time of outtakes: R.E.M. 1990 demos

Apologies, if you're not into it, for the heavy R.E.M. content of late on the PoIT. Try as I might, R.E.M. is one of those bands your humble blogger keeps coming back to, being one of the touchstones of his music history/collection.

Hope everyone enjoyed the 1983 Larry's Hideaway set - it was a great choice for the live set to complement the album itself for the Murmur Deluxe Edition, regardless of how it was presented on the release.



Moving 7 years forward, 1990 saw the band regrouping from an exhausting year's worth of global touring, in support of 1988's Green LP (their Warner Bros. debut). Having planned an extensive rest period following the tour's end in November 1989, instead January 1990 found the three musicians regrouping in their Athens, GA rehearsal space and starting the songwriting cycle up afresh. As Peter Buck said, "it's what we do".

Heartily sick of their traditional instruments after 10 years of almost exclusively playing them night after night, the three musicians decided to try out those instruments they'd be staring at over the top of their own, night after night. So instead of Peter Buck sticking exclusively to guitars, Bill Berry drums, and Mike Mills bass, they'd often end up in odd permutations such as Berry on bass, Mills on organ and Buck on drums. And vice versa. As time wore on, they'd often migrate back to their traditional roles, but in the end, when Mills played bass on the resulting recording sessions for the LP, he would more often than not be playing bass lines originated by Berry (or Buck).

Now and then, the band would enter John Keane's studio in Athens to demo the tracks they'd been working on, with singer Michael Stipe taking this opportunity to try out his planned vocals, or just wordlessly wail along to give a melody idea while he wrote the lyrics. Usually these recordings just stayed demos, but now and then, they'd come up with a recording so good it'd end up on the resulting LP, nearly untouched ("Country Feedback"). Other times, they'd keep the backing tracks as recorded for the demo, and finish it up later in the "real" studio when recording the rest of the LP ("Endgame").

R.E.M. often had a problem with keeping their demos under wraps. Demos for every record between 1981 and 1990, barring 1985's demo session with Joe Boyd prior to recording Fables of the Reconstruction, have leaked out of their clutches. No different is this set of demos, essaying songs written for the 1991 LP Out Of Time.

These songs have been available in various permutations over the years, all unofficially. Some sources are better sound quality than others, and some sources more complete than others. The best source, quality-wise, happens to be a bootleg CD entitled Time of Outtakes, from which I've drawn the majority of the material presented here.

However, rather than just rip the CD, I've decided to reassemble the tracks in the order the resulting LP used, which makes it much more of an interesting listen. You hear mostly (musically) fully-realized tracks, with either Stipe's guide vocals on top, in varying states of completion ("Losing My Religion" is nearly complete, for example, while "Me In Honey" is just wordless wailing to the melody line). Other tracks such as "Texarkana" are unique to this release - in this case, "Texarkana" features Stipe's original lyrics and singing, while the LP version famously is all Mike Mills and entirely different lyrics.

Additionally, there were another eight or so tracks not released on the resulting LP, which I've sequenced to follow the album tracklisting. We have the second, electric version of "Radio Song" which more resembles the final album version than the first-demoed acoustic variant, and we have tracks such as "Forty Second Song" which did end up seeing release - this very recording of it - as B-sides, et cetera. In actuality, "Forty Second Song" presented here is actually taken from the "Shiny Happy People" CD single, hence its quality being crystalline - as opposed to the nearly-crystalline quality of the rest of the tracks.

So enjoy!

- - - - -

R.E.M.
Out Of Time demo recordings / outtakes
John Keane Studios, Athens, GA 1990

01 Radio Song (soft)
02 Losing My Religion
03 Low
04 Near Wild Heaven
05 Endgame
06 Shiny Happy People
07 Belong
08 Half A World Away
09 Texarkana
10 Country Feedback
11 Me In Honey

- - - end LP tracklisting - - -

12 Forty Second Song
13 Radio Song (hard)
14 Fretless (instrumental)
15 It's A Free World, Baby
16 Here I Am Again (Kerouac No. 4)
17 Night Swim
18 Speed Metal
19 Sugar Cane


Of these recordings, three were released officially:
-- "Country Feedback" on the album, with only a single word re-recorded, as far as I can tell
-- "Low" in 2005 as a B-side to "Wanderlust", however the quality is much worse than this!
-- "Forty Second Song" as a B-side to "Shiny Happy People" in 1991

