Category: demo

Cover Versions, demo, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, studio outtakes

Wild Wild Horses

Craig McAllister

Well. There goes another of my favourite tracks that I can never listen to again in the same way. Hot on the heels of one reality TV star’s murdering of ‘Hallelujah‘ comes the news that oor ain wee Susan Boyle, SuBo to the rest of the world, will be releasing her own version of The Rolling Stones‘ ‘Wild Horses’. It’s leaked online and it’s eh, no’ as bad as you might think. Aye! A sweeping-stringed, soulful and passionate, inner-demon bearing affair, on first listen it actually brought a tear to my eye.

rolling stones wild horses

Who am I kidding? It’s shite. Aye, it brings a tear to my eye, but for all the wrong reasons. But you knew that already. The original version of Wild Horses is a stone cold rolled gold classic. It’s always been my favourite Stones track, from the Nashville ‘n’ open G tuning twin guitar arrangement via the fragile melody right through to Jagger’s incredibly adult lyrics. Whilst hardly a teenager, it’s hard to believe he was only 26 when he penned it. 26! Sure, in rock n roll terms thats practically pensionable, but given that yer Stones are still a going concern (albeit a limping and wheezing pastiche of their former self) for Mick to have written such a serious, grown up lyric like that the age of 26 amazes me. The Stones will always be known for the down and dirty rock n roll stuff, but songs like this are often by-passed in favour of blustery rammalamma like Satisfaction and Street Fighting Man and (insert yer own Stones title here) I don’t think even Paul McCartney was writing songs as mature as this at the age of 26, and he was always 20 going on 40 at the height of Beatlemania. There’s certainly no way any of today’s young turks could go balls out rock one minute then pen as tender a lyric in the next. Certainly not The Cribs. Or Biffy fucking Clyro. I’m as fond of a Gabba Gabba Hey as much as the bext man, but I wish I’d have been able to write a Wild Horses in my mid 20s.

rolling stones studio

Yer actual Mick n Keef, 1969 Muscle Shoals Sessions

In 1969, Keith Richards wrote the music and the “wild horses couldn’t drag me away” lyric as a lament to his young son Marlon who he frequently had to leave as he embarked on tour after tour. Jagger re-interpreted the lyric as a paeon to lost love. Marianne Faithful later claimed the first words Jagger said to her after an operdose were “wild horses couldn’t drag me away“. So. Lots of interpretations. You can make of it what you will. What is fact is that regular Stones keyboardist Ian Stewart didn’t actually play on the Stones version. He refused to play on the session because he hated playing minor chords on the piano! Numpty. Famous sessioneer Jim Dickinson (Aretha, Big Star, Rod Stewart to name but a few) played on the track instead.

What is also fact is that Keith gave the track to Gram Parsons and the first commercially available version of Wild Horses was by the Flying Burrito Brothers.  Since then, there’s been a zillion different cover versions. Here’s a few of the better, more interesting ones.

The Sundays Wild Horses (superb soul baring bedroom indie version)

LaBelle Wild Horses (smooth discosoultastic version from 1971)

Leon Russell Wild Horses (former Spector sessioneer’s southern fried piano-led version)

*Bonus tracks

Rolling Stones Wild Horses acoustic version. Taken from the Muscle Shoals ‘Sticky Fingers’ sessions bootleg.

Rolling Stones Wild Horses alternate version. Reverb-heavy outtake featured by mistake on some Dutch Rolling Stones compilation album before bveing hastily withdrawn. This version sounds wonky – the tape is running at the wrong speed for half of it.

rolling stones wild horses 2

demo, Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks, Studio master tapes, studio outtakes

It Was Plenty Years Ago Today

Craig McAllister

A year or so ago I had the idea to run a series of pun-tastic posts called ‘It was plenty years ago today‘. Based on the success of those Beatles mastertapes that I had posted (when Plain Or Pan melted immediately and the internet police first cottoned on to this site) I would combine my expert textpert knowledge of The Beatles with some of their better bootlegs in my collection and post rare outtakes and the like on the anniversary of the track being recorded. For one reason or other, I never quite got round to doing it, until today.

beatles walrus group

Given that this weekend is Beatles Weekend on BBC2 and given that the remastered albums are out in the middle of the week (now there’s a novel way of promoting a computer game – cannae wait to play it by the way), this is as good a time as any to get things going. Plenty years ago today (42 41  (oops!) to be precise), a week or so after Brian Epstein’s death, The Beatles reconvened (at Paul McCartney’s insistence – the others, especially Lennon, had no motivation to continue) on the 5th September to start work on the Magical Mystery Tour project.

