Month: November 2022

Well, we’ve already had one fake soundtrack album this month, so how about another. This one is taken from a film that has never been officially released because it is a fan edit of The Empire Strikes Back. Now, fan edits are a a curious beast. They are commercially released films that have been modified by an editor to add or remove scenes, re-order the film or even edit multiple films together to make something wholly original. 

One of my favourites as well as one of the most original was the fan edit of The Empire Strikes Back which was made to look as though it had been directed by Quentin Tarantino. That means it incorporates some of the tropes the director is famous for, such as telling the story in a non liner style, incorporating animation for some sequences and most importantly for us, the soundtrack was reworked. Gone is the classical score of John Williams. In its place is a mix of songs taken from Tarantino films, as well as some that were taken from his favoured era of the 60s and 70s. 

This edit is truly awesome and if you can find, I recommend you give it a watch. The soundtrack is also brilliant and that is why I was inspired to create a version of it. If you can find a copy of the film, it is well worth checking out. If you can’t just enjoy the awesome music that has been edited in. In fact, there was so much good stuff that I found that it needed to be a double to do the amount of good music justice. 

Side A

1. Space Oddity – David Bowie
2. Baby, It’s You – Smith
3. The Lonely Surfer – Jack Nitzche
4. Mind Power – James Brown

Side B

1. Run Fay Run – Isaac Hayes
2. Cissy Strut – The Meters
3. Down in Mexico – The Coasters
4. Summertime Killer – Luis Bacalov
5. Good Love, Bad Love – Eddie Floyd
6. Strawberry Letter 23 – Brothers Johnson
7. The Grand Duel (Parte Prima) – Luis Enrique Bacalov

Side C

1. A Silhouette Of Doom – Ennio Morricone
2. Slaughter – Billy Preston
3. Riot In Thunder Alley – Eddie Beram
4. The Last Race – Jack Nitzche
5. The Green Leaves Of Summer – Nick Perito
6. Both Sides Now – Joni Mitchell
7. The Lonely Shepherd – Zamfir

Disc 4

1. I Can’t Sleep / They Can’t Touch Her (Betsey’s Theme) – Bernard Herrmann
2. Old Man – Neil Young
3. The Chase – Alan Reeves, Phil Steele & Philip Bringham
4. The Love You Save (May Be Your Own) – Joe Tex
5. Across 110th Street – Bobby Womack
6. The Ecstasy Of Gold – Ennio Morricone
7. The Flower Of Carnage – Meiko Kaji

The cover is an adaptation of one of the DVD sleeve that was produced for anyone who was able to download a copy and burn to a disc.

Remember, fan edits are not to be sold and only download them if you own the original film. 

As I have posted one alternative history LP for Pink Floyd this month, how about another. Zabriskie Point is a film that is most probably more famous for its soundtrack album than the film itself. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and produced by MGM, this was the movie studios attempt at a counter culture film which was thoroughly ignored by the people it was meant to appeal to. From a budget of $7million (not a small amount in the late 60s), the film grossed about $1million in return. It is noticeable for an appearance by a young Harrison Ford. Infamously, leading man Mark Frechette took part in a bank robbery three years after the film came out and died in prison from an accident with some weights. 

However, the soundtrack lived on as it included tracks by the Grateful Dead, Kaleidoscope and songs unavailable anywhere else (at the time) from Pink Floyd. It was because of the Pink Floyd connection that I bought a vinyl copy of this record myself back in the dim distant past. Floyd had spent 1969 producing ‘Ummagumma’ and another soundtrack for the film ‘More’. They had done reasonably well with their LP sales, but this was the first year that the band had not released a single in the UK because, as Roger Waters once noted, without founder Syd Barrett, they just weren’t very good at it. It was because of a recording on their last single of the 1960s that Antonioni came a-calling. 

That recording was that single’s B-Side, ’Careful With That Axe, Eugene’. Antonioni was so impressed with the track that not only did he ask the band to re-record it (under the title of Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up) but to score the entire film. This the band did, but as has already been noted, the director decided against using the majority of their material for the film. This is a shame as there are some nice instrumental pieces here, as well as a couple of actual songs. Out of the actual songs, only ‘Crumbling Land’ made the soundtrack album as well as two instrumental pieces, ‘Heart Beat, Pig Meat’ and the aforementioned ‘Come in Number 51 (etc)’. The rest were consigned to the archive. 

