― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Friday, 7 March 2003 03:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Friday, 7 March 2003 03:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
Rain Parade - You Are My FriendRainy Day - I'll Keep It With Mine (feat Susanna Hoffs)Rainy Day - Flying on the Ground is Wrong (feat Kendra Smith)Rainy Day - I'll Be Your Mirror (feat Susanna Hoffs)Opal - Empty Box BluesOpal - She's a Diamond (Early Recordings vers.)Opal - My Only FriendOpal - Strange DelightOpal - Fell From the SunOpal - Rocket MachineOpal - Magick PowerOpal - She's a Diamond (Happy Nightmare Baby vers.)Opal - Happy Nightmare BabyMazzy Star - HalahMazzy Star - Blue FlowerMazzy Star - Ride It OnMazzy Star - Ghost HighwayMazzy Star - Fade Into YouMazzy Star - Mary of SilenceMazzy Star - Five String SerenadeMazzy Star - Into Dust
(81:40 overburn!, pretty much chronological. nb - I don't believe that David Roback appears on "You are My Friend", but it's such a good song and he certainly influenced it (wrote it???) - does anyone know how much? Chris?
also, I've ignored the last Mazzy Star album as I don't remember anything from it...)
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 6 November 2003 23:10 (twenty years ago) link
― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 6 November 2003 23:16 (twenty years ago) link
― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 7 November 2003 12:23 (twenty years ago) link
― the surface noise (electricsound), Friday, 7 November 2003 12:25 (twenty years ago) link
I just saw something called Volume II on ebay with these tracks:
1. My Canyon Memory
2. Sisters of Mercy
3. Sailing Boats
4. Vespers
5. Lisa's Funeral
6. This Town
7. Freight Train
8. Wintertime
9. Little Bit of Rain
10. What You've Done
11. Cherry Jam
12. Indian Summer
― Spencer Chow, Thursday, 6 September 2007 22:42 (sixteen years ago) link
Indian Summer?!
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 6 September 2007 22:44 (sixteen years ago) link
Magick Power, Magick Power...
― sexyDancer, Thursday, 6 September 2007 22:48 (sixteen years ago) link
i've got this -- it's a bootleg right? Has slightly dodgy sounds anyway. Roback (I think) sings quite a bit on it, if I recall correctly. There's a male singer at least ...
― tylerw, Thursday, 6 September 2007 22:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Voice of dissent, re: Early Recordings. It's good, but nowhere near as great as Happy Nightmare Baby. Best bits (Fell from the Sun, Northern Line, Harriet Brown, etc.) are lovely, dreamy psychedelic folk-pop -- some of my favorite music of that kind. But at least half the songs don't make much of an impression. Extremely pleasant, but too often limited to that.
Happy Nightmare Baby, on the other hand, is one of the best damn guitar rock albums out there. So incredibly dense, lush, SEXY, physical and intuitively right-fucking-on. Retro as hell, and locked into a psychedelic hard rock thing that necessarily limits its appeal, but absolutely unbeatable at its own game. Every song is distinctive, memorable, endlessly seductive. Maybe you have to be messed up, and you certainly have to dig "passionate" guitar solos, but even so...
Mazzy Star can't hold a candle. Nice, but nowhere near as deep. The Rainy Day thing is worth it only for I'll be your mirror - otherwise disposable. Kendra Smith's Guild of Temporal Adventurers EP is nearly as good as Early Recordings. Much creepier, often awkward as hell, but w/ tons of sick magnetism and an unbeatable Can cover.
― Bob Standard, Thursday, 6 September 2007 23:13 (sixteen years ago) link
Shakey, the "Indian Summer" track is indeed a Doors cover, appeared on a Chemical Imbalance 7", and is as great as anything on ER.
Wonder why _ER_ hasn't been bootlegged yet?
I bought a counterfeit LP a few weeks ago. I seriously doubt it was an actual Rough Trade reissue!
All Opal is CLASSIC. I need that boot CD really bad. Kendra solo is essential as well.