beatles walrus

First up saw them tackle I Am The Walrus. Between the 5th and 6th and 27th, 28th and 29th September, The Beatles twisted and turned John Lennon’s gobbledigook nonsense tune into the psychedelic masterpiece you are no doubt familiar with. The tune itself began life in Lennon’s Weybridge house. Absent mindedly tickling the ivories one morning, Lennon heard the sound of a police car outside, noting how the ‘notes’ of the siren changed as the car got further away. He began replicating this sound on the piano, and this became the chord progression for I Am The Walrus. It should be noted here that JWL was heavily into LSD by this point in his life. Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to, as Spacemen 3 once said. Ian Macdonald’s excellent Revolution In The Head book dissects Lennon’s acid-soaked Walrus lyrics to the nth degree way better than I ever could. It’s a fantastic book. The last time I was in Fopp I think it was on sale for about £4! But I digress. Back to the music…

Over the course of the 5 sessions, the tune would go from instrumental (here‘s take 7) to incomplete vocal versions (here‘s take 16, minus the drunk-sounding strings at the start. Listen out for Lennon fluffing the ‘yellow matter custard’ line.), to alternate mixes (here‘s one) to the finished item complete with a King Lear radio play and various bits ‘n bobs woven into the mix by George Martin. Achtung! Here‘s the German mono mix.

capa

The tracks above come from a 15 track bootleg called Walrus, Eggman and Pinguins. It varies in quality and, to be honest, many of the tracks sound identical, but it nonetheless charts the studio progress of one of The Beatles more interesting moments. You can download the whole shebang here. Goo Goo G’joob!

Also available for download, reissues (!) of those Beatles 4 track mastertapes that caused all the fuss way back when.

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

A Day In The Life

She’s Leaving Home

With A Little Help From My Friends

And also still available (in high quality flac form only – the internet police jump straight on board with their handcuffs and truncheons whenever the mp3 of this becomes available) is the previously unheard 10min + mix of Revolution. Possibly an outfake, possibly the real deal, I wrote about it a wee while ago here. It’s a good read, even if I do say so myself. On the other hand, if you’re only here circling overhead like a vulture awaiting your next musical feast, you can cut out all the crap and download it here.

*Bonus Beatle fact #1!!!

I Am The Walrus is in Gary Numan’s list of Top 20 songs ever.

*Bonus Beatle fact #2!!!

As well as recording I Am The Walrus on the 6th September, The Beatles also had a go at George Harrison’s under-rated masterpiece Blue Jay Way. Sadly I have no outtakes of this. If anyone does have, you know how to contact me…

*Bonus Beatle fact #3!!!

Did you know that at the end of I Feel Fine the studio microphones unwittingly picked up the sounds of some dogs barking outside Abbey Road?  Hear it here! Right after the last “ooh!” backing vocal. Now dig it out your own copy, listen to it, turn it up for the last 10 seconds and you’ll hear them. I wonder if the dogs’ll still be on the up and coming remasters?

 

demo, Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes

Spread ’em!

Craig McAllister

I’ve been meaning to mention that Stone Roses reissue from a few weeks back. Whatever you think of them, I have to tell you that the remastered album sounds absolutely magic. It’s night and day compared to the weak, tinny excuse of a CD that didn’t even come out when the album was initially released. The new version sounds like a jet plane taking off in your living room. I can only guess what it must sound like through a decent pair of Senheissers after a jazz cigarette. If I had the money I’d have sprung for the complete nuts ‘n bolts b-sides ‘n all release in the John Squire artwork adorned canvas 12″ box. If everything sounds as good as the mastering on the album it’ll be well worth it, and the rest. Until I have the money, bittorrent will be my best friend…

stone roses bw

I’ve written about Love Spreads before (here – you’ll find the demo and the guitar tab) but I feel compelled to write about it again given that mp3s of yer actual studio mastertapes fell into my exciteable wee hands only a couple of hours ago. Aye, that’s right! The studio mastertapes for Love Spreads! Sort of…

Lead guitar

Mani Bassline

Reni drum track

vocals + guitar + piano

I’m sure they’re taken from one of those Guitar Hero-type video games (maybe Rock Band?) but I have 3 seperate tracks and one amalgamated track featuring vocals, guitar and piano (with a bit of bass bleeding through now and again). They sound fantastic. The bassline alone is crying out for some bedroom nerd to remix it into oblivion. In fact, if you had the time to combine the bass parts with the drum track, you’d have yourself the perfect backing track if you fancy a spot of bedroom hip hop.

