...the power lies inside the head, not inside the hand.

On February 17th I learned that the frontman for this band (and several others) had suddenly passed away the night before. A musician, photographer, skater, and mentor and friend to literally thousands who never forgot where he came from. This one hit hard. 

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

VHF - One Chance ep (1986, Straight-Face)

Truth be told, the sleeve on this one almost scared me off - but with a price tag of only a dollar I figured I didn't have much to be frightened of.  Ultimately, as is the case with most records I purchase, I had no regrets with this one. As the band's depiction might indicate, VHF were of "rock o' the 80s stock" to be sure, but possessed enough bright, ringing guitars, and a forward thinking aptitude (say along the same lines as the Red Rockers) to straddle the AOR and left-of-the-dial divide with relative ease. I don't have much in the way of biographical deets to share on these guys. VHF apparently hailed from the Philly-area, toured the northeast and even opened for the Tubes for a good month or so. The internet informs me this was their only wax. Enjoy.

 01. One Chance
02. Harmonium
03. Video
04. In Time

Hear

Das Damen - Noon Daylight 12" (1989, What Goes On)

Though the band's influence is debatable, Das Damen's presence on the indie circuit during the Reagan/Bush-era was downright inescapable, with these New York noise-punks constantly filling new product in record shops, not to mention touring their butts off. While I don't have an adequate amount of time to spill on their background at the moment. I can at least impart that their sonic forte was malleable enough to incorporate elements of everything from metal to pop. 

The A-side to this wax, "Noon Daylight," in my opinion was the epitome of what the band was capable of - dense and melodic, yet somehow breathable in spite of the extraneous feedback. It's taken from their 1989 Mousetrap LP on Twin/Tone, and if you have any affection for the late '80s Minneapolis sound you're almost sure to appreciate it. As for the 12" in specific I'm posting, this is a European import boasting two live b-sides from a Boston 1989 gig.  "Give Me Everything" is a Magazine cover, and a relatively obscure one at that (a b-side maybe?). 

A. Noon Daylight
B1. Give Me Everything (live)
B2. Firejoke (live)

Hear

Perhaps it's something that he had for dinner.

A debut from 1992. Won't give away anymore than that. 

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Toby Redd - A to Z (1982, Plastic)

"Do I save it for Chanukah or not?"  That's the question I was pondering when deciding to share this gem now or later. In the end, I decided not to make you wait until December, but that's not to say the music on Toby Redd's debut A to Z is rarely short of excellent.  Just when I think I've had my finger on all things primo-power pop from the late '70s and early '80s I encounter a long-lost artifact from a miscellaneous looking Detroit-area quartet circa 40 years ago.  The band's main, if not only, claim to fame was the inclusion of future-Red Hot Chili Pepper drummer Chad Smith, though he doesn't appear until a later iteration of TR's lineup. Furthermore, Toby Redd isn't the name of the frontman or for that matter any member of the group. A to Z is a really solid excursion into melodic, DIY-ish power pop bearing punky (but not overpowering) nuances, with an awareness of yesteryear rockers like The Who.  For the most part, these guys would have fit in relatively well with the rosters on such coveted compilation series as Powerpearls and Teenline, because T/R really had the chops to deliver something genuinely memorable on salvos like "More Time," "Double Timed," and "Melea."  Am not really sure who to draw comparisons to here.  Maybe the Plimsouls, albeit vaguely, not to mention the latter work of such British punk troupes like Stiff Little Fingers and 999, but again, you really have to listen for it.

Regarding that later Chad Smith lineup of Toby Redd, the band released their second full length, In the Light for Nemperor Records in 1986, which startlingly enough was reissued for Record Store Day just two years ago. 

01. Can't Get a Job
02. Double Timed
03. More Time
04. Make it Up to You
05. Harry's Alright
06. It Ain't Me Babe
07. Won't Get Far
08. City
09. Why Can't I
10. Melea

Hear

Yeah we got a way with words, so hey look now I'm flippin' the bird...

