Radish- Discount Fireworks (Unreleased)

Every once in a while your wishes can true. I'm not talking big lottery wins or fame and fortune, no, I mean the small stuff that make life interesting and sometimes it's simply just plain luck. I've lived to see my beloved Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup, not once, but three times and I've been fortunate enough to see many of my favourite artists live (The Replacements, Young Fresh Fellows, Scruffy The Cat, Ray Davies, Elvis Costello etc...). Through this blog I've been made aware of and have been given a lot of cool music that I might not otherwise been aware of. Some bands I hadn't heard of before, as well as live material, demos and unreleased songs and albums from musicians I admire.

A few years back, I made a reference to Ben Kweller's band, Radish and an unreleased album, Discount Fireworks. I posted a couple self-released Kweller EP's (Freak-out It's Ben Kweller and Bromeo) and some of these recordings were holdovers from the proposed Fireworks album. Many of the songs from the Discount Fireworks sessions went on to appear in different versions on these EP's as well as Ben Kweller's debut album, Sha Sha. Kweller originally self released Sha Sha in 2000 and in 2002, ATO Records re-released a different version of the album with a different track order, new recordings and more songs. I don't know the exact timeline of these songs, but I know the Radish versions on Discount Fireworks are very hard to find. Several tracks have been floating around the web in some form or another and this has been one of the most requested items on this blog. I never ever expected to hear or get a copy of the album, but lo and behold, over eight years after that post I received an email from a reader and I was offered up a copy of Discount Fireworks. The rip unfortunately is 128k mp3, but for the opportunity to hear the album in it's entirety this was too good to pass up and I was very excited to finally hear it. I've listened to it several times and it's well worth a listen. Some of the versions that appear on Sha Sha are different recordings and slightly different versions, so if you're a fan of Radish and/or Ben Kweller, this is a must hear!

A special thank you to Johnny Spork for the album and for creating some amazing (unofficial) front and back covers included in the file. The sound quality is pretty damn good and it baffles me why this was never released, but for more information and background about the Discount Fireworks fiasco, Johnny sent me a link for an article from 1999:  http://www.dallasobserver.com/music/free-radish-6400889
 And remember your wishes can come true!  Now if someone has a uncompressed version of the album...
Enjoy!

• PLEASE DO NOT SELL!
• This is in lossy format, so please share as mp3. (Don't try to convert to WAV or FLAC, it doesn't work that way) 
• If there is any issue sharing this recording (Mercury, Seagrams, BK?), please send me a PM first.

RADISH
Discount Fireworks
(Unreleased Album) 1998
mp3 (128k)

01. Launch Ramp
02. Next Time
03. Drink Me Away
04. How It Should Be (Sha Sha)
05. Silent Scene
06. What It Is Like To Live In Commerce
07. Wasted And Ready
08. Harriet's Got A Song
09. Here Is Dissonant
10. Cally
11. Orange Tic-Tacs
12. In Other Words
13. Panamainian Girl
14. For Forever
15. Bill W. Is My Friend
16. Girl In Between
17. 4.40 (Episode 2)
18. Super Neat (64k mp3)\

RADISH- Discount Fireworks 1998 mp3.rar

Juliana Hatfield- Demos And Unreleased

I had a request. Do I have any of the demos and unreleased songs that Juliana Hatfield posted on her website in the late 2000's? In fact I do have...46 songs (mp3), Juliana gave away on her site for free (or pay what you want donation). There were probably more before and after I downloaded these groups of songs as she would periodically post and share with her fans. As far as I know, they aren't available anymore on her site, but I have seen some on other music blogs.

During the early days of this blog ( 10 years ago!) there was still some skepticism and blurred grey areas for free "illegal" and "legal" downloading. I lived through the early pioneering days of Napster, Kazaa and Limewire and speaking as a life-time music fan, downloading changed my life. Right now, I'm reading a book by Greg Kot, Ripped. How The Wired Generation Revolutionized Music and a couple of the chapters discuss this very subject. Virtually any music that has been released is available somewhere online through torrents, peer to peer sharing or downloads on a blog or music site. So it is especially nice when artist's share (or leak?) music that hasn't been officially released along with
demos and alternative versions. I'm always curious to hear the early raw versions of songs before they finalize the song with overdubs and slick production. It's a forward thinking approach by the artist to share this process to hear songs we might not otherwise hear.