What I have tried to do here is to present a soundtrack to Zabriskie Point that is made up of only Floyd music.

Love Scene – there were numerous version of this instrumental track, because Antonioni could not make up his mind what he wanted. Floyd produced at least seven variations, three of which have been included here. 

Aeroplane – one of many heavy rock pieces Floyd produced for the soundtrack. 

Unknown Song – initially released on the 1997 version of the soundtrack album, this contains melodies that were reused in ‘Atom Heart Mother’ as well as being a signal to what was to come from the band. The acoustic 12 string playing is reminiscent of ‘A Pillow of Winds’ from ‘Meddle. 

Crumbling Land – Pink Floyd do an Americana style song, which David Gilmour later noted, could have been performed better by any number of American bands. 

Auto Scene – A variation (and instrumental version) of ‘Country Song’. 

Heart Beat, Pig Meat – This would sometimes make an appearance with another Floyd project which never saw the light of day as an official released at the time. This was part of ‘The Man & The Journey’ under title of ‘Doing It’. 

The Riot Scene – Most probably the most famous un-released track from these sessions. this piano track was later taken from the archives, given some lyrics and called ‘Us & Them’. It would be included on the classic ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ LP.

Country Song – the second song to contain lyrics, this would ultimately not appear in the film. 

Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up – The afore mentioned reworking of ‘Careful With That Axe, Eugene’, this would take centre stage at the conclusion of the film. 

On The Highway – A shorter version of ‘Crumbling Land’

Side A

1. Love Scene (Version1)
2. Aeroplane
3. Unknown Song (Take 1)
4. Crumbling Land
5. Love Scene (Version 7)
6. Auto Scene (Version 2)

Side B

1. Heart Beat, Pig Meat
2. The Riot Scene
3. Love Scene (Version 4)
4. Country Song
5. Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up
6. On The Highway

This is not the best Pink Floyd album by any stretch of the imagination, but it still has its merits. It showcases the band as being able to tackle many genres as well as working to a schedule, something that would go out of the window after the success of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. I think there is a more constant feel to this album, compared to ‘More’ and the two vocal tracks (not including ‘On The Highway’ here) were really good. This though is a nice bridge between the first phase of Floyd and the beginnings of their soon to be world domination period. 

I do like a bit of Pink Floyd, especially in their more experimental days before ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ came out. They were bursting with ideas but they were struggling to find their sound. However, Pink Floyd entered 1969 in reasonable shape sales wise, but there was still some debate as to the direction the band would take. The band’s early material and their hits had been written by Syd Barrett, but due to reasons documented in numerous other places, he had left the band by April 1968. The band had already recruited Barrett’s friend David Gilmour to help take the heavy lifting of live work and so was already in place when Barrett left/was asked to leave. The bands second album, ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ had been released in June 1968 and was a mixed bag of psychedelic jams, first album outtakes, Barrett knock offs as well as one Barrett original. The album is, as drummer Nick Mason described it, a cross-fade between one era and the next. I’ve not seen a more apt description of that album anywhere else. 

With Barrett gone and the psychedelic era drawing to a close, the band were looking for a new direction. A way of keeping themselves busy as well as earning some money, the band took on commissions to write soundtracks. This included the films ‘Speak’ by John Latham, ‘More’ by Barbet Schroeder, ‘The Committee’ by Peter Sykes and there was some contributions to TV shows such as Tomorrows World. They would finish off the 60s by realising the half live, half studio album ‘Ummagumma’. 1969 was quite a productive year, but that does not mean that the music they were producing was as memorable as the work that had proceeded it or what was to come. This was a band treading water and wondering what to do next and listening to the studio set on ‘Ummagumma’ shows this. However, when listening to the material that band put out in 1969, I wondered if there was enough songs to make a stand alone album as a true follow up to ‘Saucerful of Secrets’. Well, this is what I came up.