From 1996. An album bustling with songs befitting a platinum pedigree...but such status was simply not in the cards.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Tobin Sprout/eyesinweasel - Demos & Outtakes (unabridged version) (1999, Luna)

Am stunned I didn't think of getting to this sooner.  To introduce this under the banner of "file under Guided By Voices" will probably be an insult to go a good half of you reading this, but for the unacquainted Tobin Sprout was perhaps the foremost member (aside from frontman Robert Pollard) of Guided by Voices' classic lineup, responsible for seminal lo-fi indie platters as Propeller, Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, in the early/mid '90s, and for a slew of records in the '00s when said lineup reconvened for an extended reunion.   

These days, Sprout's focus is on painting, not so much making music, but when GBV started to blow up circa 1994 he was all in, not only contributing a bevy of stellar songs to the aforementioned albums and beyond, but also prepping material for a spate of solo albums, beginning with Carnival Boy in '96.  The 1999 release which I'm sharing today is a double vinyl LP collection of demos for songs that would occupy his first three solo records, plus the singles and lone full length for his short-lived but remarkable Eyesinweasel project.  

So far as demos, outtakes, odds & sods compilations go in general, the worthiness of such compendiums depends for better or worse if the songs occupying them are promising in their most nascent incarnations. In Toby's case, his Clinton-era material proved to be his absolute halcyon era, both within and without Guided By Voices. As songwriting went, the man in question was always the more insular yin to Pollard's extroverted yang in GBV, and this modest acumen carried over to his solo material as well, belying a certain charm and sensitivity that Tobin could genuinely lay claim to.

Right from the get go, armed with just a guitar (and/or keyboard), a drum machine, and naturally, a portastudio of some variety, the initial versions Sprout laid down captured not only the flow and arrangement of his songs, but more importantly the essence thereof, so much so that laying down the finished versions was seemingly a breeze given that Toby nailed down the demos to a fault. That's not to say there aren't differences between these prototypes and the versions that were recorded for mass consumption, which is what made this collection such an enormous treat. Plus, there are some worthwhile cuts here that never made it past the demo stage, "The Lords Of Pretty Things," "Quarter Turn Here," and an ace cover of the Tall Dwarfs' Kiwi-pop gem "Highrise" among them.

The original incarnation of Demos & Outtakes was 31 songs long and spread over two vinyl LPs, housed in a plain white gatefold sleeve, with transparent stickers and black typeset identifying the title of the album and it's songs. I bought it upon release and almost immediately made a tape of it for my car. Two years later a truncated 20-song version of Demos... landed on CD. To my knowledge, this is the first digitized creation of the entire thing, and as mentioned, I can't believe it just dawned on me to put this together now. Voila, and enjoy in both MP3 and lossless FLAC. 

01. Seven and Nine
02. The Lords of Pretty Things
03. Jealous Mantles
04. I Didn't Know
05. To Remake the Young Flyer
06. Making a Garden
07. Highrise
08. Hit Junky Dives
09. Dusting Coattails
10. To My Beloved Martha
11. Cereal Killer
12. Quarter Turn Here
13. E's Navy Blue
14. Little Bit of Dread
15. Blankets of Hair
16. Sot #1
17. I Wonder If It's Cold Outside
18. Slow Flanges
19. Something Today
20. Silicone Slugs
21. Paper Cut
22. Digging Up Wooden Teeth
23. Ketiling Park
24. Curved Warlords
25. Smokey Joe
26. Exit Planes
27. There She Goes Again
28. Water On The Boaters Back
29. MP
30. Hint #9
31. Piano

MP3  and  FLAC

The Dentists - See No Evil 7" (1992, Homestead)

This isn't the first post I've dedicated to The Dentists, and it very well may not be the last. Who would've guessed that a band with only five proper albums to their credit would be such a completist's nightmare?  At any rate, 1992 didn't yield a new Dentists album, but the band kept busy and managed to release a series of singles: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and fittingly Speak No Evil. This is one of them, and perhaps a bit regrettably it doesn't offer a cover of the Television classic of the same name. Technically there is a cut titled "See No Evil," but it's merely a ten second poem. The real meat and guts of this 45 is the killer a-side, "Box of Sun," a bright, confident, melodically-endowed stunner that would eventually make an appearance on the band's 1993 LP, Powdered Lobster Fiasco. The flip side, an acoustic rendering of one of the Dentists' earliest chestnuts, "I Can See Your House From Up Here," is evidently exclusive to this wax. I'm pretty certain I have the other two singles in the ...No Evil series, when and if I get to them that remains to be seen. 