― sleeve, Thursday, 6 September 2007 23:26 (sixteen years ago) link
Happy Nightmare Baby is definitely the pinnacle of Roback's vision (especially the title track), but Early Recordings is surprisingly strong, especially without the heavy psychedelic assist from the guitars. Parts of Rainy Day, and certainly more than just "I'll Be Your Mirror" are just wonderful, especially "I'll Keep it With Mine" and "Flying On the Ground is Wrong" is just devastating. Mazzy Star obviously has many incredible tracks too. I certainly wouldn't dismiss it just because it's not quite as amazing.
― Spencer Chow, Friday, 7 September 2007 00:15 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah for years I snottily dismissed Mazzy Star as Opal wannabes given their lineup, thought Hope was just trying to imitate Kendra and thought Roback was striving to recapture past glories. Then at a particularly surreal, druggy party back in '98 I heard both CDs and they suddenly made a ton of sense. These days I think those first two MS CDs express the heroin-as-music vibe better than anything except a coupla Spacemen 3 records. Soporific in a good way.
― sleeve, Friday, 7 September 2007 00:24 (sixteen years ago) link
man i love opal so much, and strongly prefer the early/ clay allison stuff to 'happy nightmare' though it's def. good.
somehow and very weirdly with 'chemical imbalance' i managed to release two covers called "indian summer" --one the opal cover of the doors song, the other dean wareham's first solo release and a version of the beat happening song. (to further complicate things, later sonic boom covered dean's version thinking it was dean's song).
anyway, i hope to release the opal track in the best-of ci book/ cd out next year though i'm not holding my breath that roback and smith will okay that, even though the project is a benefit... we'll see.
― Mike McGooney-gal, Friday, 7 September 2007 01:46 (sixteen years ago) link
The ERII boot is pretty good and worth a moderate hassle to track down. There's a FLAC version circulating around on the torrent sites. Try tracking it down there first. I am also biased in this opinion.
I believe that the source of these was originally a cassette tape of unused tracks that would have made up some of the second Opal album. Roback sings most of them.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 7 September 2007 01:54 (sixteen years ago) link
I must have this collection. (I think late summer is also good Opal listening weather in the gloaming -- will put it on in a bit here.)
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 7 September 2007 02:04 (sixteen years ago) link
early recordings 2 is kinda disappointing, but "sailing boats" is a great song, i'd love to hear a decent quality version of it. (early recordings is one of my top 5 albums ever)
― zappi, Friday, 7 September 2007 02:12 (sixteen years ago) link
Bob Standard very OTM.
― inhibitionist, Friday, 7 September 2007 05:44 (sixteen years ago) link
i managed to get hold of the UK pressing of fell from the sun with 'frieght train' on it. great song, if not quite at the level of the a-side.
i love opal, and my ER cd sits next to my DAW as my reference disc of what an amazing recording sounds like
― electricsound, Friday, 7 September 2007 08:09 (sixteen years ago) link
has anyone heard beachouse? they capture that spooky early recordings sound pretty well. so when and what label did this volume 2 emerge? when do the recordings date from? is it post hnb?
― cw, Friday, 7 September 2007 09:44 (sixteen years ago) link
theres no official release, just low quality mp3s. its pretty much all the demo stuff left off early recordings, and with two or three exceptions (sailing boats, what you've done, vespers maybe) i think the compilers of the official album made the right choices.
― zappi, Friday, 7 September 2007 09:58 (sixteen years ago) link
do you like the kendra smith solo stuff joni? i ain't never heard it.
― cw, Friday, 7 September 2007 10:00 (sixteen years ago) link
i love the guild 10", but i found the songs on the 4ad album lacking, although she did a cracking version of richard & mimi farinas "bold marauder". email me your address & i'll send ya some stuff if ya want.
― zappi, Friday, 7 September 2007 10:04 (sixteen years ago) link
ta joni. what's that farinas stuff like? i haven't heard a note but i like been down so long it looks like up to me, is it straight ahead folkie fayre?
― cw, Friday, 7 September 2007 10:14 (sixteen years ago) link
yeh pretty much straight folk with boy/girl harmony singing on first album, second album is more dylan-like with guitars & drums. its all good though! j has been hassling me to read that book for years now.
― zappi, Friday, 7 September 2007 10:22 (sixteen years ago) link
it's funny, a bit kerouac-y, you get the feeling he had better in him, i'll keep an eye out for those r & m rekkids!
