I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

There are seven tracks of it on Anthology 3 and, in fact, that whole first disc is all White Album stuff (incl. "Hey Jude").

not sure. I have some version of it I downloaded from somewhere and it's ok. not dreadful, not superlative. I'm kind of increasingly surprised at how high a quality most of the leaked beatles bootlegs have been.

like the whole unsurpassed masters series (and the other one that was concurrent and overlapped with it)...those are perfectly listenable.

i like the way the Esher demos sound. it would suck to have them fix the phasing and messiness, it would suck the life out of them. but w/e i will buy a proper release

Bring life to them, more like. There's plenty of shit bands making deliberately lo-fi music for a cupboard full of hipsters in Oregon. The Beatles are a hi-fidelity band, thank fuck.

Ehhhh I mean they're home demos, right? The Beatles already went the route of turning them into hi-fi music by, y'know, making the White Album and Abbey Road. Trying to take the demos and morph them into a facsimile of studio product really might not get anywhere, and at worst might result in a "Real Love" kind of recording where it lacks the life of the demo and the oomph and richness that an actual reunited Beatles might plausibly have come up with.

the esher demos sound great, i said from the cupboard

Nobody is saying "turn the home demos into studio recordings", just to clean them up - reduce the tape hiss and correct any damage that may have happened to the recordings over the years. Beatles fans have come to expect a certain standard of product, and it'd also be a little silly to put out an official version of something that has been widely bootlegged unless there was some incentive for buying it.

'Real Love' sounds great, IMO. I genuinely believe they did their very best with what they had to work with - else it wouldn't have been released. I trust Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Jeff Lynne's judgement on those recordings.

the esher stuff included on anthology 3 sound good, right?

Yeah, I always thought the Esher stuff sounded fine, and in fact had to double-check the liner notes on Anthology 3 to make sure these were in fact "home" demos.

Hooof, well, we'll have to agree to disagree about "Real Love"! I liked it when it came out but I don't return to it much, and the Lynne gloss (which I do love on other records) kind of swamps it for me. Also makes it probably the tinniest thing ever put out under the Beatles name.

For me, it feels like what it is - an unfinished song that got a bunch of overdubbing to make it feel more "Beatlesy," boosting the ratings for the documentary and sales for the album. I'm sure George only agreed because he needed the money, as with the rest of the Anthology project. In the long term it hasn't really added anything meaningful to the Beatles catalogue and it would have been fine if it had never been done IMHO.

(Actually, is there a thread specifically about FAAB and RL? Feels like there would be...)

The Escher stuff on Anthology 3 was obviously cleaned up for release, as you'd expect.

I like "Real Love" a lot but agree it's basically an unnecessary coda to their discography

I recently listened to the two '94 songs again, and they really haven't aged well at all, solely due to Lynne's production, or rather, that fucking gated snare he inexplicably needs to use on absolutely everything.

COMING SOON: "Free As A Bird" & "Real Love"...NAKED

i don't *hate* the 94 songs, but yeah they are very inessential.

The anthology version of "real love" us awful. The demo version is lovely.

"Real Love" is a good enough song that it overcomes the production imo. I agree that the Lynne tics are an unnecessary gloss that get in the way.

I like "Real Love" a lot but agree it's basically an unnecessary coda to their discography

― Οὖτις, Friday, April 14, 2017 3:49 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is basically my stance on it - it didn't need to be done, but I'm glad it exists. I also think 'Real Love' happens to be a great song, which I rank as being up there with any post-'70 Lennon song. 'Free As a Bird' isn't anywhere near as good.

I hate the way the Esher demos sound on Anthology. All of the delicious double-tracked phasing on the vocals and guitar is gone. they sound empty

also a lot of the background chatter and laughing is gone - that's so essential to the vibe of those demos! i love listening to that bootleg because it's like spending a beautiful stoned spring afternoon w the Beatles.

is it? i thought all that stuff was kept in, just that they just a direct rip from George's 4-track masters.

at any rate, sign me up for remastering the Esher stuff. the Anthology 3 stuff sounded insanely good compared to the boots

yeah i just listened to Junk and Piggies, there's no phasing and none of the background chatter

Thank fuck.

aw, it's great though! i love hearing John come in early on one of his vocal takes on 'Dear Prudence' and then go "oops! hehe"

but yeah, I already have these versions. clean em up, go ahead. I really hope they don't pass over a White Album reissue - I think I'll write a letter to EMI this afternoon.

there's def actual songs/demos from that period that didn't make it onto Anthology (Heather, Sour Milk Sea, Child of Nature, The Inner Light, Circles, etc.)