I posted a sampling of these songs in a post in 2007 (not available anymore) and I mentioned Juliana's demos on the second ever post on this blog. Taking a fresh listen to these songs now is interesting because many of these songs have appeared on later releases including the excellent, Whatever, My Love by the reunited, The Juliana Hatfield Three. Some are solo, some are full band, but all the songs stand well on their own. If you haven't heard any of these songs yet, it's well worth the listen. The files I'm posting aren't in chronological order, but in alphabetical order (that's the way they came) so I don't have much information or time period on most of the tracks. If anyone has the knowledge (and the time) to post more information or if you have any more of the demos and unreleased songs Juliana posted on her website that aren't here, please leave a comment. Thanks!
Enjoy!

JULIANA HATFIELD
Demos and Unreleased

5th Of July
Accidents
Always In The Mood
Bad Dream
Beautiful Creature
Because We Love You
Break My Heart
Bring U Down Again
Can't Kill Myself
Can't Worry
Cold In Here
Dune
Fireflies
Fool Money
Going Nowhere
Good Thing Going
Hallucinations
I Don't Belong Anywhere
If I Could
I'm Here (drums)
I'm Here (no drums)
I'm Shy
Invisible
I Wish
Just Like That
Live Is Heaven
Not End Of World
Not Enough
Now That I Found You
Number One
Ordinary Guy
Perfect Stranger
Run
Saving Myself
She's Out
Something
Stupid Thing
Sybil
The First Shiver
The Only One
There's Always Another Girl
This Is What I Think Of You
Trick Baby
Where I'm Going
X's And O's
You Don't Know Who You Are

All songs in mp3 format. If anyone had uncompressed versions, please leave a comment.
If there are any objections to the sharing of these songs, please let me know and I will take down asap.

JULIANA HATFIELD- Demos and Unreleased. rar

The Modern Lovers- Unreleased Demos

It's hard to believe the Modern Lovers formed almost 44 years ago. Though they formed in 1970 and performed and recorded until they're breakup in 1974, the band's debut album wasn't released until 1976. In fact, the Modern Lovers album was a compilation of demo tracks recorded years earlier with the original band while Jonathan Richman formed a completely different version of the band and debuted the album, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, also in 1976. It's kind of strange Richman abandoned the rock-art sound of the Lovers for a quieter mellower sound. The Modern Lovers album would go on to be one of the most influential and classic albums of the 70's. Richman's career would take on a more low-key approach with a still strong cult following (except for some commercial exposure with appearance and songs in variety of Farrelly Brothers films) right up until present.

Autographed ticket stub

It's been awhile since I've seen Jonathan Richman live, I last saw him in 1999 in Fargo (see photo) and at least three previous times in Winnipeg. I'm going to the show tomorrow, don't know quite what to expect, I haven't listened to any of his most recent recording at least for over 10 years, so hopefully he'll play some of his older "hits". More later, I hope to have something to post from the show. Stay tuned!

The unreleased demos I'm posting I downloaded from Dime years ago. Thanks to the original poster! I included the info file which details the recording session history of these tracks. I real find for a real fan of the Modern Lovers!
Enjoy!

THE MODERN LOVERS
Unreleased Studio Demos 
1971-1973


1.  Ride Down on the Highway  --  Intermedia Demos
2.  Such Loneliness  --  John Cale demos
3.  Girlfriend  --  John Cale demos
4.  Hospital  --  Dinky Dawson demos
5.  Astral Plane (false start)  --  Dinky Dawson demos
6.  Modern World --  Kim Fowley LP sessions
7.  Fly into the Mystery --  Kim Fowley LP sessions
8.  Hospital  --  Kim Fowley LP sessions
9.  A Plea for Tenderness --  Kim Fowley LP sessions
10. Dignified and Old --  Probably Kim Fowley LP sessions
11. New England Summer Song (instrumental) -- unknown source

MODERN LOVERS- Unreleased Demos FLAC. rar