The End - Son Of Lightning (1970)

As I mentioned in the last post from The End, after their 'Introspection' album was finally released 18 months after it was finished, the band did make a start on recording a follow-up, but despite laying down a number of tracks, the band members realised that they were headed in different musical directions, and so they abandoned the recordings and split up, with three members going on to form Tucky Buzzard, who performed in a harder rock style than The End. Luckily the songs that they had recorded up to that point weren't scrapped, and have now surfaced on the extensive retrospective from the band, and so we can hear what a proposed second album from the band would have sounded like. It's definitely a heavier sound than the psyche/pop of 'Introspection', or even my 'Today Tomorrow' collection, and so it's debatable whether fans of the band would have appreciated this new direction, but we can now decide for ourselves if one more album would have saved the group.

Track listing

01 Son Of Lightning  
02 Second Glance  
03 Mistress Bean  
04 For Eleanor  
05 So Free  
06 North Thames Gas Board  
07 Do Right Woman Do Right Man  
08 Turn On Waterstone  
09 Smartypants 
10 My Friend 

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John Renbourn - To Glastonbury (1973)

John Renbourn studied classical guitar at school and it was during this period that he was introduced to early forms of music, and in the 1950s, along with many others, he was greatly influenced by the musical craze of skiffle, which eventually led him to explore the work of artists such as Lead Belly, Josh White and Big Bill Broonzy. In the 1960's, the impact of Davey Graham was being felt, and in 1961 Renbourn toured the South West with Mac MacLeod and then repeated the tour in 1963. On returning from the South West, Renbourn and MacLeod recorded a demo tape together, and although the British folk revival was underway, most folk clubs were biased towards traditional, unaccompanied folk songs, and guitar players were not always welcome. However, the Roundhouse in London had a more tolerant attitude and Renbourn joined blues and gospel singer Dorris Henderson, playing backing guitar and recording two albums with her. Around 1963, Renbourn teamed up with guitarist Bert Jansch who had moved to London from Edinburgh, and together they developed an intricate duet style that became known as folk baroque. Renbourn released several albums on the Transatlantic label during the 1960's, with 'Sir John Alot' having a mixture of jazz/blues/folk playing alongside a more classical/early music style. At around this time, Renbourn also started playing and recording with Jacqui McShee who sang traditional English folk songs, and with American fiddler Sue Draheim. Together with Bert Jansch, bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Terry Cox, they went on to form the beloved folk group Pentangle, recording a number of well-received albums with them before they disbanded in 1973. Shortly after the breakup he recorded a full album's worth of songs for a solo project, but abandoned the set, instead releasing an entirely different collection of songs as 'The Hermit' later that year. The abandoned songs, previously available only via underground tape-trading networks, surfaced several years later as 'The Lost Sessions', but this is also now hard to find, and so here are those nine songs, exploring a slightly poppier direction then is generally associated with him.

Track listing

01 Just Like Me
02 Sleepy John
03 Riverboat 
04 Green Willow
05 Seven Sleepers
06 To Glastonbury
07 Floating Stone
08 O Death
09 The Young Man's Song

The Shamen - Strange Days Dream (1988)

The Shamen were a Scottish electronic dance music band, formed in 1985 in Aberdeen. The founding members were Colin Angus, Derek McKenzie and Keith McKenzie, with Peter Stephenson joining shortly after to take over on keyboards from Angus. The band were originally called Alone Again Or in 1984, under which name they released two psychedelic/electronic pop singles, and after the name change further singles picked up airplay from John Peel. A flexi-disc that came with the Scottish fanzine Skipping Kitten 2 in May 1986 raised their profile further still, and the band released their first album 'Drop' in 1987, which demonstrated their love of 60'd psychedelia, with influences such as Love, Syd Barrett and the 13th Floor Elevators, with covers of classic psychedelic songs by Syd Barrett ('It's All Around', 'Golden Hair', and 'Long Gone'), The 13th Floor Elevators ('Fire Engine') and The Turtles ('Grim Reaper Of Love') being recorded but left off the album. By mid-1987, Angus was discovering the sounds of early house-music pioneers such as S-Express and M/A/R/R/S, and increasing his knowledge of the latest studio gadgetry, and it wasn't long before he was applying these techniques to the band's music, mixing rock guitars, techno and hip-hop rhythms and sampled radio voices. The 1987 single 'Christopher Mayhew Says' was their first to experiment with beat machines and samples, fusing them with their psychedelic rock sound, but this new direction proved too radical for co-founder and vocalist Derek McKenzie, who left the band in late 1987 to study at university. Will Sinnott, aka Will Sin, joined the group that October on bass and keyboards, freeing up Angus to handle vocals and guitar, and this new line-up released their first full-length foray into a more dance-orientated sound with the 'In Gorbachev We Trust' album. The 10" mini-album 'Phorward' cemented their success, and from this point on the psychedelic pop took a back seat. I still think that 'Drop' is a brilliant album, and I loved their early work before the introduction of the electronic element, so the Italian 'Strange Days Dreams' album was most welcome when it hoovered up some rare early recordings, like those aforementioned covers and odd b-sides, but it also missed off a lot of music that it could have included, so this upgrade adds the 1986 flexi, some missing b-sides, an otherwise unrecorded John Peel session track, and those early recordings by Alone Again Or, for a more complete over-view of how The Shamen started out in the mid to late 80's. While I still followed the band in their more dance-friendly incarnation, I often wonder if they would have been as successful had they stuck with the psychedelic pop stuff, but bearing in mind the upsurge of acid house in the 90's I somehow think they made the right decision.  

