Category: Hard-to-find

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Retro thrift shop fashion transvestites

Craig McAllister

Jellyfish were great. Power pop for the pre-Nirvana teeny boppers. Tunes by The Beatles. Backing vocals and guitar solos by Queen. Clothes by Hanna Barbera. Modern day insipid retro tunesmiths like The Feeling would give their stripey trousers and kerrrrazzzeee facial hair to be able to write half a tune as masterful as ‘Now She Knows She’s Wrong’. They must listen in jaw-dropping awe to ‘Bellybutton’ or cry over their copy of ‘Spilt Milk’ at least once a week.

Jellyfish-eye lens

Jellyfish only made the aforementioned 2 albums before splitting. I never got to see them live although I think they once played King Tuts. My pal’s band played a few shows with them in America and told me that for all the day-glo Californian sunshine and love image they projected, they were really a right grumpy bunch of selfish unfriendly bastards. Especially Andy Sturmer, the singing drummer. Fans of the Trashcan Sinatras may recognise the line, “There’s an anecdote about an argument with the singer from Jellyfish.” It’s a good anecdote too…

Baby’s Coming Back video shoot

Nowadays, the various musicians that made up the band can be heard on a multitude of off-shoots and side projects (including, but not exclusively Imperial Drag, The Moog Cookbook, Umajets, TV Eyes) all on a MySpace site near you. There’s actually too much music to investigate beyond Jellyfish, and I’ve never tried to (!) The 2 albums plus the 4CD Australian box set ‘Fan Club’ are all I need. The demos and live cuts below are taken from the long-deleted and hard-to-get box set. 

The Man I Used To Be

Calling Sarah (with ‘She Loves You’ “Yeah Yeah Yeah“‘s)

All I Want Is Everything

Baby’s Coming Back

Now She Knows She’s Wrong

interview on 91X, San Diego

No Matter What (Badfinger cover, live)

Jet (Wings cover, live)

(Flower) power chords

Still needing more? Can’t get enough of Jellyfish? How about this? Right click on the picture below, ‘save as…’ and print it off. Voila! Your very own official Jellyfish colouring-in page, taken from the promo coloring-in book (note American spelling) from 1990. Make them as sunny day-glo Californian or as grumpy as you want.

Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes

Rock Me Joe!

Craig McAllister

“There was a guy. An underwater guy…” The Pixies are currently going through a bit of a renaissance in our house just now. I was getting fed up with all the feyness of the Fleet Foxes and their ilk (as much as I still like them) and was looking for something to blow the cobwebs away. Something loud. Actually, something quiet then LOUD. Then quiet again. Then 10 times LOUDER. You know what I mean. So I played ‘Surfer Rosa’ and everything was alright again. Then by coincidence, about an hour later I found the demos to ‘Doolittle‘ on Dimeadozen! A sign? I thought so. So I downloaded them, went back to my other Pixies albums and bootlegs and have been going Black Francis crazy ever since. In the car, on the iPod, on the good old fashioned stereo in the living room, the Pixies are everywhere. Everywhere. And they sound grrrrrrrrrreeeeeaaaaatttt!!!

Pixies ’88

Who’d have thought anyone responding to an advert seeking musicians “into Peter, Paul & Mary and The Beatles‘ could join forces and create such an unholy tuneful racket? I have been playing a bootleg called ‘Rough Diamonds’ an awful lot. In fact, it just might be the best Pixies non-release there is. It combines all of their BBC sessions at Maida Vale (unlike the incomplete official BBC Sessions CD) with some other studio outtakes from various sources. The sound quality is Grade A excellent. You really should seek it out. While it was never my favourite Pixies track (that would be Number 13 Baby. Or Broken Face. Or Gigantic. Or River Euphrates. Or…), I have been fairly taken by these versions of ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’

First, we have the demo version of the track that would appear on the Doolittle album. Slightly sparse and a wee bit less rocking than the released version, this version sees the band find their feet around the track. Kim Deal’s backing vocals are buried way too deep in the mix and the band sound quite restrained. By the time the band went to Maida Vale Studio 5 on 18th August 1988 (almost 20 years ago! Shite, I’m getting old), the tune had been transformed into something of a behemoth. It sounds like a ton of reverb has been chucked over the whole thing. The bass sounds fantastic and KIm’s breathy schoolgirl vocals are higher up in the mix. There’s even a wee bit of echo during the “If man is 5 then the devil is 6” bit. Frank Black/Black Francis is at his shouty best. This version goes quiet, LOUD, quiet, LOUDER. It’s a winner!