A. Box of Sun
B1. See No Evil
B2. I Can See Your House From Up Here (acoustic)

Hear

Leave your sneakers at the door, you don't need them no more.

From 2003. Unsung, riff-addled indie rock that's too good to miss (though unfortunately it might be a bit late for that). 

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Moon - Questionable Places and Things (1990, Skyclad)

There have probably been as many bands monikered Moon or "The Moon" than there are actual phases the Earthbound satellite is known to entail. With that observation out of the way, this Moon hailed from West Virginia, and was primarily composed of frontman Mark Poole, and drummer/vocalist Perry Kirk. When he gets the notion to, Poole adjusts his guitar mechanisms to emulate the finest of Bob Mould's sacred riffage on Husker's Warehouse... album. The most prominent example of this is on Questionable's delectable opening salvo "The Never Room," and further in, making other intermittent appearances. By and large the Husker Du comparisons pretty much cease there.  Skyclad, the label responsible for this album is known for it's garage rock pedigree, but Moon's m.o. veered towards rough-hewn power pop, steeped in plenty of crunchy distortion, albeit nothing too raucous.  If you enjoyed guitarsy indie rock emanating from such mid/late '80s locales as Minneapolis and even Athens, GA jump on this one. 

01. The Never Room
02. Two Options
03. The September Song
04. In the Backwoods
05. Can't Stop the World
06. Jane Roberts
07. Listen
08. When You Wrecked The Room (With The Nervous Green Light)
09. Brain Don't Fail Me Now
10. The Broken Picture
11. I've Got A Way Of Gettin' Back At People

Hear

And if you’re sleeping and having nightmares in your head...

Everyone knew this recently departed gentleman's main gig, but in 1990 he struck his neck out with a rewarding, little publicized spinoff project that harnessed the grit and tuneful gait of early Dinosaur Jr. R.I.P.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Rational Youth - s/t ep (1983)

Sometimes an album jacket meshes almost perfectly with the very music it cloaks. A collection of seemingly random shapes and colors all corralled in a slightly off-center rectangle amidst a plain, light grey backdrop punctuated by a pattern of small blue triangles captures the aesthetic of what Montreal's Rational Youth were trying to exude here. The band's preceding 1982 debut, Cold War Night Life bore an even starker album sleeve, almost perfectly mirroring the icy, post-punk synth salvos awaiting the listener. For their major-label debut in '83, R/Y managed to sand down some of the more serrated edges that endeared themselves to their original tranche of fans without going too soft.  The five-song Rational Youth balances the quartet's subtle, noir sensibilities with a brighter pop accessibility, a la A Flock of Seagulls, but for whatever the reason, R/Y weren't able to cash in on the techno-pop zeitgeist burgeoning around them. Nonetheless, a second album, Heredity, materialized in 1985, and after the band's dissolution multiple retrospectives and live albums sprouted, and even a  few reunion gigs occurred as recently as 2021, albeit with a modified lineup. Three of the five songs appearing here were rerecorded for a 2021 ep, Wavelength, which is available here.   

01. In Your Eyes
02. Just a Sound in the Night
03. Latin Lovers
04. Holiday in Bangkok
05. The Man in Grey

Hear

Agitpop - Open Seasons (1988, T/T)

Word went out approximately two weeks ago that Agitpop frontman and focal point John DeVries passed away. Like the overwhelming bulk of artists I spill ones and zeroes on, I didn't know DeVries at all, but being acquainted with his music, and more specifically the four albums he and his two Hudson Valley, NY compatriots were responsible for in Agitpop was more than sufficient so far as my ears were concerned.  Often referred to as art-pop/punk, and even more consistently compared to the likes of the Minutemen and fIREHOSE, DeVries and Co. were coming from a considerably different angle than their southern Cali contemporaries. 

