Various Artists - Ren & Stimpy Production Music, Vol. 1-3

I watched the new documentary Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story earlier this week, an amazing, thrilling, hilarious and ultimately deeply disturbing chronicle of the rise and fall of the groundbreaking and beloved 1990s Nickelodeon cartoon and its creator, John Kricfalusi. Here's the trailer for it:

If you're an old fan of the show, I heartily recommend you see this film. I won't give anything away here, other than to say that it will jolt you to your core... but hopefully not enough to displace your fond memories of this program.

I distinctly recall the first time I ever saw Ren & Stimpy. I moved to the Washington, DC area during the summer of 1991, and soon afterward acquired a new girlfriend. During the first weekend we hung out together that fall, she insisted that we get up to watch this manic new cartoon airing on Nicktoons... it was the "Space Madness"/"The Boy Who Cried Rat!" episode, and by the end of it, I knew that I had just seen one of the greatest cartoons of the age.  From then on, I watched the program religiously every weekend, absorbing multiple viewings of the same shows (Ren & Stimpy's production company, Spümcø, was notorious for missing delivery deadlines, leaving Nickelodeon no choice but to air the same episodes over and over again as a stopgap), and loving every single one of them.

As I mentioned in a previous blog posting, one of my all-time favorite Ren & Stimpy episodes is "Rubber Nipple Salesmen", containing what has to be the most disturbing, off-putting - and yet, hilarious - scene EVER included in what was ostensibly a children's cartoon:

By the start of the second season, it was all over. Nickelodeon fired Kricfalusi in September 1992 (for several valid reasons, in my opinion - see the documentary film for details), and Spümcø completed the slate of remaining shows written or directed by Kricfalusi before production of the show was moved by the network to Games Animation. Ren & Stimpy aired for another three seasons, into 1995, but without John K.'s imagination and energy behind it, the later-period episodes were little more than pale echoes of the show in its heyday.

A lot of what made this show great was in its liberal use of vintage "incidental music" from the 1950s and 1960s, that gives every cartoon a certain "throwback" tone to some of the classic animation and studios from that era. Way back in 2006, a great site called Secret Fun Blog and its compiler Kirk D. went the extra mile, and began offering compilations of music from Ren & Stimpy.  To quote from his superb post:

Put simply, these melodies have enriched my life. Play them on your drive to work and you're the star of an instructional traffic safety film, turn it on during dinner and mealtime becomes 80% happier (but be careful.. play the wrong track and you could wind up with a touch of Space Madness). Best of all you can listen and imagine that you live in the world of Ren and Stimpy where the walrus-napping horse is your next door neighbor, where the toy stores are stocked with Log from Blammo, and a visit from Powdered Toast Man is just a complaint away!

The links to Volumes 1 and 2 of this great collection have long been dead on his blog... but fortunately, I took the opportunity at the time to acquire this outstanding music. There was also a THIRD volume of tunes from this show released during that time... this comp was a little harder to track down, and even harder to sort out, since most of the tracks came without track numbers or composer attribution. But I took care of that, to the best of my ability, utilizing various authoritative sources. So what you have here for Vol. 3 is about as complete as you're going to find out there.

Comedy Central announced earlier this month that it had greenlighted a reboot of Ren & Stimpy, featuring all new episodes, for the upcoming season, to air alongside rebooted versions of old 90s cult hit shows like Daria and Beavis & Butthead. My personal feeling on this is that they should just leave it well enough alone.  These shows - especially Ren & Stimpy - were of a certain time and place in the past, and fondly remembered by those of us lucky enough to see them when they first emerged. Ren & Stimpy (at least the first two seasons) was lightning in a bottle, and attempting to recapture that is a foolish and futile exercise - especially so when John Kricfalusi, the creator and lead animator of the original series, is slated to have no involvement whatsoever in the reboot.  Just let it go, Comedy Central - stop trying to "reanimate" the corpse, as it were.

Enough of that.  Here for your listening pleasure are all three fan-assembled volumes of music from this seminal cartoon, released between 2006 and 2008.  I hope that this post brings you plenty of "Happy Happy, Joy Joy!"

(And as always, let me know what you think.)

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Various Artists - Ren & Stimpy Production Music Vol. 1 (2006): Send Email
Various Artists - Ren & Stimpy Production Music Vol. 2 (2007): Send Email
Various Artists - Ren & Stimpy Production Music Vol. 3 (2008): Send Email

The B-52's - Remix EPs

In the mid-2000s, a small British label called Planet Clique, specializing in dance music, released a series of remix EPs of classic B-52's hits, mostly on vinyl.  The label was an offshoot of Manhattan Clique, maintained by founders Philip Larsen and Chris Smith, collectively referred to by the moniker "MHC". 

