early/ alternate song versions

December 18, 2005 2:32 PM

Last night I stumbled across a demo version/early live recording of Karma Police (Radiohead song). Like it. Any suggestions for other early versions of songs, interesting collaborations, good live recordings, or hard to find songs by good artists? I want to go on a musical treasure hunt.

To give an idea of my musical taste interaction cross section, some more groups I like;

Iron & Wine, Flaming Lips, The Decemberists, Smashing Pumpkins, The Stars, Nirvana, Sunny Day Real Estate, Rilo Kiley, Apples in Stereo, The Arcade Fire, The Unicorns, Sun Kil Moon, a single Dave Matthews album (Before these Crowded Streets), and some Ben Folds.

If your suggestion falls completely outside my parameters, please post it anyways, beause I still might like it and someone else certainly would.

Music questions are popular, so I ran some searches before formulating this one and didn't find much of interest. If I missed an earlier posting of the same question or relevant responses in another music thread, please point the way.

posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... to Media & Arts (36 answers total)

I'd suggest finding a bittorent of Towering Above The Rest if you haven't already. Be back with more in a bit...perusing.
posted by carsonb at 2:38 PM on December 18, 2005

Unicorns - "Thunder and Lightning"
Arcade Fire - "Accidents"
Iron and Wine - "Waiting for a Superman"
Cat Power - "Leopard and the Lamb"
Stars - "Ageless Beauty (Most Serene Republic remix)"

The last of those is still online at my blog.
posted by Marquis at 2:42 PM on December 18, 2005

Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss Split CD is amazing, too bad its only 5 songs. The first 2 QOTSA albums (self-titled, rated R) are also rare, excellent, critically acclaimed, etc. and got NO play.
311 - Music is an excellent album that no one heard.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Uplift Mofo Party Plan is a good funk album before they ever got famous.
Eagles of Death Metal - Peace Love and Death Metal is a new album but will never get radio play, and it's awesome.

Thats all I can think of right now, looking at my mp3 directory, that you would mabye like.

you should condense those tags with underscores for your post.
posted by Mach5 at 2:43 PM on December 18, 2005

The Flaming Lips put out a promo-only ep called Yoshimii Wins! shortly after they released Yoshimii Battles the Pink Robots. I can't recall if it has exactly the same tracklist as Fight Test, but either are really good. Fight Test has a Radiohead cover (Knives Out), a Kylie Minogue cover (Can't Get You Out of My Head, actually pretty damn good) and a cute little track called Thank You Jack White (For the Fiber-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me)

Ok, I looked up the tracklist for Yoshimi Wins! and it has a few songs on it that weren't included on the Fight Test EP. Alt. verss. of Waitin' For a Superman, The Golden Age, In the Morning of the Magicians, and a rendition of White Christmas.

Do you have the Stars' Comeback EP? It's how I fell in love with them in the first place.

I'm in CD swapping mode, and have a halfway decent bootleg from a recent Iron & Wine concert and a 2-song session/radio station interview from the Posies that I'd be willing to pass along (EIP).
posted by carsonb at 2:51 PM on December 18, 2005

Response by poster: carsonb; yeah, I love Fight Test! I'll look up Yoshimi Wins. Judging from Yoshimi Battles... Part II, I always assumed she lost.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 2:55 PM on December 18, 2005

There are a few Nirvana collaborations (e.g. with Mark Lanegan) and early versions on Outcesticide, but I can't find an active torrent, only this one. Still, I recommend it.
posted by rebirtha at 2:57 PM on December 18, 2005

there's a great comp out there called A House Full of Friends that has a ton of relatively unknowns on it, and then one or two nuggets from bands you know. Such as the Shins doing Mark Bolan & T. Rex (Baby Boomerang), the Mates of State (Invitation Inn, from their Polyvinyl 7"), the Minders (Don't You Stop (prev. unreleased), and some band I hadn't heard of before called #POUNDSIGN# doing a crazy postrock cover of REM's Camera. The liner notes include instructions for putting on rock shows at your house. Overall, it's a pretty twee experience, but I enjoyed it.

