THEM: "The Happy Tiger Years" (1970-71)

As noted before, I didn't have much knowledge about Them's ever-changing lineups, let alone how far they'd continued on after Van Morrison left the band. They had a pair of albums on Capitol's Tower label, where they'd relocated to Texas, and then based themselves out of LA, becoming a West Coast psychedelic band. They'd had essentially the same lineup from when Van left, only with a new frontman, Kenny McDowell.

Scouring through a vintage-vinyl catalog, I noticed a couple of entries for a couple more of their albums on some label I'd never heard of called Happy Tiger (sounds really official, doesn't it?). Both albums were described as having "the heaviest snarling fuzz ever", and "sounding like an offspring of early Who and MC5". Wow, what could these sound like?

Sometime in the summer of 2000, I came across the first of the two Happy Tiger albums, this being the self-titled one, released in 1970 or so. Weird cover, with what looked like a dead girl floating over some sort of symbolic mish-mash of British and American themes, regardless of the fact that Them were from Ireland...and with the band's name spelled out above it all in purple shaving foam!

The band consisted of longtime bassist Alan Henderson, and session guitarist Jerry Cole on guitars and vocals. The two of them are credited as being the "rhythm section", but maybe they were the ones doing all the rattling percussion on some of the songs. Further listening, and a little research shows that Hal Blaine was the drummer on these sessions, plus contributions by Jack Nietzsche (piano) and Ry Cooder (guitars), among some others.

The first thing you notice is how low-budget the production and recording qualities are. Lots of fuzz-tone guitar, as promised, but the lyrics to the opening song (Cole's own "I Keep Singing") leave much to be desired ("C'mon and get some feelin'...let's get higher than the ceiling!"). Yet another "Gloria" re-write follows, but this time as a Charlie Rich tune by the name of "Lonely Weekends", with Cole trying hard as he can to belt it out like Van once did, and failing miserably. "Take A Little Time" comes next, with endless repetition of the chorus, ans thankfully fades out after a bit.

Now, it starts getting good, with some heavy fuzz tone on rockers like "You Got Me Good", "Jo-Ann" and "Memphis Lady" (another Cole original), and Alan really struts his stuff on "Jo-Ann". After a couple of dead-end covers of "In The Midnight Hour" and Nobody Cares", we get treated to a cover of the Stones' "I Am Waiting" (from the Aftermath album), but with Alan on lead vocals for this one. He had a pretty good voice...maybe he should have been the band's singer, he could have pulled it off quite well. The album ends with a cover of "Just A Little", made famous by the Beau Brummels, which also fades out rather quickly.

Not much is known about the band during this period, like if they did any gigs or toured. Indeed, they seemed to be more of a recording project than an actual band. Somehow, they managed to pull together for one more album, Them In Reality, in 1971, this time as a power-trio with Alan Henderson on bass, and former Texas band Kitchen Cinq members, guitarist Jim Parker, and drummer John Stark. The album cover is rather cheesy, with a group photo on the front (in which they sort of remind me of The Nice), and individual in-the-studio shots on the back.

The album opens with a loud, sloppy, trashy medley of "Gloria" and "Baby Please Don't Go". Sounds like they were going for a garage-rock sound here, with a heavy James Gang influence, especially when they clam up and start jamming. This was such a low-budget production that no-one could bother with fixing a couple of loud tape-warps and drop-outs toward the end of the medley, but...oh well, it just adds to the fun.

After a Paul Williams tune, "Laugh", the rest of the album consists of all-original tunes by Parker and Stark. I can only describe them as West Coast hippie-rock, with a kind of CSN&Y feel on the backing vocals. One song, "Let My Song Through", kicks off with a riff that will remind you of "Sweet Home Alabama", three years before that one was recorded...maybe Skynyrd copped it from here. The remaining tunes aren't bad, kind of laid-back feeling, with some solid drumming and good distorted guitar to be heard, save for the final cut "Can You Believe", done on a sole acoustic guitar and reverbed vocals.

That seemed to be it for Them after its release. I heard an interesting story during a visit to Golden Oldies, where I told Jeff about finding this one, and he tole me about a guy who once came into the store with a box full of sealed copies of this very album. Seems he had been a local concert promoter back in the '60s and '70s, and he tried to get the band to do some shows up in the area, but they were running into some legal trouble regarding use of the name "Them", and so it never happened.