The following tracks saw re-recorded versions released:
-- "Fretless" with lyrics partially drawn from "Here I Am Again", on 1991's Until The End Of The World soundtrack
-- "It's A Free World, Baby" on 1993's Coneheads soundtrack
-- "Here I Am Again" as an instrumental, recorded by Mike Mills in a Minneapolis basilica, retitled "Organ Song" and released as a B-side to "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" in 1993
-- "Sugar Cane" as an instrumental, retitled "Mandolin Strum", released as a B-side to "Everybody Hurts" in 1993

grab 'em below, two RAR files you need to download:
Part I
Part II

R.E.M. 9 July 1983 Larry's Hideaway - lossless

Nothing "new" this week as people are still enjoying the recent New Order / Joy Division materials and I don't want to overload the teeming millions with legendary, quality stuff (not to say I have anything further of the sort)...

But as promised, here's the complete, remastered R.E.M. 9 July 1983 gig originally discussed here on this very same blog (but as mp3), as lossless FLAC this time.

Are you listening, R.E.M./Athens LLC (and Capitol/EMI)? You can swap out CD2 from the Murmur reissue with this and make everyone happy!

And pigs will fly.

Enjoy....



R.E.M.
9 July 1983
Larry's Hideaway
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
DEFINITIVE EDITION - LOSSLESS FLAC FORMAT
(flac.sourceforge.net)

Reassembled and Remastered from two sources:
1) Rising bootleg silver CD
2) 2nd CD in Murmur Deluxe Edition

Includes songs not broadcast on Toronto radio, and not included on the Murmurs reissue!

01 Wolves, Lower
02 Moral Kiosk
03 Laughing
04 Pilgrimage
05 Moon River
06 There She Goes Again
07 Seven Chinese Brothers
08 Talk About The Passion
09 Sitting Still
10 Harborcoat
11 Catapult
12 Pretty Persuasion
13 Gardening At Night
14 9-9
15 Just A Touch
16 West Of The Fields
17 Radio Free Europe
18 We Walk
19 1,000,000
20 Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)

Tracks 1/2/5/12 were not included on the "official" version.

Grab all 5 parts - it's a must!

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

And Track 17 by itself - if you get a message that Track 17 in the above RAR files is corrupt, download this. Should verify just fine with the .md5 signature included in the RAR files....

Joy Division 28 Sept 1979 The Factory, Hulme (soundboard)

Not much to say. Featured today is a previously-unknown (partial) recording of Joy Division's 28 Sept. 1979 gig at the Factory, Hulme, recorded from the mixing desk and presented in lossless FLAC for your pleasure.



This is the legendary gig where Hooky thumped an audience member with his bass and stormed off the stage - unfortunately, this moment is not captured on this recording.

This gig features the original set of lyrics Ian Curtis wrote for "Colony" and as a whole, is stellar sounding. Note that for whatever reason the mixing itself changes from wide stereo to mostly mono (but with effects spread across the stereo soundstage) about halfway through the tape, perhaps the mixing desk guy was having problems with the mix? Who knows but it isn't really noticeable except in headphones, and even then doesn't detract from the gig whatsoever.

Presented warts and all (several slight dropouts here and there, likely due to tape age and/or poor quality tape used in 1979 in the mixing desk), enjoy!

01 - Twenty Four Hours (detail, soundcheck)
02 - Atmosphere (fades in)
03 - Wilderness
04 - Shadowplay
05 - Insight
06 - Colony
07 - Twenty Four Hours (fades out, incomplete)

Please note that track 1, the soundcheck track, is not a mixing desk recording, but the gig itself is. Don't let Track 1 fool you....

Part I / Part II
(gotta grab both parts!)

"Colony", lyrics from here (as best I can make out):

Afraid to walk, afraid to look behind
Afraid to talk, afraid I'll fall in line
Hope to find some friends to maybe lead astray
Maybe make some plans to achieve the one with day (?)