From their website:

One of the most enduring and well-respected remix teams of the last decade, Manhattan Clique have worked with some of the biggest names in pop and dance music, delivering over 200 dance/crossover remixes to date for all the world's major labels and many independents.  Highlights include Katy Perry, Charli XCX, Emeli Sandé, Lady Gaga, DJ Fresh, Ellie Goulding, Nicole Scherzinger, Britney Spears, Carly Rae Jepsen, Example, Wretch 32 and many more.

Manhattan Clique remixes regularly reside in the upper reaches of dance, club and pop charts in the UK, US and across Europe. Their remix edits are also hugely popular with radio stations, gaining support on BBC Radio 1, Kiss and Capital in the UK, and across a large number of radio stations in the US.  The team are also well known in the blogging world, picking up regular plaudits from leading music bloggers such as Popjustice, Perez Hilton and Arjan Writes.

Manhattan Clique have also worked with some of the biggest artists in Europe; from Germany's Frida Gold, Norway's Ida Maria, Holland's Esmée Denters, Russia's Valeriya to French megastar Mylene Farmer. Her duet with Moby, "Slipping Away" was Manhattan Clique's first #1 production, as well as Moby's first and only #1 single, spending several weeks at the top of the French singles chart in 2006. 

Outside Manhattan Clique, Philip Larsen has additionally won a Grammy award for his mix work on Kylie Minogue’s "Come Into My World".  Chris Smith runs the PR and marketing company Renegade Music, based in London, who consult for a wide variety of new and established UK and international talent.

Their remix EP of songs from Whammy! came out in 2005, followed by their Mesopotamia remixes the following year and their reimagining of songs from Wild Planet the year after.  All in all, I found these modified songs to be mostly interesting and enjoyable, and a welcome addition to the overall B-52's catalog.

Took me forever to find these discs... and as usual, I'm happy to share them with my fellow Bee-Fives fans.

So here, for your enjoyment and perusal, is the Whammy! - 2005 Remix EP, the Mesopotamia - 2006 Remix EP, and the Wild Planet - 2007 Remix EP, released in limited editions by Planet Clique in the years indicated.  Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Whammy! - 2005 Remix EP: Send Email
Mesopotamia - 2006 Remix EP:  Send Email
Wild Planet - 2007 Remix EP: Send Email

Barbara Manning - Super Scissors (3-disc set)

As longtime readers of this blog can readily attest by way of my many posts over the years, I'm a huge Barbara Manning fan.  As such, I've been meaning to post her magnum opus, the three-disc Super Scissors comp, for forever... but I could never come up with the words to properly introduce this music here.

Fortunately, someone already did so - the paragraphs below are taken from the liner notes to this set, written by the lead compiler:

I can still recall, quite clearly, falling in love with these Scissors recordings during the first week of November 1987. I'd just moved to San Francisco days before and I'd made it my mission to track down Barbara Manning - whose songs and voice had captivated me on the album she'd recorded previously, 28th Day.

Barbara and I had a couple of mutual friends and one of them gave me her number. I called, and was invited over to hear some "demos". Already being a fan, as well as a taping fanatic, I showed up with my own "dubbing deck" and proceeded to copy about two-thirds of what later became the Lately I Keep Scissors album. During the course of the evening, Barbara got me very stoned and a little bit drunk. I eventually stumbled home with my gear, and woke up the next morning already under the spell of these recordings. I immediately plugged in my headphones and began playing these songs over and over.

It didn't take me long to feel that these songs and the performances - the plaintive vocals, the haunting feel of the music - were on the level of my heroes Sandy Denny and Nick Drake. Initially, Barbara hated me comparing her to these "folkies". She saw herself much more on the indie-rock side of the fence and after she turned me onto some Flying Nun recordings, I could certainly hear the influence of The Chills, The Verlaines, etc. on her work. However, I felt vindicated about a year later when Martin Phillips of The Chills did an interview upon which he spelled out his love for a lot of the folk music that I'd been trying to turn Barbara onto. That said, she was into Krautrock long before I even knew the meaning of the word.

After a bit of arm-twisting, I convinced Barbara to let me release these recordings on my new Heyday Records label. She said, "okay,", as long as she could record a new song called "Never Park." Since most of the recording for the album had already been done, we went into Greg Freeman's studio just a few times for a couple of overdubs and mixing sessions. Greg always treated vocals like an instrument, meaning he kept them buried among the other instruments, and Barbara was self-conscious about her voice (wanting it lower). So, if I contributed anything to the production of Scissors, you can credit me with making sure that her vocals stayed up in the mix.

It's important to remember that Scissors was originally

recorded without any plans for release - it was really just a case of Barbara having some cheap studio time and a handful of friends willing to help out with a batch of songs that she'd stockpiled. In my mind, Lately I Keep Scissors is one of those great debut solo albums of an artist stepping out on their own, away from their previous band, like Van's Astral Weeks, Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, et al. It also shares an edgy dose of reality with those albums; Barbara makes personal statements about her life, its ups and downs, all captured on tape for the rest of us to mull over, be moved by and enjoy. Like many of my favorite albums, it's an uncomfortable but elating listening experience that leaves me numb, no matter how many times I hear it.

