The Who- Live At Fillmore East 1968

I'm gonna stay in classic rock mode for a couple more posts and continue to focus on more unreleased albums. The Who's, Live at the Fillmore East is a great live document of The Who in their early prime demonstrating their dynamic and powerful stage show. This recording must have been professionally recorded since it was suppose to be released as a live album and has been a popular bootleg of the band. For whatever reason that idea was scrapped and instead the band released Live At Leeds a couple of years later, their only official live album. The Live At Leeds album wasn't too shabby either as many consider it one of the best live albums of all time (The New York Times, Q Magazine) and Rolling Stone placed it 170 in their top 500 albums. Both recordings feature the band performing extended jams and their incredible raw energy is what made The Who are known for. Even more amazing is watching video concert footage from this era, especially Townsend.

Since this was one of their most bootlegged shows, there are various versions of this concert around with different dates and slightly different setlists that omit tracks. As far as I know, this is the complete show and the last three tracks are from French TV in 1966 (read the back cover track listings). This is great, get it while you can!
Enjoy!!

THE WHO
Live at Fillmore East,
New York City, USA -
April 6, 1968.
Excellent Soundboard Recording (CBR 320 kbps.)

01. Summertime Blues
02. Fortune Teller
03. Tattoo
04. Little Billy
05. I Can't Explain
06. Happy Jack
07. Relax
08. A Quick One While He's Away
09. My May
10. Shakin' All Over
11. Boris The Spider
12. My Generation

Bonus Tracks
13. I'm A Boy
14. Substitute
15. My Generation

Personnel: Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, Keith Moon.

THE WHO- Fillmore East, NYC 1968. rar (mp3)
(Uncompressed FLAC, get it here.)

Pete Townsend- Lifehouse Demos

I've been a little under the weather the last little while, so later in the day when I write these posts my brain has been mush and I've resorted to watching videos on YouTube and episodes of New Girl I've downloaded. Feeling a bit better today, so I'll try to squeeze out another post.

Yesterday, I did manage to get outside to ice skate at the Forks (popular Winnipeg tourist spot) or more specifically on the river. It was a sunny beautiful day, a good excuse to get out and get some exercise and keep my mind off my runny nose. After a skate and a hot beverage I browsed through the Antique mall in the Johnson Terminal at the Forks looking for anything interesting. Of course, I get drawn to the records and flipped through the usual amount of popular crap (Wham!, Prism, Bee Gees etc...) most often seen at garage sales, but a few caught my eye, a number of Who records. A couple of the bad ones (It's Hard and Face Dances), as well as A Quick One, Who's Next and Pete Townsend's, Who Came First. I have all the Who records in one form or another, but I had a genuine interest to get the original vinyl versions of A Quick One and Who Came First, but the collector's pricing of $25 and $40 dampened my interest. When I got home I put on Who's Next and thought what an amazing record, which leads me to...

The Who's 1971 release, Who's Next is probably the bands most commercial and critical success and was arguably the high point in their career. The album was originally conceived as a rock opera by Pete Townsend called Lifehouse. Townsend wrote and arranged about 20 tracks for the Lifehouse project as all the instruments (played by Pete) were overdubbed for a full band effect. All the demos were recorded before the band even heard the songs and he basically had enough material for a double album with the quality of the "demos" incredible. Townsend intended the project to be a futuristic rock opera, live recorded concept album and as the music for a scripted film project. Instead, the project was abandoned, but many of the songs written for the project were re-recorded by the band and compiled on Who's Next as a collection of unrelated songs. A couple tracks also ended up on Pete's solo record, Who Came First, the next year.

In 2000, Townsend did finally release the Lifehouse Chronicles a sprawling 6 CD box set that captured not some, but all of the recording from the Lifehouse project. The set includes the demos, themes and experiments, arrangements and orchestrations, and a 2 CD radio play. This set is a lot to take in and might be too much detail for the casual fan, but the demos are an interesting listen especially if you're a Who fan (or not), as these versions of the Who classics stand up on their own. Judge for yourself.
Enjoy!

PETE TOWNSEND
The Lifehouse Demos 1

Teenage Wasteland
Goin’ Mobile
Baba O’Riley
Time Is Passing
Love Ain’t For Keeping
Bargain
Too Much Of Anything
Music Must Change
Greyhound Girl
Mary
Behind Blue Eyes
Baba O’Riley (Instrumental)
Sister Disco

The Lifehouse Demos 2

I Don’t Know Myself
Put The Money Down
Pure And Easy
Getting In Tune
Let’s See Action
Slip Kid
Relay
Who Are You
Join Together
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Song Is Over

PETE TOWNSEND- Lifehouse Demos 1. rar
PETE TOWNSEND- Lifehouse Demos 2. rar

Liz Phair- Girly-Sound Tapes

As I was writing yesterday's post about Liz Phair, I realized you really can't talk about Liz Phair's early work without mentioning her pre-Exile In Guyville recordings, the Girlysound tapes. Actually Girly-Sound was the moniker Liz Phair used when she self-produced several tapes in 1991. They were recorded in her bedroom in her parent's house and were initially given only to two people. These tapes circulated and she eventually signed with Matador Records on the strength of a tape she sent the label that contained 6 songs from the Girly tapes. Many of the songs from Girly-Sound were reworked and re-recorded for her debut and altered versions of the other songs appeared on later studio albums. You could say Liz Phair became a bit of a phenomenon, as the tapes were traded within the taper community and Liz Phair fan music circles. To read more about the tapes and the tracks on each and a guide to what album the tracks eventually appeared on, read the wikipedia page for Girly Sound. None of the Girly-Sound tapes have been officially released, though 5 tracks appeared on her 1995 Juvenilia EP and a bonus disc of Girly-Sound tracks were included on the physical version of 2010's Funstyle album.

