Music While You Work

[caddyman]

I have spent this afternoon listening to early Barclay James Harvest on my iPhone while I do other stuff. With some exceptions I tend to prefer their work after they left the Harvest label and moved to Polydor, but that’s not to say that it’s bad. Far from it: I like the use of orchestral backgrounds and songs like Galadriel and Mocking Bird are the better for the treatment, but by and large, I have a slight preference for their more ‘rocky’ mid-70s to mid 80s period, where they would finesse their sound through the late Wooly Wolstenholme’s keyboard work.

One thing this little trip down memory lane has done, though, is to highlight the variable quality of the ‘extras’ added to pad out the remastered CD releases, particularly where the original vinyl LP would have come it between 40 and 45 minutes.

Alternate takes of songs from other albums can be good; in some cases it’s just a matter of taste and you can tell that the ‘extra’ could have easily made the original release on another day, but for some nuance the band noted in their eventual choice that marked it for release. These alternate takes can be good value and are worth listening to.

I am less certain of the point of slapping demos on the CD, though. Not inevitably, but certainly frequently, these additions really are simply space fillers. There’s a very good reason why they never made the original cut – they weren’t finished! Of interest only to musical historians, I feel.

And having made that point, I am now listening to a previously unreleased alternate take of Medcine Man from …and Other Short Stories and finding its harder edge and different guitar solo rather more pleasing than the band’s original choice for release. The point is, it’s a finished take – not a demo.

Comments

Captain Facto Says...

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Demos, (especially when an artist or band is established and they are no longer recorded as calling cards for a contract), are merely home recordings of the songs to play to the other band members/producer, or to flesh out the arrangement for the artist's own reference. It's a convenient way for the writer to say to bandmates, "This is how the song goes." Otherwise he/she would have to pick up a bass, and say to the bassist, "Here's your bass line" then show the keyboard player his/her part, etc. If the recordings don't sound finished, it's because they are just rough demos.

So it's like an artist showing you their preliminary sketches for a painting you know and love.

[keresaspa.livejournal.com]

I have a Chas n Dave album (yes, I know) containing a demo "Strummin'" which is not only better than the finished version but is quite possibly better than anything else Messrs Hodge and Peacock ever recorded so sometimes they can be worth including.

Oh and "Brother Thrush" was BJH's finest hour.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Brother Thrush is indeed a fine choon.