Of course, Barbara's earlier band, 28th Day, was not anywhere close to groups like Them or The Beatles in fame, but you get my point. What really blew me away when I first heard these recordings, was that Barbara didn't realize how good they were - nor did the general public have any idea what would eventually be unleashed on them - that cassette tape that I had dubbed felt like a million in prizes. The fact that she wasn't famous didn't make the recordings any less important in my obsessive mind. After Scissors was released, artists such as Robyn Hitchcock, Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo acknowledged it. Soon, Barbara's moody songs and ethereal voice began weaving their own special path that would lead to recordings for bigger and hipper labels: Forced Exposure, Sub Pop, and Matador - as well as high profile gigs and international tours.

By the time of One

Perfect Green Blanket, I was being told to keep away from the studio and keep my mouth shut, although I was still allowed to hear demos as they were happening. I suggested that both the home demo of "Sympathy Wreath" and the studio recording be used for the final album. Barbara got a 4-Track machine after Scissors was released, and several demos (and songs recorded just for fun) that she taped at her San Francisco apartment on Lyon Street during this time are included as bonus tracks on the One Perfect Green Blanket CD. One of the highlights for me is hearing her sing "Cheap Holiday Song" by the obscure but legendary San Francisco band X-Tal.

The Barbara Manning that created the music on these CDs was a beautiful young tigress - the energy and magic she evoked on stage was incredible and for several years I never missed a gig and recorded many of them. Barbara in general is not a fan of her own live recordings, and the handful of live material included here reveal some of the songs that she was playing during the time of One Perfect Green Blanket (occasionally during tours with her sister Terri) that were never recorded in the studio. There are also a couple of "Flying Nun" cover versions represented here, and Barbara makes these songs her own.

For the audiophiles out there, you'll be pleased to know that all songs from Lately I Keep Scissors and One Perfect Green Blanket have been remastered from the original reel to real master tapes and transferred carefully to digital format. Frankly, these recordings have never sounded as good as they do now - as we used the best of both analog and digital technology. Scissors sounds better than ever before, while I hear a slight muddiness on One Perfect Green Blanket.

For the hardcore Manning fans (which you must be or you wouldn't have bought this box set) is Disc Three - filled

with previously unreleased songs and recordings from the Scissors sessions. To be honest, I dragged my heels a few times since first announcing this project, but the advantage of having taken so much time is that we kept finding more tapes. When Barbara showed up one day with a previously unknown reel-to-reel tape of Scissors outtakes, I thought I'd pass out from excitement. Until then, I'd been working from cassettes made after each recording session. After a lot of listening, the songs that made the final grade were either ones that didn't get included on Scissors the first time around or were radically different than the released version.

Just shy of two decades since first hearing these Scissors songs, my love affair with Barbara's music continues - ad she's still making records that will spellbind and entrance you. Actually, now that I think about it - Barbara's career (and life) has lasted longer that the icons that I first compared her with.

Barbara gave me free reign as I worked on this collection - so if there's anything you don't like about it, please send the complaints to me. And if there's anything that blows you away, all the acclaim belongs to her. It's her art, her music, her voice, the magic is all hers - she's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back - she can take the darkness from the night time and paint the daytime black.

Pat Thomas *
Oakland, CA
May 2006

Here's the lineup and track selection for each disc:

Disc 1 - Lately I Keep Scissors:

1. Scissors
2. Breathe Lies
3. Somewhere Soon
4. Talk All Night
5. Make It Go Away
6. Never Park
7. Every Pretty Girl
8. Mark E. Smith & Brix
9. Something You've Got (Isn't Good)
10. Prophecy Written

Disc 2 - One Perfect Green Blanket (with previously unreleased bonus tracks):

1. Straw Man
2. Smoking Her Wings
3. Don't Rewind
4. Sympathy Wreath
5. Green
6. Lock Your Room (Uptight)
7. Someone Wants You Dead
8. Sympathy Wreath (Demise) Or ODE2WOP
9. Walking After Midnight
10. Green Home (Demo Version)
11. I Wish I Could Tour
12. Cheap Holiday Song
13. Lock Your Room (Uptight) (Home Demo Version)
14. For Pity's Sake (Live)
15. On on and One (Live)
16. Winter Song (Live)
17. Optimism Is It's Own Reward (Radio Session)

Disc 3 - Previously Unreleased Outtakes & Demos:

