Not just another Queen album...it's just another Miracle...

One thing inevitably leads to another. That is true for some parts of your life, while others are completely random, but it's very true for this lil' music blog. When I investigated what Highlander material was officially issued by Queen when working on what became the Highlander bonus EP, I stumbled upon the The Miracle box set that Queen had issued last year. As some reviewers have remarked, The Miracle is a curious album to get the box set treatment: It's nobody's favorite Queen album, and it's nowhere near their best, either. It probably ends up in the back third, okay-ish but for fans section of their discography. 

But for every argument why this album didn't scream out for a box set treatment, there are arguments, why it exists. For one thing: wealth of material. Having burned through tours and albums at a frenetic pace throughout the early 80s (that's why the 'Live Aid as a panacea to a possibe separation' as well as the 'live rebirth' arcs were some of the many hard to swallow untruths of the ridiculous Bohemian Rhapsody biopic, there were less than two months between Queen wrapping up their The Works tour and Live Aid!) the group was completely knackered at the end of their Live Magic tour towards the end of 1986. For the first time in a long time, the band was going to take some time off. And instead of scrounging songs together because it was time to do another album, they would just reconvene when they had enough songs to feel well about beginning sessions for a new album. 

When they convened in early 1988, they had material, but they also had something else: knowledge of Freddie Mercury's health issues. While he didn't quite call his HIV-illness by its name, the band members understoodd the gravity of the situation. One indirect outcome was a novelty in Queen history: Instead of fighting for representation, royalties and 'getting their stuff in', all songs on the upcoming albums would be credited to all members of the group, no matter who wrote them. No more infighting over that shit, which had often led to the worst situations in the band, notably during the run-up to Hot Space (which was the real period where the band members were at each others' throats over everything). Anyway, with every member having been occupied with solo and side projects, when they got together for what was to become The Miracle, they were fully reloaded and cut -according to rumors - almost tirty songs, of which ten ended up on the album, and another five as bonus tracks or b-sides. Which means that there are still a dozen or so compositions from the era that were unaccounted for, but heavily bootlegged.   

With the box set, a bit of this material got an official release, together with a disc that runs through a number of early versions of the The Miracle songs, ranging from demos to first or unadultarated takes. These form the basis of today's One Buck Record of the day, ...Just Another Miracle. 

On the box set, these versions were presented as if you were hanging out in the studio with chatter, count in's, false starts, little doodles before and after the tracks etc. That's a fine way for fans to fully emerge themselves into the work of their heroes, but it's a terrible way to listen to this material as an actual album. So I got rid of all of that, making it sound as much like a real, finished album as possible. There were two vocal flubs, where Freddie Mercury either missed or messed up his vocals, so I edited these errors out. What you're left with is, I think, the most listenable version of the work-in-progress presentation of the Miracle songs. 

"Party" and "Kashoggi's Ship", the twin pieces opening The Miracle are here in their original version, rocking much harder and sounding less processed than the album versions. They were admittedly a slightly weird way to open an album, but I always liked these. Like the album as a whole, "Party" and Kashoggi's Ship" drown in electronics on the album, with especially the drums and keyboars sounding programmed to the gills. "The Miracle", a Freddie Mercury-John Deacon co-write is presented here as a demo with 'John's original ending'. To be fair, his jaunty synth coda at the end doesn't work at all, other than a curiosity, and it's no wonder they reworked that, but all that doesn't make it less interesting to hear. 

The original version of "I Want It All" is again much tougher sounding than the version they published. It originally started with some seconds of an impromptu jam/boogie section that didn't go anywhere, so I edited this to start of the song proper and edited arund Mercury originally fucking up his first lines. "The Invisible Man" is the demo version with most of the lead vocals done by writer Roger Taylor. Otherwise, the song is pretty much in place already, the punchy percussion and no key changes further giving away that this is Taylor's baby. 