Track listing

01 Drum The Beat (In My Soul) (single 1984, as Alone Again Or)
02 Dream Come True (single 1985, as Alone Again Or)
03 Smarter Than The Average Bear (Ursa Major) (b-side of 'Dream Come True')
04 Drum The Beat (Shall We Dance?) (b-side of 'Dream Come True') 
05 Do What You Will (b-side of 'Something About You' 1987)
06 It's All Around (b-side of 'Young Till Yesterday' 1986)
07 Grim Reaper Of Love (b-side of 'Something About You' 1987)
08 Stay In Bed (from the free flexi-disc with Skipping Kitten magazine 1986)
09 Long Gone (from 'Beyond The Wildwood: A Tribute To Syd Barrett' 1987)
10 Strange Days Dream (b-side of 'Young Till Yesterday' 1986)
11 Golden Hair (b-side of 'Young Till Yesterday' 1986)
12 Christopher Mayhew Says (A Lot) (12" single 1987 - exclusive mix of A and B sides)
13 Knature Of A Girl (Submission) (single 1988)
14 Shitting On Britain (b-side of 'What's Going Down?' 12" single 1988)
15 Fire Engine (b-side of 'What's Going Down?' 12" single 1988)
16 Darkness In Zion (b-side of 'Jesus Loves Amerika' 1988)
17 Nothing (John Peel session 1988)
18 What's Going Down? (single 1988)

Carlos Santana - ...and on guitar (1978)

Unlike many artists in this series, Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán emerged almost fully-formed in 1966 with his very first group, the Santana Blues Band. He'd learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight, and it was also around this age that he fell under the influence of blues performers like B.B. King, Javier Bátiz, Mike Bloomfield, and John Lee Hooker. In 1966, he was chosen, along with other musicians, to form an ad hoc band to substitute for an intoxicated Paul Butterfield, who was due to play a Sunday matinee at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium. Graham selected the substitutes from musicians he knew primarily through his connections with the Butterfield Blues Band, Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane, and Santana's guitar playing caught the attention of both the audience and Graham. During the same year he and fellow street musicians David Brown (bass guitar), Marcus Malone (percussion) and Gregg Rolie (lead vocals, Hammond Organ B3), formed the Santana Blues Band, playing a highly original blend of Latin-infused rock, jazz, blues, salsa, and African rhythms. The band was signed by Columbia Records, shortening their name to simply Santana, and went into the studio to record their first album in January 1969. Before it was even released, Bill Graham, a Latin Music aficionado who had been a fan of Santana from its inception, arranged for the band to appear at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival, and their set was one of the surprises of the festival, highlighted by an eleven-minute performance of the throbbing instrumental 'Soul Sacrifice'. 

When the album was released, the publicity generated by their Woodstock appearance helped it to crack the Top 5 of the U.S. album charts. However, things were fraught between the band members, with some wanting to pursue a harder rock style, whereas Santana himself was increasingly interested in moving beyond his love of blues and rock and wanted more jazzy, ethereal elements in the music. Their second album 'Abraxas' came out in 1970, and its mix of rock, blues, jazz, salsa and other influences was very well received, showing a musical maturation from their first album and refining the band's early sound. Teenage San Francisco Bay Area guitar prodigy Neal Schon joined the band in 1971, in time to complete the third album 'Santana III', which now boasted a powerful dual-lead-guitar attack that gave the album a tougher sound. 1972's 'Caravanserai' marked a strong change in musical direction towards jazz fusion, and although it received critical praise, it is my least favourite of their records. By now Santana had proved his worth as a guitarist of some note, and so was asked to help out as a guest on other artist's records, adding his distinctive guitar to albums by Luis Gasca, Flora Purim, and Narada Michael Walden. He had already released an album as a duo with John McLaughlin in 1973, and in 1978 Santana guested on his 'Electric Guitarist' album, as well as appearing with Gato Barbieri and Giants the same year. Giants were actually a sort of supergroup consisting of Herbie Hancock, Greg Errico, and Neal Schon alongside Santana and other members of his band, and so enjoy them and the others pieces on this collection of Carlos Santana's extra-curricular activities from his heyday throughout the 70's.    