1. Scissors (Acoustic)
2. Make It Go Away
3. Every Pretty Girl
4. Mark E. Smith & Brix (Alternate Version)
5. Something You've Got Isn't Good (Acoustic)
6. Prophecy Written (Electric Version)
7. Wires Cages Fences and Gates (Without Drums)
8. My Name Is Not
9. Song for Trish
10. Someone Wants You Dead (Acoustic)
11. Make It Go Away (Alternate Version)
12. Wires Cages Fences and Gates (With Drums)
13. On on and One (Home Demo)
14. Reverse Disguise (Home Demo)
15. Scissors (I've Been Working on the Railroad) (Home Demo)

So here, for your listening pleasure, is the legendary and hard-to-find Super Scissors set, featuring some of the early work of Bay Area indie icon Barbara Manning.  I've been enjoying this set for years, and I think the entire comp is a winner! Have a listen, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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* - Interestingly, and if I'm not mistaken, this is the same 'Pat Thomas' who currently serves as Kendra Smith's manager, and who wrote the David Roback tribute in Variety last month that I referenced in the previous posting...

Von Südenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions

In August 2004, German electronic collective Mouse On Mars released their eighth album, Radical Connector.  On this album, the group continued its shift from a pure electronic sound (evident on some of their earlier '90s albums like Vulvaland and Autoditacker) to a warmer, more poppier and almost danceable vein, a sound the band had begun fully experimenting with on their previous album, 2001's Idiology.

One of the songs on Radical Connector included a funky and thumping, although somewhat leaden and plodding, tune called "Wipe That Sound", which featured Mouse On Mars' percussionist Dodo Nkishi on vocals:

The album received generally good reviews, but it wasn't considered a significant departure from what the band produced on Idiology.

The next year, Mouse On Mars produced a Wipe That Sound EP, reworking/reimagining this track with guest vocals from The Fall's Mark E. Smith. In lieu of my own words, I'll refer to an analysis of this EP track provided by the blog Music Geek Corner:

"It's a major re-thinking: the track begins with a new drum part whose offbeat hi-hat accents work well to diffuse the original's clompiness. Smith's vocal, of course, adds a completely new texture to the track - but what's often overlooked about Smith is his skill as melodic minimalist. Smith essentially adds a two-note chorus to the song (the recurring bit about the garden), and it provides an effective hook to the track. The string synth part also makes this version more song-like (and commercial, in fact - although the multiple tracks of crosstalking MES are unlikely to contribute to that direction)."

I really didn't follow Mouse On Mars back in the mid-2000s, so I don't know when or how I first became aware of this track. But once I heard it, I thought it was fantastic, and quickly ran out to acquire the song. I heartily agree with every word of Music Geek Corner's analysis above.

I think it was sometime in late 2006/early 2007 that I got word that Smith's work with Mouse On Mars members Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner wasn't just a one-off; they had joined forces into a supergroup of sorts called Von Südenfed. At first, it seemed sort of weird to me that Smith would expend so much time on and effort with an electronic music group, a genre that in the past he'd expressed nothing but disdain for. But, after reflection, I realized that his work with the group was no weirder than his previous collaborations with other unlikely musicians, included Coldcut and Edwyn Collins. Plus, I'd enjoyed what the combo had released on that EP in 2005. So I was somewhat looking forward to hearing what this musical meeting of the minds would generate.

The collective's first release, Tromatic Reflexxions, came out in 2007; I had it rush-delivered to me via mail order. And I have to say that I was NOT disappointed. The album is actually very funky, quirky and dancable, and Smith is in fine form here. He actually sounds happy on some of the songs, perhaps because he's free of the structures (mostly self-imposed) inherent in his main group.

On this album, they even redo the 2005 version of "Wipe That Sound" (retitled "That Sound Wiped" here), and actually improve upon what I thought was already near-perfect. In the Von Südenfed version, they open up the song and the beat, allowing Smith more space to rant and croon - yes, he's actually singing here! - about the "yellow-helmeted bike messenger" who "don't look like no goddamn singer-songwriter" to him. Just a superb effort:

There are so many other great songs on this album - including the very dancable "Fledermaus Can't Get It" and my personal fave "The Rhinohead".

All in all, I found this disc to be a superb addition to the Mark E. Smith canon, and came at a time when he and The Fall were enjoying a critical resurgence of sorts, with the band's album release that year (Imperial Wax Solvent) making it into the British Top 40 (their first appearance of a Fall album there since 1993's Top Ten The Infotainment Scan). I was looking forward to hearing more from this group... but later that year, in December 2007, Smith sent out a notice on the official Fall website that he had been "sacked" from Von Südenfed. There was some confusion as to whether this was true; from all indications, Toma and St. Werner kept the door open for Smith to rejoin them. But for some reason this never happened, and now with Smith's death, never will... which is a damn shame.

