The Squire Presents

It is always nice to come across a gem of a film that I knew nothing about beforehand. One of those which I saw over the Christmas period was Boss Level. It doesn’t have the most original of premise in that the hero of the film must relive the same day over and over again until he figures out what he needs to do to end this event from repeating itself. However, the action, acting and kick arse soundtrack made this 100 minutes of my time that I did not feel was wasted. Time being the operative word here because the majority of the songs on this soundtrack are concerned with it. 

Even though a soundtrack album was released for the music, this was the incidental music by Clinton Shorter. There wasn’t one for the songs that were used throughout the movie so I thought I would put one together. This includes nineteen of the twenty songs included in the film. The only one missing is ‘Sixties Airport Lounge’ by John Plowright which does not seem to be available anywhere. There were enough songs for a short double album so so here it is, the soundtrack to Boss Level.

Side 1

1. Working For MCA – Lynyrd Skynyrd
2. Alcohol Part 1 – Robert Jay
3. Mean Little Mama – Roy Orbison
4. Time Has Come Today – The Chambers Brothers
5. Baby I Don’t Care – Carl Mann

Side B

1. Burn Rubber On Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me) – The Gap Band
2. Got My Mojo Workin’ – Billy Adams
3. Slow Down – Jack Earls
4. Foreplay/Longtime – Boston

Side C

1. Fine Time – Genie Brooks
2. Fix Me – Black Flag
3. Destroy Everything – The Helltones 
4. That’s Why I Love To Call His Name – Village Singers
5. Picking Tea Leaves & Catching Butterflies – Lily Chao
6. South American Getaway – Burt Bacharach

Side D

1. Turn Back The Hands Of Time – Tyronne Davies
2. I Want To Love You Baby – Peggy Scott & Jo Jo Benson
3. Victim Of Circumstance – Mike & The Censations
4. Day After Day – Badfinger
5. How Much Can A Man Take? – Big John Hamilton
6. Only Time Will Tell – Clarence Ashe

The artwork is taken from an image used to publish the film with some background added. 

I do like a good what if album and this month, we have two for the price of one. Recently, I gave a couple of Crowded House albums a spin. They were ‘Woodface’ and ‘Afterglow’. I had always read that ‘Woodface’ was a amalgam of Crowded House tracks and songs that main House songwriter, Neil Finn had written with his brother Tim for an album project of their own. The story goes that Tim and Neil Finn were looking to record an album as the Finn Brothers and had written an albums worth of material when Neil said could he use some of the songs for the next Crowded House Record. With Tim saying yes and joining the band, what we got was a great album that had been made out of the ashes of two. So, what if Capitol had not rejected the original version of Woodface and the Finn Brothers had recorded their first collaborative effort as planned? Well, with the wonders of the internet and the bands reissue programmes, we can do just that.  

Crowded House – Woodface (Original Version)

With Woodface, we get an album that does not sound too dissimilar to Temple Of Low Men. I only allowed songs on here that were either written by Paul Hester, the bands drummer or Neil Finn. None of the co-write between Tim and Neil would be allowed. That does mean that most of the singles that were released from ‘Woodface’ would no longer be on here, with only ‘Fall At Your Feet’ left. The album is solid, if not spectacular. It does lack some of the sparkle that came when the tracks form the abandoned ‘Finn’ project were added, but I believe it would have stood up against the other records the band had released up to this point. 

Side A

1. Anyone Can Tell
2. Left Hand
3. Fields Are Full Of Your Kind
4. As Sure As I Am
5. Sacred Cow
6. She Goes On
7. Italian Plastic

Side B

1. Fall At Your Feet
2. Dr. Livingston
3. Fame Is
4. I Love You Dawn
5. Whispers & Moans
6. My Telly’s Gone Bung
7. My Legs Are Gone

The cover for this collection is based upon a band T-Shirt that came out at the time. 