Not Guilty

is on Anthology

you are right lol i had to double check the tracklist. its been years, maybe a decade, since i listened to Anth 3.

The Inner Light was an especially odd omission, given that it was actually released but rarely (if ever?) compiled

inner light is on past masters

Circles is really good... that's one I'd like cleaned up, the organ is a bit shrill.

Harrison did a version of 'Circles' on one of his solo albums.

There's also 'Cosmically Conscious', which McCartney claims to have written in '68 in India, but didn't get recorded until the Off The Ground sessions ... funny how not a single demo of that has ever surfaced or there's no record of The Beatles ever attempting it. Two theories: either it was just a half-written thing that not even McCartney himself considered worthy of recording, or he's full of crapola.

Well, its like George's "Dehra dun" which he mention when the three were sat in Georges garden, and Paul says 'oh, I remember that' and says nothing more. No demo, no document for thast either.

is there a leaked version of circles from that time? if so I've forgotten about it

oh i did forget about this. it's pretty slight

i've heard child of nature so much I forgot it wasn't on anthology. is it officially on something else? maybe I just remember it from Lost Lennon Tapes (which I taped much of when it was first broadcast)

yeah The Inner Light was pretty well known as it was on Rarities, the 70s comp that mopped everything up before Past Masters replaced it in 87.

Tbf it was also the b-side to a single that sold a million+ copies, topped the charts in several countries, etc. I could be wrong, but I feel like things like this only became obscure/rare with the passing of a bit of time, as the single fell off the charts and you had to actually root around with a checklist to collect all the songs. If you were an actual Beatles fan in 1968 you probably heard it, I think!

I was going to say that Rarities came out in 1980, not in the late '70s...but then I looked it up and learned there was in fact a UK Rarities (much different track listing from the US version).

xp

many xposts:

A demo of 'Dehradun' does exist!

I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

2600 posts? Jesus wept. I grew up in the Beatles era. I wore out Meet the Beatles as a nine year old. Owned the 45 of She's A Woman/I Feel Fine. I was given Sgt. Peppers for Xmas the year it came out. I did homework to the White Album. I smoked weed and listened to Across the Universe. Their music was deeply woven into practically every day of my youth.

But, crap, I could happily wait until doomsday for their catalogue to be remastered. I can already hear their music in my head, from the needle drop on the first track to the pock-pock of the needle slipping over in the final groove. Complete with scratches. Their stuff was designed for AM radio in a car: loud, catchy and enjoyable. It isn't exactly Mozart on a Stradivarius.

(...disappears from the thread like a wraith...)

Yes. And remastering usually makes things worse anyway. Best way to hear the Beatles is on cassette from the 80s. Those were good.

im listening to Anthology 3 Esher Demos right now. they are pretty nice even though they are edited. it does sound like they transferred each of the 4 tracks separately and remixed them. the original was done on George's 4-track tape machine correct? it is funny to imagine the Beatles basically recording White Album/Abbey Road over a weekend on a 4-track at George's house. the Esher tapes now very nice on Anthology. i would love a full release of all the demos, essentially an entire lost DIY Beatles album, in perfect quality, with all the individual tracks included.

i think the editing on Anthology always annoyed Beatleg collectors. then again, now there is a new mix of the song at any rate, so add it to the pile. lol i once used to download a list of every take of every song (or fragment) the band had ever written. i believe it was a text file called ABBL(?). this was the early days of the internet. my first website ever in the mid-90s was a Beatles fan site called Mr. Kite Live! at Pablo Fanques Fair.

i remember a time when all the boots used this horrible noise reduction that made things sound terrible. then again i was usually listening to a nth generation cassette dub. it all sounds great. i grew up hearing them on vinyl, radio, and through VHS tapes of "Yellow Submarine" and "Magical Mystery Tour" movies that they broadcast on TV in the 80s.

definitely agree the lofi quality on boots for example Unsurpassed 4 fits perfectly w the feel of the sessions. it is a really nice alt White Album.

so uhm... what are the beatles bootlegs to get featuring these demo tracks?

http://www.jpgr.co.uk/ydcd008_a.jpg

this is what i used to have, Unsurpassed Demos. i was wrong about Unsurpassed Masters 4, that has White Album-era tracks but it's mostly the Peter Sellers tape of early alt mono mixes from the album sessions. these days you don't even need to look for a boot, there are several full demo compilations stream-able on youtube. what a time to be alive.