Can you hear me, can you spare the time?
No apologies for all these thoughts were mine
My brother taught I had to take the blame
Now I'm sitting here to make my great escape

I can't see why all these complications
I can't see why all these dislocations
No family life just makes me feel uneasy
Lying here inside this colony

In this colony
In this colony
In this colony
In this colony

May god and his wisdom take you by the hand
God and his wisdom made you understand

May god and his wisdom take you by the hand
God and his wisdom made you understand

God and his wisdom took you by the hand
Your god and his wisdom made you understand

Your god and his wisdom took you by the hand
Your god and his wisdom made you understand

In this colony
In this colony
In this colony
In this colony

unplugged: New Order's Bernard Sumner

In 2007 legendary bassist Peter Hook announced he was leaving New Order, leaving singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner and drummer Steve Morris in the lurch. No reason ever was given.

After some hemming-and-hawing over the New Order name, word escaped that Sumner and Morris had a new project called Bad Lieutenant and would be writing/releasing new music under that name. People said "ummm, OK".

In March 2009 Sky Arts in the UK featured Bernard Sumner on their recurring series "Songbook" that blends MTV/VH1's "Storytellers" and "Unplugged" series into a narrative interview with several acoustic performances interspersed.



Bernard, backed by guitarists Phil Cunningham and Jake Evans, performed 4 tracks "unplugged" - just acoustic guitars and Bernard's legendary voice.

That's not that impressive in and of itself - the thought of New Order tracks unplugged just doesn't really jibe, if you know what I mean - but it turns out Bernard turned in one of his most inspired performances ever.

Not only that, but it was the first public airing of a Bad Lieutenant track, which I'll get to shortly.

What was played? Well, you've come to the right place!

1) "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Joy Division, 1979)
High-bitrate, high-quality mp3

Three acoustic guitars, no "whooping" from Bernard. Perhaps the best non-Joy Division performance of this song, ever. Really really good performance, perfectly suited for Bernard in this interpretation.

High-quality YouTube footage

- - -

2) "Bizarre Love Triangle" (New Order, 1986)
High-bitrate, high-quality mp3

Oddly I'd never imagined this song in an acoustic setting, but it works, and it's fantastic. Of course I'm discounting Frente!'s version but I don't really count that....

High-quality YouTube footage

- - -

3) "Getting Away With It" (Electronic, 1989)
High-bitrate, high-quality mp3

The debut Electronic single (the side project that Bernard started with Johnny Marr in the late 1980s), never before heard in an acoustic setting. Again, a stellar performance, and it really gets to the root of the melody. And when Jake comes in with a fairly spot-on Johnny Marr imitation in the solo, it's really something else.... I would have to say this is the best version of this song I've EVER heard, no question.

High-quality YouTube footage

- - -

4) "Sink Or Swim" (Bad Lieutenant, 2009)
High-bitrate, high-quality mp3

The first public airing of this brand-new Bad Lieutenant track, this is REALLY good. Interestingly, the main guitar motif suggests a possible Peter Hook bassline, which makes this even more poignant. Stellar, stellar stuff, and a fantastic teaser for any further upcoming efforts....

High-quality YouTube footage

- - -

On YouTube you can also find the interview segments, but I'll leave that for you guys to get. I just wanted to feature the music... ;)

enjoy!

R.E.M. 9 July 1983 Larry's Hideaway, Toronto mp3

It's funny, one of my all-time favorite acts is R.E.M. yet I've done nowt but post one track of theirs, in the second-ever post on this here blog. And it's been removed.



Last year saw their classic debut LP Murmur reissued/repackaged/remastered, as a deluxe 2 CD package with the second CD featuring their 9 July 1983 gig at Larry's Hideaway, Toronto, Ontario. While a good gig, the released variant was missing several tracks and was a Loudness War victim - though not as bad as it could have been.

Funnily enough, this gig existed as a bootleg CD entitled RISING that has as good, if not better, overall sound than the released variant. However, this version was glitchy in places, with skips and dropouts that the "official" variant did not suffer from. So, as a challenge, I used bits and bobs of each source together to make the definitive Larry's Hideaway CD - and I think you'll love it. You'll never spot the patches - I guarantee it. Listen through entirely and you'll never, ever know this is a composite production, and you'll never, ever realize that I patched at least a dozen fairly significant glitches. Now if only Capitol (I.R.S.) would release this - I'd be glad to give 'em my 32-bit work project ;)

So without further ado, please enjoy!