I decided to add the song intro of the album's version of "Breakthru" to this original take, taken from an abandoned Mercury demo called "When Love Breaks Up", even if this version misses the line linking both bits. But well, the song just felt 'wrong' without it. Again, a minor edit to get rid of a Freddie comment in the song. The first part of the song sounds very familiar, but the second part is quite different. They hadn't yet worked out the breakdown around the two and a half minute mark, where Mercury's sharp "...now!" is missing. So it has a little bit of empty space in the middle, filled - as you would imagine -  with some Mercury ad libbing. Freddie is also clearly adlibbing and having fun towards the end of the song, proclaiming "You know something...if this song would stop right now, this would really be a breakthru, Brian. I mean, if I would drop dead, that would really be a breakthru, honey!".      

Not much to say about the demo version of the minor "Rain Must Fall", other than I edited out another Mercury vocal flub when he missed his cue. The song isn't much to write home about, and considering that they had much better material in the can, one wonders why this was included. The same is true for "My Baby Does Me" (here still entitled "My Baby Loves Me"), which I never had much use for. Sorry, John Deacon, but your two groove-based Miracle contributions are...not great. When listening to The Miracle my attention always waned towards the end of the album due to the stretch of "Rain", "Scandal" and "My Baby" which I always found a little boring. The victim of circumstances: The album closer "Was It All Worth It?", tucked away at the end after the album's least convincing song sequence. I had forgotten that this is a genuinely great Queen song, and definitely an underrated deep cut of theirs. 

"Was It All Worth It?" was, in light of Freddie's diagnosis, their first stab at 'a last Queen song' "What is there left for me to do in this life? Did I achieve what I set in my sights?" start Mercury's musings on his and his band's rock'n'roll career. It's also a god damn killer with some patented May riffage and high-powered rock'n'roll that revives both the original album and this alt from its three quarter slumber. 

These alternate versions don't make The Miracle miraculously a great album - the essence of the songs stays the same. But the rough mixes and original versions bring a toughness and more natural sound to a number of their songs, while the not-yet-finished bits in "The Miracle" or "Breakthru" are an interesting look at how they would figure out what worked about the songs - and what didn't. Still, a number of quality songs that could have made The Miracle a stronger album stayed in the shadows or entirely on the sidelines. But don't worry, the One Buck Guy is on the case. Be ready for another stab at The Miracle-era Queen in a couple of weeks with an all-new alternate album with stuff you haven't heard before! But, that is a story and listen for another day, while for now you can pass the time with ...Just Another Miracle. 

The Iceman has vanished into the sky

I, like many of my generations, met Val Kilmer as the cocky fighterpilot with a shit-eating grin in a movie full of cocky fighter pilots with shit-eating grins. No matter what else he played, Kilmer was always gonna be Iceman for folks roughly my age. 

Val Kilmer had the Montgomery Cllift dilemma. A self-professed serious actor blessed (or cursed) with movie star looks, he was cast in Blokbuster upon planned Blockbuster instead. Obviously he wasn't a real victim in this, because he gladly took the money and the fame. Had he really wanted to seek out indie roles in serious films, he probably could hav, especially after the Sundance/filmbrat revolution of the early to mid-90s. The one related film was Tony Scott's True Romance, a glossed up take on Tarantino in which Kilmer shows up for about three minutes tops as The Mentor, an imaginary Elvis figure giving advice to Christian Slater's lead character, and is never seen fully, only n reflections, half shadows, silhouette etc. A nice, self-effacing turn from a guy who wasn't about to efface himself, even if it was for serious roles. 

He did had a number of good roles in good to great films. He was really good playing a conflicted cop with Native American heritage in Thunderheart, Doc Holiday in Tombstone and one of De Niro's gangster crew members in Michael Mann's Heat. Those were probably the best years of Kilmer, but he had late career highlights in the modestly distributed and thus little-seen The Salton Sea and an extremely fun turn opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. 

A throat cancer diagnosed in 2015 and its subsequent treatments damaged his voca chords irreparably and robbed him of his voice. Kilmer spent the following years asssembling memoirs, the book I'm Your Huckleberry and the autobiographic documentary Val. Fittingly, though, the last memory of him that most of us have, was in a reprisal of his first key role. Top Gun: Maverick was easily one of the best of the lecacyquels that became popular around the time, and Tom Cruise insisted that Kilmer have a short appearance in it. 

It was time to let go. Thank you, Ice, for everything.   

