Month: September 2024

Just because I have been looking at lots of music from the Britpop era this year doesn’t mean there isn’t room for one of the bands that were an inspiration for good number of the musicians during that era. That band is The Beatles and today is also the 55th anniversary of ‘Abbey Road’.

This post could easily have been title ‘The Beatles in 1969’. As it is, this this one was a case of having some album artwork but not having an album to go with it. That is because back in December of 2023, I posted a fake album of ‘Almost Beatles Songs’ (https://www.thesquirepresents.co.uk/elvis-orbison-almost-beatle-songs/) which was made up of recordings of the songs The Beatles worked on during the Get Back/Let Ot Be sessions that weren’t taken forward by the band. In most cases, they weren’t even taken forward by them when their solo careers started. I talk about the ‘Get Back’ sessions back in November 2021 (and you can read that post here – https://www.thesquirepresents.co.uk/the-beatles-the-get-back-box-set/) so I will not cover old ground here. However, the people behind Almost Beatle Songs produced a number of other tracks that I did not include on my previous post and I was wondering if there was enough material to make up a second release. Well, at the

is time, not quite. 

Anyway, one of the tunes I did not use was an instrumental called l ‘The Palace Of The King Of The Birds’. Brought to the sessions by Paul McCartney, it was attempted three times but was all but forgotten until McCartney used parts of it as one of the songs for his unreleased ‘Rupert The Bear’ album. To me, it sounded like it could have been used as the title for the second ‘Almost Beatles Songs’ LP so I made up a sleeve. How could I use this sleeve for something Beatle related? Well, I came up with a playlist but the title just didn’t fit with the artwork, nor the concept of the album, It also sounded like something that would have been released during the height of the psychedelia and that were over by 1969 which is when all of the songs I was working with came out. So, I changed the name of the album to ’Everest’, which was a working title for the ‘Abbey Road’ record. 

Well, I was playing through ‘Abbey Road’ and ‘Let It Be’ again and wondered what it would sound like if I made up an album combining songs from both projects to make a solid LP with accompanying singles. Well, The Beatles could have done this themselves if they had chosen to. It was not set in stone that they needed to release the material recorded for what would become ‘Let It Be’ as its own entity. What they did have from ‘Let Let Be’ were some really good songs, mostly by Paul McCartney  (even though to this day, I cannot stand ‘The Long & Winding Road’). Lennon was working his way through a heroin addiction and had not been focused on writing new material. He did have some good material in the works, which was shown in the ‘Get Back’ documentary from 2021 but these were put to one side for the songs we eventually got. Harrison had plenty of good songs at this time but was reluctant to bring them to the band as he felt (justifiably) that Lennon and especially McCartney were not giving his efforts the respect they deserved. Starr had a couple of ideas but judging from the footage in the ‘Get Back’ documentary, he did not push those for inclusion. 

‘Abbey Road’ is more cohesive LP with some absolutely great songs and is the only Beatles album I can listen to without wanting to skip any of the songs. Yes, I can listen to ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ all the way through (even though I did not include it here as there were far superior songs to be added). I played through both albums and the difference in productions styles of ‘Abbey Road’ and ‘Let It Be’ did not gel in the way I wanted them to. Even with Phil Spector’s production covering over some of the bum notes, the interspersing of banter between songs did not go with the aesthetic I was looking for. However, ‘Let it Be…Naked’ did. That was because of the use of some digital corrections, different takes and production make this sound more like a finished album than the original ‘Let It Be’.

Out of the songs from the ‘Let It Be’ sessions, I picked for the album ‘Two of Us’, I’ve Got A Feeling’ and ‘Let It Be’ for the LP. ‘Get Back’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ would stay as the stand alone single it was back in April 1969. Originally I did have the ‘Let It Be…Naked’ version of ‘Get Back’ on here but it meat that there would be only one song by Harrison so it was jettisoned, especially as it was represented by the single version. 

I was close to keeping the double A-Side configuration of ‘Come Together’ and ‘Something’ as a single, but keep them off of the parent album. One of the greatest combinations of songs for a single, I feel that sales were hurt (in the UK) as this single was released after the ‘Abbey Road’ LP and I believe this prevented it from becoming a number 1 hit there. It didn’t stop it from becoming a number 1 in the USA though. ‘Come Together’ would still be a single A-Side in this alternative universe release, but backed with ‘For You Blue’ from the ‘Let It Be ‘ sessions. ‘Something’ would be kept back as the second song for the LP. This reconstruction also does away with the majority of the songs that would become the long medley. I like the medley but there just wasn’t enough room for it all here so I cut it at ‘Sun King’. 