Wig In A Box is a covers tribute to Hedwig & The Angry Inch. I still haven't seen the film/play, but just look at the tracklist! Spoon, Rufus Wainwright, Yoko Ono & Yo La Tengo, The Breeders, Bob Mould, Frank Black, TMBG, it goes on.
posted by carsonb at 3:03 PM on December 18, 2005

The five Nirvana "Outcesticide" bootlegs have a lot of obscure demos, live stuff, etc, and they're generally considered to have higher quality than most bootlegs, although of course that varies a little on the song source. The five "Into the Black" bootlegs are supposed to be pretty decent as well. Of course, most of the good or decent quality Nirvana stuff made it on to the With the Light Out box set. If you pick up the singles and some of the other obscure releases [like Hormoaning or the split with the Jesus Lizard] you'll find a lot of relatively rare stuff too.
posted by ubersturm at 3:05 PM on December 18, 2005

The original 1987 version of "The Sweetest Thing" by U2 (b-side to "Where the Streets Have No Name") is far superior to its later, re-recorded incarnation as a single.

If you like the Stone Roses, The Stone Roses: The Remixes features great remixes of every song off their first album, from artists like 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, Paul Oakenfold, etc.

I know there are others... I'll post again when I think of more.
posted by scody at 3:06 PM on December 18, 2005

Beulah has a demo version of their album Yoko. It's mainly Miles and an acoustic guitar or two, and I like it just as much if not more than the full-band rendition.
posted by carsonb at 3:06 PM on December 18, 2005

You can download some Kate Bush demos here.

She divides opinion, but it's interesting to hear the early versions if you know the songs. There is also a set of demos from 1973 when she was 15, and despite the shitty quality it amazing to hear any artist at that stage in their career - writing and recording freely without record company involvement. And for a 15 year old the songs are good and nothing like the adolescent embarrassment you find so often in teenagers with boomboxes. This is the best.
posted by fire&wings at 3:12 PM on December 18, 2005 [1 favorite]

Unreleased tracks from a session with Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.

Totally awesome.
posted by PhatLobley at 3:20 PM on December 18, 2005 [1 favorite]

There are complete demo versions of both Summerteeth and Yankee Foxtrot Hotel by Wilco floating around on bittorrent sites that are interesting.

As a huge Joy Division fan, there are some amazing bootlegs of theirs out there. I always find it interesting to compare the refined Martin Hannet produced studio versions, to the completely raw live versions. Also the Warsaw demos bootleg (aka the RCA sessions) of theirs is interesting in the same way.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 3:27 PM on December 18, 2005

unusual and good collaboration: Billy Bragg and Wilco wrote music for and recorded a bunch of the lyrics Woody Guthrie wrote as he was dying.
The Clash on Broadway is my favorite 'box set'
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 3:29 PM on December 18, 2005

Seconding "Clash on Broadway" -- it includes a couple of early demo versions ("Career Opportunities," "Janie Jones") and some interesting edits of later songs. And speaking of The Clash, the 25th Anniversary edition of "London Calliing" includes an entire disc of alternative versions, outtakes, and a few unreleased tracks from those recording sessions.
posted by scody at 3:38 PM on December 18, 2005

speaking of Joy Division, I downloaded a covers collection somebody scraped together into one folder. a few love will tear us apart renditions (Nouvelle Vague, 10,000 Maniacs, Squarepusher, Swans, The Cure); the Smashing Pumpkins have done Isolation & Transmission; Pavement--Disorder; Tortoise--As You Said, more.
posted by carsonb at 3:57 PM on December 18, 2005

are you familiar with Konkurrent's In The Fishtank series? lots of good covers/demo quality material/collaborations. and the bands Konkurrent feels "strongly related to" are really good. (Sonic Youth, The Ex, Karate, Jaga Jazzist, Black Heart Procession, Low, Dirty Three, more)
posted by carsonb at 4:10 PM on December 18, 2005

For Neutral Milk Hotel fans.....
posted by fire&wings at 4:10 PM on December 18, 2005

a fun way I hunt for stuff (not necessarily hard to find, but unique) is to check out labels' websites. most of the time they only offer album tracks to sample, but sometimes I'll find a cool demo/live performance/alternate take/unreleased track.