Track listing

01 Sonny Boy Williamson (from 'The Live Adventures Of Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper' 1969)
02 Papa John's Downhome Blues (from 'Papa John Creach' by Papa John Creach 1971)
03 Little Mama (from 'For Those Who Chant' by Luis Gasca 1972)
04 Silver Sword (from 'Stories To Tell' by Flora Purim 1974)
05 First Love (from 'Garden Of Love Light' by Narada Michael Walden 1976)
06 Friendship (from 'Electric Guitarist' by John McLaughlin 1978)
07 In Your Heart (from 'Giants' by Giants 1978)
08 Latin Lady (from 'Tropico' by Gato Barbieri 1978)  

Unicorn - Volcano (1977)

Chiefly remembered now through their association with Pink Floyd‘s David Gilmour, who produced their second and third albums, Unicorn should have been much bigger then they were in the 70's. Based around the songwriting of Ken Baker, Unicorn’s songs drew from both rock and country, with a sound comparable to another under-appreciated band, Brinsley Schwarz. After years of effort under other names such as The Late Edition as far back as 1968, and touring as backing band to Billy J Kramer, the group released their debut album 'Uphill All The Way' in 1971, paying homage to some of the best songwriters of the era, such as Jimmy Webb, Joe Cocker, Neil Young and Gerry Rafferty. Trevor Mee left the band to move to Guernsey and was replaced by Kevin Smith, and the band toured Europe, playing in Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands. In 1973 Dave Gilmour began taking an interest in a young singer/songwriter called Kate Bush, and after hearing her self-recorded demo tapes he booked a recording session at his farm studio, inviting drummer Peter Perrier and bassist Pat Martin from Unicorn to provide backing, with Gilmour himself on electric guitar. The band's second album, 1974's 'Blue Pine Trees', revealed that they were in thrall to the keening, glittering textures of the Clarence White-era Byrds with 'Sleep Song' and the title track, the stoical melancholia of Fairport Convention in 'Autumn Wine', and the communal warmth of Lindisfarne with 'Electric Night'. They graduated from gigs in youth clubs and village halls to playing in the US as the support act for Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, Styx and Linda Ronstadt, and this paid off when 1976's 'Too Many Crooks' presented a superior set of Ken Baker songs of the calibre of 'Disco Dancer', 'No Way Out Of Here' and the title track, and Dave Gilmour liked 'No Way Out Of Here' so much that he covered it on his first solo album in 1978. One final album was released in 1997, with 'One More Tomorrow' being the final release from the band before the broke up after the emergence of punk rock spelled the kiss of death for their soft/country-rock sound. A recent retrospective has unearthed some previously unheard songs, so I've added a few non-album singles and b-sides for a collection from this criminally under-rated band.

Track listing

01 Going Back Home (b-side of 'P. F. Sloan' single 1971)
02 Cosmic Kid (single 1973)
03 All We Really Want To Do (b-side of 'Cosmic Kid')
04 Volcano (previously unreleased)
05 The Ballad Of John And Julie (BBC session recording 1974)
06 Bogtrotter (b-side of 'Ooh! Mother' single 1974)
07 I'll Believe in You (The Hymn) (single 1975)
08 Take It Easy (b-side of 'I'll Believe In You (The Hymn)')
09 So Far Away (previously unreleased)
10 Give And Take (b-side of 'Slow Dancing' single 1977)
11 Nothing I Wouldn't Do (b-side of 'Have You Ever Seen The Rain' single 1977)
12 In The Mood (demo)

Before Breakfast - Something Good (2020)

Before Breakfast are an indie/folk band from Sheffield, who met up at University around 2016, and originally comprised Gina, Debra, Annie and Lucy, weaving strong melodies, jazz-inflected piano and ethereal cello with sweet harmonies in songs that rise up from the depths of womanhood. The four members all have a wealth of musical experience behind them in the fields of classical music, musical theatre and folk, and have worked with or been part of other bands such as Reverend And The Makers, Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings, Hey Sholay, Screaming Maldini and Renegade Brass Band. Around 2019 they slimmed down to a trio after Annie left, and the core of the band is currently just Gina and Lucy, with other musicians helping out when needed. They've been posting songs on Soundcloud for a while now, and have a number of singles available on Bandcamp, and although an album was planned for 2018, it has yet to appear, so I've taken a few of their singles and some Soundcloud tracks to make up an album which will tide us over until the actual one does finally surface. 

