great day of “lost” masterpieces plus the usual rawk
Wednesday at James Whitakers award winning salon on Lancaster Road will be rocking out ealy and features from 1pm three great "what might have been" lps….Crosby,Stills Nash & Young "HUMAN HIGHWAY" The Who " PICTURES OF LILY " and Pink Floyds possible last hurrah with Syd "SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN….
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PINK FLOYD
SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN
1. Vegetable Man
Side B:
After Barrett’s dismissal from Pink Floyd, he gathered himself in 1968 to record his first solo album,The Madcap Laughs. The album was essentially recorded in three sessions: May-June 1968 with Peter Jenner, April 1969 with Malcolm Jones and July-August with former bandmates David Gilmour and Roger Waters. For the sake of chronological continuity, we are only going to utilize the material Barrett recorded in his initial 1968 sessions (swiftly overlooking the overdubs made in 1969, of course), pairing them with the aforementioned material from the A Saucerful of Secrets sessions recorded in late 1967 and early 1968. Focusing on the material that sonically fits with the previous seven selected Pink Floyd recordings, we are using “Late Night” and an alternate version of “Golden Hair” from The Madcap Laughs remaster, as well as “Clowns and Jugglers” and “Lanky (Part One)” from the Opelremaster.
The sequence of The Shape of Questions to Heaven was heavily influenced by its actual previous albumThe Piper At The Gates of Dawn but almost all of the tracks were crossfaded to create a continuous two sides of music (a tactic Pink Floyd would later explore in the following years). My re-imagining begins with a duo of uptempo rockers (“Vegetable Man” and “Apples and Oranges”) before a low-key decent with the following two songs (“Late Night” and “Remember The Day”), allowing the side to slowly wind down. Side A concludes with an original edit of “Golden Hair” and “Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun”, crossfaded into each other creating a seven-minute epic. Although placed with a record-flip in-between, the psychedelic-jazz jam “Lanky, Part One” continues the mood set by the previous suite, even staying in the same key and mode. After the rare stereo mix of Richard Wright’s “Paint Box”, the album picks up for a glorious and increasingly paranoid finish with “Clowns and Jugglers”, “Scream Thy last Scream” and the prophetic “Jugband Blues”.
The Shape of Questions to Heavens shapes out to be an album very indicative of Syd Barrett’s mindset in 1968. Although we largely have similar full-band Pink Floyd song arrangements as found on their debut psyche-pop debut, the off-kilter songwriting leans towards the bizarre, with two Richard Wright and a Roger Waters-penned song picking up the slack for their slipping songwriter. We are fairly certain the album would have been a commercial flop, probably too avant-garde for the mainstream 1968 and too lacking in commercial singles, with “Apples and Oranges” the only possible contender (which was a failed single in itself). Regardless, it is an enjoyable listen and an interesting alternative to A Saucerful of Secrets, and succeeds in creating an album that demonstrates just what Pink Floyd could have done with their lunatic on the grass.
2. Apples and Oranges
3. Late Night
4. Remember A Day
5. a) Golden Hair
b) Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun
b) Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun
Side B:
6. Lanky, Part One
7. Paint Box
8. Clowns and Jugglers
9. Scream Thy Last Scream
10. Jugband Blues
OK the huge unanswerable question “What if Syd Barrett hadn’t been dismissed from Pink Floyd?” Set the controls…. is the theoretical 1968 follow up to 1967’s The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, using tracks from Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful of Secrets sessions and Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs sessions to create a second album of Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd, an album that should have been and to this day,sadly never was.
The Syd era in Pink Floyd’s history is sadly remembered only for The Piper At The Gates of Dawn. But thankfully we can now address that historical sin.
