Gene Clark S/D, C/D

Actually, the CD release I have is called "Echoes" and didn't have the bonus tracks, while the later CD that was retitled "& The Gosdin Brothers" featured the tracks Only Colombe and the French Girl, which were previously only on some 2 CD compilation that was around for a while.

The album was also reissued in the US in the early 70s, omitting "Elevator Operator", and with re-recorded backing tracks designed to "soften" the sound, under the title Early LA Sessions.

A subsequent reissue, on CD in 1991, was also titled Echoes, and also remixed (though closer to the sound of the original album - the most significant change was the removal of vocal double-tracking), with an altered running order, as well as the original European bonus tracks, a demo outtake, and miscellaneous Clark-penned songs from early Byrds recordings.

The 2007 reissue on Sundazed restored the original album mix and track order, and uncovered a number of alternate takes from the album sessions (though no new songs were discovered).

Actually, a lot of that info seems wrong. There are (for all practical purposes), three versions of the first Gene Clark solo album on CD. They are:

GENE CLARK WITH THE GOSDIN BROTHERS (on Edsel UK), which is the same as the original album and has the following tracks (in their original mixes):
Echoes
Think I'm Gonna Feel Better
Tried So Hard
Is Yours Is Mine
Keep On Pushin'
I Found You
So Say You Lost Your Baby
Elevator Operator
The Same One
Couldn't Believe Her
Needing Someone

This was followed by (in terms of chronological release) a CD that contained the entire "Gene Clark With The Gosdin Brothers" album (partially remixed!) added some important Gene Clark compositions from the Byrds, and a few bonus tracks never before released. It was called:

ECHOES (released by Legacy UK) and it contained:
Boston (by The Byrds)
For Me Again (by The Byrds)
I Knew I'd Want You (remix) (by The Byrds)
Here Without You (by The Byrds)
Set You Free This Time (by The Byrds)
If You're Gone (remix) (by The Byrds)
Is Yours Is Mine (remix)
So You Say You Lost Your Baby (remix)
Tried So Hard (remix)
Needing Someone
Echoes
The Same One (remix)
Couldn't Believe Her (remix)
Keep On Pushin' (remix)
I Found You
Elevator Operator (remix)
Think I'm Gonna Feel Better (remix)
The French Girl
Only Colombe
So You Say You Lost Your Baby (acoustic demo)

That's right - it remixes eight of the songs - some of these remixes are drastic. They tend to improve clarity while removing some of the cool original ambience. This was followed by:

GENE CLARK WITH THE GOSDIN BROTHERS (on Sundazed US), which contained:
Echoes
Think I'm Gonna Feel Better
Tried So Hard
Is Yours Is Mine
Keep On Pushin'
I Found You
So You Say You Lost Your Baby
Elevator Operator
The Same One
Couldn't Believe Her
Needing Someone
Tried So Hard (alternate version)
Elevator Operator (alternate version)
Only Colombe (mono version)
The French Girl (mono version)
So You Say You Lost Your Baby (acoustic demo)
Is Yours Is Mine (acoustic demo)

SO . . . the first CD is entirely contained on the last (Sundazed) one. But "Echoes" (leaving aside the Byrds tracks) has a lot of exclusive stuff - six different mixes PLUS radically different versions of "The French Girl" and "Only Colombe." The biggest difference in these (on the Sundazed version) are the startling backing vocals by The Ballroom - Curt Boettcher's pre-Sagittarius / The Millennium band. It adds a very different dimension to the songs. I prefer the versions without them, but they're both really cool.

Which version to get? Well, you definitely need the Sundazed one. But "Echoes" is worth getting too, for the alternate mixes and backing vocal-less bonus tracks. (And I think a couple of those Byrds "remix" versions are exclusive.) Contrary to what the normally on top of it Dan Selzer claims, there is no version of "Echoes" without bonus tracks - I think he has it backwards.

since I threw out all my CD sleeves and can't find the physical CD, I'll have to assume that what I had was the first one mentioned, though it wasn't an import, notice the various versions allmusic lists:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jbfyxqu5ldhe

I definitely got the 95 version, because I was still in college, and I don't remember it being on Edsel, I think it was credited to Columbia. Beyond that, I still SWEAR TO GOD that the cover said "Echoes" on it, but I have no proof. On top of that, when I ripped the CD, it credited the album as "Echoes", and contained just the original 11 songs. Maybe it wasn't in CDDB when I ripped it and still thinking it was called Echoes because that was the first song, I just named it that!

