Jeff Buckley - Arlene's Grocery - 1997

Jeff Buckley was born in California's Orange County in 1966.

He died in a tragic drowning accident on May 29th 1997.

He left one near perfect album, several live concerts recorded and released in full or part prior to, and/or after his death, and the material that may have lead eventually to a second 'proper' album.

If you are a fan this leaves a void, that can never be filled.

Sadly for an artist as talented as Jeff, the 'unofficial' recordings remain sadly few and far between. In away this is a good thing, as a badly recorded concert, would be such an injustice, to someone who was capable of such incredibly moving music, and never had the chance to expand definitively beyond his debut album.

The bootlegs that I have of Jeff Buckley are few in number. I know of around fifteen, that are supposed to be of good quality, the live radio material seem to be those most widely circulated.

This is my favorite. The copy I have was called 'The Grace Of J'.

At midnight on February 9, 1997, Jeff Buckley debuted his new drummer, Parker Kindred, in a show at Arlene Grocery on New York's Lower East Side. He also played a couple of solo gigs in New York during the first months of 1997: a gig at the Daydream Cafe (featuring band members Mick Grondahl and Michael Tighe as "special guests") and a solo performance February 4 as part of the Knitting Factory's 10-Year Birthday Party.

Set List:

Nightmares by the Sea
Witches' Rave
So Real
Haven't You Heard
Lover, You Should've Come Over
Morning Theft
Vancouver
Snail
The Sky Is a Landfill
Mojo Pin
Grace
Last Goodbye

Find out more about Arlene's Grocery HERE.

Audio quality: Suggests the soundboard was used, even if audience 'chatter' is apparent on a couple of occasions. The conversation between Jeff Buckley and the audience is in really good humour, his impersonation of Tom Waits is priceless.

Reloaded 21/June/2015 link in comments.

Steely Dan - The Rainbow Finsbury Park London 1974

Steely Dan - precise, cool, bluesy, jazzy, mature, thoughtful, clever, serious, catchy, timeless, flawless, and hopefully you get my drift.

Steely Dan were one of the bands that taught a younger me, that there was much more to music than three chord rock anthems, or in them day's who looked the part. When I bought Pretzel Logic, it became my favorite album of the time. I obtained a copy of a 1994 concert a while back, and was impressed with how good they sounded.

I went to see them in London in 1974, I even remember the hassle our driver had finding somewhere to park, and the subsequent frantic search for a bar, before the gig. Arriving at the venue, the foyer was a sea of faded denim, and hair, so many long haired blokes, it seemed the hippies were back, from memory it seemed a rather male audience. So when I obtained a boot of the show recently I have to say I was over the moon. I was almost nervous when I began to play it, hoping it was at least listenable, and looking for signs that this really was the gig I had attended thirty plus years ago.

The memories flooded back, this was definitely the show (all I need now is for someone to tell me, if it really was Kiki Dee supporting them? as that remains a vaguer recollection). The quality of the boot is astounding, definitely from the sound desk, and mastered, with some care.

Set List:

CD 1:
01 - Intro Bodhisattva
02 - The Boston Rag
03 - Do It Again
04 - Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me)
05 - King Of The World
06 - Rikki Don't Lose That Number
07 - Pretzel Logic
08 - Band Introductions

CD 2:
01 - My Old School
02 - Dirty Work
03 - Instrumental (Your Gold Teeth Ii)
04 - Reelin' In The Years
05 - Crowd And Tuning
06 - Show Biz Kids
07 - Crowd And Tuning
08 - This All Too Mobile Home

Band:

Donald Fagen - piano, vocals
Walter Becker - bass
Jeff Baxter - guitar
Denny Dias - guitar
Jim Hodder - drums
Jeff Porcaro - drums
Royce Jones - percussion, vocals
Michael McDonald - electric piano, vocals

Quality: Soundboard & mastered.

Reloaded 22/June/2015 link in comments.

A Trip With The Beatles - Part Three

The 'Get Back' or 'Twickenham sessions', took place in 1969.

Paul McCartney, wanted to get The Beatles playing together again as opposed to just recording. It was an opportunity to help the band gel together again, have some fun, and maybe lead to some new live performances.

It was also a chance for band members to share new material, some of which would surface later on solo albums.

In the end the now legendary roof top performance, was all that was to happen, as public performance's go.

The actual sessions were filmed, and each film reel was accompanied by a mono soundtrack.

The soundtrack has surfaced in different forms down the years. Recently I acquired the full soundtrack set, from a generation of copies quite close to the originals (so the sound quality is very good).

These copies are not broken down into individual songs, rather they are inclusive of what was included on the film reel in use. I will when time permits try and edit these down to songs, to help, I do at least have a full song listing from a boot series circulated some time ago.

One of the best known bootlegs from these performances, that has done the rounds for some time is 'The Corn Of Apple', or 'The Core of Apple'. Lost in translation, the 'Corn' typing error seems to be the more widely circulated version, indeed the cover of my copy has 'corn' rather than 'core'...

REPLACEMENT DOWNLOAD LINK OF FULL ALBUM IN COMMENTS BELOW OR CLICK ON THE PICTURE (5TH JANUARY 2010).

Those days playing in Hamburg, certainly paid off, they are up there with Elvis Presley's Wooden Heart. Mind you Elvis did his army conscription in Germany.

Perhaps it should me mandatory for all 'boy' bands to play live in Germany for a couple of years before hitting the big time in the UK, if you follow my drift.

The Beatles are included in The Beehive Candy Store.

A Trip With The Beatles - Part Two

In part one of this series, I used the first CD from the mythology boot series. Mythology is such a large collection, that it would be easy just to source from that.

It seems rather pointless to just keep dipping into this, especially as you can purchase the official Anthology series, especially if various outtakes, or work in progress versions are your bag.

So I will try and expand out on The Beatles rarities trail. The Beatles took a conscious decision to stop performing live, and most live recordings from the USA tours that I have heard feature the screaming audience rather than the band.

As a consequence the rehearsals for albums in the studio, have thrown up some real gems, as often the band would play 'live' without the audience. One of the best set of sessions are the 'Twickenham' or 'Get Back' sessions. This is a story in it's own right, and will be featured another time, it deserves the attention.

In 1968 The Beatles were both at Trident and EMI studios in London. Some excellent (performance and recording quality) material from sessions played, are on the bootleg 'Lord of Madness'. I have uploaded tracks 1 & 3, for your enjoyment.

The Beatles - Hey Jude - Lord of Madness.mp3

The Beatles - I'm So Tired - Lord of Madness.mp3

I have added the first Beatles dedicated page in The Beehive Candy Store, with as usual some absolute bargains to consider. Click HERE to visit.