Dissonant and off-kilter to be certain (not to mention a real acquired taste if you were a more conventional pop listener) this trio bore warm and sentient affectations as well, especially on their final album, Stick It! wherein they were making significant tuneful strides. Truth be told they were halfway there on their penultimate LP, Open Seasons. DeVries' singular, half sung/half spoken parlance made for cutting commentary, yet occasionally a soothing and poetic balm too. Agitpop by and large occupied their own airspace, leaving indigenous chemtrails like "Straight Through to Nashville" and "Girl But Not a Friend," in their oblique wake, but not without inserting an ever-so-sly accessibility factor if you could spot it. 

Incidentally, for several years now I've been sharing a hard-to-come-by Agitpop promo ep from '89 that you can check out here. Furthermore, after the band were decommissioned (sometime around 1990 or so) DeVries went on to serve as mouthpiece for another downstate New York act, Cellophane, who I have yet to familiarize myself with.  

01. Straight Through to Nashville
02. It Won't Be Long Now
03. Getting Up to Go Down
04. Top of the Stairs
05. Three Boys and Space
06. Memory-Go-Round
07. Kick Back the Hands
08. Stagnant
09. Out to Pasture
10. Without a Trace
11. Girl But Not a Friend
12. Inventor

Hear

Only accidental, the car was just a family rental...

My apologies for not getting anything new out to you this past week. Will try to rectify that tomorrow. In the meantime, for this week's M/M I've got something a bit left-of-center in mind. The relentlessly lo-fi and occasionally outright bonkers 1998 album I'm presenting features many a song (type thing) that would qualify as noise, or at the very least something glaringly unstructured. I suppose the key selling point here is that every so often this fast and loose collective hits you over the head with some pretty sweet hooks - that is if you're patient enough for them to present themselves.  Case in point, track 24 sounds like something Elvis Costello should have penned in 1978, albeit with a more polished arrangement.  This is one of the more interesting things I've offered in awhile

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Time to loose this senselessness, of happiness with no address.

From 2019.  The sophomore effort from a plaintive pop duo who feature a considerably big star. 

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Junk Monkeys - Soul Cakes (1989, No Wonder/Restless)

Up until now I've presented you with every piece of the Junk Monkeys puzzle...except one. I've held off on sharing Soul Cakes out of concerns of redundancy. Technically, the band's only compilation, Soul Cakes pools together the brunt of the 1988 Kick Out the Jelly mini-LP, a few slices from the preceding Firehouse, and a couple of new songs ("Trade" & "Time Ain't On My Side") only made available here. It was a convenient way for folks like myself to become acquainted with J/M's vinyl-only, early affairs after being blown out of the water circa the band's 1991 Five Star Fling LP, a quantum leap from everything they attempted before. Akin to bands like the Magnolia's, this Detroit quartet were one of the most convincing students of the Replacements' punk 'n roll homeroom call. Perhaps not consistently wielding the wit of Westerberg & Co., at the very least the Monkeys boasted the same slightly manicured rambunctiousness and enough hooky acumen to pull off any three-minute song that landed on their setlist. As mentioned, they didn't quite fulfill their potential until the early-'90s, but considering what these guys concocted from scratch prior to getting signed, the band's earliest salvos are pretty remarkable. 

01. Lost My Faith
02. Anywhere With You
03. I Couldn't Smile
04. Trade
05. Today is Summer
06. Round and Round
07. Medicine
08. So American
09. Time Ain't On My Side
10. I Want More

Hear

Just let the wind blow, just let it carry me home...

Noisome post-punk from 2013. Hard to believe this one's a decade old.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Fear of Strangers - s/t (1982)

Formally known as The Units (releasing one single under that namesake) and hailing from Albany, NY Fear of Strangers achieved a relatively high profile in the local/DIY community. Not necessarily capitalizing on new wave or punk, but often bearing the sway and gumption of both, the Val Haynes-fronted, coed quartet in question released their lone full length in '82. Perhaps a little overshadowed by local boys done good, Blotto, FoS were more my cup of tea, wielding a bevy of relatable themes and some out-and-out catchy guitar pop (dare I say the homespun video for "Shopping For a Dog" aired on MTV in the early '80s)?  Seemingly innocent and workaday as the going sometimes gets on Fear of Strangers, Val and crew breech into headier fare on "Guerilla War," which questions the ethics of U.S. military involvement in El Salvador, and furthermore manages to forecast the scope of American foreign policy into the next decade or two as well. Even more prescient, "Vigilantia" imagines an open carry dystopia where, you guessed it, everyone is armed to the teeth. Not every morsel on this LP is a revelation, but it's more charming moments make Fear of Strangers an above average artifact. 