I'm definitely not talking about the compilation Echoes, with the green cover and the remixed album and the Byrds stuff.

Ok, I seriously need to hear these versions of the Boetcher-poriduced tracks with the Ballroom vocals.

deedeedee - thanks. eMusic had Echoes so I bought that one. I'll keep my eyes out for the Sundazed version too.

Dan - it may have been on Columbia, as they did issue this CD (identical in all important ways to the Edsel one), but they deleted it rather quickly and the Edsel one did come out first, which is why I credited it to Edsel. But it still wasn't "Echoes!" (Or if it was, it would have been a bootleg.)

i've tried several times to get into his post-byrds stuff and i just can't. none of it is remotely bad, but it really seems like he was rewriting the same songs over and over and over, to somewhat dull effect. i even feel this with his byrds material. i guess i just can't think of another cult figure who has such a seeming limited range. sorry.

or maybe i just can't get into his voice?

I feel the same way, but I know enough people that love those albums that I keep trying.

although I love his songs with the Byrds. I'm just talking about the post-Byrds albums.

I feel the same way, but I know enough people that love those albums that I keep trying.

― Euler, Thursday, December 31, 2009 7:48 AM Bookmark

yeah, exactly. i must be missing something. maybe there's just a vibe i'm not feeling, as they say? stuff just kind of seems uninspired.

you guys!

No Other is so great

no other is going in the grave with me.

aw, sounds like you guys Tried So Hard to like gene

see, this is what I mean! I will try No Other again. I remember thinking: this could use a rocker to bring a little life to the proceedings (esp. b/c I got excited initially about this when reading a review, maybe in Mojo, that was like "this is Gene Clark's cocaine album"). Or some harmonies. What are the hooks to listen for to "get it"? Should I pay closer attention to the lyrics, or the arrangements, or...? Or is it just a vibe?

If you have to ask, you'll never know, Euler.

yeah, yeah, yeah...

the depth of sound in No Other is what drew me into it, the arrangements and sonic details are just really beautiful. there are some really idiosyncratic touches (wah-wah saxophone = wtf). From a Silver Phial is just gorgeous from start to finish with the layered, swelling keyboards and the proto-hippie mystic lyrics. its a BIG album, the sound is grandiose, moreso than on his other stuff.

plus damn what a voice, he could make reading the phonebook sound tragic

maybe start with the Gosdin Bros album? that's got harmonies & hooks up the wazoo

i'm a goth, so no other is one of my bibles. i would seriously consider getting a tattoo of the lyrics to the entire first side on my body.

wow, i had no idea No Other was a fave in the goth scene.

I really, really, really love the Godsin Bros record, White Light, and No Other unreservedly. Road Master is awesome too.

I never got the goth appeal either, the album itself has no goth trappings - so the This Mortal Coil cover's probably to blame, right?

ivo was a fan. therefore no other is goth. just kidding. though that is the first time i ever heard a song from that album. i'm eternally grateful to this mortal coil. turned me on to lots of cool stuff. it's only in recent years though that no other has become some sort of religious artifact to me. it hits me harder now than it ever did. you could call strength of strings proto-goth. i played it 20 times in a row one night. like a cure fan or something.

Ned and Dan Perry play No Other over and over?

no, like cure fans play cure records over and over. or smiths fans. in a corner. in the fetal position. with the lights out.

this mortal coil covered with tomorrow too. that was great. if you don't love with tomorrow then you might already be dead. i quote my wife maria on gene's version: "how could somebody make something so perfect?"

With Tomorrow is so gorgeous.

The last several seconds of "Lady of the North" are perfect, total children-of-the-sun-begin-to-wake vibe. The song itself is a classic album-closer, on par with Love's "You Set The Scene".

I really like "No Other," got turned on to it because I wanted to hear the original version of "Some Misunderstanding," covered here beautifully by the Soulsavers with Mark Lanegan on vox. They make it into a Pink Floyd song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmKuTlD9h2U

I love the idea of Mark Lanegan covering Gene Clark, but I have to admit, I think Mark is singing a bit out of his range on "Some Misunderstanding." I feel like it should've been taken down a little bit.

