The Smiths - The Complete John Peel Sessions, 1983 - 1986

Lilacs in your face, haters.

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Various Artists - Survival Sampler SR-1A (1984)

"Warner Bros. Records' Survival Sampler SR-1A is a portable compendium of the best of British and Australian new music. The complete version, commercially available only on cassette, is 56 minutes in length and features twelve artists from eight different labels. Designed to enhance and perhaps extend human life, the Survival Sampler comes in a can."

this came our way via one BobAvocado:

Guys of ForestRoxx,

I thought you night be interested in an almost all digital source copy of the 1984 Warner Music Survival Sampler SR-1A Sound Rations - I get the sense from your blog that you are approximately my age and might recall this sampler that came in a cold war appropriate army drab can.

I cobbled this together from my CD's except for The Assembly song which seems never to have been released in North America digitally - so its an audio rip from a You Tube video. I do have a vinyl version of the song on a 6 track radio station promotional EP for said sampler (no ability to rip from the vinyl at the moment).

Regards,
BobAvocado



Track List:
01. The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make
02. The Church - Electric Lash
03. China Crisis - Wishful Thinking
04. Scritti Politti - Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)
05. Carmel - More More More
06. King Crimson - Sleepless
07. Aztec Camera - Pillar To Post
08. The Cure - The Caterpillar
09. The Bluebells - I'm Falling
10. Modern English - Rainbows End
11. The Assembly - Never Never
12. Depeche Mode - Everything Counts

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(password: survival)

[link removed per DMCA complaint 10/10/10]

The Smiths - The Troy Tate Sessions

So it looks like the FROXX supporters took an unscheduled Spring Beak holiday. There is no required attendance for this class.

So what better to admonish our absence and neglect tha the self-imposed misery of a little Smiths (that's what she said...)

I only recently discovered this gem. I'm so bad about fetishizing a band's debut and never following the career arc. Yeah I saw the video for "How Soon Is Now" and I'm sure they did some nice stuff after their debut... don't care really. I've always loved their debut. Always looking for new sounds, this really was one. So after listening to Smiths S/T consistently for more than 20 years, encountering the Troy Tate Sessions was pretty seismic (as seismically rocked as my internal Smith's world gets).

So here's the story according to the Magic Answer Machine called the Internet: These are the original studio recordings from the summer of 1983 for the Smiths' debut album with producer Troy Tate, hence the name, "the Troy Tate outtakes or sessions," or incorrectly referred to as the Troy Tate demos. Unsatisfied with his work as a producer, the Smiths re-recorded their debut with producer John Porter and this is what ended up being released. Unfinished versions (at varying degree) of the shelved Tate recordings are in circulation on various bootlegs.

The Troy Tate recordings are grittier, more organic and portray the Smiths in a light inconsistent with what I suspect was Moz's vision (refined & elegant, etc.) Of course I prefer it to the Porter recordings for that very reason. These are the torn jeans and dirty hair Smiths and not the dapper buttoned-down, precious/dandy Smiths.







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