Pixies ’08. Peter, Paul, Mary and Ringo

If this isn’t enough for you, how about this? It’s only the studio master tapes of ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’!!!! 16 tracks of Kim, Black/Frank, David and Joseph Alberto Santiago. One complete ogg vorbis file. Open as usual in Audacity and remix away. More cello? Certainly! Loop the ‘Rock Me Joe’ bit. No bother. More reverb on the snare drum? Certainly sir. Here‘s the double-tracked vocals only version. God, the internet is great, isn’t it?

Cover Versions, entire show, Hard-to-find

Tan By Your Man

Craig McAllister

Man-bag wearing, perma-tanned soul/folk/rock crooning all round pie, mash ‘n’ jellied eels geezer Paul Weller played a ‘God’s Jukebox’ session recently on Mark Lamarr‘s Radio 2 show. And it was a belter.

Extremely well played (is that a mellotron?) and captured perfectly in the high quality files below, Weller and his “boys” run through a selection of tracks from his new album ’22 Dreams’, as well as a track from ‘As Is Now’ and a cover of Manfred Mann’s ‘Pretty Flamingo’. All in all a good days work at the office and a nice session to own. You could be impatient and download just the music from the links below, or you could download the entire session, interview included in high quality flac files. I’d go for the latter.

All I Wanna Do Is Be With You

Cold Moments

Push It Along

Pretty Flamingo

Misty Morning

The interview is informative, but fairly light hearted. It pokes fun at Sting, compares chord sequences to Abba’s ‘Take A Chance On Me’ and alludes to the band playing standing back-to-back à la Thin Lizzy. Which doesn’t really work on the radio, but would have you thinking that Paul Weller isn’t the next gurmudgeon due on the new series of Grumpy Old Men after all. He sounds like he’s having fun, both in his playing and his chat. Enjoy the session. (Recorded on July 5th, if you need to know these kind of things)

 Soul, man!

Hard-to-find, Sampled

Get Filthy with Sarah Cracknell

Craig McAllister

Wouldn’t you love to? The ironic thing is, the track in question doesn’t even feature Sarah Cracknell on vocals, but it is one of the best Saint Etienne tracks you’re ever likely to hear. This is not a media hype…

‘Filthy’ began life in 1991 on the b-side of ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ and features the enigmatic (and 15 year old) Q-Tee on vocals. It’s dubby and spacey. There’s a bit of wah-wah which may well have been sampled from an obscure 70s soul record, a looped drum break that could’ve come from the same record, a cracking (sampled? probably) bassline that’s been looped to infinity and even a glockenspiel solo at one point. I used to get quite annoyed that my copy on 12″ sounded like someone was frying bacon on top of it. Years later I got ‘Filthy’ on CD and I realised the vinyl crackles and pops had been added for effect. Actually, maybe they haven’t. They might be crackles from the original vinyl that had been sampled when jigsawing the track together. I hadn’t thought of that until now! 

Q-Tee

On top of the fantastic music and the snaps! crackles! and pops! you get Q-Tee’s vocals. Starting out like a sexy version of PIL’s ‘Public Image’, “Hello? Hello? Hahahaha!”, they are husky, half-rapped, half-spoken and half-sung (can you have 3 halves?) and they make the track what it is –  a b-side that should’ve been an a-side. I think Saint Etienne themselves recognised Q-Tee’s contribution to the track, because they got her back to rap on ‘Calico‘, when they recorded the ‘So Tough’ LP. They also appear to have realised how good a track ‘Filthy ‘was, because it’s been available in at least 2 other versions since 1991.