At least we have their sole release as some consolation. Here's Tromatic Reflexxions, released by Von Südenfed (with group member Mark E. Smith) on Domino Records on May 21st, 2007. Have a listen, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Stereolab - Eaten Horizons Or The Electrocution Of Rock

(Yup - back-to-back Stereolab posts! I must be slipping!)

I've previously posted a couple of Stereolab-related write-ups to this blog in the (recent) past - love this band! If you enjoy them as much as I do, then you'll definitely be into this post: an impossibly hard-to-find collection of heretofore unreleased band demos and outtakes from throughout their long career.

This disc was released in Germany in 2007 by En/Of, a sublabel of Bottrop-Boy Records. Bottrop-Boy (apparently named after a minor transit station on a German passenger train line) appears to specialize in releases by obscure avant-garde music artists dabbling in experimental electronic sounds and free-form modern jazz. However, its sublabel, En/Of, ratchets up this obscurity/exclusivity factor to the nth degree. All of En/Of's releases (mostly by bands that even I've never heard of) are on heavyweight vinyl only and produced in minuscule amounts, to a maximum of no more than 100 copies each. Each of their releases is packaged with a separate signed and numbered limited-edition artwork (painting, etching, photograph, etc.) specially created for the album by a renowned artist.

Needless to say, the combination of limited availability and art-snob appeal leads to this sublabel's discs going for big bucks, way more than the average music fan is willing to shell out - even if they'd actually heard of the fucking band... This makes En/Of essentially an exclusive boutique label, the musical equivalent of Versace or Jimmy Choo (sorry - those are the only chi-chi designers I can think of at the moment; hey, I'm a guy - I don't spend a lot of time contemplating high fashion!). To me, all of this artsy-fartsy foofarol seems a little unnecessary, recherche and precious, and does little but cater to bloodless music aesthetes with money to apparently burn . . . but heck, that's just my opinion.

As I mentioned above, this disc contains never-before released sound ideas and rough proto-demo versions of Stereolab tunes, some of which eventually appeared on various 'Groop' albums, including Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements, Mars Audiac Quintet, Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots & Loops. Other songs provided here have, to the best of my knowledge, never before seen the light of day in any version on any official or unofficial band release.

Here's the lineup:

1. Crest
2. John Cage Bubblegum
3. Mountain Instrumental
4. Reich Song
5. Cybele’s Reverie Pt. 1
6. Cybele’s Reverie Pt. 2
7. French Disko
8. Happy Pop Song
9. Jenny Ondioline
10. Lucia Pamela (ICC)
11. Drone Instrumental (with Nurse With Wound)
12. Plastic Pulse One
13. Plastic Pulse Two
14. Plastic Pulse Three
15. Plastic Pulse Four
16. Sad Chicago Organ
17. Brigitte Pt. 1
18. Brigitte Pt. 2
19. Infinity Girl Pt. 1
20. Infinity Girl Pt. 2
21. Cobra Tune
22. Heavy Munich
23. ZigZag Song
24. Monday Song

Here you are - Stereolab's uber-rare Eaten Horizons Or The Electrocution Of Rock, released by En/Of Records on September 30th, 2007 in a run of 100 vinyl copies (each of which included a high-quality Mathias Poledna print, signed by the artist (yeah, I don't know who the hell he is either . . . whatever; I'm just into this for the music)). Took me forever to find a copy of this . . . thus I bestow it unto you all as well.

Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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The Beatles - Strong Before Our Birth (Purple Chick) (2-disc set)

Sixty years ago today, on a warm but cloudy Saturday afternoon at a church fair in a suburban town in the North of England, two teenage boys met for the first time . . . and the history of music was forever changed.

Yes, today is the diamond anniversary of the fabled first (well, perhaps not*) meeting of John Lennon and Paul McCartney at the St. Peter's Church garden fete in Woolton, Liverpool. I will refrain from retelling the oft-told tale of how the two famous musicians and songwriters came together that day - there will be plenty of stories in that vein today. So I'm going to keep this posting short.

However, I will call attention to one of these articles, which deserves recognition and merit - a write-up in today's Daily Beast about the momentous day, written by my good friend and Beatles fanatic Colin Fleming, that's worth your time and attention.

To commemorate this momentous day, I proudly present to you the Beatles' Strong Before Our Birth Purple Chick two-disc set, compiling the best and most important existing recordings from the band's early years (1957 to 1962) (The non-Purple Chick bootleg Complete Home Recordings 1958-1962 contains a couple of different tracks: mostly long, meandering 15-20 minute guitar noodlings of limited import and interest). This set contains mostly recordings of practices and jam sessions held at McCartney's bedroom at his family home, 20 Forthlin Road in Liverpool, along with some early Cavern Club recordings and 1958's "In Spite Of All The Danger", the pre-Beatles first professionally recorded original song.

