Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Big Star - Ardent Studio Sessions (1972-73)

01 - Feel (rough mix with alternate guitar)
02 - Ballad Of El Goodo (rough mix with alternate vocals)
03 - In The Street (rough mix with alternate guitar)
04 - In The Street (alternate take)
05 - Thirteen (alternate mix)
06 - Don't Lie To Me (rough mix)
07 - When My Baby's Beside Me (alternate mix)
08 - My Life Is Right (alternate mix with intro)
09 - Give Me Another Chance (rough mix with alternate lead guitar)
10 - Another Time, Another Place And You (instrumental backing track)
11 - There Was A Light (demo with Chilton vocals)
12 - I Got Kinda Lost (demo with Chilton vocals)
13 - Motel Blues (demo)
14 - Gone With The Light (demo)
15 - O My Soul (rough mix with alternate vocals)
16 - Mod Lang (rough mix with alternate vocals)
17 - You Get What You Deserve (alt mix)
18 - (unknown) (instrumental backing track)
19 - Way Out West (rough mix with alternate vocals)
20 - Daisy Glaze (Instrumental Backing Track)

21 - She's A Mover (alternate take)
22 - Morpha Too (rough mix)
plus: Lovely Day (rare, original version of "Stroke It, Noel")

This is a collection of alternate mixes and outtakes from the sessions for #1 Record and Radio City. Some differences are only noticeable to the obssessive and some are very obvious. The alternate take of 'In The Street' was released (by mistake?) as the b-side to the original 'When My Baby's Beside Me' single in 1972 and is a MUCH better version with a totally different guitar solo. All other tracks are unreleased versions. Pride of place however go to tracks 10-14 and 18 which are previously unavailable in any form! 'Another Time, Another Place & You' and 'Unknown' (my title) are backing tracks for songs that were apparently never finished. 'There Was A Light' (or LIFE in this version) and 'I Got Kinda Lost' are Big Star recordings of the songs that would later appear on the Chris Bell solo collection I Am The Cosmos and are particularly interesting due to the lead vocal on both being sung by Alex Chilton, which puts a question mark over quite how much of Chris Bell's solo work was left over from his time with Big Star and whether they are in fact Chilton/Bell compositions...'Motel Blues' is a studio version (at last!) of the Loudon Wainwright song that Chilton played in the acoustic segment of the WLIR Radio broadcast in 1974, and 'Gone With The Light' has never surfaced before or since in any form as far as I am aware. (These aren't my notes - spavid).

Posted January 26, 2009: Thanks go to Steven for graciously assembling album art for this post!

Update: Since so much of this overlaps with the Keep An Eye on the Sky box-set, I am no longer sharing.  Sorry.

5 comments:

bglobe313 said...

That wasn't a long break for you, and we are glad.

This might be the Big Star stuff an online friend sent me a couple of years ago, but I won't know until I listen.

In any case, you do a great service making this available. Beats the bootlegs.

Thanks for all the posts this year.

Ace K.

WhatTS said...

A nice holiday treat, thanks.

ib said...

Thank you for this.

Unknown said...

I realize you might not read this for awhile (heh) but I just noticed at the beginning of "Don't Lie To Me (rough version)" it has the studio patter turned up and you can hear:

- Let's take it from just before the break.
- Aw, fuck you.
- Ha ha ha ha.

Dunno who's saying what but it's clear as day. And if you listen to the released version, you can kind of hear it but not really.

If this is some well known Big Start trivia, sorry I'm late to the party. =)

music and rubbish, LongPlayerLateBlogger said...

http://www.longplayerlateblogger.com/article-free-again-the-1970-sessions-alex-chilton-2012-97620897.html