Squire’s isolated guitar part sounds fairly easy to play, although the ‘track’ I have sounds like 2 guitar tracks added together – one fat sounding dropped D Les Paul doing all the slide parts and a thinner sounding guitar playing all the clipped chords and those top-of-the-scale notes. Find my tab from the other post and jam along. That’s what I’ve been doing this morning instead of the ironing! 

stone roses love spreads vid

Remember to get Audacity for the full Phil Spector four track bedroom production effect! And try not to make a mess in yer Calvins, McMark.

Bonus Track!!!

The long-forgotten live-in-the-studio version of Love Spreads that made it’s only appearance on the original 1995 Help album. No one ever mentions it but this version is immense. Features a nice piano ‘n drums break down not on the single version. Get it!

Cover Versions, demo

Brass In Pocket double whammy

Craig McAllister

With a mountain of ironing to do and house-husband status unwillingly thrust upon me, I’ve been watching a lot of crap telly recently, all the while putting more creases into my shirts than what were there to begin with. The thought of another David Dickinson repeat was an orange glowed step too far yesterday afternoon, so I found myself watching Lost In Translation for the umpteenth time. There’s a bit in it where Scarlett Johansson sings a wee bit of Brass In Pocket to Bill Murray and this had me thinking back to the days when buying a 7″ single was a big deal. I remember standing for ages in John Menzies deciding between Brass In Pocket and The Police’s Walking On The Moon, not quite with brass in pocket, but with a pound note burning a hole in my 11 year old hands. The Pretenders won out because Brass In Pocket was a newer single and my purchase helped take it all the way to the toppermost of the poppermost for 2 weeks.

pretenders brass sleeve

Brass in Pocket would be The Pretenders only number 1 single. In true artist fashion, Chrissie Hynde didnae like it. “Listen to that woman’s voice,” she told NME.  “I hate it.” You can decide for yourself – here‘s the demo version. A bit slower than you’ll be familiar with, but nonetheless not a million miles away from the polished Telecaster-and-chorus pedal sheen of the smash hit.

pretenders stage

As a young vinyl freak, I often wondered what Chrissie Hynde meant when she sang about ‘Detroit Leaning’. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I have discovered that the Detroit Lean is a style of driving where the slouched driver has one hand on the wheel and the other hand over the window sill and onto the door. Being America, the right hand would be steering and the left arm would be leaning. The driver may also use the left hand to tap the bodywork gently in time to whatever music happens to be coming over the FM airwaves. Think Snoop Dogg in his pimp mobile, although I’m sure you were thinking that already. If you’ve ever watched the wee boys race their souped up Corsas and Clios up and down Ayr shore front you’ll know what I mean. Although they listen to shitty, bass-heavy happy hardcore CDs. And drive Corsas and Clios. Although I’m sure you were thinking that already too.

Someone who is probably fonder of his own voice than Chrissie Hynde is Brett Anderson (or Bert from Suede, as I recall Norman Blake saying in one the music papers back at the start of the 90s). Suede had a go at covering Brass In Pocket for Ruby Trax, an NME compiled triple CD released to celebrate 40 years of the charts where the artists du jour covered some of their favourite tracks of the past 4 decades. Warning! The Suede version is very quiet and even slower than The Pretenders demo but, (whisper it), I quite like it. Even if Bert does take himself a wee bit too seriously. Just listen to the way he sings the “I’m special, so special” line.

brett

A portrait of the artist as the young man.

Blur Fanclub Singles, demo, Hard-to-find

His Arse Was Just A Blur

Craig McAllister

That’s the punchline to a well-quoted Billy Connolly joke, where he explains the joys of cycling at high speed. You yourself better get on yer bike and download the following tracks ASAP before the internet police remove some or all of them quicker than you can say “Wow! More Blur fanclub singles!” Go! Go! Go!