R.E.M.
9 July 1983
Larry's Hideaway
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
DEFINITIVE EDITION - MP3 format

Reassembled and Remastered from two sources:
1) Rising bootleg silver CD
2) 2nd CD in Murmur Deluxe Edition

01 Wolves, Lower
02 Moral Kiosk
03 Laughing
04 Pilgrimage
05 Moon River
06 There She Goes Again
07 Seven Chinese Brothers
08 Talk About The Passion
09 Sitting Still
10 Harborcoat
11 Catapult
12 Pretty Persuasion
13 Gardening At Night
14 9-9
15 Just A Touch
16 West Of The Fields
17 Radio Free Europe
18 We Walk
19 1,000,000
20 Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)

Tracks 1/2/5/12 were not included on the "official" version.

IMHO this version stomps all over the released version, kicks it to the curb, and plants a flag on it. It's that good. Just drop a comment if you want this lossless....

(edit: Lossless version posted today - grab it!)

Part I
Part II
(need to grab both parts, as usual)

RIP Jay Bennett (Wilco): 11/15/1963 - 5/24/2009

So I just heard the news that Jay Bennett, ex-Wilco, died in his sleep over the weekend.

I had the pleasure of seeing Jay perform quite a few times with Wilco (and once at an instore as a solo gig after being booted from the band), and got the chance to chat with him a few times as well. One of the nicest guys I've ever had the pleasure to meet in the industry.

I even saw his last gig with Wilco, on the 4th of July at Grant Park, Chicago in 2001 - and briefly chatted with him as well after that gig. Little did anyone know what was to come.

Oddly enough, even before this weekend, I haven't been able to stop listening to another Bennett-related gig (which I'm posting) - a fantastic soundboard recording of Jay and Jeff Tweedy performing at the Old Town School Of Folk Music Festival in July 1999, the first Wilco-related gig I saw (with my friend Brad).

It's sad listening regardless - these two obviously shared a close bond at one point (and Jay's contributions to this gig are amazing - just listen to his piano and background vocals on "Via Chicago") - and doubly sad with the news of the hour.

So in memoriam... on Memorial Day in the US...



Jeff Tweedy & Jay Bennett
July 25, 1999
Old Town School Of Folk Music Festival, Chicago, IL

01 intro
02 James Alley Blues
03 She's A Jar
04 New Madrid
05 Blood Of The Lamb
06 Down In The Willow Garden
07 The Auld Triangle
08 Another Man's Done Gone
09 Hesitating Beauty
10 Via Chicago
11 Sugar Baby
12 I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
13 Forget The Flowers
14 I'm Always In Love
15 The Lonely 1
16 Summerteeth
17 Pecan Pie
18 True Love Will Find You In The End
19 Casino Queen
20 California Stars
21 Hoodoo Voodoo

part I
part II

- - - - -

Some video from other gigs/sources...

"Cars Can't Escape"
"Another Man's Done Gone"
"Monday"

divide and conquer: Hüsker Dü in 1985

No long intro this time. Just a quick 1985 Hüsker Dü hit, perhaps this seminal, groundbreaking punkpop band's best year ever, creatively speaking. Each song sung by its primary songwriter, guitarist Bob Mould and drummer Grant Hart perhaps are at their creative peaks (as far as Hüsker Dü is concerned) with each back-and-forth track. We have January 1985's New Day Rising - a more melodic carrying-on from 1984's Zen Arcade, and then we have September 1985's stellar Flip Your Wig - a record that's basically one giant hook from the first notes of the first track to the very last note of the last song.



Hard to imagine these two records (each amazing on their own) were released only 8 months apart. Closest I can think of would be Joy Division, a band that in the space of 10 months recorded two independently-amazing bodies of work in Unknown Pleasures and Closer.

- - -

NEW DAY RISING (SST 031, January 1985)



01 New Day Rising
02 The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill
03 I Apologize
04 Folklore
05 If I Told You
06 Celebrated Summer
07 Perfect Example
08 Terms Of Psychic Warfare
09 59 Times The Pain
10 Powerline
11 Books About UFOs
12 I Don't Know What You're Talking About
13 How To Skin A Cat
14 Whatcha Drinkin'
15 Plans I Make


FLIP YOUR WIG (SST 055, September 1985)



01 Flip Your Wig
02 Every Everything
03 Makes No Sense At All
04 Hate Paper Doll
05 Green Eyes
06 Divide And Conquer
07 Games
08 Find Me
09 The Baby Song
10 Flexible Flyer
11 Private Plane
12 Keep Hanging On
13 The Wit And The Wisdom
14 Don't Know Yet

- - -

Two RAR files, gotta grab 'em both to extract the whole deal

edit: Removed link.

enjoy!