R.I.P. Val Kilmer, 1959 - 2025

Today's download is a little mixtape I made right after seeing Top Gun: Maverick, mixing the film's signature songs with the unreleased score from Hans Zimmer and some dialogue. Top Gun's music, 80s cheese, and all, will always be my wingman. And it can be yours, too...

Into the unknown of garage rock: The legend of The Firefighters

Lawrence Gaylord ("LG") Snyder was born in 1950, grandson of James L. Snyder of the Snyder Railroad Company out of New England. Coming from a rather well-off family young LG got, according to his own recollection, infected by the explosion of amazing new rock sounds, and especially the garage rock of the mid-60s, hat showed him that talent could be secondary to enthusiam when playing rock'n'roll music. Trained on piano by his mother, he switched to guitar, despite the misgivings of his family about such a 'vulgar' instrument. He started writing his own songs at around 15, then recruited his first band among his class mates: Canadian import Eric St. Laurent on lead guitar, Tommy Zordi on bass and Zack Domino on drums. 

They were first known as The Nihilists, a name quickly abandoned, then as the Back Stars, before becoming The Firemen, and then The Firefighters. Snyder had a different name planned for the last iteration of the band, but more on that later. Throughout the last two years of high school the band played the usual hig school balls, homecoming and the occasional house party, their repertoir mostly consisting of sped up, guitar-heavy version -s of the hits of the day, plus an original song or two. After finishing high school - something his rather conservative family insisted on - he decided to try for a career in music instead of following in his father's footsteps and becoming a doctor. 

One of two surviving pictures of The Firefighters

The band had built a primitive rehearsal room in the back half of his family's guest house and were allowed to perform their "awful noise" (LG's father Lawrence Sr.). The band managed to get a publishing contract with local mini label Roof Music, and some studio time to work on material. Musically, there was just one problem: Though an extroverted and entertaining front man, LG Snyder wasn't much of a singer. But since he was footing the bill thanks to his trust fund, his band mates had little choice but to put up with sometimes less than entirely successful vocal performances by their leader. In the DIY spirit of the garage rock movement it's probably fair to say, that they had a point. 

In February 1968 the band cut a tape of eight songs, three originals and five covers, including covers of the recent hits "Nights In White Satin" and "A Whiter Shade Of Pale". Roof Music, however, had by this time started to leave garage bands behind to focus on psychedelic acts, and despite some overtures of the band in that direction, PeteYork at Roof Music didn't feel that The Firefighters' music had a chance of success. So a proposed single with their cover of "Hey Joe", backed by the original "Room To Room With The devil" was scrapped. This, as it turned out, was the beginning of the end for the band. 

Zack Domino got his draft notice, then subsequently went to Canada to dodge the draft. At around the same time, St. Laurent returned to Quebec to work in his family's furniture store. With the band down to just Zordi and Snyder, Zordi decided to work fulltime at the family restaurant, and Snyder was left without a band. Dejectedly, he finally followed into the family-endorsed career plan and enrolled at Boston  University to become a doctor. Even after moving to Texas later in his life, "Doc" Snyder always preciously kept the reel-to-reel tape of The Firefighters' demo tape, mostly in a well-tempered garage. It was upon his death in 2018 from a heart attack that his kids found the tape and were amazed what their father had been up to so many years before. In trying to transfer the reels to digital, local music lover Sergei Gleithman was astonished by the results when proposing the transfer in his music shop and called Toby "Rocko" Shamani of Boston-based independent label Jamaica Plain Records. Shamani, a fan of original ska and garage rock decided to issue the record and so in 2019 the mini-album We Are The Firefighters finally saw the light of day, more than sixty years after its recording.

Still in the same space...and sadly no firefighter costumes (they were still The Back Stars at the time, I believe...)

Bratislav Metulskie from garagedoor.ru opines: "These guys were a hidden treasure. Behind the rather extravagant vocal sylings of lead singer LG Snyder, the band could produce a racket of noise when they wanted to, but where also able to rein things in, especially on their surprisingly subtle take on traditional 'I'm Going Back To Old Texas Now'. The finding and remastering of these tapes long lost to time and memory is a major cause for celebration and any garage rock and pysychedelic rock fan should celebrate this release, especially since the sound quality is simply astounding for recordings that are now over 55 years old. Major thumbs up!". Robert Overbarger from Allmusic adds that "while the recordings, much like the band itself, are only a minor addition to the garage band canon, the finding of these tapes is a major event". 