These discs also include fragments of selections played by The Quarrymen on the very night of John and Paul's meeting - as fate would have it, one of Lennon's schoolmates, Bob Molyneux, was on hand with his new Grundig reel-to-reel machine, making recordings of all the bands playing that night's Grand Dance. Molyneux ended up with several reels of taped music, which he stored away and all but forgot about until decades later. By that time, many of his tapes had gone missing or were destroyed, victims of house moves and time. But luckily, the one surviving reel he salvaged was the one containing the first recordings of John Lennon performing in public. It's not the highest fidelity recording, but it's unmistakably John's voice.

Here's the track listing for both discs:

Anyway, here you are - check it out, and let me know what you think. Happy Beatles Day!

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* In Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn's recently published bio of the band's early years, The Beatles: All These Years, Volume One – Tune In, he mentions that on numerous occasions in recent years, McCartney has spoken of seeing Lennon in and around Liverpool several times prior to 1957 - riding on buses with him and the two crossing paths while Paul was on his paper route. McCartney even mentions speaking with him once or twice during those years, in front of local shops. But as there are no independent eyewitness accounts of these encounters, nor any definitive dates or times when they occurred, we'll stick with July 6th, 1957 as Day One.

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Purple Chick) (6-disc set) (RS500 - #1)

Fifty years . . . wow.

What is widely considered to be the greatest rock album of all time was released half a century ago today.  That length of time is truly hard to fathom.  This album is still as fresh and vital as the day it came out.

What else can I say about this album that hasn't already been said, or will be said on its golden anniversary today? Nothing . . . so why continue to elaborate, and/or belabor the point?

Thus, here you are - the six-disc version of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, collected, compiled and remastered by the good people at Purple Chick back in 2007. Here's the complete track lineup, in case you're interested:

Don't squander your hard-earned coin on the latest loudly-trumpeted "50th Anniversary Deluxe Rerelease - in glorious 5.1 sound!" - who gives a crap? The good stuff is all right here, and at no charge!

Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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(and yep - I'm back (kinda . . .) - frankly, I've always been here, and never left.)

The Beatles - From Then To You (Purple Chick)

More Christmas-related rarities for you . . .

Between 1963 and 1969, The Beatles sent out annual Christmas songs and messages on flexi-disc (produced by Lyntone, a London firm which wasn't really a label as such, but more of a record pressing plant for hire, specializing in small-run stuff) to members of their official fan clubs in the UK and US. The idea for these Christmas records came from Tony Barrow, the Beatles' press officer. As the volume of fan mail grew exponentially in the wake of the band's meteoric rise, the group fell further and further behind in answering the torrent of cards, letters, and club membership applications. Barrow suggested, as a way to assuage increasingly pissed-off fans, that the Beatles should look to Queen Elizabeth, who sent out annual yuletide greetings to her subjects via TV and radio. In his words, they should "follow her fine example, but in their own way." It was intended to be a one-off method of damage control with fans in 1963, but it became an annual Beatle tradition, a nice bonus for joining their club and a unique way to acknowledge all of their fans.

The early Beatles Christmas records (1963, pictured above, and 1964) were casual affairs, seemingly thrown together at the last moment by a group with a lot of other things pending on their schedules. But that isn't to say there wasn't any preparation involved. Barrow wrote the script for these two records, which the band followed more or less. What's great about these early ones is that, in them, fans got an extended glimpse at the 'offstage' Beatles - goofing off, acting silly, laughing and joking, having fun and being totally comfortable and casual with one another. It wouldn't last.

Things began to get a lot more involved beginning with the 1965 Christmas record. The Beatles started to take a more active part in the writing of the record, which featured more extensive skits and song parodies. This trend continued through the next two releases, including the 1966 Pantomime - Everywhere It's Christmas disc. The 1967 flexi-disc was the most elaborate yet, with the group members playing several different characters in sketches revolving around fictional bands auditioning for a BBC radio show.

The '67 disc was titled Christmas Time Is Here Again!, and featured an original song of the same name played throughout the record. This song was the only segment of any Beatles Christmas record to receive official release (it was eventually put out in 1995 as the B-side on the "Free As A Bird" 7" single).

In the 1968 release, you can start to sense a band on the verge of falling apart. The 'group' dynamic was all but long gone - members recorded most of their segments separately. John's contribution that year included a particularly biting 'fable' called "The Ballad of Jock & Yono", obliquely calling out people (including band members) critical of his relationship with Yoko Ono (audio clip provided here):

"Once upon a time, there were two balloons called Jock and Yono. They were strictly in love, bound to happen in a million years. They were together man. Unfortunate timetable, they seemed to have previous experience which kept calling them one way or another (you know how it is). But they battled on against overwhelming oddities, including some of their beast friends. Being in love, they clung together even more man. But some of the poisonous-monsters-of-outdated-busloadedshitthrowers [said very garbled and quickly, but you get the general idea] did stick slightly, and they occasionally had to resort to the dry cleaners. Luckily, this did not kill them and they weren’t banned from the Olympic Games. They lived hopefully ever after and who could blame them?"