Sub Pop, Thrill Jockey, Polyvinyl, Matador, Arts & Crafts, Le Grand Magistery, Drag City all have free music to listen to/download.
posted by carsonb at 4:22 PM on December 18, 2005

If you like Radiohead, track down the "Towering Above the Rest" compilation. There's a tracklist of it here; I have a couple of the discs but it's a pretty bad rip, sadly.

standout unreleased tracks, IMO, are:
- True Love Waits
- Lift
- Big Ideas (don't get any)
posted by heeeraldo at 4:45 PM on December 18, 2005

I've found that dimeadozen is the best source for live/rare/unreleased recordings on the web. Lots of indie rock to be found there, as well as pretty much everything else.
posted by Afroblanco at 5:01 PM on December 18, 2005

I like your taste.

If you're at all into weezer and are not familiar with their unreleased/non-album material, you should look into it, as it's some of their best. The b-sides "Suzanne" and "Devotion" are both excellent, as well as the demo of "Waiting on You." The latter two songs are both from the scrapped "Songs from the Black Hole" project, which some view as weezer's sort of "lost masterpiece." The other demos from this project that have been released can be found here. Longtime Sunshine and Blast Off in particular are excellent.

I've heard some very interesting recordings of James Mercer solo doing lots of covers. One that I remember was "Holiday" by The Pixies. They were floating around the web somewhere, but unfortunately I've lost track of them.

There are lots of great live tracks/b-sides/demos from all of the Elephant 6 bands (Of Montreal, NMH, OTC, Circulatory System, Beulah, AIS, etc.) here.

For even more excellent Neutral Milk Hotel material, go here.
posted by ludwig_van at 5:05 PM on December 18, 2005

Also, John Vanderslice has just put an excellent recording of an entire live show on his web site.

He also links to a radio session in which he plays songs from Pixel Revolt acoustically with Erik Friedlander on cello.
posted by ludwig_van at 5:07 PM on December 18, 2005

I'll second carsonb's suggestion of A House Full of Friends; I just got it in the mail, and it's like being tossed back to Portland in the late-90s (so very indie, very twee, and very awesome).

Matador's anniversary compliations have some good unreleased/rare tracks as well; I have the 10th anniversary one (Everything Is Nice), and the third disc is all unreleased/rare. Plus it's hella cheap considering the amount of music you're getting; I think it costs about the same as a single normal album.
posted by chrominance at 5:10 PM on December 18, 2005

How 'bout the 12" single b-side for "Just Like Honey" by Jesus and Mary Chain. Acoustic and lovely. Dunno if it ever found it's way to CD.
posted by davebush at 5:40 PM on December 18, 2005

If you are a fan of Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. (ex-Jellyfish memeber, Imperial Drag, Moog Cookbook, ect.), I just found his long awaited solo album on Weed. You do have to pay for it though. They also have some demos of what was supposed to be the 2nd Imperial Drag album.
posted by nimsey lou at 6:35 PM on December 18, 2005

Here's one more for Neutral Milk Hotel fans.

Word on the street is that you can download a lot of live recordings and otherwise unreleased material on Soulseek. A, uh, friend gave me a copy of Joanna Newsom at the Green Man Festival, where she played a great song called "Emily" that I haven't been able to find anywhere else.

And speaking of Joanna Newsom, the Decemberists cover her "Bridges and Balloons" on the Picaresqueities EP. There's a live version you can download here. Highly recommended if you're one of those people who don't like Joanna's quirky voice.