In 1995, Saint Etienne teamed up with French chanteuse Etienne Daho, to form St Etienne Daho. They released a 5 track ep, half in French, half in English. (Halves again!) On it you’ll find a re-working of ‘He’s On The Phone’ called ‘Accident (Week-End à Rome)’ that’s pretty good, but the ep is worth getting just for the track ‘Jungle Pulse‘, which is ‘Filthy‘ sung in French. Etienne Daho sounds like MC Solaar rapping on the top. Sarah adds a whispered French thingy in the background and the whole track rolls along nicely. C’est magnifique.

In February this year, Saint Etienne released ‘Boxette‘, which compiles all their hard-to-get and highly collecatble fan club only ep’s and albums. A collector’s wet dream, it has all the Saint Etienne you’ll ever need spread over 4 CDs. It was only available through their fan club and sold for £25. It now goes for around £100 on eBay, so start saving or look below…..The first disc is brilliant. There’s not one bit of filler on it. ‘Filthy‘ makes an appearance, this time under the guise of ‘Studio Kinda Filthy’.  A bit less dubby but a bit more echoey and a whole lot more spy film, it’s equally worth having. Extra points too for the old-school sampled BBC announcer at the start.  

Do di do di do, do, di, do di do, do di do di do di do di, do di do di do!

Elsewhere on ‘Boxette‘ you’ll find their version of David Bowie’s ‘Absolute Beginners’ (Not very good to be honest. Neither was it when I saw them play it live in 1991). Anyway. I don’t normally post whole albums of stuff that are available and/or new, but as ‘Boxette‘ was limited to 3000 copies and has long since sold out and been deleted, in these credit crunch times save your eBay pennies and click on these links:

CD1               CD2               CDs 3 & 4

Poke about and you’ll find all the artwork you need and you can fashion your own Blue Peter-style Saint Etienne ‘Boxette‘ box set. I did and it looks great!

entire show, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Liz luvs Jeff (IDT INDT)

Craig McAllister

* Broken link for ‘Grace’ fixed!!!

On the 12th May 1995, Jeff Buckley was playing at Prince‘s club, ‘First Avenue’, in Minneapolis. On the same night, a session he recorded in Atlanta a couple of weeks earlier (probably) on the 22nd April was broadcast on the radio. It was later released on a bootleg CD simply titled ‘Sessions‘. I paid about £15 for my CD at the Barrowlands market one Sunday, way back before the internet was freely available and file sharing was all the rage. Of all the Jeff Buckley bootlegs and odds ‘n’ sods I have, the ‘Sessions‘ CD is probably the one I go back to the most, so in the spirit of the internet and Plain Or Pan’s ‘Hard To Find’ policy, the whole session is available for download below.

Played in front of a small studio audience, this is a mostly acoustic session even though Buckley plays with his band. It sounds intense, focussed and crystal clear. The one minor gripe I have with the session though is the way he bends, twists and strangles his voice into different sounds. I know that’s supposed to be part of the appeal, but sometimes during this session it can all get a bit much. He growls, yelps, warbles and yodels, and makes sounds that probably only dogs can hear. Round about this time he was shagging Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins). There was a documentary on the telly when she said so and admitted her undying love for him. Who knew?!?!? Whereas some unfortunates get STD’s for their troubles, it seems Ms Fraser passed on some of her annoying vocal tendencies to lucky Buckley instead.

I am now ducking…

Of course, he also sings. And that’s what I always focus on when I listen to him. Well, that and his fantastic guitar playing. I still don’t know how he does it both at the same time.