I did have to make one slight adjustment to ‘Sun King’. As this was part of the Side B melody on the original ‘Abbey Road’ album, the song does stop quite abruptly as it went into the drum beat that started ‘Mean Mr Mustard’. I just added a quick fade to soften the abruptness of the original cut.  As it is, the transition between songs is not as smooth as it was for the rest of the LP. As a little bonus, and to make up for the fact that side two was a little shorter than side 1, I added the ‘Get Back (Reprise)’ from the aborted ‘Get Back’ Album. ‘The Ballad Of John & Yoko’ single has been added to the playlist as it came out between the two singles I have talked about here and fits with The Beatles in 1969 vibe. 

Side A

1. Two Of Us
2. Something
3. I’ve Got A Feeling
4. Octopus Garden
5. I Want You (She’s So Heavy)

Side B

1. Here Comes The Sun
2. Because
3. Oh! Darling
4. You Never Give Me Your Money
5. Sun King
6. Let It Be
7. Get Back (Reprise)

Singles

1. Get Back (Single Version)
2. Don’t Let Me Down

1. The Ballad of John & Yoko
2. Old Brown Shoe

1. Let It Be
2. For You Blue

In then end, I did not use the cover I originally was going to use as it was bit too psych for 1969, so I went with one that I believe was used on a bootleg for the ‘Abbey Road’ sessions. The band did put forward the idea of having their picture taken at Mount Everest, but logic stepped in and they just went outside the studio and walked across the road. 

I did say at the beginning of this year that it would be focused on Britpop releases with the occasional anniversary fantasy box set thrown in for good measure, but Beck was an artist I was listening to during this time so it felt right to include him here. 

I first heard of Beck whilst watching his debut UK television performance on legendary British music show, ‘Top Of The Pops’. I didn’t know what to make of the performance as I have never been a fan of rapping, and the band seems to be made up of very old men miming quite badly. I then saw a review for his ‘Mellow Gold’ in another British music institution that has now gone to the nostalgia bin in the form of Q Magazine. The review gave it five out of five, something you did not see very often. I was feeling flush that week so ‘Mellow Gold’ was purchased. It was like nothing I had heard before and even though ‘Loser’ had the potential to be a one hit wonder, there was enough in the grooves for me to become very interested in what this guy was going to do next. 

What I didn’t realise is that he was going to to quite a lot, and had already done quite a bit already. Beck had been recording in one form or another since the late 80s with some now impossible to find low-fi cassette albums. These were never going to be on my radar, as they were only ever available in the USA and 1994 was essentially the age before the internet, so I did not find out about these releases until much later. What I did have was The Record Shop in Kingston Upon Thames. The haven for vinyl releases in the vinyl desert that was the mid 90s’. If you wanted something rare, and more importantly in this case, imported from abroad, that was the place to get it. I may well have bought ‘Mellow Gold’ there in the first place. Anyway, I digress. 

Going back a few weeks after first playing ‘Mellow Gold’, I found that the Beck section had a 10” Beck record in it called ‘A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight’. It even came with a limited edition finger painting, which was nothing to shout about but this was only available with the initial run. Whereas ‘Mellow Gold’ was recorded with what sounded like a budget (all be it a small one), ‘A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight’ sounded as if the money for its production had been spent having a good time before hand. It was full of curious sound experiments, a tune that sounded as though he was plonking around on a guitar and playing around with the drum machine settings on a cheap Casio keyboard. There was the odd song in there, but this was one for the completist. 

I then found out that he had released another album just before ‘Mellow Gold’ called ‘Stereopathetic Soulmaure’. I thought I would give that a go and found that this was in a similar vein to ‘A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight’ more noise experiments, home and live recordings. There even recordings made out on the street with guest performers. ‘Stereopathetic Soulmanure’ did have more in the way of songs on it, some of which showed a strong country influence. The song ‘Rowboat’ has some lovely pedal steel playing in it and is possibly the best of Beck’s early songs. There was another album released before ‘Mellow Gold’ called ‘Golden Feelings’ but I have never seen a copy for sale for anything other than a staggeringly high price on line. 

Beck was able to release these low-fi experimental albums because his label, which had released ‘Mellow Gold’ allowed him to do so. Great for the collector, but so much if you wanted a record that could be considered song based. Coming back to these records many years later, I wondered what would have happened if the more songs based tunes were released on their own without the more experimental efforts and so we have my version of ‘A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight’. 