― cw, Friday, 7 September 2007 10:29 (sixteen years ago) link
Early II is a bootleg of B-sides that was put together on a music blog with handy downloadable cover art included. (I'll try to track down which it was later.) It was never released even as legitimate bootleg cd, so some "entrepreneur" is basically taking the mp3s from the music blog, making cds from them and then selling them on ebay.
― Bill in Chicago, Friday, 7 September 2007 15:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Youtube comes through. Hope singing for Opal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZSt4fpJwck
― Spencer Chow, Monday, 22 October 2007 04:52 (sixteen years ago) link
You can find Early Recordings II on this website, hXXp://xholdesert.blogspot.com/, look in the March archives, Rainy Day is also there. The best tracks were indeed kept for the official release, but finding this collection of unreleased songs today makes me happy beyond words. "Sailing boat" is a beauty, and Kendra's voice on the Leonard Cohen cover "Sisters of mercy" is at its honey sweetest.
― catessence, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 15:13 (sixteen years ago) link
a bump to mention that a really great clay allison live show from 1984 just popped up recently on dime, as well as a 1987 opal show which i haven't listened to yet. the clay allison show makes me wish there was much more documented from them from this era. from the notes of the person who posted it, it seems there's more to come as well.
― city worker, Thursday, 30 April 2009 13:06 (fifteen years ago) link
ooooooooooooooooh! thanks for the tip
― zappi, Thursday, 30 April 2009 13:34 (fifteen years ago) link
if anyone's interested i just posted a 1984 opal show here: http://ow.ly/4tAZq probably the same one city worker mentions above? anyway, it's great.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 16:12 (thirteen years ago) link
grazie!
― Marco Damiani, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 16:15 (thirteen years ago) link
CD80 mix upthread needs more Rain Parade but no idea what i'd remove :/
― hey ilxor, thanks for contributing, glad you stopped by (ilxor), Tuesday, 5 April 2011 16:18 (thirteen years ago) link
i'd remove all the mazzy star (i like 'em, but..)
― ita butthurt (electricsound), Wednesday, 6 April 2011 01:26 (thirteen years ago) link
re-upped this with a better link -- track order was all out of wack.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 15:45 (thirteen years ago) link
weird, there's a vinyl bootleg of that 1984 clay allison gig floating around: http://www.discogs.com/Clay-Allison-Live-At-The-Electric-Banana-5221984/release/5456137anyone got it?
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 15:19 (eight years ago) link
I have this. My wife is a major Kendra fan so I bought this for her for her birthday last year. Sound quality a solid B, and the songs / performances sound terrific. Cool cover art, too, not very bootleg-y. Definitely worth the plunge.
― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 15:59 (eight years ago) link
yeah, i've heard the tape previously -- pretty cool performance (and fairly different from Early Recordings in some respects, if i remember correctly. some pretty heavy moments).
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:01 (eight years ago) link
yep, if it's not too pricey, I'd get one... I got it as a gift and agree with Jimmywine's assessment!
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:01 (eight years ago) link
I need to look and see if that was one of the shows that came up on Dime a few years back, there were a bunch. If it's the one I'm thinking of, it is pretty great.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:02 (eight years ago) link
pretty sure it's the one i posted upthread a few years ago (link is dead however)
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:09 (eight years ago) link
Re that Early Recordings II bootleg, Matt Piucci found out about it earlier this year and was really pissed off as a couple of the songs are apparently not Opal songs at all but are I guess Rain Parade demos or just Matt P solo, and he was somehow under the impression that David Roback was responsible for putting it out!
― Just noise and screaming and no musical value at all. (Colonel Poo), Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:20 (eight years ago) link
weird! what an odd career roback has made for himself. still seems crazy that the opal stuff hasn't been collected/reissued properly.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:39 (eight years ago) link
agreed, just madness
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:39 (eight years ago) link
numero group putting out a deeeluxe box set w/ early recordings + happy nightmare, plus live & unreleased action (hopefully not matt piucci solo demos, haha) ... i would buy it.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:53 (eight years ago) link
that is so weird about Early Recordings II, I'll have to give that a closer listen
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 16:59 (eight years ago) link
that version of "indian summer" on ERII -- so good. though this one w/ hope is very good too... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1wnAsSB71M
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 17:02 (eight years ago) link
so that LP is not one of the 4 shows I have, another thing to add to the list. when looking, I also found this tragically lost item with three more early songs that have never appeared anywhere afaict:
http://www.discogs.com/Clay-Allison-Clay-Allison/release/7679417
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 23:16 (eight years ago) link
(And much thanks again!)