Like most garage bands, The Firefighters mainly traded in covering popular genre songs, including - inevitably - "Hey Joe", a band that seemingly every garage band had in their repertoire (though they miss out on "Hang On Sloopy"!). They also cover The Who's "My Generation" as the opening track here, while "Nights In White Satin" is a pretty straightforward cover. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" gets a swinging, jazz-inspired arragement, set to what sounds almost like a polk rhythm, and including a trumpet solo. Maybe they weren't geniuses, but The Firefighters definitely tried some stuff! This is also true for their slowed down take on "I'm Going To Leave Old Texas Now". 

Snyder in 2016, guitar still in hand...

Of the originals, "Room To Room With The Devil" is pretty much early hard rock, as is "Beside The Snake", which adds some nifty psychedelic touches. And then there's the band's 'theme' song, picking up the band's original, more vulgar name. It took some convincing from Pete York at Roof Music that The Firefuckers as a band name would mean that there was no way to officially distribute their recordings, so Snyder renamed the band and also rewrote their band anthem "We are the Firefuckers" to "We are the Firefighters". For this re-issue, the original, untouched version of the song - also discovered on the tape - has been used. 

So, folks, are you ready for some Firefighters to cause a ruckus and bring you back into the heady days of the late 60s? Then let LG Snyder and his parthers in crime noise take it away...

We've Got You Covered, Ziggy...uh, I mean...David

In the beginning, the We've Got You Covered series existed solely as a vehicle for Gene Clark covers. Then I opened up the series to Little Feat (with a little help of some friendly neighbourhood bloggers), and recently I figured that we definitely need some new blood in the series. And who has not only a huge back catalogue of great songs, but also songs in a variety of styles and songs that could invite artists that cover them to try and do something interesting with them? That's right, it's Ziggy The Thin White Duke Mr. David Jones. Bowie, whether you like him or not,  had one of the most adventurous discographies out there, and the possibilities for over artists are varied. Sure, you can fill whole albums alone with the most popular picks like "Life On Mars?" and "Space Oddity", but obviously in these and the following editions of We've Got You Covered: David Bowie we also hope to dig into some lesser known songs of the Bowie back catalogue. 

Some of the versions in this series are from dedicated tribute samplers, others from b-sides, various artist comps, album deep cuts or live in studio performances. Ian McCullough's and Sharleeen Spiteri's take on "Changes" is exclusive to this comp, as is the "Intro" track by the David Bowie Tour Band (featuring Gail Ann Dorsey who will pop up in later editions). which was the intro to their tribute to Bowie at the Brit Awards in 2016. 

Gail Ann and her perfect haircut

It's interesting how many new wave and new romantics acts declared allegiance with Bowie, possibly as a direct reaction to punk's rejection of him. The often maligned Culture Club deliver a fantastic, moody version of "Starman", while Duran Duran consider the ramifications of "Fame". Frankie Goes To Hollywodd take a trip to "Sufragette City" and Tears For Fears - even if it's the early-90s, Roland Orzabal-only version of the band - chime in with a really nice version of "Ashes To Ashes". 

Sure, there's some traditional-sounding covers here, not least from Bowie's backing band, the Spiders From Mars, but of course the more adventurous versions are what really make these series interesting. The Moonshiners' reggae take on "Modern Love" certainly qualifies, as does the theatrical take on "Life On Mars?" courtesy of the unlikely combination between The Divine Comedy and France's Yann Thiersen. There is also Beck's idiosyncratic re-imagining of "Sound And Vision" (presented here in a special edit) and Iva Davies & Icehouse's absolutely magnificent, slowed-down version of "Heroes", conceived for a ballet performance. Like Tears For Fears, Icehouse in the mid-90s were at that time basically only frontman Iva Davies, plus whichever sidemen he would work with, but they had a special knack for Bowie covers, as we will see a little bit later on.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Davies....perfect haircuts 2

And then, at the end, we let the weirdness take over completely: First there's American wild card group The Gourds (already familiar to long-standing One Buck Heads for their unique take on Snoop Dog's "Gin and Juice"), whose take on "Ziggy stardust" can best be described as, uh, Calypso Bluegrass?! And then we end things with those bona fide weirdos The Flaming Lips and their cosmic take on "Space Oddity". Oddities, indeed. 