The Finn Brothers – Self Titled

On the other hand, we have the Finn Brothers record. What we get are all of the songs that were recorded for Woodface, plus some of the others that had been written for ‘Finn Brothers’ record but not used at the time. That would mean that four out of the five singles from Woodface would be included here, potentially making this a more commercial record. Out of the songs demoed by the Finn’s, two would end up on Tim Finn’s first solo record after leaving Crowded House which was called ‘Before & After’. These would be ‘In Love With It All’ and ‘Strangeness & Calm’. Two more, ‘Prodigal Son’ and ‘Catherine Wheels’ would be released via Neil Finn’s website. Catherine Wheels (which had supposedly been gestating since the late 70s) would be finished and released on the Together Alone album. For the purposes of this what if record, I have gone with the Finn Brothers demo. One more song was demoed by the Finn’s and this was called ‘Cemetery In The Rain’. This last song has not been released anywhere as far as I know, but 12 tracks is enough to come up with an alternative history Finn Brothers album. 

Side A

1. Chocolate Cake
2. It’s Only Natural
3. Tall Trees
4. Catherine Wheels
5. There Goes God
6. Four Season in one Day

Side B

1. Strangeness & Calm
2. Weather With You
3. Prodigal Son
4. All I Ask
5. In Love With It All
6. How Will You Go

It was quite difficult to find a picture of the Finn Brothers for an album cover, but they did appear facing each other whilst playing their guitars from the ‘It’s Only Natural’ video. Adopting the minimal approach of the era remembering that complicated albums sleeve didn’t work in the cassette era, we have a sleeve not too different from Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit Of Eden’. 

A playlist for The Finn Brothers LP could not be complied due to one or more songs not being available on Spotify. 

So what do we get when listening to these. Well, we get two albums, but take off the best songs from each and you get one excellent album. Now, if only the brothers had decided to have started ‘Woodface’ with something other than Chocolate Cake, it would have made for an even better record. 

I have not included ‘I’m Still Here’ as it always sounded out of place to my ears and did nothing to add to the experience of listening to ‘Woodface’. 

I cannot believe that this album is nearly 30 years old. Where has the time gone?

Happy New Year everyone. Between 2018 (when they released their fist disc) and 2020, Blood Records put out 29 records. In 2021, the released 33 showing that this particular label went into overdrive over the past twelve months. It also meant that this years sampler would be a much larger affair than the previous efforts. I was still keen for at least one song from each release and at one point, it looked as though there would be enough to have two double albums. As it is, the second double ended up being the third disc on what would be a triple LP as there just wasn’t enough material for a second disc at a length I felt would have been acceptable (I know its a fantasy release). 

With supply chain issues and released being pushed back because of it did mean that there were a number of records that did not drop through the door at Squire Towers before the end of the year. There are already fourteen discs that Blood Records have advertised in 2021 that will hopefully be handed over via my Post in the next few months. 

One disc is missing form this list Halloweens ‘Morning Kiss at the Acropolis’ is not included as this was a straight reissue (albeit on a different coloured vinyl) for the version released last year. 

The sleeve is one of the Blood Records logos taken from their Facebook page. 

Side A

1. Keeper – Lonely The Brave
2. Lights On Baby – Halloweens
3. A Better Life – Stanleys
4. Too Good – Arlo Parks
5. Who Am I? – Pale Waves

Side B

1. Let The Music – Okie
2. I Like The Way You Die – Black Honey
3. All My Friends – The Obgms
4. Shipbuilding – Mystery Jets
5. Delicious Things – Wolf Alice

Side C

1. Gold Teeth – Warmduscher
2. Hey There – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
3. Momentary – Low Island
4. Feelings I’m Supposed To Feel – Maximo Park

Side D

1. Trouble’s Coming – Royal Blood
2. Soul Singer – Thom Southern
3. Monty Python – Connie Constance
4. Land Of The Lost – The Coral
5. Time – Only Sun