Last Goodbye
So Real
Mojo Pin
Grace
Lover, You Should Have Come Over

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! For those of you who are relatively new to Plain Or Pan?, you’ll find various Jeff Buckley stuff scattered around the site. You could look here, or here, or just click on a month on the sidebar and see what turns up. You won’t be disappointed. You could also do worse than check out Buckleyesque, a decent wee blog that has loads of Jeff rarities (although it could do with a bit of an update).

voice of an angel, wings of an angel

  

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

They tried to make him go to rehab…

Craig McAllister

…and he went. Poor Ronnie Wood. Making Pete Doherty look like a total lightweight, he’s been on a bit of a bender recently, going off without his wife of 23 years, instead taking with him a 20 year old Russian ‘cocktail waitress’ (and escort) to Ireland for a massive drink, drugs and how’s yer father session. And now he’s in rehab trying to save both his vital organs and his marriage. Being a Rolling Stone, surely that’s all part of the job? Just ask Keith Richards or Bill Wyman. At least Ronnie’s girlfriend was above the legal age of consent. To paraphrase Rod Stewart in his MTV Unplugged concert, “This song was written before some of you were born……….mind you, me wife was only 1!” Until he recovers, let’s remember Ronnie Wood for what he’s good at – making rock ‘n roll records (and painting – all the pictures here are his work).

Here’s a couple of lesser-known tracks from his extensive pre-Stones back catalogue. ‘You’re On My Mind’ by The Birds (with an ‘i’ not a ‘y’) was the first song he ever wrote. Released by Decca in 1964, it was apparently inspired by The Yardbirds. The b-side to the above track was a cover of Bo Diddley‘s ‘You Don’t Love Me’, a staple for many a blues-inspired garage band in the early 60s. Ronnie also played with The Creation (‘Midway Down’) before going on to play bass in the Jeff Beck Group, where he played with Rod Stewart for the first time.

‘Plynth (Water Down The Drain)’  from the ‘Beck-Ola’ album sounds like a blueprint for everything Ron ‘n’ Rod did in The Faces. It’s loose, bluesy, funky and has a great slide guitar riff and a fantastic bassline from Ronnie. You know his other work – ‘Stay With Me’, ‘Miss Judy’s Farm’, ‘Cindy Incidentally’, Gasoline Alley, ‘Maggie May’, the list is endless. Any decent Rod Stewart 70s compilation has the lot. Of course, he’s not really allowed to write for the Stones, even if he has the best haircut out the lot of them, but that surely is Mick ‘n Keith’s loss. Get well soon Ronnie!

Hard-to-find rarity alert!!! Here‘s the full-length version of ‘Maggie May’, complete with the neatly picked acoustic guitar intro that’s missing from just about every version of the song that’s ever been released. As Frank Carson used to say, it’s a cracker.

entire show, Hard-to-find

Bon (h)iver? Bon été!

Craig McAllister

Today’s post has the feel of that dodgy Freeview Channel, ‘Dave‘, the channel that shows endless repeats of ‘Have I Got News For You’, ‘QI’, ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’ etc – all great stuff, none of which was actually produced by ‘Dave‘ itself. Read on…

Many of you I’m sure will be familiar with the Bon Iver album, ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’. All critics and music fans alike seem to love it. It’s been called modern folk, it’s been called folktronic, but to me it’s just plain old folk music. It’s not a million miles away from King Creosote and the Fence Collective group of musicians from Fife in Scotland, but for whatever reason Bon Iver will find himself at the top of most ‘Best of the Year lists, which is something that has so far eluded King Creosote.

Bon Iver prepares to throw another lucky 6

Many of you will also be familiar with the story of how Justin Vernon split up with his girlfriend, and went into the mountains to live off the land and write and record his album.  As Vernon himself said, “(For Emma, Forever Ago) was made on a pilgrimage to the woods of northwestern Wisconsin. With only guns, venison, firewood, a sears typewriter, and ancient musical equipment.” And it sounds like it. Grizzly Adams gone mellow. It’s a fantastic album and I’ve been playing it to death recently. As is the way with these things, once I get my teeth into an artist, I like to seek out every recording they’ve made. What follows below is a rag-bag assortment of radio sessions and TV appearances that have been converted to mp3 and are available for your enjoyment. 

Remember what I wrote in the opening paragraph? ‘Dave‘ TV? Some of these tracks have already been made available by one or two other blogs and others I’ve found through the wonders of the world wide web, so I take no real credit for bringing them to your ears. In the spirit of ‘Dave’ TV, these tracks may well be repeats – you’ve heard them already, but, hey, I’ll hear it again and might even download it this time. I think I’m the first to compile all these Bon Iver tracks in the one place. They’re a bit more rough and ready than the album versions, more stripped back and some how a bit more honest. Listen out for the squeaky door opening around 1.40 in the first track….

