidence', sounding fantastic with the electrical guitar more prominent and the song lasting about 25 seconds longer than on the original album, with frantic hand clapping and the band cooking. What a treat! Next up was another pleasant surprise. 

Usually, when I listen to 'Amazing Grace', I almost wonder if Elvis is there at all due to all the backing vocals. But in the undubbed format, I noticed that Elvis' voice was more up front and the background singers more in the, well, background. The whole thing sounded so much clearer and less muddled. I then turned my attention to 'Seeing Is Believing', with electrical sparks flying from James Burton's guitar. As always, it reminded me of  'I've Got Confidence', and I noticed another few extra seconds at the ending here as well. I bet the writer of the song, Red West, was in the studio listening. How exciting it must have been for him to hear this. I was then unexpectedly disappointed, as while I listened to 'He Is My Everything' without the strings, I noticed that the original backing singers were gone, too. Slightly confused and irritated, my spirits lifted with the help of the next track, 'Bosom Of Abraham'. I always find it irresistible and infectious, reminding me of some of the spirituals on Elvis' earlier religious albums. The interaction between Elvis and the Imperials is pure joy. In my imagination, I then flipped the album to the B-side. The two first numbers, 'An Evening Prayer' and 'Lead Me, Guide Me' sounded beautiful as always, maybe even more so in this new mix. But then surprise, as disappointment struck again. 

As was the case of 'He Is My Everything', the background vocals had been eliminated on 'There Is No God But God'. Although a pleasant enough song, in my opinion it really benefits from the backing vocalists responding to Elvis' singing. Fortunately, the rest of the tracks from 'He Touched Me' were left undubbed as they were recorded in the studio. 'A Thing Called Love' without the strings and horns worked well, even though bass singer Armond Morales' vocals were mixed down (in the original recording he is singing in union with Elvis throughout the song). 'I, John' sounded more like a gospel quartet song without the overdubbed female singers and 'Reach Out To Jesus' ended with the passionate ending I remember so well. Two more religious tracks were recorded during the Nashville sessions 1971, and they are included after the 'He Touched Me' tracks. 'Put Your Hand In The Hand' and 'Miracle Of The Rosary' were eventually saved for 'Elvis Now', but it's evident they would have fit on Elvis' third religious album as well. All in all, I enjoyed the undubbed version of 'He Touched Me', but it annoyed me that two of the tracks had their backing vocals removed. It also rhymes badly with what is written in the booklet: NOTE: As the vocal interaction between Elvis and the backing singers is deemed fundamental to the gospel performances, they have been left as originally intended by Elvis and A&R man Felton Jarvis.

To put things right with this new version of this album, I've removed the strings from 'He Is My Everything', but left the backing vocals intact, and also run 'There Is No God But God' through the programme in case there were any strings hidden away on there, and slotted both of them back in among the other undubbed tracks. I've also removed the horns and strings from the original album version of 'A Thing Called Love' so that Armond Morales' vocals are back where they should be, and we now have the whole album as if it had been recorded in the studio and then pressed up and issued straight afterwards. I've also added those final two out-takes from the sessions, so that we have everything that was recorded at that time all in one place.

 
Track listing

01 He Touched Me
02 I've Got Confidence
03 Amazing Grace
04 Seeing Is Believing
05 He Is My Everything
06 Bosom Of Abraham
07 An Evening Prayer
08 Lead Me, Guide Me
09 There Is No God But God
10 A Thing Called Love
11 I, John
12 Reach Out To Jesus
13 Miracle Of The Rosary
14 Put Your Hand In The Hand