All of the songs needed to come from the last months of 1968, which means that the ‘Point Me At The Sky’ single would still be part of this timeline. I changed the B-Side from ‘Careful With That Axe, Eugene’ to ‘Ibiza Bar’ from ‘More’. I quite like ‘Ibiza Bar’ as it borders on a hard rock sound Pink Floyd did not attempt very often. However, one of their other attempts was ‘The Nile Song’ from the same album was also in a similar style and sound very much alike as well. I did not like the idea of having two songs that sounded pretty much the same so I relegated one to a single B-Side. ‘Cirrus Minor’ also appeared on the ‘More’ and it could be argued that it is a strange choice as the opening track. It is a very mellow songs and not the bombastic here were are opening you’d expect on an album. It was the opening track on the original album and to my ears, this was the best place for it. I edited the introduction to ‘Grantchester Meadows’ over the end of ‘Cirrus Minor’ as we moved to a more folk orientated tune and it works quite nicely. We then get to ‘Careful With That Axe, Eugene’, which is presented here in a stereo mix. The original single version was mono, but as this album would have been released in stereo only as all new Pink Floyd albums have been since 1969; that is the reason why this mix was included. This song was wasted on the B-Side of ‘Point Me At The Sky’. Side A finishes with ‘The Narrow Way (Part 3)’, the first Pink Floyd song with lyrics by Gilmour. Parts 1 & 2 were instrumental tracks and have been edited out, as they would have meant this side of the album would be too long. This record is meant to be more song based so having all of the instrumental noodling would detract from the record. 

Side B starts with a bang and the aforementioned ‘Nile Song’. We then go back to the more folky side of Floyd with the beautiful ‘Green Is The Colour’. The pace picks up again with ‘Biding My Time’ which was one of the few genuine Pink Floyd rarities to get an official release during the 70s, when the band put out the ‘Relics’ album. Cymbaline, one of the more beautiful songs from ‘More’ and like ‘Green Is The Colour’, was wasted on a soundtrack album. What follows is another rarity from the era in the form of the song ‘Embryo’. Only recorded as a demo in late 1968, it slipped out on the Harvest label sampler LP ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’. The song was never finished by the band but it did become a concert staple between 1970 and 71. We finish off with another song from ‘More’ with ‘Crying Song’. 

Playing through this compilation whilst writing this entry, it reminded me that even at this early stage, the band were capable of writing some quality material and this would have been a very good album, if a little eclectic with the amount of styles presented within the grooves. Granted, they were still trying to find the direction they were going to go in but this would have lead nicely into ‘Atom Heart Mother’, the studio album that followed in 1970. It was interesting to note that a lot of these songs were being performed by the band at this time as ‘The Man & The Journey’ show, which I also looked at back in April of 2022. 

Side A

1. Cirrus Minor – More
2. Granchester Meadows – Ummagumma
3. Careful With That Axe, Eugene (Stereo Mix) – Relics
4. The Narrow Way (Part 3) – Ummagumma

Side B

1. The Nile Song – More
2. Green Is The Colour – More
3. Biding My Time – Relics
4. Cymbaline – More
5. Embryo – Picnic – A Breath Of Fresh Air
6. Crying Song – More

Single

1. Point Me At The Sky – Single A-Side
2. Ibiza Bar – More

The name of the album comes from the name given to some of the shows they played in 1969 which would also be known as ‘The Man & The Journey’. 

The cover has been adapted from https://www.reddit.com/r/pinkfloyd/comments/avlk6k/pink_floyd_the_man_and_the_journey_hypothetical/

When it comes to these what-if records, Smashing Pumpkins really are the band that just keep on giving, especially when it come to the period between their formation in 1988 and initial breakup in 2000. The scale of the material that the band recorded and did not release must be akin to Bob Dylan, in that the could have quite easily released a number of Bootleg Series style releases, but instead, they focused on placing this material on the deluxe editions of their original albums. The first two, ‘Gish’ and ‘Siamese Dream’ only hinted at what was to come. Maybe main songwriter Billy Corgan felt that the best of the outtakes had already been released on their ‘Pisces Iscariot’ album. With that record also being released in a deluxe edition, it would seem not. As has been mentioned in previous posts on the Pumpkins, Corgan shared a lot of material via his website in the early 2000, some of which have not see an official release either. 