 
Track listing

01 Something Good
02 Sticky Sweet
03 Caravan
04 Lighthouse
05 Fat Child
06 Body
07 Buddleia
08 Words I've Never Heard
09 Christmas Is Here (And You're Not)
10 Stand
11 Wreck  

The End - Today Tomorrow (1968)

The End was a British pop band formed in 1965 by Dave Brown (bass, vocals) and Colin Giffin (guitar, lead vocals) following the demise of The Innocents, with Nick Graham (keyboards, vocals) and John Horton (saxophone) joining from Dickie Pride's backing group, The Original Topics, and Roger Groom (drums) of The Tuxedos completing the line-up. Dave and Colin recalled that Bill Wyman had mentioned that he would help them whenever needed and he was contacted, arranging for the band to open for The Rolling Stones who were headlining a September/October 1965 UK national tour with The Spencer Davis Group, Unit Four Plus Two, The Moody Blues, The Checkmates and Charles Dickens. Following the tour, Roger Groom quit to be replaced by drummer Hugh Atwooll, a former school friend of Nicky Graham, and shortly after this Wyman took them into the recording studio with engineer Glyn Johns, resulting in the release of 'I Can't Get Any Joy' on the Philips label in October 1965. The single failed to chart in the UK, but it did generate enough interest to allow extra live work for the group, and following the departure of John Horton, to be replaced by saxophonist Gordie Smith, the band traveled to Switzerland in 1966 for a gig in a hotel, appearing with the Ready Steady Go! dancers. While in Switzerland, a friend of Smith's contacted Sandra Le Brock, who was a chorographer on a Spanish TV pop music show, offering The End as a potential performing act. After the band returned to the UK, Le Brock came over to England scouting for bands to appear on the Spanish TV show, and she phoned Smith to see if the band would be interested in working in Spain, as well as recording for the Spanish Sonoplay label. After consulting with Wyman, material was recorded at IBC and Olympic Studios with Wyman producing, and the finished product was licensed to Sonoplay for release, resulting in a top 5 hit in 1967 for their single 'Why?'. 

While performing in Spain, the band were treated like stars, playing alongside acts such as Los Bravos, and they became part of the Madrid music scene. In was while in Spain that they met Terry Taylor, guitarist for British group The Mode, and he was invited to join as their lead guitarist. Soon afterwards, Smith left the group, taking his sax with him, and with the brass section removed the group focused on a more guitar based sound. During this time, Wyman suggested that the band begin recording material for an album, so in July 1967 sessions took place at Olympic studios and continued intermittently until the beginning of 1968, with the band fulfilling their commitments in Spain at the same time, and after nearly nine months of studio time, 'Shades Of Orange' was issued as a single on Decca in March 1968. During the final stages of production for the album, it was decided to add dialogue from Bill Wyman's gardener, George Kenset, who had worked with Wyman's father on building sites for many years, and he was taken to Decca Studios in West Hampstead for a one hour session to record his life story, with snippets being interspersed between some of the album tracks. However, it wasn't until eighteen months later that the 'Introspection' album finally saw a release on Decca in the UK and the London label in the US, and by this time the psychedelic aspects of the songs were somewhat passé and the album sold relatively few copies, which is why original copies change hands for vast sums today. Sessions began for a follow-up album, but the band members realised that they were headed in different musical directions, so they split up, with Graham, Taylor and Brown forming Tucky Buzzard with drummer Paul Francis and vocalist Jim Henderson. Although The End actually formed in 1965, some early groundwork was laid down beforehand, as early in their careers Colin Giffin and Dave Brown had become increasingly aware that song-writing had a future, and so they used their free time between The Innocents' touring schedule to start developing their own writing, often demoing their songs at the now-legendary R.G. Jones recording studio in Morden. With this impressive backlog of songs available for the 'Introspection' sessions, there were a number of recordings which didn't make the final cut for the album, but which are all well worth hearing, and so those demos and out-takes are collected here for what could be considered a companion album to 'Introspection'. 

Track listing

01 Bypass The By-Pass 
02 Building Up A Dream 
03 Sometimes I Wish I Were Dead
04 Tears Will Be The Only Answer 
05 Morning Dew
06 Little Annie 
07 Black Is Black
08 The Fly

09 Mirror
10 Today Tomorrow 
11 Lady Under The Lamp 
12 Mister Man 
13 Call Me 
14 Stones In My Banana

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Mogwai - Soundtracks (2020)