Flume  (Backstage Sessions, Nashville)

Creature Fear  (Backstage Session, Nashville)

Flume  (MOKB* studio 4th April)

Skinny Love  (SXSW festival)

Skinny Love (Live on Later with Jools Holland)

Flume (Live on Later With Jools Holland)

 Flume (Radio K In-Studio Sessions)

* MOKB is My Old Kentucky Blog. There’s a great interview with Bon Iver right there right now. I stole the above pictures from there too. Credit where it’s due and all that. And if these tracks aren’t enough for you, click on the taxi picture below to take you to Black Cab Sessions. You’ll find a great clip (Chapter 44) of Bon Iver playing ‘Creature Fear’  in the back of a London taxi. There’s some Fleet Foxes too. Take time to look around it, there’s some great stuff.

ps – I’m also looking for Bon Iver’s XFM Session from around April/May this year. Anyone got some files they can point me in the direction of?

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Skunk, Skank ‘n’ Short, Short Skirts? It must be Amy Winehouse!

Craig McAllister

It’s great to see her actually making news for all the right reasons this week. Well, she would be making the news if anyone had picked up on this, but I’m sure you get my point…Released under the radar to absolutely no fanfare whatsoever this week was a rather fetching 2 Tone-inspired 7″ ep by Amy Winehouse. The ‘Ska ep’ does exactly what it says on the tin. 4 tracks, 2 on each side, of Amy interpreting Ska classics that you may or may not have heard first from listening to The Specials. I love these versions, pointless as they ultimately are. And I love the sleeve, even if Amy hasn’t looked that voluptuous since 2006. Diana Dors in a wig…

A1. Monkey Man (Toots & The Maytals)
A2. Hey Little Rich Girl (THe Specials)
B1. You’re Wondering Now (Andy & Joe)
B2. Cupid (Sam Cooke)

The vinyl ep is currently going for funny money on eBay, but the above mp3’s are a good alternative for those of us suffering from the credit crunch. As a bonus track, here‘s the Arctic Monkeys version of Amy‘s ‘You Know I’m No Good’. It also does exactly what it says on the tin. Flat singing, wrong words, half-arsed delivery. Yep. You know it’s no good. But don’t take my word for it….

Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes

Gimme Shelter? Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!

Craig McAllister

Updated November 2010!

Hey! You! Aye, You! You’ve probably stumbled onto here via Google or whatever search engine or blog aggregator you use, hoping to find some Rolling Stones goodies. Just to let you know, the links for the music contained herein are looooooooong dead, but, BUT! you can now get them from here – https://philspector.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/rolling-stones-jigsaw-puzzle/ instead. Oh yeah!

Yes! It’s yet another of those fantastic studio master tapes that are all over the internet! It’s hard to top The Beatles Master Tapes. You might say they’ll never be topped. But this is a close second. Very close. This time it’s only THE STONES! THE ROLLING STONES! The master tapes of ‘Gimme Shelter’! Oh yes! No kidding! You may have these tracks already, cos they have appeared almost everywhere online, but I am aware that many visitors to this site come specifically to find studio gems such as these, so if you don’t have it, prepare to be dazzled. Daaaaaaaa-zzled!

A dazzled Mick. Camp? Moi?

Part 1. The History. ‘Gimme Shelter’ appeared on ‘Let It Bleed’ (the cake on the cover was made by Delia Smith, fact #1) and released in 1969. As you all know the song was the soundtrack to the end of the 60s. Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away, and all that. The Hells Angels murdered someone in the crowd at Altamont and the whole of the 60s went tits up and finished. Just like that. The decade that had started so brightly and full of hope ended (musically) on a sour note. But like I said, you all knew that.