This is the second volume of the Blur Fanclub Singles. You can find out the background to the singles here, where the first few tracks are still available (after much re-uploading).  

sing_cover_big

2000: Sing (To Me)

Early version of an insignificant album track (Leisure) that gained it’s rightful status as a melancholic piano and vapour guitar-fest when it was included on the soundtrack to Trainspotting. This early version finds Damon mumbling and shouting nonsense a la a Home Counties Mark E Smith over the top of a piano seemingly played by Les Dawson. “So what’s the word?” The word is excellent, Damon. Top notch.

bsidesep_cover_big

2001: Tracks from a Camden Electric Ballroom gig in September 1999

I’m Fine

Bone Bag

No Monsters in Me

Young & Lovely

The gig itself was a one-off b-sides gig where Blur played nothing but, er, b-sides. For the record, the original studio version of I’m Fine can be found as an extra track on the 12″ and CD single of Popscene. These days, it’ll cost you an arm and a leg to buy. In the days of Nirvana, the post-Leisure pre-Modern Life… Popscene single was considered a bit of a flop and quickly forgotten about, much to the band’s chagrin.

Bone Bag backed CD2 of For Tomorrow, the single that introduced the band’s new found kicking-against-the-pricks anglified-and-proud-of-it organic Kinksian Modern Life Is Rubbish sound. Nah. I don’t know what that means either. And I wrote it. But you get the drift.

No Monsters In Me is a late era Blur b-side, making its appearance on the CD single of The Universal, that tune that Britrish Gas hijacked for their TV adverts. Young & Lovely was a track I always thought could’ve been held back for greater things. Instead, it was stuck away on the b-side of Chemical World. In hindsight, that makes Chemical World that rarest of things – a Blur single with good A and B sides. Let’s face it. Some of Blur’s b-sides are a bit ropey, aye?

wont_cover_big

2002: 2 tracks

Come Together (demo)

Won’t Do It (demo)

No, not a cover of yer Beatles Chuck Berry rip-offathon. Paul Weller and assorted showbiz pals got there first with that one. A live version of Come Together graced CD2 of the Chemical World single, but I think I’m right in saying the demo version featured here is the only studio recording to see the light of day. I’m sure Blurophiles will correct me if I’m wrong. I’m also sure they’d agree Come Together wsas perhaps best left in the studio. A noisy mess is how I’d describe it. Oops!!! Come Together is on Leisure. Of course it is. In my defence, I only have a promo copy of Leisure that has no tracklisting with it.

Won’t Do It graced the 12″ of There’s No Other Way. The demo version sounds exactly the same – the sound of a band finding their feet; one foot firmly placed in the experimental/feedback/racket side of the fence, the other foot making tentative steps towards that green faraway place known as ‘melody’. The first foot wins.

Anyway, enough of this tuneless fanclub nonsense. Only one sleep till the real Fanclub – Teenage Fanclub live in the rock n’ roll hotbed of Motherwell. Review and the usual pish about how great they are to follow.

Oh, and one more thing. The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that the first post in this series ended at 1998 and this post begins at 2000. Somehow, I’ve lost the 1999 tracks and artwork. My computer detectives are onto it……

 

Cover Versions, demo, Double Nugget, Hard-to-find

Them was rotten days

Craig McAllister

Going to see a band these days is far too expensive. Yer enormodome megastars like U2, Springsteen, AC/DC etc etc charge a small fortune. Yer second string enormodomers like Coldplay, Oasis, (insert your own choice here) etc etc can get away with charging similar fortunes. Even relatively minor league acts are asking you to stump up anything upwards of £15 to hear their one album’s worth of whining nonsense. And why? Cos in this day and age, when folk (like me) illegally share music, the artist has realised that the only way to make money is on the road. That’s why live music has never been so bouyant.  Even Madonna is out and about playing a football stadium near you. You can’t download the live experience. Aye, you can download a Dylan concert the minute he’s off stage. And you can watch umpteen YouTube shaky camera phone videos of Paul McCartney on stage with Neil Young even before the last bit of feedback has fizzled out. What you can’t do is download the actual in-yer-face gig. And until you can, your favourite artists will continue getting away with charging you the price of feeding a family of four for a week. But you knew that already.

blur ticket

It wasn’t always like this. I saw Blur for £1! (see above). I paid £4 on the door the first time I saw the Stone Roses. Even their famous Alexandra Palace gig was only £8.50. And they were massive by this point. I’ve tons of tickets for concerts I’ve been to where I’ve paid a fiver or less. Sure, that first Stone Roses concert was 20 years ago. Blur was 18. I’m no economist, but surely the price of gig tickets these days outstrips the rate of inflation?

ticket

I saw the Inspiral Carpets loads of times. So named after one band member commented on his fellow band member’s mum’s orange and brown 70s living room carpet, the first time I saw them they were supporting the Wedding Present in the Barrowlands. I thought they sounded like the Teardrop Explodes; swirly organ, 60s references, bowl cuts and all that. Every song sounded like ‘Reward‘. I was hooked. I kept my fingers poised over the pause button of my tape recorder during John Peel shows and I kept my eyes peeled on the gig pages of NME. I went to see them all the time. I paid £3.50 to see them in the bar at Glasgow Tech. A quick visit to their merchandise stall to purchase 2 ‘Cool As Fuck’ badges (lost on the way home) and a demo tape called Dung 4 cost me a further £3.60. Add a couple of student-bar-priced watery pints  and you can see that I had a great night out for a tenner.