By 1969, it was over. The band had effectively split by the time this Christmas record was recorded, so everyone's segment was recorded separately. There's a LOT of John and Yoko on this one, with scant contributions by George and Ringo. Actually, if you think about it, the progression of the seven Beatle Christmas records from 1963 to 1969 closely follows the history of the band - from the happy, carefree early days of the group, to the increased experimentation of their middle years, to their final estrangement and breakup.

In 1970, in the aftermath of the band's dissolution, the UK fan club collected all seven of the Christmas records and released them on vinyl (for members only) that December on a disc entitled From Then To You. The record was repackaged in the US as The Beatles Christmas Album and released by the American fan club to its members in the spring of 1971. For most US fans, this was the first time any of them had heard the 1965, 1966 or 1967 records - American fans got ripped off in those years. Instead of receiving the flexi-disc, all they received in those years was a crappy postcard with a holiday message from the band.

Outside of these fan club releases and the one song mentioned above, the Beatles Christmas records have never received official general release. There were attempts to produce bootleg releases in the early 1980s, but lawyers representing the band beat those efforts back. After that, nothing widely available containing all of these records existed . . . until the Purple Chick bootlegs appeared in the last decade.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I acquired this in 2008 during my frantic gathering of Purple Chick Beatles-related releases in the wake of Rolling Stone's thoughtless magazine article. Purple Chick's version contained all seven records, along with outtakes, sketch snippets and portions of their early holiday radio shows. Here's the lineup for you:

1. The Beatles Christmas Record 1963
2. Another Beatles' Christmas Record 1964
3. The Beatles Third Christmas Record 1965
4. Pantomime Everywhere It's Christmas 1966
5. Christmas Time Is Here Again 1967
6. Happy Christmas 1968
7. Happy Christmas 1969
8. Hello Dolly
9. Speech - Take 1
10. Speech - Take 2
11. Speech - Take 3
12. Speech - Take 4
13. Speech - Take 5
14. The Lost Christmas Message
15. The Lost Christmas Message II
16. Messages For Radios London And Caroline
17. Jock And Yono
18. Once Upon A Pool Table
19. Christmas Time (Is Here Again)
20. ITN News Interview
21. A Saturday Club Christmas
22. Newsreel Interview
23. Christmas Show Interview

(Tracks 9-15 are outtakes from the 1964 Christmas session)

If you've never heard these before, you're in for a treat. Get ready for another side and dimension of the Beatles you may have never been aware of. For the most part, these are excellent and essential parts of the Beatles oeuvre, and as such I can't for the life of me figure out why they haven't been put out on an official album yet. EVERYONE needs to hear this great stuff.

But, you all are first! So, for your holiday listening pleasure, The Beatles' From Then To You, released by Purple Chick sometime in 2007 (I only have it in .m4a - sorry). Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download links ASAP:

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* * * * * * *

My friend, the writer and frequent NPR guest Colin Fleming, has done a few things over the recent holidays related to this post - here they are for your edification and enjoyment. Great job and good stuff as always, Colin!

NPR - When The Beatles Gave Fans A 'Crimble' Present (21 Dec 2014)
The Tom Dunne Show - The Beatles Christmas With Colin Fleming
Vanity Fair - A Guide to the Strange, Little-Known, Hard-to-Find Beatles Christmas Recordings (17 Dec 2014)

The Beatles - Magical Mystery Year (Purple Chick) (Discs 1 - 4)

Well . . . I'll start off by saying "Sorry", to all of my devoted readers.

A combination of circumstances (mostly happy and positive, I might add) have kept me away from my blog for the past couple of months . . . well, 'circumstances' coupled with a weird combination of writer's block and general lethargy. Frankly, I hadn't realized how long it had been that I had posted something until a couple of weeks ago. Since that time I have been wracked by guilt, browsing through the nearly dozen unfinished posts I've got queued up (in various stages of completion) and trying to summon the wherewithal to get at least ONE of them completed and up on the site, if only for my own peace of mind, to break out of this writing funk I seem to be mired in. I've still got some good stories to tell (at least, I think they're good) related to some music I've encountered and admired and loved (and hated) over the course of my life . . . it's just putting pen-to-paper, or fingers-to-keyboard as it were, and getting them out of my brain - that's the current issue.