Everyone waves bye bye to the end of the 60s

The song was written by Jagger and Richards. Jagger was getting lyrics together between takes of the film ‘Performance‘ that he was making at the time. Richards was playing about with the distinctive intro looking for a song to fit it. Et voila. Recording took place at Olympic Studios in London around February and March 1969 with Jimmy Miller producing. In one of those magical moments that occur now and again, Miller suggested getting a female vocalist to duet with Jagger. Cue Merry Clayton (incorrectly credited as Mary Clayton on the album, fact #2). Clayton’s high pitched, powerful vocal performance made the song. Her vocals are absolutely astounding.

Merry Mary Clayton

If you don’t believe me, here‘s the double tracked vocal-only performance. Just Jagger and Clayton battling it out. Listen out around the 3 minute mark as her voice cracks under the pressure and Jagger whoops a celebratory “Oh yeah!”. It. Is. Astonishing. Jagger later said of the finished track, “That’s a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It’s apocalypse.” And the vocal track certainly backs this up. And if you liked that part enough….

Keith. 27th November 1969. 15 days after I was born. Fact #3

Part 2. The Science Part. The files for these master tapes came originally (I think) from some enterprising kind soul with a Keith Richards fixation and a copy of the ‘Rock Band’ computer game. They are in ogg vorbis format, which means they cannot be played directly into Windows Media or iTunes or anything like that. But fear not. Get yourself Audacity. Install it and open it up. Open a new file from the menu, find the ‘Gimme Shelter.mogg’ file that you’ve just downloaded, double click it and by the wonders of technology, after about a minute you’ll find all 9 tracks open up simultaneously. Press ‘play’ and the whole track as you know it will start. Now let the fun begin. On the left hand side of your screen you will see the option to ‘mute‘ the track. Have fun muting the various tracks. Then click and drag across the track you want to isolate and save it as a wma file. You can make instrumental tracks for karaoke (why?) or you can make guitar-free tracks so that you can jam along. Whatcha waitin’ for?

YOU CAN BE KEITH RICHARDS FOR 4 MINUTES!!!

Me. Yesterday.

Footnote. There have been many, many covers of ‘Gimme Shelter’. Merry Clayton did one herself. I don’t have my copy handy at present or I would’ve included it in this post. Suffice to say, a future ‘Gimme Shelter Covers‘ post is almost guaranteed. From the sublime to the ridiculous, they’ve all done it. Inspiral Carpets, Hawkwind with Sam Fox, Patti Smith, Voice Of The Beehive…..prepare to be irked.

UPDATE Feb. 09

Links were deleted by internet police, but you can find the instrumental guitar tracks here.

Dylanish, Hard-to-find

The Cat In The Brand New Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat

Craig McAllister

Got the new issue of Mojo through the letterbox today and amongst the usual excellent mix of articles, I spotted a wee nod to ‘Dylan Hears A Who’. This was a project that I stumbled across quite by accident about a year ago, where a couple of guys recreated Bob Dylan‘s golden mid-6os period with the most authentic-sounding band ever, playing songs who’s lyrics are made up entirely from words and phrases taken from the writing of Dr Seuss. It has to be heard to be believed, but trust me, the album is easily one of the Top 3 things I’ve ever downloaded. Even the artwork is beautifully pastiched…

According to Mojo, mp3’s of ‘Dylan Hears A Who’ are hard to find. A bit of poking around on the internet shows this to be true. Dylan loved the music  – there’s faithful pastiches of ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’, ‘Tombstone Blues’, ‘Queen Jane Approximately’ and much more, but the dylanhearsawho website was shut down on the instructions of the Dr Seuss estate. Booooo! Pastiche fascists! So a year late, I’m posting it here. Artwork is included!

The Cat in the Hat

There’s something happening here and you don’t know what it is? Try before you buy!  Here‘s the aforementioned splendid take on ‘Tombstone Blues’, entitled ‘Green Eggs & Ham’. See what I mean? Now go and download the whole lot. You won’t regret it. ‘Too Many Daves’ sounds like one of those hotel room tape recordings that Bob fans go mental over. I’d forgotten quite how good Dylan Hears A Who actually is. Thanks, Mojo. Now. What are you waiting for?