‘Aphid Manure Heist’ has been edited so that is just the violin intro, as I didn’t like the second section and this also meant that the run times would match up more evenly as this would be another of my what-if albums that would have been released on a 12” LP. It is still quite short for an LP and still has flashes of experimentation and is not exactly commercial, but it holds together. 

Side A

1. Totally Confused – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
2. Thunder Peel – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
3. Modesto – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
4. Today Has Been A Fucked Up Day – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
5. The Spirit Moves Me – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
6. No Money No Honey – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
7. One Foot In The Grave – Stereopathetic Soulmanure

Side B

1. Aphid Manure Heist (Edit) – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
2. Crystal Clear (Beer) – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
3. Rowboat – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
4. Puttin’ It Down – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
5. Getting’ Home – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
6. Pinefresh – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
7. Satan Gave Me A Taco – Stereopathetic Soulmanure
8. Feel Like A Piece Of Shit (Cheetos Time!) – A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight
9. Ken (Hidden Track) – Stereopathetic Soulmanure

I could have used the more experimental efforts from these two albums and they could have been released as a companion piece called ‘Stereopathetic Soulmanure’ That is a project for another day, or even for somebody else. 

Belly – The 4AD Years

Belly are an alternative rock act formed in 1991 by ex-Breeders and Throwing Muses member, Tanya Donnelly. I published a lost album of them which covered some of their best B-Sides back in January of 2023*, but this is complete over view of their work whilst they were signed to the 4AD label. 

They only released two albums during this period, the second of which would turn out to be their last LP for twenty three years. This second album was called ‘King’  and was met with lukewarm reviews at the time as this was a bit different from their debut, ‘Star’ which was released two years earlier. The songs on ‘King’ were a bit rockier in sound, with heavier riffs and the lyrics were a bit more personal than they had been before. 

Neither the singles or album sold in the quantities that the record label were expecting and this was after they had appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. Tanya Donelly, main songwriter and focus of the band decided to break up the group feeling that there was too much negativity around. She decided to start a solo career. Bass player Gail Greenwood played with L7 and Big Naked as well as her own group. Drummer and lead guitar player, Chris and Thomas Gorman founded a commercial photography business. All went quiet until 2016 when it was announced that they would be going out on a short tour and a year later, they started to record their third album. 

I loved Belly and I was really disappointed when they split. I spent the next few years trying to find all of the different versions of singles so I could acquire all of the B-Sides. The album ‘Sweet Ride’ also included some songs that were not available anywhere else. 

I thought I would put together a box set focusing on the years they were signed 4AD records, especially as this was one of my favourite bands form the 90s which is my focus for a lot of my playlists this year. What we get here are a five CD set which includes both albums, B-Sides and rarities. If I was curating this set, I would also include a DVD (or Blu Ray) disc which the official videos of the singles, TV appearances from the US and UK (I could not find any reference to any appearances from other countries) as well as their spots at the Glastonbury Festivals in 1993 and 1995 as well as the Great Expectations concert to raise money for the radio station, XFM. 

A quick note on some of the songs. ‘It’s Not Unusual’ from the ‘Gepetto’ (Remix Disc 2) and ‘Ivo’ Version ‘ from the ‘Moon EP’ are very similar. I think they cold even be the same even though the credits make it seem as though they are different. The single version of ‘Gepetto’ on Disc 5 was only placed there because there wasn’t space on any of the others discs. 

I am sure that if this was to be released, I would hope that there would be some previously unreleased performances included, including more demos. 

Disc 1 – Star & Slow Dust EP

1. Someone To Die For
2. Angel
3. Dusted
4. Every Word
5. Gepetto
6. Witch
7. Slow Dog
8. Low Red Moon
9. Feed The Tree
10. Full Moon, Empty Heart
11. White Belly
12. Untogether
13. Star
14. Sad Dress
15. Stay
16. Dusted (Original Version)
17. Slow Dog (Original Version)
18. Dancing Gold
19. Low Red Moon (Original Version)
20. Dusted (Orignal Version)
21. Gepetto (Single Version)
22. Slow Dog (Radio Remix 3m 50 sec version)