I've been a fan of Scottish post-rockers Mogwai from their very first recordings, way back in 1996 with their 'Summer' 7" single. Every album release has been excellent, and I can't recall another band who have been around for so long who don't seem to have put a foot wrong in their career, garnering the same respect now as they did when they spear-headed the whole post-rock movement in the late 90's. Their music has always been cinematic in scope, and so it was no surprise when they moved into soundtrack work, after a couple of films in the early 2000's had used their music on their soundtracks. After collaborating with Clint Mansell and The Kronos Quartet on 'The Fountain' in 2006, they were given their first commission, to compose and play the score for 'Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait' the following year, which was released as an album to universal acclaim. Since then they've composed the music for the international hit French TV series 'Les Revenants', as well as scoring the soundtracks for such worthy films as the 2015 documentary on the legacy of Hiroshima 'Atomic', and Leonardo DeCaprio's climate change film 'Before The Flood', as well as contributing to Amnesty International's PEACE Project in 2010. As some of this work could easily be over-looked, even by fans such as me (I didn't get the 'Zidane' album until some years after it was released, as I didn't consider it a 'real' Mogwai album), I've picked a representative example of their work from each of the films that they've been involved in, and collected them together in one showcase of what a diverse and talented band they are.    

Track listing

01 I Know You Are But What Am I? (from the film 'Wicker Park' 2004)
02 Auto Rock (from the film 'Miami Vice' 2006) 
03 Tree Of Life  (from the film 'The Fountain' 2006) 
04 Terrific Speech (from the film 'Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait' 2007)
05 Cody (Cava) (donated to Amnesty International's 'PEACE Project' 2010) 
06 Hungry Face (from the TV series 'Les Revenants' 2013) 
07 SCRAM (from the film 'Atomic' 2015) 
08 Huaynaputina (from the film 'Before The Flood' 2016)
09 Helicon 1 (from the film 'Beautiful Boy' 2018)
10 Eli's Theme (from the film 'KIN' 2018)   
11 Moon In Reverse (from the TV series 'Zerozerozero' 2020)

Johnny Marr - ...and on guitar (2010)

John Martin Maher (aka Johnny Marr) was born on 31 October 1963, and originally had aspirations to become a professional footballer, being approached by Nottingham Forest, and securing trials with Manchester City. At the age of 13, Marr's family moved him to a new neighbourhood in Manchester where he met up with a bunch of guitar players which changed his life, including The Cult guitarist Billy Duffy, who Marr would listen to rehearsing across the street from his new house. He formed his first band at 13 with Andy Rourke and Kevin Williams, and The Paris Valentinos performed at a Jubilee party in Benchill in June 1977, playing Rolling Stones and Thin Lizzy covers. In 1979 he re-united with Rourke in White Dice, who won a demo-tape competition organised by the NME, for which the prize was an audition with F-Beat Records, although it didn't result in a record deal. In October 1980, Marr enrolled at Wythenshawe College, and after White Dice dissolved in 1981, he and Rourke formed a funk band, Freak Party, with Simon Wolstencroft on drums. By early 1982 Freak Party had fizzled out, being unable to find a vocalist, so Marr approached Rob Allman, singer in White Dice, who suggested Steven Morrissey, a singer with the short-lived punk band the Nosebleeds. Marr approached a mutual friend asking to be introduced and they visited Morrissey at his house in Kings Road, Stretford in May 1981. With the line-up of The Smiths completed with he addition of Mike Joyce on drums, the band signed to Rough Trade Records and released their first single 'Hand In Glove' in 1983. 

By February 1984, the band's fanbase was sufficiently large to launch the band's long-awaited eponymous debut album to number two in the UK chart. Early in 1985, the band released their second album 'Meat Is Murder', which was more strident and political than its predecessor, becoming the band's only album (barring compilations) to reach number one in the UK charts. In 1986 the band released 'The Queen Is Dead', an album which has consistently topped polls of the greatest albums ever made, but despite their continued success, personal differences within the band, including the increasingly strained relationship between Morrissey and Marr, saw them on the verge of splitting. In July 1987, Marr left the group, and auditions to find a replacement for him proved fruitless. By the time 'Strangeways, Here We Come' was released in September, the band had split. The breakdown in the relationship has been primarily attributed to Morrissey's becoming annoyed by Marr's work with other artists, and this collection shows that he did offer his services to a number of artists between 1984 and 2010, although seemingly not that many while he was still a member of The Smiths. In August 1987, he was very briefly an official member of the Pretenders, touring with the band and appearing on the single 'Windows Of The World', and after leaving The Pretenders he recorded and toured with The The from 1988 to 1994, recording two albums with the group. He simultaneously formed Electronic with New Order's Bernard Sumner, releasing three albums during the 90's, and in 1992 he recorded a cover version of Ennio Morricone's 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly' with Billy Duffy for the NME compilation 'Ruby Trax'. He's also worked as a session musician and writing collaborator for artists including Pet Shop Boys, Billy Bragg, Tom Jones, Kirsty MacColl, Black Grape, Talking Heads, and Beck, and this double disc set shows the wide variety of artists who have felt that having Marr added to their music would make it just that little bit special.  