To start things off I did include the heavy hitters of Bowie's backlog in this first volume, but future editions will include some lesser known numbers. In the meantime, there's lots of fun to dig into. So dig! 

He was more than just walking in Memphis...let's rediscover Marc Cohn

Marc Cohn is mostly remembered, if at all, as a one-hit wonder. Chances are, if you just give the name to a random passerby (of a certain age) even the name won't ring a bell, but if you sing a couple of lines of his one big hit, some might remember. It also feels terribly unfair to call Cohn a one-hit-wonder considering the uality of his work, but that's because we often associate one hit wonders with novelty songs and bubblegum hits. Some of the most lauded artists and bands are technically no hit wonders, so being a one hit wonder is at least something. And to those who bemoan that their idol had a fluke hit despite his much better work being unknown - Warren Zevon fans customers come to mind - I'll say, it's better to be a one hit wonder than a no-hit wonder. And Cohn's one hit is, unlike some of his less reputable brethren, a really good song, too, with an irresistible melody and some memorable imagery. Speaking of Warren Zevon fans: One of them, discussing music on their bulletin board, denigrated Cohn, comparing him to Jon Bon Jovi for being an obvious songwriter. A song that unites the ghost of Elvis, W.C. Handy and Muriel who plays piano, every friday at the Hollywood, would like to have a word with you, dude. 

Here's the thing about some of Cohn's song, which might've spurred such unnecesssary as well as wildly off denigration: He uses stock imagery of the literary songwriter: angels, wind, rain, and such. So what? They can not all be Dylan. Jackon Browne, one of the best songwriters of his generation, often traded in stock imagery, but the way he expressed himself and the way he made his melancholy music sound smoothed over whatever accusations of a too obvious imagery there might be. And Cohn at his best was full of mature, intelligent observation. Take "The Things We've Handed Down", in my book one of the best songs about parents and children ever written. It has its moments of kitsch and cheese via the dreaded angel imagery: "Don't know why you chose us / were you watching from above", but also lines like this: "You may not always be grateful for the way that you were made / Some feature of your father's that you'd gladly sell or trade / And one day you may look at us and say that you were cursed / but over time that line has been extremely well-rehearsed / by our fathers and their fathers in some old and distant town / from places no one here remembers come the things we've handed down." Jon Bon Jovi couldn't write this, even on his very best day.   

When Cohn hit it big with "Walking in Memphis" in 1991 he seemed to come out of nowhere, like a lot of one hit wonders - but he was a veteran by then, working the coffee houses and piano bars for years, founding the 14-piece cover/show band The Supreme Court that made a good living playing weddings and such, recorded a one-off pop single in the mid-80s (produced by an Alessi brother, but it wasn't even his own song!) before working on Tracy Chapman's "Crossroads" album got him a foot in the door and someone at Atlantic Records finally listened to his demo tape.

I was working on a compilation highlighting Marc Cohn, but really expedited my work when, in the last weeks, spurred on by the fabulous themed collections over at Jokonky's I continued to suggest Marc Cohn songs in threads about painters and cars (and I'm happy to see he made the Fantasy Americn Explorer Series! Yay Jonder! Yay Koen! Yay Cohn!). Cohn did write one of the most moving portrayals of an artist with "Olana", the song that gave my daughter her name, but is really about the place famous American painter Frederick Church built when he lost use of his hands due to rheumatism. There's so many things I like about this song that I could spend paragraphs on it: the sudden realization midway through the song that the narrator's voice comes from beyond the grave or the beautiful counter melodies in the chorus, sung by Rosanne Cash, whose husband John Leventhal produced most of Cohn's work. 

