Marc Bolan & T Rex - Unchained Home Recordings & Studio Outtakes 1972–1977 (8 CD, 2015/FLAC)

 

In 1973, alone and with an acoustic guitar, Marc Bolan recorded the revealing “This Is My Life”. Over its five minutes, a strummed elegy akin to the T Rex B-side “Baby Strange” evolves from a finger-picked blues. The lyrics name-check B.B. King, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Goode” and mention a visit to New York State, playfully rhymed with steak.

“Everything I did when I was going to school was just an imitation of Carl Perkins singing ‘Don’t be Cruel’,” he sings, no doubt well aware the Elvis Presley hit did not figure in Perkins’ usual repertoire. Once Presley hit big, Perkins was firmly relegated to playing second fiddle. Bolan was subverting history’s hierarchy. “This Is My Life” found Bolan reflecting on who he was and who he had become.

A home-recording, it was caught on tape for the sake of it. Bolan had a new song, so he set his equipment up to capture it: what he had just written could have charted or become a future classic, so he hit the record button. But, its fascinating lyrical self-analysis aside, “This Is My Life” was no classic. Instead, it was a rambling musical sketch for filing away alongside the other demo tapes and was not meant to be heard, and certainly not intended for release.

R.E.M. - Monster Movies (2 CD, 2019) [FLAC]

 R.E.M.'s 1994 album, Monster, was, as the band declared at the time, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its two predecessors - 1991 s Out Of Time and 92 s Automatic For The People - the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. The album topped the charts in both the US and the UK. In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, although health issues plagued the group - on March 1st, Bill Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. Michael Stipe required emergency surgery for a hernia and Mike Mills needed abdominal surgery mid-tour. Despite the above, the band generally performed superbly, with one of the stand-out shows taking place at The Milton Keynes Bowl in the UK, on July 30th, which was broadcast live nationally on UK FM Radio, and synched too, back home in the U.S. Previously unreleased this exceptional performance is now available for the first time on this double CD set.

 

Grateful Dead - The Closing of Winterland (4 CD + 2 x DVD9, 2012) [FLAC]

The Closing of Winterland is a four-CD live album by the Grateful Dead. It contains the complete concert performed on December 31, 1978. The concert was also released as a two-disc DVD. The title derives from the fact that it was the last concert in San Francisco's Winterland Arena, which was shut down shortly thereafter. The Dead celebrated the closing as an approximately five-hour-long party (complete with breakfast with the audience at dawn) and invited some guests including guitarist John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service and Ken Kesey as well as actor Dan Aykroyd who provided the midnight countdown. It was certified Double Platinum by the RIAA on December 15, 2003 under the category of longform video, selling 200,000 units. The New Riders of the Purple Sage and Blues Brothers opened the show. 

    Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals

    Bob Weir – guitar, vocals

    Phil Lesh – electric bass, vocals

    Donna Godchaux – vocals

    Keith Godchaux – piano

    Mickey Hart – drums, percussion

    Bill Kreutzmann – drums, percussion

Bob Marley & The Wailers - The Unreleased Studio Sessions 1972-1980 (10 CD, 2012)

 This is a collection of studio demo's, rehearsals and unreleased songs from the groups years with Island Records. Recorded at studios such as Harry J's, Dynamic, Joe Gibbs, The Black Ark and Bob's own Tuff Gong studios, all in Kingston Jamaica, and Island's Basing Street Studios in London, England.

These fantastic recordings showcase 'bare-bones' versions of songs that we would eventually know and love when the finished versions became available on albums from 1972's "Catch A Fire" right up to Bob's final studio albums "Uprising" and the posthumous release "Confrontation" of 1981.

Rory Gallagher - Check Shirt Wizard - Live In '77 (2 CD, 2020) [FLAC + 24-96]

 This barnstorming 20-song, previously unreleased set is culled from four shows (London, Brighton, Sheffield and Newcastle) which were part of a 1977 tour across the UK in support of Rory’s then latest album ‘Calling Card’. Featuring fantastic live versions of tracks from that album as well as from 1975’s ‘Against The Grain’ and other live favourites, has been mixed from the original multitrack tapes from the official Rory Gallagher archive and mastered for this release at Abbey Road Studios.