I love that Soulsavers record - totally underrated, actually - but I'm not crazy about that cover. The guitar solo's a bit rich.

lol there's some cold war goin' on b/w gene and mcguinn in this clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ozkL3BKNY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGctiFIxVFE

The _Echoes_ comp is worth it alone for the bonus tracks, but something has always bugged me about the stereo mix of the _Gosdin Brothers_ album (as presented on _Echoes_) vs. the original mono mix.

I've always been underwhelmed by Echoes myself. Wikipedia says that the remix removed the double-tracked vocals, but this morning I was listening to the original mix of The Gosdin Brothers and think that the remix may have wiped out the harmonies altogether.

Don't get me wrong: I love Gene's voice, and by the early 70s, he developed this great, naked sound that was often just his voice and a guitar. But The Gosdin Brothers was very much a late-Sixties country pop record -- baroque in a lot of ways. And by having lushly arranged Byrds-era tracks like "Here Without You" lead off the set, it leaves songs like the remixed versions of "Elevator Operator" and even "So You Say You Lost Your Baby" really sounding like something's missing.

^^^totally agree. the Echoes version is really weird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMd0XyDE9js&feature=related

holy crap. amazing. thx for posting that, what a great he was

Gene Clark was like the pre-eminent proto cult underdog. Talented and doomed. Anyone heard '84's "Firebyrd?" Is it any good?

This is from Firebyrd, judge for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X34myQMWuyY

I'm much more partial to the songs I've heard from his record with Carla Olsen, So Rebellious a Lover, which this is from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G68e61fCnaU

Should be noted, btw, that "Mr. Tambourine Man: The Story Of The Byrds' Gene Clark" by John Einarson is a really, really good book on Gene. Lots of insight into his music and his life.

BTW, whatever became of Carla Olsen after that album? We're they planning to collaborate again?

been listening to this guy and only this guy for a week

that's not totally true, but in a way it really is

Just finished Mr. Tambourine man. Great book. Tragic story.

Really excited to learn that he recorded harmony vocals on Going Back and co-wrote Get To You!

What is the book like? Is Gene Clark a likable guy?

Depends on how messed up he is. Everybody said that he was the sweetest, nicest most wonderful person ever, unless he got drunk, which was often, in which case he was the most terrible person ever. But tragic in that most people, even the bridges he burnt, would still say "he was sweet and naive and hollywood chewed him up". Maybe if he was still alive and a bastard those people wouldn't be saying nice things about him.

he died too young but i don't like the tragic and doomed talk. he was an alcoholic which is sad (is it true that it was really tom petty who killed him? cuz he made so much off of the petty cover that he started drinking up a storm) but he made way more great music over a fairly long career than most people will ever make in a long lifetime. i mean its not like people don't still love his songs and music. (hell one gene song is better than most career outputs for regular humans)

i mean don't get me wrong someone drinking themselves to death IS sorta "tragic", i guess. more sad than anything.

Yeah, one of my favorite Gene lines (and songs).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR7H9PASFQM

I referred to this one in passing, on my Nashvlle Scene ballot re '08: (Clark's Silverado Live... is pretty decent West Coast country rock etc, pretty spare musically, tho couple of songs have some kind of purple rants in their baggy pants)(also a couple of co-writes with founding Flying Burrito/Eagle Bernie Leadon, from when the Eagles were better).
2018 ballot let notebook scribbles stand:
girlfriend fleeing a guy “knows next time he’ll do what
he’s said he will”,
“sometimes I see her face”: for series of sessions
just now released
as Gene Clark Sings For You, he hired good musos,
but yeesh intensely broody verbose sub-D ritualistic “folk”
/folk-rock. No a few might work in another context,
one w out so much autodepresso drone of self-absorption and terrible lines
(people lookin for a place called Somewhere, fake tributes to a
strong woman when he’s really just into his own depression-
rejection etc.) But “Yesterday Am I Right” with some lyric edits
and maybe a few others toward the end incl. levels of proficiency going to
waste and kinda making the bad stuff worse by carrying it
along pushing in some cases

I find Clark's lyrics so vague and hard to parse that they wouldn't be the criterion I'd use to reject one of his songs. I thought Sings For You was exceptionally strong for a left-over set of demoes.

I mean it was genuinely good, and EXCEPTIONALLY good for a bunch of leftovers.

lyrics of “strength of strings” are bizarre and awesome

And allude to Dylan