And there's "Silver Thunderbird", that - like Springsteen's car songs - is about more than vehicles, also giving a portrait, real or imagined, of his father. "Great big fins and painted steel, man it looked just like the Batnobile, with my old man behind the wheel. You could hardly even see him in all of that chrome, the man with the plan and the pocket comb", and in just a few words he has characterized the man who imparts some wisdom on his kid: "Don't gimme no Buick, son you must take my word: if there's a God up in heaven, he's got a silver Thunderbird." Again, get the fuck outta here with that Jon Bon Jovi bullshit. 

So, before this really gets too long, as I could talk a ton more about the man and his music and what it means to me, but I'll let you get to the music soon, I swear. Work To Do - The Music Of Marc Cohn is a personal 'best of', reflecting my personal interests and likes in his music. That means that I don't have some of his attempts at a sort of soul light, as these often felt too much sliding into the adult contemporary corner that some of his music no doubt is at least adjacent to. The lion's share of the tracklist is sourced from his superior debut album Marc Cohn. It pays to be a fifteen year veteran who has honed his songwriting, so Marc Cohn came out fully formed. But, as the apocryphal saying goes, 'You have your whole life to prepare your debut album, and then six months for the follow-iup'. Which is no doubt true, but also led to a real sophomore slump with The Rainy Season two years later. Still, even a generally disappointing album yielded some fine track, including the above mentioned "The Things We've Handed Down" and the very Jackson Brwone-sounding "From A Station" (featuring backing vocals by Crosby & Nash). The album that really put me back in his music was 1998's Burning The Daze, but 2007's Join The Parade, which I only caught up with belatedly, didn't catch my attention as much, despite getting some of the best reviews of his career. And then he took another long hiatus until 2020's Work To Do, an album with The Blind Boys of Alabama that combines three studio recordings with a live concert performance. 

The title song of that album that also gives this comp its name is a bit of a mission statement: There is still work to do, for Mr. Cohn, despite some unexpected bouts of hardship. While on tour with Suzanne Vega an attempted carjacking on a tour stop in Denver ended with the carjacker putting a bullet in his head. Literally. Cohn commented that doctors told him that he was the luckiest unlucky guy they had seen in quite a while. But he stays a bit of an unlucky guy, having been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 2020. No new music has been coming since then, but I was happy to see that he has a number of concerts lined up for 2025. So there is still work to do. If he comes into your neck of the woods, go and see him, he is a funny and inviting presence in concert. And of course, listen to Work To Do - The Music Of Marc Cohn, which gives you a fine overview of the often overlooked work of this underrated singer-songwriter.   

McGuinn, Clark & Hillman Go Down Under!

 ...and here's the goodie to wrap up - for now - the adventures of MCH. The One Buck record of the day chronicles the group's tour of Australia and New Zealand in the fall of 1978, right after signing with Capitol and just before going into the studio to record their debut album. The timing is important here: For one thing, this was the first time that these three had played together in years, and also the first time that they had played the old Byrds classic with a full band in a while. And they were just starting into the adventure, which means despite some misgivings and suspicions towards the other band members, everyone was still in relatively high spirits. There is a cameraderie and yes, even joy, in these performances that simply isn't there in the concerts of 1979, where they are augmented by a bunch of professional pickers and every concert feels like work rather than a fun experience. 

Clearly, here they are still excited to play what were at the time brand new songs, while about a year later they had to trot out songs like "Don't You Write Her Off" or "Backstage Pass" out of need rather than a wish to play them. And then there's the secret weapon they brought diwn under with them: the drummer! George Grantham, formerly of Poco. Grantham is highly underrated, especially if his work here is any measure. He provides high harmonies not seen in the Byrds or a Byrds-adjacent band since Crosby and his drumming style has a swing and groove to it that regular tour drummer Scott Killpatrick was never able to duplicate. "Feelin' Higher" especially builds up a mean groove that they wouldn't capture again (that's why it also ended up replacing the more placid acoustic version on Two Worlds). 

