Rarities, Outtakes, Alternative Takes, Bootlegs etc etc. that are ACTUALLY WORTH HEARING rather than just making you look cooler

Less flippantly, the alternate extended mix of "'Til I Die" -- which as far as I know is bootleg-only -- is, to my mind, better than the version on Surf's Up. (Actually, the same thing applies to the album's title track, though I think the superior, original version of "Surf's Up" was released on one of the box sets if I'm not mistaken.)

Lots of people who like Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd think that "Vegetable Man" and "Scream Thy Last Scream", both unreleased, are among Syd's finest works. I myself am more fond of other tracks, but they definitely have their following.

I prefer the demos for Low's Secret Name to the album versions.

So, in a way, I think this is a moot question.

My favorite Kitchens of Distinctions recording is, in fact, a cover of the theme to "White Horses", which I've only seen on the US domestic release of the "Cowboys and Aliens" CD-single...(Yes, it's the name of their album too). This is very much worth tracking down. Blissyblissyblissy and sung by Julian and not Patrick. Very sweet.

Also the never released '68 album from Chris McGregor's original (pre-Brotherhood) big band (w/Parker, Surman, Barre Phillips, Mike Gibbs in addition to Feza, Dudu etc.).

AND the Wilmer-cited but never heard (at least not by me) tape from '65 which had 'Trane and Ornette together with Leonard Bernstein on piano and a "Rich White Musician" (McCartney? McGuinn?) on guitar.

!!! *envy*

my god marcello you've got that!

why didn't thye release this BTW?

its a question still, why didn't they issue this...

After seeing I Am Trying... a couple weeks ago, I now want to track down the original YHF demos.

Can't advise on how to get Double Trio, sadly; my dad got a white label of it wayyyy back in the day (late '60s, when I was far too wee to wonder about such things).

yes will get onto to this. cheers :-)

You could do a whole Prince division of this... Rebirth of the Flesh, Housequake remix, and Small Club (the aftershow album from whence the version of Just My Imagination referred to above comes, I think) are faves... and I've been getting into Crystal Ball lately... aside from The Truth acoustic disc, which is one of my fave Prince albums of all, there's a lot of other cool, off-kilter funky stuff on the other 3 CDs... fun to dip into.

The first version of the NERD album... Steely Dan meets Noriega

That version of Til I Die mentioned above really is fabulous... like if Air could also do transcendental harmonies...

A "lost" Pete Rock album from 1994 under the name INI (it has a little JA vibe) came out recently that's really great... kind of like if Midnight Marauders was just released (ok, not quite that good)

And just to be really really obvious, I finally got around to listening to that Dylan 66 thing... the Band never sounded better--only time they ever sounded loose

I like Well-Tuned Piano too, have not been particularly impressed with other Lamonte Young stuff I procured

yeah i second that. it's a great live rec.

PJ Harvey's '4 track demos' too; and then there's the fabled original Albini take of Nirvana's 'in utero' before Geffen alledgedly asked them to polish up and make a little less brutal & raw and just a touch radio friendly (-friendlier..), that no-one may or may not have actually heard (let alone the whole story of it being true and some 'original' version actually existing...) - but the whole possibility of what it may have been like at first is a nice idea..

However if you think Billy Corgan is overblown, indulgent, pretentious etc, you might want to skullfuck yourself instead of listening to this.

Here's a thread to talk about legendary lost recordings.

This is, indeed, a particularly fantastic version. :-)

According to the guys in Rye Coalition, the tape does exist and Albini has it at Electrical Audio in Chicago. Geffen didn't make them redo the mix, though - there was a famous interview where Kurt himself said that it was the band who decided to touch it up a little bit because not all the songs benefitted from the black-and-whiteness of Albini's mix. The Rye Co boys said it was the best thing they ever heard, though, so I'm kind of curious.

haha slsk people, they're in a folder called Look Blue Go Purple - Live @ Avalon in my New Zealand directory; username = xpecting2fly

Good Lord!

Must. Hear. This.

Ah wassa born...
And lord shakin, even then was dumpt into some icy font,
Like some great stinky unclean!
From slum-chuch to slum-church, ah spilt mah heart
To some fat cunt behind a screen...
...
If this is heaven ah’m bailin out!
Mah threadbare soul teems with vermin and louse
Thoughts come like a plague to the head...in god’s house!
Mutiny in heaven!
(ars infectio forco dio)
To the plank!
(rats in paradise! rats in paradise!)
Ah’m bailin out!
(hail hypuss dermio vita rex!)
Hole inna ghetto! hole inna ghetto!
(scabio murem per sanctum...dio, dio, dio)

...is quite something.

MMJ's At Dawn Demos trump the eventual band-cut release.

I might add that I got it over at:

sharingthegroove.org

where it was a Bit Torrent. If you have a high speed internet connection you need to get over there and check it out. Lots and lots of goodies. They come and go so you have to watch it diligently.