The two albums have been put on CD, though possibly in quasi-bootleg form. My copy has both of them on one CD, on the Synton label, but nothing else in the way of great mastering, or any liner notes, just reproductions of the covers. I've also seem them on CD as individual CD's, but if they were remastered in any way, I have no idea. It was just very cool to see them on CD, if only for a while, as they weren't in print very long.

THEM: "The Story Of Them" (1997)

This showed up at the house one day in April of 1998, something I'd never seen or knew was out. Dad had a battered copy of their first album, which I honestly had never gotten around to listening to, but I always liked the picture on the front cover. I remember seeing this one way back at the Blue House, but wasn't sure what this was going to sound like. With the black and orange on the cover, was this going to be spooky? The guys on the cover sure looked threatening enough!

Quite a compilation, this one. It's a 2-CD set that has pretty much everything they ever recorded and/or released, and digitally remastered. And loud, too! Unfurling the little booklet in the CD...wow, what a history of this band that was only around for just a few years. So many different lineup changes, save for Van Morrison himself, and their bass player, Alan Henderson. I had no idea how many players had come and gone in such a short time, and I saw that they had a second album, Them Again, which I wasn't even aware of.

The first disc showcases the classic era, when they banged out hits like "Here Comes The Night", "Mystic Eyes" and the immortal "Gloria", which launched umpteen garage bands for years to come. But there were some great, bluesy tunes such as "All For Myself", "One More Time" and "Just A Little Bit", just to name a few. Why these guys weren't and aren't more revered is beyond me...this stuff kicked major ass. Raw, bluesy, snot-nosed R&B with Van howlin' and hollerin'...what's not to like?

A lot of the songs are heard in real stereo, though some of the songs may have been mixed later on when a similar-titled double-album compilation was compiled back in 1972. The two copies of the first album I have here are both in mono, so I can't comment on if the mixes on the stereo copies were really in stereo or not. But it is exciting to hear "Gloria" and "Here Comes The Night" in full, wide-open stereo. On the other hand, we have some songs where the song was in mono, but some extra added percussion instruments are added in the left channel, making them "stereo".

Apart from way too many lineup changes, one criticism about the band is the fact that they were often augmented by session musicians on their recordings. So maybe they were, but they sure had a great sound (at least in the beginning), and well-written tunes. Alan Henderson's bass playing was rock-solid, and he was the only one who was never replaced by a studio player. Or there's just plain old "I don't like Van Morrison", though that applies to either his music, his prickly personality, or both.

As for the second disc, there was not a whole lot to make me go back and listen to it. Their sound was a little too jazz-driven in places, not helped by poor production and less-than-stellar songwriting (especially on the ones not written by Van). The one cut well worth the price of admission was their version of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Great atmospheric piano fed through a tremolo unit that drives the song along.

Now, as 2015 comes to a close, there is a three-CD set coming out that not only features all of the above, but a third disc comprising of unreleased studio takes, demos and BBC radio sessions. Not only is this going to be bitchin', but it will be great to see and hear this stuff coming out again. Maybe they'll finally get the respect they finally deserve!

King Crimson: Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, September 10, 1971

This seems to be one of those shows that fell in between the cracks, not appearing in the band's list of gigs that they did from 1969 to 1974, yet a recording of it exists...and a very good one at that. Of course, it sounds as if it were recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder in someone's lap, but I've heard worse than that. And, of course, this lineup of the band is still divided down the middle by most fans. You either like this lineup, or you don't. It took me a while to warm up to them (especially since the 1973-74 lineup--which I heard first for many years--sets the bar pretty high), and hearing more live stuff from them apart from the Earthbound album, I noticed how really good they were, and now look on them as very underrated and undervalued.

The show consists of the usual songs that this lineup did live throughout its existence, but this one has a couple of unique differences to it. This version of "Sailor's Tale" features Mel Collins playing flute and Robert Fripp playing the electric piano during the part where Fripp's guitar solo would be on the eventually-recorded studio version; when it picks up into the ostinato section, Fripp plows away on the Mellotron, making it sound more like something from Lizard than Islands.