Inspiral Carpets - DUNG 4

Keep the Circle Around

Seeds Of Doubt

Joe

Causeway

Inside My Head

Sun Don’t Shine

Theme From Cow

Butterfly

26

Garage Full Of Flowers

96 Tears

A couple of weeks ago I dug out that old demo tape and converted it into mp3 files. It’s very much of it’s time, but still sounds pretty good. If you’re in anyway into Farfisa-led 60s influenced tunes sung by a shouty guy called Steve (these songs are pre Tom Hingley fame era) then it’s for you. Some of the tracks appeared polished and shiny down the line on the Rare As Fuck Plane Crash ep.  Others crept onto 7″ b sides or re-appeared in future Peel Sessions. If you’re a fan of Inspiral Carpets you’ll know most of them. If not, it’s as good a place to start as any. This tape was the one thing that convinced me I had seen the future of rock n roll. And it wasn’t called Bruce Springsteen.  

Inlay

The Inspiral Carpets occasionally gave out a newsletter. By issue 4 it had become known as the moos-letter. Here’s the one I got round about the time I saw them in Glasgow Tech and bought the tape that you’re just about to download.

find out why 1

find out why 2 3

find out why 4

Footnote:

I meant to write in my original post that about a year after the Glasgow Tech gig, I saw the Inspiral Carpets again at Strathclyde University. This was round about the time Noel Gallagher was roadying for them. The band were outside unloading their van and I took the chance to get them to sign the inside of my Levis denim jacket. They all signed it (apart from the singer who was, to quote the roadie (Noel?), “away shaggin'”). Clint Boon drew the cow logo and wrote “Inspirals ’89” underneath it. I think my sister nicked the jacket about a year later. Pre-eBay, I don’t know where it ended up…

Blur Fanclub Singles, demo, Hard-to-find

Fish, Phish and all sorts of pish. Thank heavens for the internet.

Craig McAllister

It seems as good a time as any to post some of these tracks. Actually, a couple of weeks ago would’ve been better, but then as you know, I’m always just a half-step behind what’s currently in vogue. As I write, Blur have played their final gig. Again. And broken up. Again.

blur early

(snigger)

I’ve written about this before, but for those irregular/new visitors, I’ll go on record again and say that I’m a bit of a Blur fan. I have been since day 1. Bought She’s So High on 12″ and faithfully bought each release on the day of release until Crazy Beat limped out from between the grooves of Think Tank to promote a Coxon-less version of the band that had somewhat spectacularly ran out of steam. To be fair though, I played Think Tank a week or two ago and it’s held up fairly well, even without Coxon’s distinctive wonky guitar scratchings.

blur 97

The only aspect of Blur’s back catalogue I don’t have is the fanclub singles that get sent out every Christmas to those in the band’s fanclub. Subscribers to the fanclub received a quarterly fanzine called ‘Blurb‘. Come 1996 (and issue 4 of ‘Blurb‘) lucky subscribers also received a nice wee CD single at Christmas. In these modern times where bands continually blog, twitter and YouTube every bum note they’ve ever twanged, the notion of a fanclub is fairly quaint. But then, if you’re a fan and you’ve gotta have the lot, joining the fanclub was the only way to ensure your collection remained complete. REM have a similar fanclub that send you all sorts of live/demo/rare material that is the proverbial trainspotter’s wet dream.

coxon

A pissed Graham Coxon has just been knocked down by a car.

It’s all Britpop’s fault.