I like Yo La Tengo's Camp Yo La Tengo EP for the acoustic version of "Tom Courtenay". And I like the Zombie Heaven box set for the studio outtakes and live on the BBC versions of all the great songs by the Zombies that you never got to hear.
posted by hydrophonic at 6:55 PM on December 18, 2005

Response by poster: hydrophonic; 's cool, I'm in the club. Soulseek will be my primary method of finding everyone's suggestions.

carson; I think I'll take you up on the cd swapping offer. I'll email you in a bit.

This is great! You guys have likely provided me enough suggestions to keep me hunting until the end of xmas break.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 7:46 PM on December 18, 2005

The Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot demos (which Razzle Bathbone already pointed you to) are excellent. Not exactly demos, but Johnny Cash's covers for the American albums are very stripped-down. The acoustic version of Radiohead's Creep is better than the single IMO (I think it's on Itch).

Probably not your taste at all, but Marillion remastered and rereleased their back catalogue, and (I think) each release came with a bonus disc. Whole bunch of b-sides, demos, alternate-lyric-versions and oddities in there.
posted by Leon at 7:46 PM on December 18, 2005

Re: Towering Above the Rest: Big Ideas (Don't Get Any) is also entitled Nude, as it is on that particular tracklisting. It's been played something like thirteen times in live sets (either full band and solo) from 98 or so onward, and is one of the holy grails of RH unreleased tracks, deservedly so. (My favourite is the full band version from San Francisco, April of '98.) A lot of what's in that collection are b-sides, but there are some interesting-as-artifacts early demos, and early versions of songs, and single live tracks as well as remixes-- it's less a bootleg than a collection, but it's comprehensive. [/RH geek]
posted by jokeefe at 9:21 PM on December 18, 2005

And speaking of The Clash, the 25th Anniversary edition of "London Calliing" includes an entire disc of alternative versions, outtakes, and a few unreleased tracks from those recording sessions.

Seconded. I had a lot of fun listening to that 2nd disc. And the studio footage on the DVD is pretty hilarious (that Guy Stevens is a freak!)
posted by intermod at 9:52 PM on December 18, 2005

To change things up a bit, I'd suggest checking out the alternate studio take of Yes's "And You And I". The version that got included on the album Close to the Edge is overblown and trying at best, but the alternate studio take that didn't make it is simple, beautiful, and casual in a way rarely seen in Yes.
posted by saladin at 10:34 PM on December 18, 2005

The demo version of Belle and Sebastian's "The State I Am In" has always been a particular favourite. Judging by your musical taste I think you'd like it, if you haven't heard any B&S before. It's a B-side on their "Dog on Wheels" EP or you can get it on their B-sides album, "Push Barman to Open Old Wounds".
posted by greycap at 12:41 AM on December 19, 2005

... or download the live version of their second album "If You're Feeling Sinister" from ITunes - it was a gig at the Barbican in London earlier this year and has been on repeat on my Ipod for the last few days.
posted by greycap at 12:42 AM on December 19, 2005

The Smashing Pumpkins have an enormous catalog of demos, alternate versions, instrumentals, outtakes, etc. I found a lot of it during the Napster glory days (not stealing if nobody is legitimately selling it). Fan sites will list bootlegs with names like "The Sound of Turnips," "Mashed Potatoes," "Billy, Don't Be A Hero" and "Zero Gravity." You can sometimes find them on eBay, or you might be able to find torrents for them.

Wow, that takes me back to almost eight years ago, when I used to listen to RealAudio streams of a huge catalog maintained by college students in Ohio. My favorites back then were the late eighties demos, like: "C'mon," "East," and "Egg." They're very suggestive of Billy Corgan's LSD days, and are probably cousins of the songs that made it onto Gish. "Nothing and Everything," however, calls to mind Billy's brushes with the hair metal gods.

If you want to go back even further, you can look for the band Billy was in prior to SP, called "The Marked." I recall a song called "Song for Jonathan." They were a lot less polished.
posted by evil holiday magic at 12:48 AM on December 19, 2005 [1 favorite]

Three words :

Back To Mine
posted by Makebusy7 at 6:35 AM on December 19, 2005