We only include A Saucerful of Secrets tracks that feature Syd Barrett: “Remember a Day”, “Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun” and of course “Jugband Blues”. If we add the Syd penned “Apples and Oranges” and “Paint Box" “Vegetable Man” and “Scream Thy Last Scream” we have half an LP of public domain tracks already
After Barrett’s dismissal from Pink Floyd, he gathered himself in 1968 to record his first solo album,The Madcap Laughs. The album was essentially recorded in three sessions: May-June 1968 with Peter Jenner, April 1969 with Malcolm Jones and July-August with former bandmates David Gilmour and Roger Waters. For the sake of chronological continuity, we are only going to utilize the material Barrett recorded in his initial 1968 sessions (swiftly overlooking the overdubs made in 1969, of course), pairing them with the aforementioned material from the A Saucerful of Secrets sessions recorded in late 1967 and early 1968. Focusing on the material that sonically fits with the previous seven selected Pink Floyd recordings, we are using “Late Night” and an alternate version of “Golden Hair” from The Madcap Laughs remaster, as well as “Clowns and Jugglers” and “Lanky (Part One)” from the Opelremaster.
The sequence of The Shape of Questions to Heaven was heavily influenced by its actual previous albumThe Piper At The Gates of Dawn but almost all of the tracks were crossfaded to create a continuous two sides of music (a tactic Pink Floyd would later explore in the following years). My re-imagining begins with a duo of uptempo rockers (“Vegetable Man” and “Apples and Oranges”) before a low-key decent with the following two songs (“Late Night” and “Remember The Day”), allowing the side to slowly wind down. Side A concludes with an original edit of “Golden Hair” and “Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun”, crossfaded into each other creating a seven-minute epic. Although placed with a record-flip in-between, the psychedelic-jazz jam “Lanky, Part One” continues the mood set by the previous suite, even staying in the same key and mode. After the rare stereo mix of Richard Wright’s “Paint Box”, the album picks up for a glorious and increasingly paranoid finish with “Clowns and Jugglers”, “Scream Thy last Scream” and the prophetic “Jugband Blues”.
The Shape of Questions to Heavens shapes out to be an album very indicative of Syd Barrett’s mindset in 1968. Although we largely have similar full-band Pink Floyd song arrangements as found on their debut psyche-pop debut, the off-kilter songwriting leans towards the bizarre, with two Richard Wright and a Roger Waters-penned song picking up the slack for their slipping songwriter. We are fairly certain the album would have been a commercial flop, probably too avant-garde for the mainstream 1968 and too lacking in commercial singles, with “Apples and Oranges” the only possible contender (which was a failed single in itself). Regardless, it is an enjoyable listen and an interesting alternative to A Saucerful of Secrets, and succeeds in creating an album that demonstrates just what Pink Floyd could have done with their lunatic on the grass.
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THE WHO
PICTURES OF LILY
Side A:
1. Armenia City in The Sky
2. Mary Anne with The Shaky Hand
3. Pictures of Lily
4. In The Hall of The Mountain King
5. Our Love Was
6. I Can See For Miles
Side B:
7. I Can’t Reach You
8. Silas Stingy
9. Glittering Girl
10. Tattoo
11. Relax
12. Rael (1 and 2)
This compilation attempts to reproduce what the original incarnation of the SELL OUT album could have sounded like,before Pete came up with the SELL OUT concept.Some edits were required to create the best sounding masters possible.
As 1967 began The Who saw the musical enviroment changing and returned to IBC studios in early April to cut a handful of songs for a new single, considering “Glittering Girl”, “Doctor Doctor” and “Pictures of Lily”, They planned to follow the single with an instrumental EP featuring the Ox's masterpiece “Sodding About” and a psychedelic re invention of Greig’s “In The Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt.Whilst both tracks were fantastic the project was dropped before it could be developed further.
In May following on from the success of “Pictures of Lily”, they began work on a new project. Daltrey came up with“Early Morning: Cold Taxi”; the Loon gifted “Girl’s Eyes”; the Ox “Someone’s Coming”; whilst Pete contributed, “I Can See For Miles”; plus a recording of “Armenia City in the Sky”, a song written by Speedy Keen (of Thunderclap Newman) . Half the album was done before they headed off to the Monterrey Pop Festival, They returned home to De Lane Lea Studios in July, cutting “I Can’t Reach You” and “Relax”. further tracks were due to be cut whilst touring Stateside with Hermans Hermits.