Thank heavens then for this thing called the internet. A bit of googling and bittorrenting later, and you too can have the entire recorded output of Fish, Phish and all sorts of pish. Look in all the right places and you might even find stuff you like. A couple of clicks yesterday led me to the very items missing from my Blur collection – the fanclub singles. Over the next few weeks I’ll post a couple of tracks until you too are bang up to date with all things Blurish. The fanclub singles were released once a year between 1996 and 2005. Here’s the first three:

death_cover_big

1996: Death of a Party

Acoustic demo version of a track which finally appeared on the Blur’s 1997 eponymously titled elpee. The demo was recorded at Matrix Studios in 1992. Extra points for the Syd Barrett-esque backing vocals. Blur sure set their stall out early…

iloveher_cover_big

1997: I Love Her

Demo recorded in 1991 at the sessions that produced ‘Leisure‘. Came with issue 8 of Blurb. Nice cheesegrater guitar/elastic band bass duel. Extra points for the pseudo Syd Barrett backing vocals. Can you see a pattern emerge?

close_cover_big

1998: Close

Demo recorded at Maison Rouge in 1992. Sounds a bit like the track above. What with all that backwards feedback fading in, it sure starts a bit like Popscene. Also has something approaching those “Ah ah watch you play” backing vocals that you’ll know from There’s No Other Way. Came with issue 12 of Blurb. Extra points for Coxon’s especially wobbly guitar solo.

More to follow in the next couple of weeks. Keep ’em peeled….

demo, Hard-to-find

A plea for Lee and GOLAS3

Craig McAllister

Hoy! Mavers! C’mere til I gie you a smack roon’ the heid. And make it quick, before that Pete Doherty gie’s you a different kinda smack roon’ the heid. In two weeks time, a bastardised version of The La’s will play a free festival in Sheffield. The band will consist of Lee Mavers (of course) along with selected Babyshambles personnel and Pete Doherty hingers oan. Not good. I asked Mavers if I could be in The La’s once. True story, but I’ll save it for another day. He told me I could never be in The La’s because I wasn’t a Scouser. Nowadays, anyone with the right haircut, Cuban heeled boots and fondness for illegal substances can seemingly fit right in. This new version of The La’s promises to be a car crash of even greater proportions than the 2005 version. And that’s really saying something. Bop bop shoobedoowop.

Don’t do it Lee. Stay at home, dig out the back catalogue and reminisce. That’s what most La’s fans have had to do for long enough anyway. It’s what I’ve been doing this week. Someone contacted me from Chile (!) and asked me to write a piece on The La’s for a cultural South American website. It’s being translated into Spanish as I type. I dug out my old La’s bootlegs and session material and buried myself in the stuff. It’s been magic. I have all The La’s small but perfect back catalogue apart from this…

timeless melody ad

The unreleased version of Timeless Melody, GOLAS3 (or GOLAS312 for the 12″). Almost 20 years to the day, 500 copies were pressed up and promoed to the music weeklies very briefly. GOLAS3 subsequently became the most sought after item in The La’s canon. It was withdrawn very quickly after Mavers decided he no longer liked the mix. But you knew that already. After hearing tape after tape of La’s sessions I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think even Mavers knew what he was really listening for some of the time. GOLAS3 is a fantastic release. I’d imagine you’ll all be familiar with Timeless Melody, but the withdrawn version is something else entirely. It has a full-fat mono-sounding thunk that is obviously missing from the watered down, more well known album version. “Almost an anti production!” raved St Etienne’s Bob Stanley, reviewing the singles in that week’s Melody Maker. The withdrawn version of Timeless Melody is The Beatles in Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, Jeff Beck in The Yardbirds and Bummer In The Summer-era Love rolled into one. ‘Wild’ Billy Childish must’ve cried into his impeccably imperialistic droopy moustache if he was ever fortunate enough to hear it. There’s even more to follow…

GOLAS_312-Melody_Maker-May_27-1989

Skip past the more familiar sounding Clean Prophet and you’ll get to Ride Yer Camel, a 7 minute lo-fi homage to the Delta Blues, recorded late one night in one of The La’s umpteen guitarist’s flats. Beefheart, Bo Diddley and the blues. I’ve written about it before (canny be arsed linking to it to be honest) but have a listen. You won’t believe your sanitised in-ear speaker system 21st century ears.

Timeless Melody

Clean Prophet

Ride Yer Camel

My mp3’s come courtesy of a very kind and decent Irishman. He made my day about 4 years ago. If you happen to have a copy of GOLAS3 or GOLAS312 lying around gathering dust in your collection, drop me a line and I’ll take it off your hands forever. You could make my day today. I’ll even give you some money for it. Everyone’s a winner baby, that’s no lie.

demo, Hard-to-find, Sampled

And I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh.