And thanks for the sharingthegroove link - those folks look hardcore.

This Heat-After the Heat Demos, which doesn't sound like Deceit necessarily, and not like Camberwell Now either, but is very sparse david cunningham-esque dubby art pop. Very wonderful.

1 - Intro
2 - Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - "What's Going On" (Fetus Productions)
3 - Straitjacket Fits - "Flex" (Jean-Paul Sartre Experience)
4 - Able Tasmans - "Getting Older" (the Clean)
5 - the Bats - "I Don't Want You Anyway" (Look Blue Go Purple)
6 - Chris Knox - "Whole Weird World" (the Chills)
7 - David Kilgour Band - "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" (Tall Dwarfs)

wow this hasn't been updated for a while.

I have a Julian Cope demo cassette tape, recorded prior to Peggy Suicide. It has the title track, and proto versions of most of the tracks on the album.

I've not seen this anywhere else.

Supposedly, an expanded version of Peggy Suicide is about to be released.

Yeah, I heard that. If there isn't a track on it called either "Peggy Suicide" or "Junk-kie" on CD2, well, there has been an injustice done.

It's completely of-it's-time (it mentions the closing of the eighties/dawn of the nineties), so it couldn't have really been redone later, so I do await the 2CD details with interest.

There are a bunch of Jay-Z rarities/outtakes available on mixtapes that are great - the mixtape I have is J-Love - Top of the Game.

The '94 live version of "Flutes of the Chi" on Ween's Rotten Cheese is my new favorite Ween song.

The pre-release bootleg of Beck's Guero is better than the actual released version.

Lily Allen's Demos bootleg is FIFTY MILLION BILLION TIMES BETTER THAN ALRIGHT STILL. It has the actual versions of "LDN" and "Knock 'Em Out" that you hear on her MySpace page. It even has the "AIDS! AIDS! I've got AIDS!" line. It is an absolute monster of a record, and you need it in your collection. Go now.

Randy Newman's Johnny Cutler's Birthday, which is available as a second CD with Good Old Boys. Newman basically narrates and pitches his album between solo takes of each song.

Also, the Paul Simon extra tracks are good on his reissues -- songs like "Train In The Distance" without all the arrangement and production.

ooh the paul simon extras? that's a good tip off.

* The Freightwhaler Sessions
* The "Those Weren't The Days" Sessions
* The Forever Valentine Sessions
* Fucker: The Bug Sessions
* Fucker: The Hoboken Sessions
* The Exile On Franklin Street Sessions
* The Destroyer Sessions
* The Q Division Sessions
* The First Pink Heart Sessions
* The Suicide Handbooks Sessions
* The 48 Hours Sessions
* The Swedish Sessions
* Black Clouds (Mix of Love is Hell New York/New Orleans)

All by Ryan Adams. Don't forget the boxset with 2 new sessions,suicide handbooks with strings and shit and lot's of live stuff.

Also. The Pipettes demos are SO MUCH BETTER than the record. The demo of ABC KILLS.

So, I don't really think this is better than their recorded output, but I have a Pantera live bootleg, Live in Dallas 12/20/88. Pre-Cowboys From Hell material, "Diamond" Darrell, some classic stage banter from Phil, and a touching rendition of "This Bud's for You." It's pretty awesome.

I'll go ahead and say it: Those demos from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot before O'Rourke got a hold of them. I could listen to nothing else but that eleven-minute instrumental.

Thanks to whomever mentioned the Prince Small Club boot...it is unbelievable, the guitar playing is so sick...got it on soulseek.

<i>ooh the paul simon extras? that's a good tip off.</i>

They're on iTunes for 99 cents each.

(re Prince boots)Yeah, and somebody upthread mentioned Crystal Ball, his sessions with Miles Davis: results a bit tentative, but obviously a basic affinity. And, duh, The BLack Album,pulled on release-eve, so a warehouse or ten of deletes, all dressed up with nowhere to go, except everywhere. He wanted his own Basement Tapes, maybe? A Tree With Roots is apparently all the master takes from the Basement Tapes, except "Bathsheba"("Beersheba"?) Dylan's voice is unbelievably beautiful on so much of this (although "Four Strong Winds" doesn't work, and if it can't make it here, can't make it anywhere). Mostly folk ("Young But Daily Growing"), country (Cash's "Still In Town") and some unreleased originals (I think), which upstage the released porttion of The Basement Tapes(performance-wise, not as writing), not altogehter, but the released stuff is better by itself, so to that extent was wise not to invent the boxset-as-mass-consumption-doorstop quite yet, til Biograph.(But as ever, the quality of unreleased vs the horror of some released shows you just how crazy he is, or else he wants to create an endless release program, a la Hendrix, Miles, Trane, to support his descendants)Beatles' first Anthology is really good too, some wild stuff, and better sound than the xpost Star Club set.

The Black Album is my favorite Prince album.