Tracks 1-15 – Star LP

Tracks 16-20 – Slow Dust EP

Track 21 – Single Mix

Track 22 – US Single Promo

Disc 2 – Star Sessions

1. Gepetto (Remix) – Gepetto EP
2. Hot Burrito #1 – Gepetto EP
3. Sexy S – Gepetto EP
4. Sweet Ride – Gepetto EP
5. It’s Not Unusual – Gepetto EP (Remix Disc 2)
6. Star (Demo) – Gepetto EP (Remix Disc 2)
7. Dusted (Demo) – Gepetto EP (Remix Disc 2)
8. Are You Experienced? – Stone Free, A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix
9. Feed The Tree (U.S. Remix) – Feed The Tree Single
10. Star (Full Band Version) – Feed The Tree Single
11. Dream On Me – Feed The Tree Single
12. Trust in Me – Feed The Tree Single
13. Slow Dog (Remix) – Video Version
14. Dusted – Indie Top 20 Compilation Volume 16 Version 
15. Gepetto – UK 7” Version
16. It’s Not Unusual (Ivo’s Version) – Moon EP
17. It’s Not Unusual (The Usual Mix) – Moon EP
18. It’s Not Unusual (Unusual Mix) – Moon EP
19. Full Moon, Empty Heart (Lunar Mix) – Moon EP
20. Full Moon, Empty Heart (Bloody Mary Mix) – Moon EP

Disc 3 – King

1. Puberty
2. Seal My Fate
3. Red
4. Silverfish
5. Super-Connected
6. The Bees
7. King
8. Now They’ll Sleep
9. Untitled & Unsung
10. L’il Ennio
11. Judas My Heart

Tracks 1-11 – King LP

Disc 4 – King Sessions & Live Tracks

1. Judas My Heart (Live In London) – Sun EP1.
2. The Bees (Live In London) – Sun EP
3. Spaceman – Sun EP
4. Seal My Fate (U.S. Radio Version) – Seal My Fate (Studio)
5. Diamond Rib Cage – Seal My Fate (Studio)
6. Think About Your Troubles – Seal My Fate (Studio)
7. Broken – Vinyl B-Side
8. Seal My Fate (Live) – Seal My Fate (Live)
9. White Belly (Live) – Seal My Fate (Live)
10. Untitled & Unsung (Live) – Seal My Fate (Live)
11. Thief – Now They’ll Sleep
12. Baby’s Arm – Now They’ll Sleep
13. John Dark – Now They’ll Sleep
14. Lilith – Sweet Ride, The Best of Belly
15. Super-Connected (Edit) – Super-Connected
16. Judas Mon Coeur – Sun EP

Disc 5 – Live & BBC Session

1. Low Red Moon
2. Dusted
3. Angel
4. Full Moon, Empty Heart
5. Star
6. Dream on Me
7. White Belly
8. Gepetto
9. Sexy S
10. Feed The Tree
11. Slow Dog
12. Stay
13. Dusted
14. Feed The Tree
15. Gepetto
16. White Belly
17. Angel
18. Gepetto (US. Radio Mix)

Tracks 1-12 – Live Grant Park, Chicago,  7th April 1993

Track 13 – Unknown

Tracks 14-17 – Mark Goodier BBC Session, 25th July 1992

Trak 18 – US 7” Single 

Disc 6 – Blu Ray/DVD Disc

Official Videos For The Singles

Gepetto

Feed The Tree

Slow Dog

Super-Connected

Now They’ll Sleep

Seal My Fate

TV Appearances 

Full Moon Empty Heart (Later with Jools Holland 18th June 1993)

Slow Dog (Later with Jools Holland 18th June 1993)

Gepetto (BBC Late Show 1993) Can’t find the exact date.

Feed The Tree (Late Show with David Letterman 1993) Can’t find the exact date.

Gepetto (The John  Stewart Show 1993) Can’t find the exact date.

Feed The Tree (The Word 1993) Can’t find the exact date.

Are You Experienced (The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 25th February 1994)

Seal My Fate (Late Night With Conan O’Brien 30th January 1995)

Super-Connected (Late Show with David Letterman 4th April 1995)

Red (The John  Stewart Show 19th June 1995)

Super-Connected (Ray Coke’s MTV Most Wanted 22nd June 1995)

Seal My Fate (Ray Coke’s MTV Most Wanted 22nd June 1995)

Great Xpectations Finsbury Park 13th June 1993

Low Red Moon

Angel

Gepetto

Full Moon, Empty Heart

Sexy S

Star

Feed The Tree

Slow Dog

Dusted

Glastonbury 25th June 1993

Feed The Tree

Angel

White Belly

Glastonbury 23rd June 1995

King

Puberty

Now They’ll Sleep

Untitled & Unsung

Full Moon, Empty Heart

Dusted

Judas My Heart

Super-Connected

Feed The Tree

Slow Dog

Red

Seal My Fate

Gepetto

The cover is based on the 2016 vinyl pressing of ‘Star’. 

*https://www.thesquirepresents.co.uk/belly-broken/