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 4 October 2022 21:27 (one year ago) link
thank you!!
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 21:54 (one year ago) link
Thanks again, Zappi!
Did a bit of comparing the original HNB CD and FLAC of the new one in Audition. If I were to guess, the new one is the same as the old one, with ~ +5dB gain applied. Once I matched volumes, there was no difference when A/B-ing. There's also no difference in frequency spectrum — if the new one was digitized anew from original tapes, there most likely would've been. On the plus sized, at least it's not crushed into oblivion, it's just been amped up without any limiting or compressing. So, if you have the old CD, you're not missing anything revelatory that you couldn't get with a volume dial.
Someone mentioned that they heard the remastered Early Recordings, and that *that* one sounded different. Anyone?
― Xgau Murder Spa (nikola), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 22:00 (one year ago) link
Sounds significantly better to me, much fuller than the Rough Trade CD, at least.
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 22:22 (one year ago) link
and I agree that HNB is likely just a level boost of the same master
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 00:04 (one year ago) link
or just post here and I'll web you, that's probably easier tbh
Would love to hear this Zappi
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 06:46 (one year ago) link
hi zappi, have just sent you a mail :)
― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 07:15 (one year ago) link
thank u zappi, my hero!
― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 07:20 (one year ago) link
Thanks Zappi!
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 10:05 (one year ago) link
Are you on FB or Discord? Reddit? I want a copy (HNB was one of my favorites as a teen; it was burnt up in the fire) but I'm not sure if I have access to my ILXmail. (Chris Irregardless on FB, GreenLeafy11 on Discord and Reddit.)
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 11:22 (one year ago) link
sent via reddit! I think I've caught up with everyone else, let me know if you can't find it etc.
― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 16:47 (one year ago) link
Lost opportunity with the lack of a remaster on Happy Nightmare Baby, it sounds like ass.
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 23:03 (one year ago) link
I got it, thank you.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 23:32 (one year ago) link
like a fool I bought a set, I think I have bought Early Recordings four times now (and always for stupid prices). I'm glad to have both the Salley Gardens releases tho.
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 20 October 2022 01:09 (one year ago) link
My copies from this eBay overstock place arrived, I wanted the Happy Nightmare Baby reissue to go along with the Early Recordings one I was lucky enough to get from Amazon before sales were halted. So I've got a spare copy of Early Recordings... anyone want it (for what I paid for it, an admittedly steep $36)?
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Wednesday, 2 November 2022 21:20 (one year ago) link
I'm a little late in asking, but can anyone share FLAC files for the Opal 'Early Recordings' remaster on Salley Gardens? Seems to be out of reach now.
― makvirag, Sunday, 1 January 2023 15:38 (one year ago) link
yeah I got u
does your ilxmail work?
― sleeve, Sunday, 1 January 2023 15:58 (one year ago) link
Thanks, sleeve! I am new to this forum and don't have an ilxmail account. Is there another way?
― makvirag, Sunday, 1 January 2023 16:37 (one year ago) link
if the email you used to sign up is valid, I can send it to you!
― sleeve, Sunday, 1 January 2023 16:43 (one year ago) link
basically ilxmail send a blind message (no return email) to the account you used to register
― sleeve, Sunday, 1 January 2023 16:44 (one year ago) link
otherwise, you can click on my username link and send your email to me via ilxmail
― sleeve, Sunday, 1 January 2023 16:45 (one year ago) link
Dynamite, got it! Am listening to it now and what a treasure this set is. I still have the vinyl from '89. Could never let it go somehow, even when I really needed the money. I would just look at the cover and go, "no, not this one." The extra tracks are stellar and the sound is vivid...the songs really have a sound and a feel out of time; could have been released 47 years ago or yesterday. Thanks and Happy New Year to you!
― makvirag, Sunday, 1 January 2023 18:50 (one year ago) link
<3
― sleeve, Sunday, 1 January 2023 20:13 (one year ago) link