The Rolling Stones-NECROPHILIA (1971 compilation)

No, this isn’t the hardest thing in the world to find. But it is interesting, and I do reach for it from time to time as a good comp of mid-late 60s Stones stuff to put on that doesn’t feel played out. “Street Fighting Man” has different lyrics! -Ian!

This is the never-released album from 1971 (or was it 1972), which was pressed on a few acetates. Some acetates were sold, for a lot of money, a couple of years ago, and….surfaced on bootleg CD after a while. The songs are either completely different takes (like “Have You Seen Your Mother Baby”), or different mixes than the official versions (from Metamophosis) Pay Your Dues (the alternate version of Street Fighting Man) and the speeded-up Blue Turns To Gray are really fantastic, as Metomophosis, several of the songs features Jagger, Richards and studio musicians, and not the other Stones members.

The planned follow-up to Hot Rocks was to be titled Necrophilia, and was to have the tracks selected by the unpredictable Andrew Loog Oldham. A gatefold sleeve was designed by Fabio Nicoli using photography by the Stones’ official photographer from the sixties, Gered Mankowitz.

What you will hear here is a vinyl transfer to CD of the actual unreleased album. Alternate versions from 1964 to 1967.

DOWNLOAD:
The Rolling Stones-NECROPHILIA (1971 compilation)
320kbps

Simon & Garfunkel-THE ALTERNATE BOOKENDS (1968, Purple Chick 2008)

Before Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Bookends released in 1968 was the most accomplished Simon & Garfunkel album out there. It moved away from traditional folk music but still retained the ideals of that generation, had an overarching theme of growing up if not older and a very upbeat, finger-clicking rhythm. The moving America, a meditation on country, was later covered by Yes as an epic progressive rock song stretching a few minutes into tens of minutes.

The songs that featured the best tunes were Save The Life Of My Child and A Hazy Shade Of Winter. Both were signposts that Simon was embracing the new. Bookends was his literary device to place all he wanted to say about his society on two sides of vinyl. Both the rapid changes of the urban new and the letting go of a slower pace of life.

When this boot first appeared it was the first time studio outtakes of Simon & Garfunkel tracks had arrived in such quality. The fan collective, Purple Chick, went to great lengths to offer not only the alternate album, but a compilation of live tracks of all the songs on Bookends and included as a bonus the original Bookends album in mono. The mono LP was not a typical fold-down from stereo but a unique mix that is out-of-print.

There’s plenty to marvel at, the unreleased Groundhogs and the alternate lyrics in the song At The Zoo. The sequence of tracks follows Purple Chick’s set. And we’d also like to ask why every time a fresh greatest hits S&G set is assembled the bonus live tracks are inevitably taken from the released Live In New York City 1967 disc?

-Professor Red, bigozine2.com

DOWNLOAD:
Simon & Garfunkel-THE ALTERNATE BOOKENDS (1968, Purple Chick 2008)
320kbps