01. I Need to be Told
02. Shopping For a Dog
03. Any Other Way
04. Guerilla War
05. Factory
06. Is it Worth It?
07. Volts
08. Happy Hearts
09. Hat and Coat
10. Black Sheep
11. Vigilantia

Hear

A not-so tedious endeavor in the precise art of underwhelment - Best of the Blog mix 2022.

After consecutively assembling these annual compilations for a good decade now, much like the token ball-drop in Times Square, I'm sure plenty of you saw this coming. I may be a day late and a dollar short, but at the very least give me some credit for consistency. The original premise when I did my first Best of the Blog mix was to whittle down the foremost highlights from a years worth of postings, sometimes totaling roughly 200 a year (not counting Mystery Monday entries).  Since then, the amount of content I've been able to offer has gradually been scaled back to roughly 100 titles a year (again, not counting MM posts).  To shed a little light on my diminished output, look no further than the laundry list of legit reasons and/or excuses I extolled upon a year ago. 

These compendiums are not just a convenient foot-in-the-door portal to what many of you would consider an overwhelming amount of vintage records and such that I tend to serve up over the course of twelve months, but also as a reminder to myself that I haven't exhausted the pool of bygone and unheralded bands from the twentieth century that I continue to discover, or at the very least get around to digitizing. Thankfully, 2022 wasn't an exception. The 25 songs that made the cut for this mix are loosely sequenced by genres to ensure relatively comfortable song-to-song segues, but you're sure to encounter a odd transition now and again.  Keep in mind, I don't profess to be a pro at this shtick by any means. In keeping with tradition, I've tossed in a handful of previously un-shared nuggets from artists I haven't covered before. They are noted with an asterisk. Enjoy, and stay tuned. 

01. Steppin' Razor - Follow the Leader
02. Ghost of an American Airman - Big Lights
03. Last Gentlemen - One Possession*
04. Love Pushers - Radio Girl
05. Tree Fort Angst - Save Me
06. River Roses - Phoenix 99
07. Breck & Scott - Day Into Night
08. True Rumor - Iowa
09. Gels - Quaker
10. Golden City - Diamond Suits
11. Hotline TNT - Lawyers in Love*
12. Crystalized Movements - Up Falling Down
13. Braille Closet - Tomorrow Russo
14. Eagertones  - We're Only Kids
15. Unaccounted IV - You're Always Alone
16. Bad Sneakers - Pictures of You
17. Paper Train - Catcher in the Rye
18. Red Rain Coat - Footsteps
19. Room Nine - Sea Without a Shore
20. Crawl Away Machine - Maps of Asia
21. 86 - The Prisoner
22. Eternal Triangle - Small Town
23. The Difference - P.M.T. (Pre Menstrual Tension)
24. Late Rivals - Ghostown
25. Lonely Bunker - Last Toast*

Hear

My world is full of strangers, and I spend the day in chains...

A debut from 1994. 

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear 

Corps Diplomatique - This Can't Be Heaven (1987, SAM)

Happy New Year! Since I didn't get around to ripping any new vinyl this week, I thought I'd offer a long-lingering, but downright dandy record that's been taking up residence on my hard drive.  Corps Diplomatique were a Danish combo, who from what I can tell had no foothold in the U.S. or North America, but that didn't prevent them from having a rather distinct "rock of the '80s" modus opeandi in mind. This Can't Be Heaven, thankfully isn't smothered in bombast, or anything terribly excessive, but pretty much anywhere the needle drops, it's obvious this platter was a fairly big budget affair. Closest direct comparisons that come to mind would be Then Jerico, and tangentially mid-80s U2, but the guitar-work ricocheting amidst any given track is riveting, recalling the icy, echoing hues of  everyone from the Cult to Cactus World News, and even the Comsat Angels.  I really dug this one, and could definitely go for a CD reissue. 