The tracks posted below are mp3's (probably 1st generation) from the three cassette tapes (sorry, I don't have the actual tapes!). These are truly a prize for any Liz Phair fan and an interesting listen for anyone curious about home recording. Technology has come a long way from the 4-track cassette recordings of Liz Phair and probably hundreds of other musicians that recorded music in their bedroom (yes, I have made many recordings of myself from my single track cassette recorder and 4-track tape machine!), nowadays a bedroom recording can sound as slick and intricate as a professionally recorded album thanks to computers and software. Thank you Liz Phair for proving that DIY can be a launching pad for a successful music career.
Enjoy!

Tape #1
GIRLY-SOUND
Yo Yo Buddy Yup Yup Word To Ya Muthuh (1991)

01. White Babies
02. Shane
03. Six Dick Pimp
04. Divorce Song
05. Go West
06. Dont Hold Your Breath
07. Johnny Sunshine
08. Miss Lucy
09. Elvis Song
10. Dead Shark
11. One Less Thing
12. Money
13. In Love With Yourself (Combo Platter)
14. Fuck Or Die

Tape #2
GIRLY-SOUND
Girls Girls Girls (1991)

01. Hello Sailor
02. Wild Thing
03. Fuck & Run
04. Easy Target
05. Soap Star Joe
06. Ant In Alaska
07. Girls Girls Girls
08. Polyester Bride
09. Thrax
10. Miss Mary Mack
11. Clean
12. Love Song
13. Valentine
14. Shatter

Tape #3
GIRLY-SOUND
Untitled (1991)

01 Flowers
02 Whip Smart
03 Open Season (Beg Me)
04 Go Speed Racer
05 Stratford Guy
06 South Dakota
07 Why I Left California
08 Batmobile
09 Gigolo (Cant Get Out What Im Into)
10 Easy (Its Not That)
11 Slave (Sometimes A Dream Is What Makes You A)
12 Chopsticks

GIRLY-SOUND- Tape 1. rar
GIRLY-SOUND- Tape 2. rar
GIRLY-SOUND- Tape 3. rar

Liz Phair- Whitechocolatespaceegg (Original Version)

Say what you want about Liz Phair, but you can't deny she was quite the force in the 90's. Her amazing debut album in 1993, Exile In Guyville is a classic and is listed in Rolling Stones top 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time (328) and this definitely was her greatest achievement. Her other albums in the 90's, Whip-Smart and Whitechocolatespaceegg are good, not essential, but are still worth owning. This is where my interest in Liz Phair began to fade, I downloaded her next couple of albums, Liz Phair and Somebody's Miracle and they tread on the side of too mainstream for my taste. Also there's something about the production team of The Matrix that I can't stand, that canned auto-tuned sound and her subject matter and lyric content (H.W.C.) at times sounded desperate. Some called it selling out or career suicide, but I think she was trying too hard to capture the spirit and attitude of her earlier work, she was no longer shocking or innovative. Her most recent studio album, Funstyle was a fiasco and barely listenable. Don't misunderstand me, I love Liz Phair, if she came to town (hasn't happened yet) I would buy tickets the second they went on sale and with the advent of YouTube I can live out my musical fantasies watching her videos and live performances. With the re-release of Exile in 2008, Liz reminded music lovers why she was relevant and she did the trendy thing and embarked on a tour performing the entire Exile In Guyville record. I would love to have seen it. When Liz Phair submitted the original version of her third album, Whitechocolatespaceegg to her record label (Atlantic) it was rejected and she was instructed to re-record and remix it. What I've posted are the rejected mixes and original version of the album including some tracks that didn't make it on the album. None of these tracks were officially released and in most cases these versions sound a lot different than the released versions. It was probably a good decision to remix, as most of the songs seemed to lack the punch and crisp sound of released product. I do enjoy the original version of What Makes You Happy and as a bonus I'm posting a short video from the making of Whitechocolatespaceegg where she's recording some vocals for Happy. If anyone knows if there's a the full version of the video, please let me know. Enjoy! LIZ PHAIR
Whitechocolatespaceegg (Original version) 1996/97 01. Whitechocolatespaceegg 02. Fantasize 03. Headache 04. Big Tall Man 05. Baby Got Going 06. Only Son 07. Bars Of the Bed 08. Oh My God 09. Ride 10. Waiting For the Bird 11. Perfect World 12. Desperado Theme 13. Tell Me You Like Me 14. What Makes You Happy 15. Freak Of Nature 16. Girls Room 17. Russian Girl LIZ PHAIR- Whitechocolatespaceegg (original version). rar (the original files were taken from the Symphony Of Ghosts music blog)