Craig McAllister

Yes! My hits per day has taken a sharp increase recently. Don’t know why, as I’m blogging far less than I used to, but thanks a million to you. And you. And you. And you. And… 

sadahura oh

Sadaharu Oh was a baseball player for the Yomiuri Giants in the Nippon Professional  Baseball League in Japan. He hit a world record 868 home runs in his career.  “And I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh” is a line from ‘Hey Ladies’ from the Beastie Boys ‘Pauls Boutique’ album.

Following the success of their globe straddling Licensed To Ill album with its Rick Rubin-produced juvenile rhymes on top of sample after sample of Jimmy Page and John Bonham, the Beastie Boys took themselves to LA and began working in self-imposed exile. With fresh money on their pocket, New York was too full of temptations. They relocated with the Dust Brothers in tow and worked on the demos that would become Paul’s Boutique. Given that it was a commercial disaster, the album was considered something of a failure and EMI quickly stopped promoting it. Yet, the album’s popularity grew and grew quietly. Music fans like me who wouldn’t consider listening to rap suddenly latched onto the facts that the album was constructed from a vast range of rock samples and references. Nowadays, Paul’s Boutique is considered the hippest thing in the Beastie Boys canon of work. Although I prefer Check Your Head.

pauls boutique

With 105 wholly uncredited samples, Paul’s Boutique is on a par with De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising for imagination, inventiveness and downright blatant stealing (I’ve already mentioned De La Soul’s Magnum Opus here) Familiar bits of records jump out at you. James Brown yelps and huhs all over it, hard-to-place bits of Pink Floyd fade in and out, Sly Stone bass lines and drum parts feature regularly, Johnny Cash sings about killing a man in Reno just to watch him die (though not on the demo, as you’ll hear); the album is a trainspotters delight, choc-full of musical refernce points. Even those sacred cows The Beatles get the Beasties treatment. Their late-period catalogue is ransacked and reassembled as ‘The Sounds of Science’. The Back In The USSR jet sound, the crowd noise from the start of the Sgt Peppers album, the Sgt Peppers drums, the oboe and bassline from the start of When I’m 64, the drum track from Abbey Road‘s ‘The End’, the orchestra tuning up at the start of Sgt Peppers, it goes on and on and on and on, all the while the 3 Beastie Boys rapping about Isaac Newton, Galilleo, Muhammed Ali’s ‘Rope A Dope’ boxing technique (which consisted of giving your opponent the opposite of what you lead him to believe he is about to receive) and anything else that comes into their way-too-clever brains….

Now here we go dropping science dropping it all over
Like bumping around the town like when you’re driving a Range Rover
Expanding the horizons and expanding the parameters
Expanding the rhymes of sucker M.C. amateurs
Naugels, Isaac Newton Scientific E.Z.
Ben Franklin with the kite getting over with the key
Rock shocking the mic as many times times the times tables
Rock well to tell dispel all of the old fables
I’ve been dropping the new science and kicking the new knowledge
An M.C. to a degree that you can’t get in college
The dregs of the earth and the eggs that I eat
I’ve got pegs through my hands and one through my feet
Shea Stadium the radium E M D squared
Got kicked out of the Palladium you think that I cared
It’s the sound of science
Public service announcement time and money for girls covered with honey
You lie and aspire to be as cunning
Reeling and rockin’ and rollin’ B size D cup
Order the quarter deluxe why don’t you wake up
My mind is kinda flowin like an oil projector
Had to get up to get the Jimmy protector
Went berserk and worked and exploded
She woke up in the morning and her face was coated
Buddy you study the man on the mic
D. do what you like
Drunk a skunk am I from the celebration
To peep that freak unique penetration
I figured out who makes the crack
It’s the suckers with the badges and the blue jackets
A professor of science cause I keep droppin’ it
I smell weed ’cause ya’ll keep packin’ it
People always asking what’s the phenomenon
Yo what’s up know what’s going on
No one really knows what I’m talking about
Yeah that’s right my name’s Yauch
Ponce De Leon constantly on
The fountain of youth not Robotron
Peace is a word I’ve heard before
So move and move and move upon the dance floor
I’m gonna die gonna die one day
Cause I’m goin and goin and goin this way
Not like a roach or a piece of toast
I’m going out first class not going out coach
Rock my Adidas never rock Fila
*I do not sniff the coke I only smoke sinsemilla*
With my nose I knows and with my scopes I scope
What I live I write and that is strictly rope
I’ve got science for any occasion
Postulating theorems formulating equations
Cheech wizard in a snow blizzard
Eating chicken gizzards with a girl named Lizzy
Dropping science like when Galileo dropped his orange

Clever stuff, huh, although a bit of googling won’t go amiss while you read the above. Here‘s the original LA demo of The Sounds Of Science’.

beastie boys

Here’s some more demos..