Track listing

Disc One
01 Hand In Glove (single by Sandie Shaw 1984)
02 Greetings To The New Brunette (single by Billy Bragg 1986)
03 Windows Of The World (single by The Pretenders 1988)
04 (Nothing But) Flowers (from 'Naked' by Talking Heads 1988)
05 Still Feel The Rain (single by Stex 1990)
06 This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave (from 'Behaviour' by Pet Shop Boys 1990)
07 Walking Down Madison (from 'Electric Landlady' by Kirsty MacColl 1991)
08 This Is Your Life (from 'Ripe' by Banderas 1991)
09 The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (from the 'Ruby Trax' compilation 1992)
09 Dogs Of Lust (single by The The 1993)
10 Rays Of The Rising Sun (single by Denise Johnson 1994)

Disc Two
01 Fat Neck (single by Black Grape 1996)
02 Rhythm And Blues (from 'Fresco' by M People 1997)
03 Lust For Life (from 'Reload' by Tom Jones 1999)
04 Milk And Honey (from 'Midnite Vultures' by Beck 1999)
05 Fool's Mate (from 'Crimson Tide' by Bert Jansch 2000)  
06 (Probably) All In The Mind (from 'Heathen Chemistry' by Oasis 2002)
07 Even A Child (from 'Time On Earth' by Crowded House 2007)
08 Enough Of Me (from 'The Empyrean' by John Frusciante 2009) 
09 The Whale Song (from 'No One's First, And You're Next' by Modest Mouse 2009)
10 Ordinary Millionaire (from 'Propellor Time' by Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 2010) 

Thanks to the Anonymous comment just before Christmas for suggesting this one.

Whitesnake - Herpetology (1997)

This may be seen as blasphemy, but I've always preferred David Coverdale over Ian Gillan as vocalist of Deep Purple, and wish he'd have recorded more albums with them, but at least we have Whitesnake, so I shouldn't complain. The band were formed in 1978 after Coverdale left Deep Purple and recorded his solo album 'Whitesnake' in 1977, with the core studio line-up remaining as his backing band for the tour to promote the album. For the tour they were known as The White Snake Band, and they retained the title, shortening it slightly to Whitesnake, as they continued to tour with Coverdale as his support band. At this time the group was made up of David Coverdale, Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody, Neil Murray, and drummer David "Duck" Dowle, along with keyboardists Brian Johnston, who was soon replaced by Procol Harum organ player and keyboardist Pete Solley. Because of Solley's producing commitments he was replaced by former Deep Purple keyboard player Jon Lord during sessions for the first LP. Before that, though, the band's first recordings were released as the 'Snakebite EP' in 1978, which included a cover of the Bobby "Blue" Bland song 'Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City', proving that the new wave of British heavy metal could break the pop charts. The debut album 'Trouble' was released in the autumn of 1978 and peaked at No. 50 in the UK album charts, and they followed this with 'Lovehunter' the following year, this time breaking the top 30. Shortly after that, drummer Ian Paice replaced David Dowle, giving Whitesnake three ex-Deep Purple members, and this new line-up recorded the 1980 release 'Ready An' Willing', which was the breakthrough hit for the band, reaching the UK Top 10 and becoming their first entry into the U.S. Top 100. In 1981 the band recorded 'Come An' Get It', which climbed to No. 2 in the UK album charts, but the following year Coverdale had to take time off to look after his sick daughter, and he put Whitesnake on hold while he did that. 

When he returned to music, he reformed the band, and after the recording of the album 'Saints & Sinners' in 1982, he replaced Bernie Marsden, Ian Paice, and bass player Neil Murray with Mel Galley from Trapeze, bassist Colin Hodgkinson, and Cozy Powell as the new drummer. In late 1983, this new line-up recorded 'Slide It In', which was released in Europe in early 1984, and was the band's fourth top 10 album in their native UK, peaking at number 9. However, after securing a major US deal with the Geffen label, producer David Geffen insisted that the album be remixed for the US release, with Sykes and Murray re-recording the lead guitar and bass parts. Starting in 1985, Coverdale and Sykes began writing material for a follow-up studio album, aiming for a more modern approach, adding a slick Eighties studio polish to a band that up until 'Slide It In' had a bluesier sound rooted in the 70's. With Cozy Powell leaving to join Emerson, Lake & Powell, and Jon Lord exiting to reform Deep Purple Mk. II, drummer Aynsley Dunbar and keyboardist Don Airey were brought in, and after the album was put on hold for much of 1986 when Coverdale contracted a serious sinus infection that put his singing career in jeopardy, the album was finished in 1987, taking its title from its year of completion. The album was their most commercially successful, spawning hit singles 'Here I Go Again' and 'Is This Love', but long-term fans viewed it as a sell-out, and an attempt to pander to mainstream tastes at the time. I must admit that this is when I lost interest in the band, and so missed their late 90's albums, but re-issues of their records over the years have unearthed some rare tracks from my favourite period, and so I've collected them here. I've added in the four tracks from that very first EP, as they are confusingly scattered over a number of different re-issues, as well as some out-takes and b-sides from the 80's, and even a few 90's flips that are worth hearing, so sit back and enjoy some good old-fashioned heavy metal.  