It was with the deluxe editions of ‘Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness’ and ‘The Aeroplane Flies High’ that the true depth of material that the band had in the archive become clear. These rereleases included so much music it was impossible to sit through them in one sitting. I already tackled what ‘The Aeroplane Flies High’ would have sounded like if it had been released as a single album in the same manor as ‘Pisces Iscariot’,  but what about ‘Adore’?

‘Adore’ came out at a challenging time for the band. Not only was Corgan finding the pressure to produce a record that matched ‘Mellon Collie’, but the band was reeling from the sacking of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin due to drug issues. Band relations were also at a low point with Corgan latter summing up these sessions as the work of a group falling apart. Corgan was also having to contend with the death of his mother as well as going through a divorce. Considering we got anything at all was a minor miracle. 

There were clues as to what was coming with ‘Adore’ with their previous releases. The song ‘1979’ included electronic elements as well as stand alone singles ‘Eye’ and ‘The End Is The Beginning Is The End’. ‘Adore’ would not only include the use of drum machines (harking back to the earliest days of the band when they did not have a drummer) but more acoustic guitar and piano. Corgan felt that he was no longer making music for teenagers, but to everyone. Judging by the number of albums sold (which by most peoples standards were quite good), the album lost the band a lot of fans instead of gaining them. Sales were down significantly on ‘Mellon Collie’ and was the first time a Pumpkins album had sold less than the preceding one. 

In preparation for ‘Adore’, the band recorded around 30 songs and at one point of its production, it was going to be a double album. As it was, the album was so long that it was decided that the vinyl version would need to use two discs, even though side 4 was left blank. For this, I was tempted to have a go at putting together a double, but I thought it would be better to have a look at what a record of sessions outtakes would sound like, especially as this was the first album since ‘Siamese Dream’ not to have a compilation of sessions material released after it. There wasn’t exactly a shortage of songs on the ‘Adore’ reissue to choose from. 

The album itself is based on a vinyl format, so I was limited to about 24 minutes per side. The opening song of the compilation is ‘Let Me Give The World To You’, which was almost on the parent album until Corgan got wind that the record label were keen to release this as the first single. Corgan was adamant that this would not be a single, but the only way to prevent that would be to take the song off of ‘Adore’, which is what he ended up doing. The song was rerecorded for the ‘Machina’ project. It did see a limited release on the ‘Machina II’ album in 2000. As an opening song for this collection, it is a good place to start. 

For the rest of the record, I focused on the songs that used minimal electronics. The collection focuses on the acoustic and more mellow of the songs. The more electronic music was relegated to the B-Sides of the single. I would also have the band release one single from this, which would be an alternative version of ‘Do You Close Your Eyes?’. As this was also the era where two CDsingles would come out per release with different B-Sides, there are four extra tracks from the sessions that could have been released. 

For the title of the album, I chose ‘Adhor’ as this is the opposite of ‘Adore’ I also used a picture taken by Yalena Yemchuk who took the picture for the original album as well. 

As a whole, it works well and once again shows how much quality material Corgan was writing at this time, and how much of it was forgotten about as he moved on to the next project. 

Side A

1. Let Me Give The World To You (Adore Outtake)
2. Valentine (Sadlands Demo)
3. Sparrow (Sadlands Demo)
4. My Mistake (Take 1/CRC Demo)
5. Chewing Gum (CRC Demo)
6. Czarina (Take 1/Adore Outtake)

Side B

1. Do You Close Your Eyes When You Kiss Me? (CRC Demo)
2. Saturnine (For Piano & Voice)
3. It’s Alright (Instrumental/Adore Outtake)
4. What If? (Streeterville Demo)
5. Blissed & Gone (CRC Demo)
6. Cross (Adore Outtake)

Singles

1. Do You Close Your Eyes? – A-Side (Adore Outtake)
2. Indecision – B-Side (Sadlands Demo)
3. Waiting – B-Side (Adore Outtake)
4. My Mistake – B-Side (Badlands Demo)
5. O Rio – B-Side (Instrumental/Sadlands Demo)