The Who - Maximum As & Bs - The Complete Singles (RE-POST)

The Who - Maximum As & Bs  - The Complete Singles - 2017

from AMG

Given the sheer number of Who compilations over the years -- including The Who Hits 50!, a career-capping retrospective that appeared just three years prior to this 2017 box -- it may be easy to cast a cynical eye upon Maximum A's & B's, which it doesn't deserve. For one, there hasn't been a large-scale Who box set since 1994's Thirty Years of Maximum R&B -- most of the comps have been simple hits collections -- and, secondly, the Who benefit from having attention being drawn to their singles. At the dawn of their career, the Who mastered 7" blasts of pop art and even when Pete Townshend toiled over rock operas, he couldn't resist the pull of a 45, releasing non-LP singles as late as 1972 and hiding excellent songs on B-sides along the way. The Who continued to release singles over three-plus decades, using them as calling cards for reunions or samplers of latter-day live albums, and Maximum A's & B's collects them all, give or take a couple of variations in international markets. Its very comprehensiveness can be something of an Achilles Heel, particularly in the late '80s and '90s when the group were cranking out singles from fine but forgettable live albums, but putting the flops and B-sides alongside the weary warhorses winds up reviving the entirety of the Who's catalog. These oddities provide a bracing jolt of context: when they were Mods, they were grooving with the "Batman" theme -- later revived by the Jam in this arrangement -- saluted the Stones once Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were imprisoned, and invented Brit-pop with the flop "Dogs." After Tommy, some of Townshend's best songs found no room on albums -- "The Seeker," "Don't Know Myself," "Let's See Action," "Join Together," and "The Relay" never found a home -- as did a performance as phenomenal as a live 1972 B-side "Baby Don't You Do It," which has never been reissued prior to this collection. But perhaps the real revelation of Maximum A's & B's is how the 21st century reunion wound up producing bittersweet tunes that serve as an effective elegiac coda to their career. Usually, this latter-day material seems like an afterthought, but thanks to the weight of this box, it's given its proper space and helps illustrate just how remarkable the entirety of the Who's career is. 

Disc: 1
01. Zoot Suit
02. I'm the Face
03. I Can't Explain
04. Bald Headed Woman
05. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
06. Daddy Rolling Stone
07. My Generation
08. Shout and Shimmy
09. Circles (AKA 'Instant Party')
10. Instant Party Mixture
11. A Legal Matter
12. The Kids Are Aright
13. The Ox
14. La - La
15. The Good's Gone

Disc: 2
01. Substitute
02. Circles
03. Waltz For A Pig
04. I'm A Boy
05. In The City
06. Disguises
07. Batman
08. Bucket T
09. Barbara Ann
10. Happy Jack
11. I've Been Away
12. Pictures Of Lily
13. Doctor, Doctor
14. The Last Time
15. Under My Thumb
16. I Can See For Miles
17. Someone's Coming
18. Dogs
19. Call Me Lightning
20. Magic Bus
21. Dr Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Disc: 3
01. Pinball Wizard
02. Dogs Part Two
03. The Seeker
04. Here For More
05. Summertime Blues
06. Heaven And Hell
07. See Me Feel Me / Listening To You
08. Overture From Tommy
09. Christmas
10. I'm Free
11. Won't Get Fooled Again
12. Don't Know Myself
13. Let's See Action
14. When I Was A Boy
15. Join Together
16. Baby Don't You Do It
17. Relay
18. Wasp Man

Disc: 4
01. 5:15
02. Water
03. Listening To You / See Me Feel Me (Soundtrack Version)
04. Overture (Soundtrack Version)
05. Squeeze Box
06. Success Story
07. Who Are You
08. Had Enough
09. Long Live Rock
10. My Wife (Live)
11. 5:15 (Soundtrack Version)
12. I'm One (Soundtrack Version)
13. You Better You Bet
14. The Quiet One
15. Don't Let Go The Coat
16. You

