For New Year’s eve the Flaming Lips plan to play a bunch of John Lennon and Beatles’ songs when they play at Aspen, Colorado’s Belly Up, according to Consequence Of Sound. The show will be broadcast live on Sirius XM Radio Jam On.
Here’s “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”:
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
This is cool. Peter Gabriel cut an album of favorite cover songs, and he asked the artists who originally recorded those songs to each cover a song of his.
Artists who cover Gabriel’s songs: Feist, Paul Simon, Lou Reed, Randy Newman, David Byrne, Bon Iver, Brian Eno and more.
You can listen at NPR.
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
On December 30, 1974, Bob Dylan wrapped up work at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis, rerecording three songs for Blood On The Tracks.
That day Dylan tried one more time to nail “Tangled Up In Blue,” “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” and “If You See Her, Say Hello.”
Clearly he was pleased with the outcome, as those were the takes that ended up on the album.
(According to Clinton Heylin, Dylan may have recorded “Meet Me In The Morning” that day too.)
“Tangled Up In Blue,” official version:
“Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,” official version:
“If You See Her, Say Hello,” official version:
Outtakes
“Tangled Up In Blue”:
“Tangled Up In Blue”:
“Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”:
Check out other versions of “If You See Her, Say Hello” here.
“Meet Me In The Morning,” alternate take, recorded September 19, 1974 according to Harold Lepidus at the Bob Dylan Examiner site. (This version was officially released in 2012 as the B side of the “Duquesne Whistle” single):
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Johanna’s Visions posted this excellent recording of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s entire concert at Long Island’s Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Dec. 29, 1980, along with some info about the gig.
Listen to the entire set here, and head to Johanna’s Visions for more info.
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A demo tape that the owner claims is Tom Waits’ first recordings was sold at Recordmecca today for at least $4000.
The seven-song tape includes one that Tom Waits never rerecorded or released, “Tornado In My Soul.”
Here’s the info that was posted at Recordmecca:
An unreleased and undocumented 1971 Tom Waits demo tape, including the never recorded song “Tornado In My Soul.” This tape came from the collection of Waits’ first manager, Herb Cohen, with “Tom Waits Demos Tape 1″ on a card taped to the box front, and song titles in an unknown hand. The back of the box has crossed out song titles of tracks by the Michigan band The Litter.
The seven demos include the completely unknown song “Tornado In My Soul” and unreleased, alternate demo versions of tracks that appear on Waits’ debut Closing Time and The Early Years and The Early Years Vol. 2 cd‘s. The tracks are:
1. Pancho’s Lament – Unreleased version with spoken introduction, different lyric from The Early Years.
2. My Old 55 – Unreleased version with spoken introduction, piano backing instead of the guitar on The Early Years.
3. Tornado In My Soul – Unreleased and undocumented song.
4. Rockin’ Chair – Unreleased version with spoken and sung introduction and different lyric to The Early Years.
5. Virginia Avenue – Unreleased version with different lyric to The Early Years.
6. Rosie – Never released as a demo and different to Closing Time version.
7. Mockin’ Bird – Unreleased spoken introduction, similar to version on The Early Years Vol. 2 but possibly a different take.
To our knowledge, this tape is completely uncirculated and previously unknown. A truly unique and historic artifact from the earliest days of Waits’ recording career.
A professional digital transfer of the tape is included. Note: We are selling this as an artifact only, and no rights to release or duplicate this tape are included nor implied.
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
George “Shadow” Morton was the auteur producer behind the Shangri-Las. Their first record was their greatest: 1964′ “Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand).” You can listen to it below and see the group, though the footage is not synced to the song.
Years later Morton produced the New York Dolls’ second album, Too Much Too Soon.
Morton died this year, and in today’s New York Times Magazine, Rob Hoerburger writes about him and that record.
What a strange record it was: a song about a girl who gets a Dear Jane letter, alternately wailed and whispered, with thudding piano chords and a choir of sea gulls. “Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand),” released in mid-1964, did something that few pop songs had dared: It overflowed with messy details. There was pathos, passion, wistful reminiscence, the possibility of dire consequences, all conveyed in 2 minutes 18 seconds by four way-too-knowing teenagers from Queens called the Shangri-Las. And it sprang from the mind of a 22-year-old who had never published or produced a song in his life, who just weeks before the record came out was scooping ice cream.