Johnny Ryall demo #2 Samples Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney drums, Jean Knight’s Mr Big Stuff and a whole host of stuff I can’t quite place. Elvis, Bob Dylan and Donald Trump are all mentioned in the lyrics.

Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun demo Samples the big piano chord from Pink Floyd’s ‘Time‘, nicks the drums from Ocean’s ‘Put Your Hand In The Hand‘ and some Incredible Bongo Band bongos. The lyrics feature references to Bruce Willis, A Clockwork Orange and Son Of Sam.

Shake Your Rump demo Samples (if you listen carefully and quickly) Led Zeppelin’s Good Times Bad Times drums, lots of Rose Royce’s Carwash (the looped wah wah guitar), some Bob Marley’s ‘Could You Be Loved’ and a million other unheard-by-these-ears 70s funk nuggets. The lyrics make reference to Kangol hats, Fred Flintstone and Pigpen from The Grateful Dead. Nothing if not eclectic.

Egg Man demo liberally steals from Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Superfly‘. Lyrics make reference to Dr Seuss, Cheech and Chong, Cadbury’s Cream Eggs and Public Enemy’s You’re Gonna Get Yours.

Paul’s Boutique has undergone something of a critical reappraisal since it’s initial release. This year saw the release of the 20th Anniversary Edition. Sadly EMI chose not to feature any of the demos that are widely available on t’internet. More fool them. Until they do, enjoy the demos you’ve found here.

BONUS FEATURE!!

paul audio

There’s a fantastic series of books, the 33 1/3 series, where classic albums are untangled and dissected and their mysteries revealed. Paul’s Boutique has been given this treatment not once, but twice –  as a standard book and as an audio book. You can download the audio book free (and legally) here. Whatchawaitinfor?

Cover Versions, demo, Hard-to-find

Can Gone Congo! Total Jungle Funk, Man!

Craig McAllister

 

 Hey! Hey! Hey! A-Hey! Hey! Hey! You’re twistin’ my melon, man! You know you talk so hip man, you’re twistin’ my melon, man! Call The Cops!

And with that carefully chosen piece of garbled nonsense Shaun Ryder, the thinking man’s Poet Laureate, put his band the Happy Mondays and a whole host of shuffly drummered 3rd rate copyists into the mainstream where they set up camp in Nedville for every Joe Bloggsed-up ned, bam and ‘yeah but no but yeah but right but’ wee hairy to claim them as their very own. Not that us music snobs were in anyway put out of course.

john kongos

Yer real actual music fans could tell you that “Step On was a cover, actually“, by the wonderfully named John Kongos. Sounds a bit like Congo, doesn’t it? Which is fairly appropriate, as his original version is a thumping tribal chant of a record. With a brilliant guitar riff. Replicated note for twanging note by Horse, yer Mondays tragically under-rated natty hat-wearing guitar player. Much like the Sex Pistols and Glen Matlock, the rest of the band hated him. He didn’t play in any of the comeback gigs. There’s yer problem right there, reformed Happy Mondays.

happy mondays

South African-born Kongos was also responsible for giving the Mondays another hit in the form of Tokoloshe Man. The original features a bluesy, swampy guitar riff and more tribal drumming a la He’s Gonna Step On You Again. The cover is pretty faithfull, although the Ryder brothers have flung a big bucket of Salford grime, muck and scuzz all over their clattering industrial funk and most of it’s stuck.  Paul Oakenfold does his best to polish it up, but it’s not too glossy. A perfect example of (gads) late 80s/early 90s indie-dance, in other words.

Johnny Wakelin

The 2 John Kongos tracks really remind me of In Zaire. The 1976 original was by Johnny Wakelin. Written about the Ali-Foreman 1974 Rumble In The Jungle boxing match, it has since been recorded by numerous no-mark disco artists. When I first started going to discos as an under-ager, In Zaire was regulalry played. I loved it. Johnny Wakelin’s version is the best. Chanting, repetitive riffs, tribalism again, it’s like Can gone Congo. Total jungle funk, man! 

Bonus tracks!

Happy Mondays – Step On (Stuff It In mix)

Happy Mondays – Bring a Friend (Bummed album demo)