The version of "Groon" during this show is over 18 minutes long, featuring Ian Wallace's VCS3-treated drum solo, but also a guitar solo at the end by Fripp that is reminiscent of the one he did at the end of the Earthbound album, but less menacing, and it ends with a final flourish of the song's opening riff, something they rarely did.

This show is on YouTube in separate parts; I downloaded them all and cut them onto CD to listen to (save for "The Devil's Triangle", which wouldn't fit). If you're a fan of this lineup, you'll like it. If you've never heard this lineup live before, you won't be disappointed. It's just a darn shame that there seems to be no film or video of them in existence...that would be great to see!

The Who: Chicago, December 8, 1979

This came in the 3-DVD boxed set of Amazing Journey, when it was released in 2007, and you could only get the third disc by buying it at Best Buy. As I watched it for the first time, I recorded the audio onto CD. It wasn't a bad thing to do, as the music was re-mixed from the original 24-track tape.

This was a show from the Chicago Amphitheater, not even a week after the tragic concert at Cincinnati, where eleven people were trampled to death while the crowd was rushing to get into the venue to see the show. You would never know by watching this, although they lightly acknowledge this a couple of times during the show. This was also 15 months after they had lost Keith Moon, and were touring for the first time with a new drummer, so there was quite a lot riding on the band at this time.

But, as Ive said, this is actually quite enjoyable. Pete and Roger, in particular, are out to have a good time, and are in a playful mood while on stage. The songs are played with plenty of energy to spare, far from the lethargy of the 1981 and 1982 tours that most fans remember this lineup of the band being plagued with. With John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards, they were able to play newer songs such as "Sister Disco", "Music Must Change" (a surprisingly well-received song here), and piano-driven tracks from Quadrophenia, such as "Drowned" and "5:15".

Kenney Jones....what can we say? He had some massive shoes to fill, and while a competent player, he sticks to playing "four to the bar" on the hi-hat (which doesn't suit songs like "Substitute" and "Baba O'Riley"), whereas Keith would have been plowing all over the crash cymbals, doing it only the way he would have done it. But they needed someone who could play a good, long show, with someone to match the band members' energy.

Since there were never any live shows released from the 1979 tours, from which a good live album could have been made (save for the forgettable Concerts For The People Of Kampuchea), this is probably one of the best post-Keith Moon live shows that's out there.

Pink Floyd: "More Blues" (Montreux, 1970)

One night, looking through YouTube, I found something by Pink Floyd called More Blues. It was a 2-disc bootleg set, but thankfully uploaded on there separately. Not much of a title, and not much in the way of any details of where or when it was recorded, but I took a listen to it, and was impressed by what I was hearing. A very good stereo recording of the band, sometime in 1970 (definitely by the set-list, anyway), with excellent renditions of "Astronomy Domine", "Fat Old Sun", and "Atom Heart Mother". Also, a great version of "Cymbaline", where the "walking footsteps" section isn't too long 9as it can be on some versions), but the band gets drowned out momentarily by a big, buzzing noise coming through the PA during the final verse, and David Gilmour simply laughs it off.

A very good performance, and with such good sound quality that I often reach for this one to take with me for a spin in the Discman.

The second disc has the final encore of "Just Another 12-Bar", and the rest of it comprises a live BBC recording from the London Playhouse, which I was already familiar with. For the uninitiated, it has the only live performance they ever did of Roger Waters' "If", which could have been a good one live if they'd played it more than just this one time...oh well, at least it exists. And then this was the debut performance of "Atom Heart Mother" (featuring brass and choir, but no cellist, which was replaced by a French horn, which doesn't have the same ring to it).

That show was recorded November 21, 1970 at the Casino Montreux. There was another full show recorded the following night, which is also around in excellent quality, and in stereo for that matter (I think it was recorded on a reel-to-reel). In September of 1971, they played there again, only this time armed with some new material that would soon be released on the Meddle album, but three months after that, the place would burn flat to the foundation when "some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground".