Track listing

01 Bloody Mary (from the 'Snakebite' EP 1978)

02 Steal Away (from the 'Snakebite' EP 1978)

03 Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City (from the 'Snakebite' EP 1978)

04 Come On (from the 'Snakebite' EP 1978)

05 Soul Survivor (previously unreleased 1982)

06 Need Your Love So Bad (b-side of 'Give Me More Time' 1984)

07 Sweet Lady Luck (b-side of 'Is This Love' 1994)

08 Anything You Want (b-side of 'Don't Fade Away 1997)

09 Oi (b-side of 'Don't Fade Away 1997)

10 Can't Stop Now (b-side of 'Too Many Tears' 1997)

Simon Dupree & The Big Sound - Once More Unto The Breach, Dear Friend (1968)

Simon Dupree And The Big Sound were a British psychedelic band formed in 1966 by brothers Derek Shulman (vocals), Phil Shulman (vocals, saxophone, trumpet), and Ray Shulman (guitar, violin, trumpet, vocals). They started as The Howling Wolves and then became The Road Runners, playing R&B around the Shulman's home town of Portsmouth, before becoming Simon Dupree And The Big Sound in early 1966 (There was, of course, no Simon Dupree, but the band wanted a flashy-sounding name). The rest of the group were Peter O'Flaherty on bass, Eric Hine on keyboards, and Tony Ransley on drums, and the sound was originally focused more on the songs of Wilson Pickett, Don Covay, and Otis Redding. They were signed to EMI's Parlophone label, and issued a few singles which failed to chart, but in 1967 the group's management decided to try moving them in the direction of psychedelia, and one of their singles in this new style was the smash hit 'Kites'. Regarding themselves as blue-eyed soul brothers, they hated it as it was so unrepresentative of their usual style, and the follow-up 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' was only a minor hit, while 'Broken Hearted Pirates' missed the charts completely. A then unknown keyboard player by the name of Reginald Dwight was hired to fill in for an ill Eric Hine on a 1967 tour of Scotland, and he was almost recruited as a permanent member, but they turned him down, and laughed when he told them he was adopting the stage name of Elton John. The group released just one studio album, 1967's excellent 'Without Reservations', but they had made a start on a second record before it was cancelled, and tracks from it turned up on a recent retrospective of their career, so as we have the songs and the title, all we need is some artwork to complete the follow-up to 'Without Reservation'. Frustrated as being seen as one-hit wonders, the band broke up in 1969, with the Shulman brothers going on to some success with their next project, Gentle Giant. 

Track listing

01 Stained Glass Window
02 Please Come Back
03 Light On Dark Water
04 What In This World

05 You
06 Don't Make It So Hard (On Me Baby)
07 Kindness

08 Can't You See
09 Loneliness Is Just State Of Mind
10 Laughing Boy From Nowhere

11 Now

12 What Cha Gonna Do

13 Castle In The Sky
14 Rain
15 Something In The Way She Moves
16 I'm Going Home (John/Taupin)

Imperial Daze - Solid Fair (2020)

Indie-psych-pop quartet Imperial Daze started as a four-piece studio project, made up of singer/guitarist Alex Cameron-Ward, guitarist/bassist Felix Rebaud-Sauer, keyboardist/singer Facundo Rodriguez and drummer Tom Sunney. Following Alex’s previous band being placed in a Sony PS4 advert, Alex, Facundo and Felix decided to build a recording studio together in Battersea, with the intention of making music for advertising under the company name of AudioCommune. Having begun writing music together, late-2016/early-2017 saw Imperial Daze release a short series of hotly received singles, earning critical acclaim and clocking up tens of thousands of plays across streaming platforms. The band’s hazy, rolling indie-pop and self-made success also caught the attention of Rupert Jarvis from The Maccabees and Ian Brundrett from Caroline/Fiction Records, who took the band under their wing for both production and management. Having performed as a studio project up until meeting Jarvis, the decision was made to put a live band together with the idea of recording a first EP and touring, and the 'Solid Fair EP was recorded at The Maccabbes own studio The Drugstore. Another stroke of luck occurred when AudioCommune landed a commission to score an advert for a large ice cream brand, and the the money from that enabled them to build another studio from scratch, inside a giant disused commercial freezer under a railway arch in Central London. Having their own Electric Eel Recording studio has allowed the band to expand their sound and repertoire, scoring, recording and producing the soundtrack to director Nathan Sam Long's short movie 'Give Up The Ghost', while continuing to record music as Imperial Daze. This album collects together those early singles plus the 'Solid Fair' EP, to give an idea of what an album from the band could sound like, and it's pretty good considering it only started as something of a side project to their advertising empire.