In an attempt to finish Pictures of Lily for its proposed summer release, Townshend whittled his rock opera down from 30 minutes into a 10 minute opus; it was further bastardised for consideration as a single! “Our Love Was” and “Mary Anne with The Shaky Hand”, were recorded at Mirasound with sweetening done in Nashvilles Columbia Studios, After more work was done at Columbia Studios, a September session was held at at Goldstar in LA to sweeten “I Can See For Miles”, a total of ten album contenders were to be paired with “Pictures of Lily” (and possibly it’s b-side “Doctor Doctor” or session outtake “Glittering Girl”). This was most certainly the Pictures of Lily album
In October the band created several more proper Who songs to replace material recorded earlier in the year: Entwhistle’s “Silas Stingy”; Townshend’s “Tattoo” and “Sunrise”; updated versions of “Glittering Girl” (now with Roger’s vocal), “Mary Anne with The Snaky Hand” (now acoustically laid-back) and “Rael” . Then choosing the original “Rael” over the new version (although the final minute was excised , a few faux jingles and Who's Lily was re christened Sell Out .
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CROSBY,STILLS,NASH & YOUNG
HUMAN HIGHWAY
Side A:
1. Carry Me
2. See The Changes
3. Through My Sails
4. Prison Song
5. Homeward Through The Haze
6. Black Coral
Side B:
7. First Things First
8. Human Highway
9. And So It Goes
10. Taken At All
11. Long May You Run
12. As I Come Of Age
I thought it couldn’t be done, but turned out to be quite easily doable. Human Highway was initially begun in 1973 and scrapped; then a second attempt was made in 1974, but scrapped again; a final attempt to turn the 1976 Stills-Young Band album Long May You Run into a full-blown reunion of the quartet was again unsuccessful. What we have is the LP that would have been the follow-up to Déjà Vu.
The quartet reformed at Neil Young’s Broken Arrow Studios in Hawaii, and half an LP entitled Human Highway, was recorded Graham Nash even organized a band photo-op as a possible album cover. Nash's contributions “Prison Song”, “And So It Goes” and “Another Sleep Song” were rerecorded and released on his solo LP Wild Tales.
The group tried again after their monumentally successful re-union tour of1974 . But clashing personalities again got in the way of the music, particularly Graham Nash’s refusal to sing a minor note inside a major chord. Neil Young walked away from the project unannounced after only less than half of an album was recorded and Nash left after refusing to sing a minor note in a major chord,,. All of the Human Highway originals “Wind On The Water” “Carry Me” “Homeward Through The Haze” Stephen Stills’ “My Angel’, “First Things First”, “As I Come Of Age” and “Myth of Sisyphus” “Though My Sails”, were later re-recorded and placed on subsequent projects.
By 1976 Human Highway was re activated , “Time After Time” and Young’s “Long May You Run” new versions of “Human Highway” and “Taken At All” were recorded To this day it is unclear why, but those two tracks were left on the cutting-room floor and all of Crosby & Nash’s vocals were wiped from the mastertapes. Long May You Run was released by the The Stills-Young Band and the Human Highway was demolished forever.
Graham Nash has been quoted that there would have been ten songs on the actual album,but looking at the many titles banded about they recorded between 20-30 songs depending on who you choose to believe!
To re invent Human Highway, I used songs debuted during the 1974, which were: “As I Come Of Age”, “Human Highway”, “And So It Goes”, “Prison Song”, “Another Sleep Song”, “Carry Me”, “Long May You Run”, “My Angel”, “Pushed It Over The End”, “Traces”, “First Things First”, “Love Art Blues”, “Myth of Sisyphus”, “Time After Time” and “Hawaiian Sunrise” plus each and every studio recording has to have featured at least three of the four members of CSNY. leaving only “Long May You Run”, “Human Highway” and “Pushed It Over The End” “As I Come Of Age”, “First Things First” and “And So It Goes” “Through My Sails”,the full CSNY version of “See The Changes” from a 1974 rehearsal session; “Homeward Through The Haze” is allegedly the only completed full CSNY recording from the 1974 sessions; the full CSNY version of “Taken At All” from the aborted 1976 CSNY sessions, as well as an early mix of the Stills-Young Band track featuring Crosby & Nash’s vocals, “Black Coral”. Plus two more that feature at least half the band“Carry Me” and “Prison Song”—to make it a 40 min LP of 2x 20 min sides. 20-minute sides.
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