The Chyknhawks - Mister Organ Grinder (1965)

The Chyknhawks set the tone for the California music scene in 1965, consisting of four young men who had previously come from folk music, and who's shared love of the Dodos from the UK had prompted them to try and merge folk music with beat music, forming something new and original. The four original members are Gary Cline, James McGunn, Daniel Bing & Mike Claire, and the debut album from the Los Angeles quartet was released on June 3rd, 1965. Entitled 'Mister Organ Grinder', the title was taken from their first single of which an alternate take is featured here, and the twelve tracks on the album were written between 1964 and 1965, and include song-writing from three of the four members of the group. Gary Cline dominates the album as far as song-writing credits go (having written or co-written nine of the twelve tracks), with James McGunn getting co-writing credits on four tracks and Daniel Bing getting three solo writing credits. Seen as a very solid start to a short but fruitful career as a band, The Chyknhawks would soar higher on later albums, but as all bands do eventually, they would get too close to the sun and by the end of 1969 the band would split for good. Between this album and 1969 though they would innovate and inspire, and would have multiple line up changes, and this debut album is a great appetizer for what would come.

Track listing

01 Far Out  
02 The Chimes Of Athena 
03 Mister Organ Grinder 
04 No One Should Cry 
05 Jack Of All Shame 
06 Falling Again 

07 King Of The Lost 
08 Is It Me, Man 
09 Here Within You 
10 All I Wanted To Do 
11 Believe In Yourself  
12 I Knew You'd Want Me 

Check out their bandcamp page here

Morning Reign - Just A Friend (1970)

In 1966 Ric Seaberg was attending an orientation event at Salem's Willamette University, where he met Gene Heliker, a fellow freshman who had a guitar. Seaberg and Heliker were soon bonding over music, and they made plans to form a band with Seaberg on lead vocals and guitar, and Heliker on lead guitar. They recruited two fellow students, rhythm guitarist Craig Chastain and bassist Doug Heatherington, and later added Bob Baker on keyboards and Bill Thomas on drums, and Morning Reign made their public debut playing a dance at the Willamette University gymnasium. A few months later, they were playing regularly in and around Salem, branching out throughout the Pacific Northwest. Drummer Thomas left the band, and a second drummer, Tom Hallman, worked with them for a while before Howard Holland took his place behind the drum kit. As this line-up established itself as one of the most popular rock bands in the Northwest, they released their first single , with the Heliker/Seaberg original 'Please Stop' appearing on the 3S Record label in 1968. Later that year the band appeared on the TV series Happening '68, in a battle of the bands segment, and although they didn't win, it did put them in touch with music industry figures who saw promise in the group. In the meantime, they struck a deal with Garland Records, an Oregon-based label who in 1969 issued two singles, with the band tackling covers, 'Everybody' b/w 'But It's Alright' and 'Any Way You Want Me' b/w 'Reach Out I'll Be There'. 

As their popularity rose, the group shared stages with some of the best known acts of the day, including the Doors, Three Dog Night, Vanilla Fudge, and The Guess Who. In 1970 they had a brush with the major labels with T-A Records, distributed by Bell Records, who issued their single 'Can I Believe In You', but by this time Baker and Holland had dropped out of the act, and two members of another Salem band, Tyme, stepped in to replace them, with Larry Sieber taking over the keyboards and Jay Steven Tate the drums. They continued to play regularly and wrote and recorded many demo tapes of original material, but the cost of putting out an album on their own was too expensive, and they couldn't find a label interested in producing an LP of their music. In time, the band had run their course, and they split up in 1972. Two archival releases have appeared since the split, with 'Can't Get Enough Of It' being a collection of seventeen previously unreleased performances from the group's archives, while 'Taking Cover' was drawn from recordings they made during their association with Garland Records. Neither of these records purports to be the album that they wanted to release in 1969, and as the Garland disc can't include the 3S and T-A singles then it's up to me to piece together an album from the available material that they'd recorded by 1970, which includes the best of their single sides, some of their demos, and a recording of the 10-minute tour-de-force 'I Love', that they often used to close their shows.   

Track listing

01 I Can Believe In You
02 Belinda
03 Everybody
04 Just A Friend
05 Tambourine Lady
06 Tomorrow Morning's Love
07 Please Stop
08 Any Way That You Want Me
09 But It's Alright
10 Say It Once Again
11 Even Is It Me
12 I Love

Donell Rush - Comin' & Goin' (1993)

Donell Rush was an American R&B singer, who was signed to RCA Records in the 1990's, and scored a Top 10 hit in the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart with the song 'Symphony', from his proposed debut album, 'Comin' & Goin'. 'Symphony' peaked at No. 66 in the UK Singles Chart in December 1992. He scored another minor hit with 'Let's Get Intimate' featuring Chantay Savage in 1992, and one final single from the album was 'If Only You Knew', but the scheduled release date of June 1993 came and went, and ultimately the release was cancelled. With the album's cancellation, Rush who was in poor health at the time, parted ways with RCA declaring himself 'semi-retired', but sadly three years later Rush passed away in March 1996 from a pulmonary embolism at only 36 years old. His final single 'Shout-N-Out' was recorded with Lood just six days before his death. As a tribute to a fine singer, here is Rush's cancelled album from 1993.

Track listing

01 If Only You Knew
02 Comin' And Goin'
03 Take Me Back
04 Love Has No Color
05 Symphony
06 I Never Knew
07 Runnin' In And Out
08 Just Can't Say Goodbye
09 Ordinary Man
10 Symphony In E Smoove

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