Disc: 5
01. Athena
02. A Man Is A Man
03. Eminence Front
04. It's Your Turn
05. Twist And Shout (Live)
06. I Can't Explain (Live)
07. Bony Maronie (Live)
08. Join Together (Live)
09. I Can See For Miles (Live)
10. Behind Blue Eyes (Live)
11. Real Good Looking Boy
12. Old Red Wine
13. Sound Round
14. Pick Up The Peace
15. Endless Wire
16. We Got a Hit
17. They Make My Dream Come True
18. Mirror Door
19. I Can't Explain (2014 Stereo remix)

+@320 with complet art-cover

Jeff Simmons – Naked Angels (OST)

Jeff Simmons – Naked Angels (OST) - 1969

From AMG

If rock fans are likely to know the name Jeff Simmons, it's because of his work as bassist in the Mothers of Invention; if they know anything about his obscure solo career, the only album they're likely to know is Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up, issued in the early 1970s. 

But he did a yet more obscure album for Frank Zappa's Straight label, the soundtrack for the equally obscure biker movie Naked Angels, around the same time. As the liner notes to the CD reissue on Fallout laconically observe, it "was never intended to be a masterpiece." Yet by the shaky standards of biker soundtrack/psychedelic exploitation LPs, it's not bad at all; it's definitely one of the better ones, in fact, in this admittedly limited genre. While it's sometimes been described as something of a collection of psychedelic jamming, the mostly instrumental tracks (co-written with producer Randy Steirling) are actually fairly short and focused, the 14 tracks adding up to 36 minutes. If the themes and riffs are on the basic side, they're reasonably effective in projecting drama and menace. 

There's some pretty hot fuzz/distorted psychedelic guitar (particularly on the opening "Naked Angels Theme"), and unlike some biker/psychedelic soundtracks, the LP doesn't get stuck in a rut. "Ride into Vegas" glides into some pretty hip organ soul-jazz, for instance, and there's also '50s style rock & roll ("Vegas Boogie"), mildly Pink Floyd-ish folkie guitar-organ interplay ("End Theme," one of the few vocal cuts, and "Cop Out"), obviously silly psychedelicized Scottish bagpipe music ("Scots Breath"), gothic organ-piano doom ("Tuccata for Truck"), and Zappa-like sound collage ("Bar Dream"). Sure it's mostly for hardcore collectors, but as hardcore collectibles go, it's pretty enjoyable and worthwhile.

01. Naked Angels Theme

02. Ride Into Vegas

03. Vegas Boogie

04. Vegas Pickup

05. Cop Out

06. First Desert Ride

07. Hank

08. Boinin' (Third Ride)

09. Scots Breath

10. Rat Grind

11. Bar Dream

12. Camper Scene

13. Toccata For Truck

14. End Theme

+@320

Steve Marriott - Steve Marriott, Small Faces, Humble Pie – Afterglow (Rare! Live! Unreleased!)

Steve Marriott - Steve Marriott, Small Faces, Humble Pie – Afterglow (Rare! Live! Unreleased!) - 2021

Free CD with MOJO magazine April 2021 surveying the music of Steve Marriott.

01. Steve Marriott – Get Down To It

02. Billy Nicholls – Girl From New York

03. The Moments – Blue Morning

04. Steve Marriott's Deluxe Band – Wossname (Previously Unreleased)

05. Small Faces – All Or Nothing (Live)

06. Steve Marriott And The Official Receivers – Five Long Years (Live)

07. Humble Pie – Cold Lady

08. Small Faces – Jenny's Song (Take 1)

09. Steve Marriott – You Spent It

10. Steve Marriott – Imaginary Love (Alternative Version)

11. Steve Marriott Featuring Toby Marriott – Toe Rag

12. Stephen Marriott – Consider Yourself

13. Steve Marriott With The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra – Soldier

14. Humble Pie – Poor Man's Rich Man

15. Steve Marriott – Teenage Anxiety (Previously Unreleased)

+@320

The Beatles - Let It Be (50th Anniversary, Super Deluxe)

The Beatles - Let It Be (50th Anniversary, Super Deluxe) - 2021

from Variety.com

Fifty-one years later, how do we appraise “Let It Be,” the Beatles’ swan song, the document of their breakup, the one that the bandmembers themselves initially disliked so much that Paul McCartney took legal action and John Lennon dubbed it a salvage job from “the shittiest load of badly recorded shit — and with a lousy feeling to it — ever”?