Side E

1. It Won’t Always Be Like This – Inhaler
2. That Night – Stanleys
3. Clique – Yonaka (feat. Over 333)
4. Oh My Love – The Lathums
5. Undertaker (Fever 333 Remix) – Nova Twins
6. Melon & The Coconut – Glass Animals
7. Start Again – Rianne Downey

Side F

1. The Sum Of Our Fears – The Howlers
2. Stuck In Your Heard – Vistas
3. Bloodsports – Strange Bones
4. Jump Off The Top – The Vaccines
5. Nothing Is Gonna Change – Dead Nature
6. Something To Leave The House For – The Lottery Winners
7. I Never Get Lonesome – Courtney Barnett

The other Nilsson projects I have put together recently were essentially records I would like to have seen released, but this one is a genuine lost album. After the release of ‘Knnillsson’ in 1977, Nilsson left RCA Records, his home for the previous decade. One further album called ‘Flash Harry’ was released in a few European countries as well as Japan, but this was a one off deal. It would also be his last studio album that Nilsson released before his death. This period was quite productive as he also produced the soundtrack album for the Robert Altman film, ‘Popeye’. He also worked on a couple of musicals. One about Mexican Revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata and the other was cartoon characters Blondie & Dagwood. 

Music was put to one side after the assassination of his friend John Lennon as Nilsson joined the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. He started making media appearances to raise funds for the organisation as well as recording the single ‘With a Bullet’. He even got on stage at Beatlefest events to do some live singing. By the mid 80s, Nilsson was starting to record more frequently, mostly on commissions for TV and Movies, but also tribute albums. One of these was ‘Every Man Has a Woman’, which was released in celebration of Yoko Ono’s 50th birthday. Nilsson had three songs on the album, but he seems that he was so happy with what he was doing, that he decided to record a whole albums worth. The National Times reported that the album would be released in 1985, but it never materialised. 

Unlike many lost albums, most of the songs were recorded but why wasn’t released has yet to come to light. Record companies might have been put off by Nilsson’s antics in the 1970s, or the fact that his last few albums had not been big sellers. The song ‘Loneliness’ was released as a single on Polydor and does not seem to have been a hit so the record company might not have wanted to follow up with a full album. Whatever the reasons, the songs have for the most part, stayed in the archives. Well, here is my reconstruction of what could have been if this album had sent he light of day in 1985. 

As three of the songs had already seen the light of day on ‘Every Man Has a Woman’, it would be nice to have alternative versions of those songs here. For two of them, this is possible, ‘Loneliness’ and ‘Dream Love’ both exist as extended versions. These two can be included but ‘Silver Horse’ does not, so that will have to stay the same. The song ‘Yang Yang’ was rehearsed but never finished. A quick bit of editing though has meant a sort of master take could be produced. 

At forty minutes, this would have been an optimal length for a vinyl album. A couple of alternative mixes have also been circulating. Most of Nilsson’s back catalogue has been rereleased with bonus tracks. If this album had had of come out and was to have received a CD reissue, these could have been used as bonus tracks. I have also included the versions of ‘Loneliness’ and ‘Dream Love’ from ‘Every Man Has A Woman’ for completeness. Will these tracks ever seen the light of day in an official capacity? Only time will tell. 

I found the album artwork on a message board, so whoever made this, thank you. It is an homage to the ‘Nilsson Sings Newman’ cover. It is shame that they did not called it ‘Nilsson Sings Ono’.

Side A

1. Silver Horse
2. Loneliness (Extended Edition)
3. Listen, The Snow Is Falling
4. Let The Tears Dry

Side B

1. Yang Yang
2. Smile
3. Never Say Goodbye
4. Toy Boat
5. Dream Love (Extended Version)

CD Bonus Tracks

1. Toy Boat (Alternative Take)
2. Smile (Alternative Vocal)
3. Never Say Goodbye (Alternative Mix)
4. Listen, The Snow Is Falling (Different Mix)
5. Loneliness (Every Man Has A Woman Version)
6. Dream Love (Every Man Has A Woman Version)