01. The Picture
02. Generations
03. From the Tower
04. Victory/Everything
05. Soldier
06. Vicious Circle
07. The Trail
08. Children
09. Leaving

Hear

...now she's trying to push me down the stairs, that's why I don't think she cares.

You might want to think of this as a ninth day of Chanukah since I'm giving you an entire box set this week. Three disks containing the the first segment of this Wyoming trio's discography. Enjoy.

Disc 1/Disc 2/Disc 3

All* broken links restored!!

I DID IT YA BASTIDS!

And it only took NINE YEARS!  That's right, it hasn't been since roughly 2013 or 2014 that every single download link on this page was functioning. I mentioned earlier in the month that I'd already restored just about everything from 2007 to 2013, and that the remainder might have to wait until the new year, but I was able to get it done, on the last night of Chanukah and Christmas no less. The big game changer for me was switching my file hoster to Mediafire, who won't let links expire for premium members.  No more spending an endless amount of time chasing after your requests. Everything should remain stable, but as my experience with past file hosters has shown, the rug can always get pulled out from under us, so keep your fingers crossed.  This was a massive month-long endeavor entailing file by file restoration - not an easy thing considering my upload speed pale to those of typical download speeds.  True, there may be no "new" content in this particular entry, but 2400+ links are live, active and waiting to take up residence on your phone or hard drive. As for the asterisk in the title bar, here are a few things that won't be returning:

• About 20% or more of the expired links will not be revived due to the fact that many of the albums and singles I've shared for the past fifteen years have been officially reissued, primarily through vendors like Amazon Downloads, Bandcamp, and occasionally even as physical reissues. I consider these particular releases to be "back in print," and as such I have no intention of depriving any of the artists I discuss on these pages of their hard earned money. Yes, there's a lot missing as a result, but technically you don't have to deprive yourself of the music itself, since these recordings are commercially available again. In almost all instances I've provided a link directing you to the point of purchase.
• Mystery Monday links - which were designed to be available for one week tops.  Miss a Mystery Monday, and you miss a lot, though so may make a return appearance.
• the two or three song "samplers"  which I made available with a few dozen of the reviews I've done on here. There were very few of these to begin with, and for what it's worth I did refresh  links to a couple of them

Can't believe I finished the whole thing. Sorry for ignoring the majority of your request this year. I simply couldn't keep up, but I've had this idea in the pipeline for ages now. Truth be told there are a handful of links (maybe ten, if that) I couldn't restore, due to the loss of the source files, but even these may be replaced at some point. Finally, in a few instances, I placed the links in the comments section where noted. Not many of these either.  Thanks for your patience, and more importantly your readership and support. It keeps Wilfuly Obscure going.

You work hard, you went hungry, now the taxman is out to get you!

You'd think there wouldn't be a whole lot left in the vault. Cheap Trick first threw the doors of their metaphorical clearinghouse in 1996 with the Sex, America, Cheap Trick box/book set that included it's fair shake of outtakes and scarcities. This was followed up by expanded reissues of their classic 1970s to early '80 albums. If that weren't enough, there was eventually a series of rarities collections, (The Epic Archives - that to a large extent were a rehash of b-sides and bonus tracks that had already been available for decades), and unless you're a CT fan that's been living under a rock for the last five years or so, there's been a slew of archival live albums flooding the market, with a good chunk of those being Record Store Day titles.  And just a few years ago I even did my part when I shared unreleased material surrounding the Next Position Please and One on One albums.

Believe it or not, there's more "unheard" CT music that the vast majority of folks haven't encountered. Perhaps not so much in the way of revelatory unreleased songs, but at the very least abandoned session takes, demos and such, which is what I have for you tonight, particularly centering around the early Epic Records years. 23 songs total including alternate studio versions and edits from the first five albums, with a few random covers the band tinkered with privately in the early days. Most interestingly, after decades of looking I was finally able to uncover a small allotment of tracks cut by Sick Man of Europe, a CT precursor band featuring Tom Petersson and Rick Nielsen, circa 1972. Once Robin Zander was added to the lineup in '73, this was when they officially evolved into Cheap Trick. Oddly enough, it sounds like Robin singing on the SMoE tracks, even though the timeline doesn't exactly mesh. Still, the Sick Man... songs (all three of them) point to the band's blooming power pop chops and impressed me even more than expected. Certainly worth the wait. My track list is accompanied by the years the songs are derived from. There were more All Shook Up outtakes I could have included, but considering some of those were pretty rank, it's easy to understand why they didn't make it onto the record. I like to think I did a decent job of cutting the wheat from the chaff and hope you find a few tidbits here you'll enjoy. 