Of course, the men doth protest too much: The group’s high standards guaranteed that there is no such thing as a bad Beatles album, but “Let It Be” is far from their best work. Intended as a rough, back-to-the-roots “art as it happens” film-and-album document of the Beatles’ creative process, it ended up being a requiem. Many factors contributed to the album’s often dispirited vibe: Except for Ringo, the bandmembers had been together since their early teens — residing in a nearly unprecedented fishbowl of fame for the previous five years — and tempers were wearing thin, a situation exacerbated by the fact that for this project, they were trying to find creative inspiration first thing in the morning during a typically miserable English winter while their every move was recorded by a film crew.

The group rejected two early versions of the album and Lennon finally gave the tapes to “Wall of Sound” producer Phil Spector, who sonically overhauled — some say sonically mauled — the entire thing, adding an orchestra and/or choir to several songs (hence the legal letter from McCartney). Even though it wasn’t actually the final Beatles album to be recorded — work began on “Abbey Road” several weeks after this — it was the last one to be released. Ultimately, despite several classic songs, “Let It Be” resides in the lower echelon of the Fab Four canon, along with the rushed “Beatles for Sale” and their fledgling 1963 debut.

Still, the Beatles recorded hundreds of hours of music during the long, plodding January 1969 sessions for this album, and although archivists have dug into the well before — exhuming bits for the “Beatles Anthology” series and the McCartney-helmed, de-Spectored “Let It Be… Naked” revisionist album in 2003 — they’ve given it the full museum treatment here, producing not just this lavish, 6-CD boxed set but also the six-hour “Get Back” documentary (airing on Disney+ next month) and a coffee-table book that includes hundreds of photos and transcriptions of apparently every interesting bit of dialogue from the film reels (there’s a different, exhaustively detailed hardcover book accompanying this boxed set). Thus, it’s surprising that amid those six discs, just two-and-a-half contain genuinely unreleased material, along with remastered and Blu-ray versions of the original album as well as the first of the two earlier, rejected versions of it (which has been circulated on bootlegs for decades).

While the relatively small amount of new material was met with howls of outrage from completist-leaning fans when the tracklist was first announced, it’s actually a relief — a refreshingly concise distillation of the best outtakes from the weeks of sessions, which were essentially rehearsals. And anyone who’s watched a band rehearse for more than 15 minutes knows that with the possible exception of Prince (who usually rehearsed as if he were onstage at Madison Square Garden on New Year’s Eve), most of the time they are excruciatingly dull. And as the countless hours of bootlegs from these sessions that have emerged over the decades prove, that’s even true of the Beatles.

So herein is the best of the rest: a full disc called “Apple Sessions” of loose, alternate takes of songs from the album, with the group chatting and joking around, vamping on “Maggie Mae” and the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie,” McCartney throwing in a snippet of “Please Please Me,” the group’s first No. 1 single, before launching into “Let It Be.”

Much more interesting is the “Get Back — Rehearsals and Apple Jams” disc, where we hear rough, embryonic versions of songs that later turned up on “Abbey Road” and even the solo albums (Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth” and Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass”). Most arresting is the rehearsal of Harrison’s “Something,” where he says he just can’t get the line that ultimately became “Attracts me like no other lover.” “Just say whatever comes into your head,” Lennon suggests. “’Attracts me like a cauliflower.’”