Read the story about “Shadow” Morton here.
“Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand)”:
“Leader of the Pack”:
New York Dolls, Too Much Too Soon:
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Patti Smith and her band played at The Space in Westbury on Long Island on December 27, 2013.
The video below is very cool. It’s an hour and 12 minutes long. The sound is excellent. The video quality is pretty good. The fan who shot this was in a good location, so some of the footage is a zoomed-in closeup and you can really see her. Later they pull back a bit, which is even better.
At one point Smith makes fun of Russian President Putin in support of the recently freed Pussy Riot members. The video ends during the final song, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger.”
If you want to read a review of the show, there’s one here.
Here’s the set list.
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
On September 16, 1974, Bob Dylan showed up at A&R Studios in New York for the first of the seven sessions that would produce the recordings for Blood On The Tracks.
He began by recording a version of “Up To Me,” a song that didn’t ultimately make the cut. Next up were two takes of “Tangled Up in Blue.”
And then, with just his acoustic guitar for accompaniment, Dylan recorded the first take of “If You See Her, Say Hello” — and hit a home run.
The version that ended up on the album is nothing like that first one, and it seriously misses the mark. The arrangement features a slower pace, celestial organ, and what sounds like a 12-string guitar that brings to mind the Stones’ “Lady Jane.” It doesn’t do justice to the song. Nor does Dylan’s more calculated vocal.
When you hear the first take you realize it could have helped make a really good album a great one.
The vocal he recorded the first time he played the song in the studio is perfect. There is a passion and a natural quality I hear that wasn’t repeated either on the second take he did that day, nor on the version cut at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis two and a half months later that he used.
Below you can hear that first version, followed by take two, and then the much different take that made it onto the album.
“If You See Her, Say Hello” – New York outtake which appeared on The Bootleg Series Volume 1-3:
“If You See Her, Say Hello” – Unreleased Test Pressing-
“If You See Her, Say Hello” – Released version off Blood On The Tracks:
Jack White and Revenant Records’ founder Dean Blackwood on Charlie Rose discussing Paramount, the blues, and the Paramount box set, The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, that White and Revenant recently released.
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
On Friday December 27, 2913, two days after Christmas, the two just-freed members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina held their first press conference since their release at the studios of the Russian opposition TV station, TV Rain. The spoke before 100s of journalists.
Here are some of their comments:
Tolokonnikova:
“The message of our action in the cathedral is still valid. Our attitude to Putin hasn’t changed at all. By Putin we mean the bureaucratic machine he has built. We’d like to do what we said in our last action – we’d like him to go away.”
“Vladimir Putin is a very closed, opaque chekist [Russian slang for a secret policeman]. He is very much afraid. He builds walls around him that block out reality. Many of the things he said about Pussy Riot were so far from the truth, but it was clear he really believed them. I think he believes that Western countries are a threat, that it’s a big bad world out there where houses walk on chicken legs and there is a global masonic conspiracy. I don’t want to live in this terrifying fairytale.”
They spoke about their new human rights organization, Zone of Law [ a play on “the zone,” shorthand for “prison camp” in Russian]. The new organization will offer legal aid to prisoners who complain of violence, threats, abuse and overwork, according to Rolling Stone.
Tolokonnikova:
“We already started to do this [human rights work] in the camp. There we had nothing; the only thing we had was our will. After my hunger strike and letter, the 16-hour slave-working day has become a thing of the past, and they’ve begun to release people on parole. Fear has appeared among the guards at the colony. It’s unbelievably important now to continue this work.”
Alyokhina:
“We really are provocateurs. But there’s no need to say that word like it’s a swear word. Art is always provocation.”
Tolokonnikova said her thinking has evolved while in prison, and it was now “absolutely obvious” that if she could redo the past, she would not participate in the band’s 2011 “punk prayer” against Putin.
Tolokonnikova:
“I was smaller, I was younger and I had other understandings about my goals. I don’t think that you have to chain yourself to some moments in the past. I would like to be judged by those things that I’m going to do now.”
And there will be no Pussy Riot concerts to capitalize on their notoriety.
Alyokhina: “I think we can popularize our ideas without concerts.”
For more of this story:
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