Track listing

01 1000 Lives
02 Solid Fair

03 All On Me

04 Work

05 Don't Turn On The Light

06 Man Out Of Myself

07 Minding The Haze

08 Always Settling

09 People Are Animals

10 Centrepole

Tom Jones - This And That (1967)

Thomas John Woodward (aka Tom Jones) was born on 7 June 1940 in Pontypridd, Glamorgan, in South Wales, and began singing at an early age, regularly performing at family gatherings, weddings and in his school choir. His bluesy singing style developed out of the sound of American soul music, and his early influences included blues, R&B and rock and roll singers Little Richard, Solomon Burke, Jackie Wilson, Brook Benton, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. In 1963 he became the frontman for Tommy Scott and the Senators, a Welsh beat group, and in 1964 he recorded several solo tracks with producer Joe Meek, who took them to various record labels with little success, although these tracks would later surface after he'd started to have hit singles, much to the annoyance of Jones and his management. Later that year, Decca producer Peter Sullivan saw Tommy Scott and the Senators performing in a club and directed them to manager Phil Solomon for a short-lived partnership. The group continued to play gigs at dance halls and working men's clubs in South Wales, and one night Jones was spotted by Gordon Mills, a London-based manager who also originally hailed from South Wales. Mills became Jones' manager, and took the young singer to London, renaming him to exploit the popularity of the Academy Award-winning 1963 film of the same name. Eventually, Mills brokered a deal with Decca Records, and Jones' first single 'Chills And Fever' was released in late 1964. It didn't chart, but the follow-up 'It's Not Unusual' became an international hit after offshore pirate radio station Radio Caroline promoted it. The following year was the most prominent of Jones's career, making him one of the most popular vocalists of the British Invasion, and in early 1965 'It's Not Unusual' reached the No. 1 spot in the UK charts, and the top ten in the United States. During 1965 Mills secured a number of film themes for Jones to record, including 'What's New Pussycat?' and the James Bond film 'Thunderball' in 1965, and 'Promise Her Anything' and the thriller 'Triple Cross' in 1966. Around this time his popularity began to slip somewhat, so Mills tried to reshape Jones' image into that of a crooner, recording material that appealed to a wider audience, such as the country hit 'Green, Green Grass Of Home'. The strategy worked, gaining him another No. 1 hit in the UK, and further chart successes on both sides of the Atlantic over the next few years, including the classic 'Delilah' in 1968. An imminent box-set will showcase all of Jones' Decca albums, and will be welcomed by fans, as his discography is a bit disjointed, with UK and US albums having different track-listings, and often his UK albums weren't released in the US, and vice-versa. There were also a number of singles and their b-sides which didn't appear on his UK albums, particularly the afore-mentioned film themes, and so in preparation for the box-set here is a collection of his non-album recordings from the first four years of his career, starting with that very first single in 1964, through to the start of his crooner phase with 'Green, Green Grass Of Home' and 'I'll Never Fall In Love Again'.   

 
Track listing

01 Chills And Fever (single 1964)   
02 Breathless (b-side of 'Chills And Fever')
03 To Wait For Love (Is To Waste Your Life Aaway) (b-side of 'It's Not Unusual' 1965)
04 I Tell The Sea (b-side of 'Once Upon A Time' 1965)
05 With These Hands (single 1965)  
06 Untrue (b-side of 'With These Hands')
07 What's New Pussycat? (single from the film 'What's New Pussycat?' 1965) 
08 One More Chance (b-side of 'What's New Pussycat?')
09 Thunderball (single from the film 'Thunderball' 1966) 
10 Promise Her Anything (single from the film 'Promise Her Anything' 1966) 
11 Stop Breaking My Heart (single 1966) 
12 Never Give Away Love (b-side of 'Stop Breaking My Heart')
13 Triple Cross (single from the film 'Triple Cross' 1966) 
14 Not Responsible (single 1966) 
15 What A Party (single 1966) 
16 City Girl (b-side of 'What A Party')
17 This And That (single 1966) 
18 If I Had You (b-side of 'Green, Green Grass Of Home' 1966)  
19 Ten Guitars (b-side of 'Detroit City' 1967)
20 Things I Wanna Do (b-side of 'I'll Never Fall in Love Again' 1967)
21 I'm Coming Home (single 1967)