1-5 & 7 - first album, In Color outtakes
6 - from "Bun E's" basement bootlegs
8-10 - Heaven Tonight outtakes
11-13 - Dream Police outtakes
14-18 - All Shook Up outtakes
19 & 20 - "Bun E's" basement covers
21-23 - Sick Man of Europe 1972 demos. 

01. Southern Girls [alt]
02. Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace [alt]
03. Taxman Mr Thief [alt]
04. I Dig Go Go Girls
05. Lovin' Money [alt]
06. Waitin' for the Man
07. Don't Lie to Me
08. California Man [alt]
09. Heaven Tonight [alt]
10. Surrender [remix]
11. It Must Be Love
12. Next Position Please [alt]
13. Dream Police [remix]
14. Everything Works If You Let It [alt 1]
15. Everything Works If You Let It [alt 2]
16. Machines Make Money
17. Merry-Go-Round
18. Stop This Game [alt]
19. Wild Horses
20. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
21. Sick Man of Europe - Beans
22. Sick Man of Europe - Hot Tomato
23. Sick Man of Europe - I'm a Surprise

Hear

Tommy Keene - mid-80s outtakes/demos

You might consider this to be a follow-up or sister post to a collection of Tommy Keene demos I shared all the way back in 2009, back when the man in question was still alive and well.  Why the long layover?  First, I didn't realize that more unreleased mid-80s material existed (it's not like anyone keeps me filled in on these things), and secondly, per the torrent I purloined these from earlier this year these songs have all been recently remastered.  Here's the story from my purview on the origination of these seventeen songs.

Tommy's first album, 1982's Strange Alliance was released roughly four years before his next one, 1986' Songs From the Film, which was also his major label debut. In the intervening years, a couple of EPs (Places That Are Gone and Back Again) broke the silence, but he had far more than a half dozen songs (or so) heating on the burner. In fact, his pockets were loaded with more than twenty, some of which found a home on the aforementioned EPs. 1984 and '85 were essentially Tommy Keene in the studio. Per some of the copy from my original '09 entry:

The album Songs From The Film was essentially recorded twice, first with T-Bone Burnett and Don Dixon producing, and then again, for the version that was ultimately released, with Geoff Emerick producing. Some of the Burnett/Dixon recordings were later released on the "Run Now" vinyl EP. Those tracks, plus a few more outtakes, were then included on the 1998 CD reissue of Songs From The Film.

Now, from the yonder Tommy Keene post mentioned above I was sharing five demos/outtakes from this era, when unbeknownst to me there were approximately four times as many songs laid down in the studio in preparation for Song From the Film.  The question I have, are these demos he recorded on his own, or if these are the Burnett/Dixon produced tracks that were ultimately scrapped?  They certainly could pass for rough album mixes at the very least. Moreover, the treatment of many of these songs bear more subtlety than what were ultimately released for public consumption. Not in an acoustic or li-fi sort of tenor, rather just a bit slighter and restrained, with perhaps less guitar bite. In fact, that's what I love about these versions. 

All of that comparative minutia aside, there's some phenomenal music here, some of the most compelling Tommy ever committed to tape including, "Listen to Me," "Safe in the Light" and "Drowning." There's nothing here that's less than sumptuously warm and melodic. Tommy Keene possessed a bona fide magic that so many of us took for granted over the course of his roughly 40 year career that can legitimately be termed as peerless. 

01. Back Again (Try)
02. I Fall Down Too
03. Stop
04. Save My Life
05. Safe in the Light
06. As Life Goes By
07. Drowning
08. Astronomy
09. Faith in Love (elec vers.)
10. The Story Ends
11. Run Now
12. We're Two
13. Nothing is Grey
14. Listen to Me
15. Gold Town
16. Call On Me
17. The Story Ends (2)

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