THE BEATLES: Hollywood Bowl (three complete shows)

One of the very first things I ever heard from them was this album, in the summer of 1979, when I was only three years old. Dad had been playing them, and I was amazed at everything I was hearing by them so far, although we were still playing just the earlier stuff for now. We had the "red album", which held a lot of favorites, but songs like "She Loves You", "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "It Won't Be Long" were major favorites of mine. While they were playing, nothing else in the world mattered.

The copy of the album we had disappeared, and we got it again in 1986 at Golden Oldies during one of the first times we ever went there. I fell in love with it all over again, and played it often. As the years went on, I waited to see if it would ever make its way onto CD when all of their other albums made it onto that format, but for some reason, it never did. In the meantime, I read different things about how the album was recorded with 3-track equipment, and how they didn't have to bother putting out any recording mikes to catch the sound of the audience...it was all captured perfectly!

There were plans to release the 1964 show as a live album not long after it happened, and acetates were pressed, but the recording quality was apparently not quite up to snuff, so it went unreleased (although transfers from the acetates made the rounds as bootlegs of the show for years to come). I've also read where Phil Spector was even tapped to perhaps do something with the recording (in 1971, after the band had broken up), but thankfully nothing happened in that department. He might have dubbed a 90-piece orchestra and choir on top of the music!

One of the things I looked for when I first got a computer at home was any live shows by the Beatles on YouTube. Not only was there a rip of the album on there, but the three concerts that comprised the album, in their entirety! I downloaded them, cut them onto CD's, then I put them on, and turned up the volume.

The first thing I noticed upon hearing these shows in their entirety is that they are raw stereo mixes, without any added echo to the vocals or instruments. Bass and drums in the left channel, guitars in the right, and the vocals in the center. They sound a lot clearer to me, and for some reason, the never-ending wall of screaming girls doesn't sound as gratingly loud on this as they do on the album.

The August 1964 show is excellent all the way through. There is a surprisingly good version of "You Can't Do That", which should have made the album, and they even do "Yes It Is" rather well. For not having any monitors or PA to hear themselves, let alone over all the screaming, they actually pulled off a really good show in the face of all that, and they actually sounded like they were having fun onstage.

A year later, they played two shows: August 28 and 30. The first show of the two was not used for the album at all, except for a few edit pieces. The vocals did not come through on the recording for some odd reason. Otherwise--again--we have the same simple rawness to the recordings and mixes that make them such a joy to hear. The August 30th show is a really good one. In fact, most of this show makes up the album, although we get to hear Ringo sing "I Wanna Be Your Man" on this one, and the show closes with "I'm Down".

Well worth giving a listen to, if you come across them on YouTube. As you listen to them, you realize just how good they were as a live band. If only they'd had really good PA and monitor systems back then, they might not have given up on touring quite so easily, but just imagine how different their story might have turned out!

The Beatles: "Live At The Star-Club, Hamburg, 1962"

There seems to be quite a variety of differing versions of the Beatles' final Hamburg show from New Year's Eve of 1962, with different track-listings and sound quality between them. Okay, so they're far from being perfect...far from being bootleg quality, to some ears...but this is all there is, and not only is it exciting, but you're hearing them as you would never hear them again. They weren't the leather-jacketed scruffs anymore, and not quite the four "mop-tops" yet.

It was amazing the scope of music and songs that they had in their repertoire at the time ("To Know Him Is To Love Him", "Til There Was You", etc.) , and also quite a number of their own songs, and some bitchin' rockers, such as "Hippy Hippy Shake", "Ain't Nothin' Shakin'", "Some Other Guy", and "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)", all of which would have made some immortal classics if they had recorded them. We ended up getting them on Live At The BBC, but they all would have been some killer singles.

The first time I had ever seen or had known of the early recordings were from a double-album I would see at the library, on the Pickwick label. I remember getting it once, and listening to it at home, but the sound quality didn't sit well with me at the time, or some of the material, so I didn't appreciate what I was hearing. It wasn't until year later that I heard the "official" version of the German edition on the Lingasong label that it sounded better, and was much more enjoyable. You can just imagine what it must have been like to have been there as you listen to it.

One of the last things George Harrison did before he died was put an injunction on these recordings, so that they would never be released again. Quite a shame, as it would be fascinating to hear what they would sound like now, especially with such a massive leap forward in remastering technology since they were first released.