There’s also the rejected version of the album, produced and assembled by Glyn Johns. Although he was one of the greatest producers of the rock era (his work with the Rolling Stones, the Who and virtually every great British artist of the time is legendary), it’s easy to see why the Beatles didn’t want to release the album in this form: While it presents an interesting alternate view of the album, it’s shambolic and at times extremely sloppy; during a loose jam entitled “Rocker,” the group sings the ‘50s classic “Save the Last Dance for Me” painfully off-key. Throw in another disc containing just four alternate mixes, and that’s the lot.

While the collectors’ instinct might be to feel short-changed (why do a four-track EP when they could have filled the disc with 20 more songs?), the rough nature of the previously unreleased material here doesn’t exactly leave one thirsting for more. Anyone who is can check out the hours and hours of outtakes on bootlegs (there was even a 17-CD set called “Thirty Days,” which probably feels like it goes on for 30 days) or YouTube — not to mention the six-hour long “Get Back” film. The only major tracks we can think of that might be missing are Lennon’s languid take on “Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues” (which is available on the 1990s “Beatles Anthology”) and this rough version of “Get Back” sung by Lennon instead of McCartney.

Even half a century later, the group’s sterling quality control remains, and if this lavish, multi-part treatment of the Beatles’ swan song is truly the last dance, they’ve made the most of it. And if we too doth complain too much, for context, let’s paraphrase Paul McCartney’s response to criticism of the “White Album” in the 1990s “Beatles Anthology” series: “It was great, it sold, it’s the bloody Beatles — shut up!”

Disc 1 - Let It Be (new stereo mix of original album)

01. Two Of Us

02. Dig A Pony

03. Across The Universe

04. I Me Mine

05. Dig It

06. Let It Be

07. Maggie Mae

08. I’ve Got A Feeling

09. One After 909

10. The Long And Winding Road

11. For You Blue

12. Get Back

Disc 2 - Get Back - Apple Sessions

01. Morning Camera (Speech – mono) / Two Of Us (Take 4)

02. Maggie Mae / Fancy My Chances With You (Mono)

03. Can You Dig It?

04. I Don’t Know Why I’m Moaning (Speech – mono)

05. For You Blue (Take 4)

06. Let It Be / Please Please Me / Let It Be (Take 10)

07. I’ve Got A Feeling (Take 10)

08. Dig A Pony (Take 14)

09. Get Back (Take 19)

10. Like Making An Album? (Speech)

11. One After 909 (Take 3)

12. Don’t Let Me Down (First rooftop performance)

13. The Long And Winding Road (Take 19)

14. Wake Up Little Susie / I Me Mine (Take 11)

Disc 3 - Get Back - Rehearsals and Apple Jams

01. On The Day Shift Now (Speech – mono) / All Things Must Pass (Rehearsals – mono)

02. Concentrate On The Sound (mono)

03. Gimme Some Truth (Rehearsal – mono)

04. I Me Mine (Rehearsal – mono)

05. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Rehearsal)

06. Polythene Pam (Rehearsal – mono)

07. Octopus’s Garden (Rehearsal – mono)

08. Oh! Darling (Jam)

09. Get Back (Take 8)

10. The Walk (Jam)

11. Without A Song (Jam) – Billy Preston with John and Ringo

12. Something (Rehearsal – mono)

13. Let It Be (Take 28)

Disc 4 - Get Back LP - 1969 Glyn Johns Mix

01. One After 909

02. I’m Ready (aka Rocker) / Save The Last Dance For Me / Don’t Let Me Down

03. Don’t Let Me Down

04. Dig A Pony

05. I’ve Got A Feeling

06. Get Back

07. For You Blue

08. Teddy Boy

09. Two Of Us

10. Maggie Mae

11. Dig It

12. Let It Be

13. The Long And Winding Road

14. Get Back (Reprise)

Disc 5 - Let It Be EP

01. Across The Universe (unreleased Glyn Johns 1970 mix)

02. I Me Mine (unreleased Glyn Johns 1970 mix)

03. Don’t Let Me Down (new mix of original single version)

04. Let It Be (new mix of original single version)

+@320