Once again: here's when these old favorites....were new favorites! "Return Britain" and "I'm So Tired" make their recorded debuts on this tape! "On The Cover" and "Blue Billiards" also! Unlike the previous 1987 rehearsal, where we were performing for the tape - this is just a recording of a regular rehearsal. Because these are such young versions of most of these songs, I would not recommend this tape to anyone who is not familiar with the band.
Case in point: we are obviously still just coming to terms with what is required for "I'm So Tired". And yet, many of it's elements are in place, including the harmonies. Hubie sings this really nice - Hubie's vocal performances on this rehearsal are all really good, in fact. He seems to have a cold and a slightly hoarse voice, so it has a slight "grain" to it that you don't always hear. It is worth noting that even on this early version of "I'm So Tired", we have turned the lights out! (even three years later, playing on WUSB, we call for the lights to be dimmed for this song.).
"On The Cover" is a beautiful song that's one of my absolute favorites and, as I've said elsewhere on this blog, most recorded versions have us breaking down in the middle. In later years, we would have some pretty elaborate arrangements, and after I left the band there were some CRAZY, wild arrangements, so it's pretty funny (and cute) hearing us struggle with a relatively straightforward song. Having said that, the second version is complete and might be the best recorded version. This song popped up again on the Steve Antos tape, and again in a 1992 rehearsal tape that I haven't posted yet.
Incidentally, listening now, I can see a tiny little drum thing I could have done to make the "never seen....never seen you like this before" go smoother. Anyone want to go into the studio and cut a version? (it's a crime we never recorded this song - or many others - properly).
This entire time I've been writing this blog, I have been saying that we played exactly one gig as a trio - a Xmas party - in 1988. That has been completely wrong! That party was in 1987! We are talking about "the gig", and whether or not this was the Xmas gig, or some other gig that fell through, I'm not sure. But I now realize it couldn't have been December of 1988.
Which begs the question: when is this rehearsal tape? Perhaps October is too early, this probably is November. However, I do seem to remember this gig being - what I thought to be - a pipe dream, that was hanging over us for a while, and that I didn't believe we actually had the gig (we had had things fall through in the past). Because of this attitude - and also the fact that I was already drumming in a punk version of "The Beggar's Opera" on that date - I was virtually incommunicado leading up to the date of the show. More about this funny gig in another post.
I love this version of "Mental Isolation", this was a Hubie-Ted collaboration as I understood it to be, beautiful song that was never a "major" song for us, but that has always stuck in my head through the years. It gets cut off unfortunately, but it's my favorite version, possibly because of the "grai" in Hubie's voice.
Listening now just reminds me...that "Easier Said Than Done" was in a different tuning, and that eventually "The Paul" was set up for it (by this point, Hubie had gotten his Strat). I'm trying to remember if we had another song in that tuning. I don't think so.
On the August 1987 demo, we thought Hubie sounded like a rabbi "I get the picture you're telling me that you're a liddel confewsed". So every time that comes around, Hubie exaggerates that line (I also imitate it while the guitars are tuning up).
I've told you that after we recorded "Easier Said Than Done", we somehow could not do anything more than a lackluster version....we couldn't figure out why because all three of us dug that song! Sure enough....after this wan version.....Ted: "That was pretty hurtin', man.'", Hubie, vexed, instantly agreeing. It was as if "Easier Said Than Done" had gotten ill or something.....and we couldn't figure out what it had! It proved to be terminal, as
"Blue Billiards" - a song that came easy and that was synonymous with levity and fun - was always good to get things good timey again. I don't remember who it was written about - it was written about somebody - but in this particular version, it's probably about Gas Facin' Mike! This is the earliest recorded version and is not quite up to snuff yet, but almost. It's funny, Ted is telling me " I need to hear more drumming". Always ready to oblige! This song has one of my favorite lines: "Your love is like a cheap wine....and it gets to you!"
Regarding this earliest of "Return Britain"s.....it is fitting that it is one of the weakest! Right from day one, this song felt like a "step up", a much more sophisticated thing than we'd been doing. Here, we are just starting to get our hands dirty, finding out what this "Return Britain" was all about! This is truly embryonic, and interesting.
The proceedings are enlivened a bit by an audacious mouse, who took a chance and bolted into the studio, probably on his way to the giant empty warehouses. I might add it was the only time I saw vermin on the premises.
You'd think we'd have "Is It Safe" down cold! But this was during a time we were getting together very sporadically. I had just started college that September (Hubie was also going to school nearby, probably the only thing that got either us to rehearsal!), so whenever we got together, some song that we had thought we had aced had fallen by the wayside. (take for instance, "I Paint", which neither Hubie nor I could remember enough to play when the title is brought up during this rehearsal. But we had just played perfectly competent versions just four months earlier!
I think we blew the power out or something with New Voice! Or else this was being recorded on a boom box with batteries and the batteries die. An abrupt ending to a fun and productive rehearsal!
Suffolk Office, fall '87
Soundcheck jams
I'm So Tired
On The Cover
Phobia
Inside Outside
Mental Isolation /
Easier Said Than Done
Blue Billiards
Return Britain
Is It Safe?
I Hear A New Voice /
Hubert Poole - guitar, vocal
Ted Schreiber - bass, vocal
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal
recorded on a 2-track cassette deck, or a boom box
download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/oj7y5ii5n45kyie/1987-10-circa+Suffolk+Office.zip
or if you prefer Dropbox, you can use this link (it will only be up for a couple of weeks)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/63v8dp2mq9hahtq/1987-10-circa%20Suffolk%20Office.zip?dl=0