But fear not - I'll get back into the swing of things soon. Until then, I figured I might as well honor a recent request, and provide you all with another one of those Beatles 'Purple Chick' bootlegs. This time, it's Magical Mystery Year, a four-disc set of music recorded by the Fabs around the same time they were recording their Magical Mystery Tour album - 1967 and into 1968. Here's the lineup for each disc:

Disc 1 (Magical Mystery Tour and related Stereo Mixes):

01 - All You Need Is Love (Stereo)
02 - Baby You're A Rich Man (Stereo)
03 - Hello Goodbye (Stereo)
04 - Magical Mystery Tour (Stereo)
05 - Your Mother Should Know (Stereo)
06 - I Am The Walrus (Stereo)
07 - The Fool On The Hill (Stereo)
08 - Flying (Stereo)
09 - Blue Jay Way (Stereo)
10 - Lady Madonna (Stereo)
11 - The Inner Light (Stereo)
12 - All Together Now (Stereo)
13 - Hey Bulldog (Stereo)
14 - It's All Too Much (Stereo)
15 - Across The Universe (Stereo)
16 - Christmas Time (Is Here Again) (Stereo)
17 - I Am The Walrus (US Stereo)
18 - Magical Mystery Tour (88 Video Stereo)
19 - Blue Jay Way (88 Video Stereo)
20 - Your Mother Should Know (88 Video Stereo)
21 - All You Need Is Love (Anthology DVD Mix)
22 - I Am The Walrus (Anthology DVD Mix)
23 - Hello Goodbye (Anthology DVD Mix)
24 - Lady Madonna (Anthology DVD Mix)

Disc 2 (Magical Mystery Tour and related mono mixes):

01 - All You Need Is Love (Mono)
02 - Baby You're A Rich Man (Mono)
03 - Hello Goodbye (Mono)
04 - Magical Mystery Tour (Mono)
05 - Your Mother Should Know (Mono)
06 - I Am The Walrus (Mono)
07 - The Fool On The Hill (Mono)
08 - Flying (Mono)
09 - Blue Jay Way (Mono)
10 - Lady Madonna (Mono)
11 - The Inner Light (Mono)
12 - All Together Now (Mono)
13 - Hey Bulldog (Mono)
14 - It's All Too Much (Mono)
15 - Across The Universe (Mono)
16 - Christmas Time (Is Here Again) (Sessions)
17 - I Am The Walrus (US Single)
18 - All You Need Is Love - RM 11 (SSIP)
19 - Magical Mystery Tour (Mono Film Mix)
20 - I Am The Walrus (Mono Film Mix)
21 - Your Mother Should Know (Mono Film Mix)
22 - Anthology DVD Medley (bonus)

Disc 3 (Magical Mystery Tour studio takes and etc.):

01 Free Now
02 Magical Mystery Tour - RM4
03 Magical Mystery Tour - RM7
04 All You Need Is Love - take unknown
05 All You Need Is Love - warmup
06 All You Need Is Love - take 58
07 Your Mother Should Know - take 8
08 I Am The Walrus - take 7
09 I Am The Walrus - take 8
10 I Am The Walrus - take 9
11 I Am The Walrus - rehearsal
12 I Am The Walrus - takes 16+17
13 I Am The Walrus - RM4
14 The Fool On The Hill - take 1 demo
15 Blue Jay Way - RM1
16 Flying - RM4
17 Your Mother Should Know - take 27
18 The Fool On The Hill - take 4
19 Flying - take 8+overdub takes 1-5
20 I Am The Walrus - King Lear overdub
21 Hello Goodbye - take 1
22 Hello Goodbye - take 16
23 Christmas Time (Is Here Again) - take 1

Disc 4 (Magical Mystery Tour studio takes and related):

01 - The Inner Light - Stereo Backing Track
02 - Lady Madonna - Take 3
03 - Across The Universe - Take 2
04 - Across The Universe - Take 7
05 - Lady Madonna - Take 4 Overdub Track
06 - Lady Madonna - Take 4
07 - Lady Madonna - Take 4 + Overdubs
08 - Lady Madonna - Take 5 False Start
09 - Lady Madonna - Take 5
10 - All You Need Is Love (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
11 - Baby You're A Rich Man (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
12 - All Together Now (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
13 - Hey Bulldog (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
14 - It's All Too Much (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
15 - Hello Goodbye (1993 Mix)
16 - All You Need Is Love (Take Unknown) (Anthology DVD)
17 - Across The Universe - Take 2 (Anthology 2)
18 - Lady Madonna - Takes 3+4+5 (Anthology 2)
19 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 1
20 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 2
21 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 3
22 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 4
23 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 5
24 - Across The Universe - Take 2 Monitor Mix
25 - Lady Madonna - Monitor Mix A
26 - Lady Madonna - Monitor Mix B
27 - Lady Madonna - Monitor Mix C

As with all of Purple Chick's releases, these bootlegs have been recorded with the highest possible fidelity - so if some songs sound like shit (like some the the "Rumitape" tracks on Disc 4), don't blame these guys; they did the best with what they had to work with. And again, these discs are in .m4a format - sorry.

I hope that, for the moment, this post tides you all over until I get my act together. Until then, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download links ASAP:

Send Email