The lion's shere here (tracks 1-12) is from a concert in Sydney, which reveals that - since they hadn't developed the album songs yet - they mostly relied on the songs Clark & McGuinn had been touring with acoustically throughout 1978, including the two originals mentioned above and "Release Me Girl", which would all turn up on the album. The rest was a smattering of Byrds classic, plus Hillman (who dind't have a lead vocal showcase otherwise) dipping back into his Manassas days for "It Doesn't Matter". Of the Byrds classics, "Mr. Tambourine Man" was a particular higlight, including more verses than the original hit single and having the three band members take turns on lead vocals. One oddity of this recording is that smack dab in the middle there's a Clark solo acoustic version of "Silver Raven". Why? Beats me. Did McGuinn and Clark feel like having a smoke and said 'Geno, you got this'? Who knows! You'll also notice that the beginning of "He Was A Friend Of Mine" is missing, again no idea why, but I figure a tape cut of some sort. It is what it is. 

Since the set list and performances were pretty much the same across concerts and Sydney had the best sound, I avoided duplicates, so afterwards we over on to Melbourne a couple of days later for an acoustic session, including some great crowd interaction in "You Ain't Going Nowhere", an energetic bluegrass take on "Pretty Booy Floyd" and a great version on Clark's "Train Leaves Here This Morning". The latter track is the only one for which I'm not sure of date or origin or whether it's even from their tour down under, but it sure sounds like it could be and fits well in here.   

And then, for the finale we take a dip to New Zealand for two songs: First there's old Byrds warhorse "Ballad Of Easy Rider" and then we end things in style with a true rarity, their a capella take on Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Find The Cost Of Freedom".  

So, this is a great reminder that for all the stiltedness and slickness of their records, McGuinn, Clark & Hillman could really deliver when on the road and in the right mood, something that our friends and neighbours in Australasia could largely profit from in late 1978. And which you can profit from right now! So, fly with these ex-Byds halfway across the globe and get a groove on...Down Under.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something...Byrdsian?!

Alright alright, I know what you'll say, especially if you are a confirmed One Buck head, is ol' OBG doing some recycling again? Didn't we already have a bunch of McGuinn, Clark & Hillman on these pages? Yes, we did! But for some reason about thirty or so new-ish One Buck Heads wandered into, of all things, the thread on the misshapen third capter of MCH, McGuinn & Hillman's self-titled album (and again, no one asked for a link...?!). Weird, unless they are all Russian spy bots or something. So I figured I'll post the last MCH goodie on tap this weekend, but since some of you might not have the alt albums from the trio I'll repost these first and then get to the new content tomorrow.

But, if you've read the title, you'll see that I do promise something new in the title, because there is some! This week I relistened to Two Worlds, the re-imagined first MCH album, and what can I say, I was mildly miffed, thinking I didn't do a great job on that first album side. That first side, the 'country' side never seemed to get out of first gear. As much as I love "Crazy Ladies", it maybe wasn't the best choice for an album opener. And the version of "Feelin' Higher" just felt really slow, which wouldn't have been a huge problem, if "Release Me Girl" also wasn't quite slow. That's the problem of building an alt album around live Clark recordings. Geno would notoriously slow down his midtempo compositions, so that they'll inevitably end up with a dirge-like tempo.   

Drunk or stoned or all of the above? Hint: it's all of the above...

When I laid out the idea of Two Worlds I was torn between using a much livelier, but electric live track for "Feelin' Higher" and the acoustic duo version that I finally stuck with, thinking that would be more coherent for the rural or 'country' side. But that was a mistake, pure and simple, the slowed down numbers together with the "Surrender To Me" demo and "Crazy Ladies" basically had four slow-ish numbers one after the other, turning the beginning of the album into a sluggish affair. So, back to the drawing board for OBG - I reworked and resequenced the entire first side. The live version is in, with the added latin percussion coda a much better fit than the slightly akward transition on the aoustic track. Then, the first five tracks are all resequenced for a better flow. And finally, I thought that the transition at the beginning of the reprise of "Feelin' Higher" at the end of the album didn't sound quite right, either, so I remixed that as well..

All that is to say: If you like the general idea or the first version of Two Worlds, then you should still get this to upgrade, because the version included here is an improvement to my ears. Also included are the same-as-before re-imagined second album City and the expanded McGuinn & Hillman album. (You can check out more info on all three albums in the respective write-ups, should you feel so inclined)

And be sure to check in tomorrow for another MCH goodie...