Walk, in silence / Don't walk away, in silence

Today marks the 29th anniversary of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis' death.

Rest in peace, Ian.

"Atmosphere"
October 1979, Cargo Studios, Rochdale



Directed by Anton Corbijn, 1988

postpunk on the prairie: Poster Children

I'm not willing to leave just yet, thinking of Tar keeps me grounded.

Leave where? The Prairie State, of course. Land of Lincoln. Perhaps in 100 years it'll be also known as Land of Obama.

Illinois.

Home of the forever snakebit Chicago Cubs, the perennial bastard stepchildren White Sox, rising Bulls and Original Six member Blackhawks.

Not to mention the Monsters of the Midway, the Bears.

But let's go about 150 miles south down Interstate 57, to the thriving metropolis of Champaign/Urbana. Home to the most disgusting summertime smells this side of rural Iowa thanks to the multitude of hog farms surrounding town, and also home to the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana plays host to their very own Poster Children.



A poppier Tar? Perhaps. A more-fun Hüsker Dü? Maybe. But definitely some great guitar songs, and just a great postpunk/DIY band the likes of which are sorely missed these days.

PC started in 1987 or thereabouts when University of Illinois students Rick Valentin and Rose Marshack started up a Joy Division covers band they called Cries and Whispers, after the early New Order track. When they decided to write and perform their own material, they found a drummer and the name Poster Children.

They self-released a cassette amongst the Champaign glitterati in 1988 entitled Toreador Squat (your humble blogger has never heard this, but knows someone who claims to have a copy buried somewhere - if anybody has it I would kill for a copy!) and then recorded a lot of tracks that summer with Chicago-based postpunk producer extraordinaire Iain Burgess. Not having a home for these tracks, they sat on them for a bit, gigged a lot, recorded some additional tracks with Steve Albini in 1989, and then finally released an 8-song assemblage of these two discrete sessions later in 1989 as the LP Flower Plower.

Meanwhile the band was on drummer #2, drummer #1 having left to pursue academic interests. Then after releasing Flower Plower, drummer #2 left to pursue his own music, who was replaced by drummer #3.

In 1990 drummer #3 left, and as the PC website states, "the available drummers in Champaign had been tapped out, so Chicagoan Bob Rising was welcomed into the band". Bob (and future Hum bassist Jeff Dimpsey on addtional guitars) then joined Rick and Rose in recording what would become the band's 2nd true LP, again with Albini running the boards.

In the meantime the band had hooked up with Minneapolis indie label Twin/Tone. Twin/Tone financed the recording and, eventually, released the record which was entitled Daisychain Reaction. The release was delayed by a year or so due to Twin/Tone's financial difficulties, and then after the collapse of indie distributor powerhouse Rough Trade late in 1991 (a collapse which led to a massive reorganization amongst the American indie label scene), the label itself also ran into a spot of trouble.

Meantime Nirvana broke, grunge broke, and the majors were going berserk looking for the "next Nirvana". After hosting plenty of suitors, the band signed with Sire/Warner Brothers and re-issued Daisychain Reaction in 1992.

Plenty of further recordings were made (both for Warners, and then back to the indie scene), and eventually the band settled on drummer #7 who plays with the band to this day.

Like the Minutemen before them, PC are massive DIY proponents. They book their own tours and manage themselves (essentially), take no tour support, and are a self-supporting machine that finances their own existence. They program their own websites and multimedia extravaganzas on their various late 90s/early 2000s CD releases. They run themselves.

Featured here is Daisychain Reaction, and tagged on are two additional tracks from the DCR sessions that were released by Sub Pop as a limited edition 7" in 1990. I hope you enjoy!

And finally, like Tar's Toast record, I reviewed this as well for my college newspaper. And of course I still have a copy of that review, from the newspaper's December 13, 1991 edition. So without further ado....

POSTER CHILDREN
DAISYCHAIN REACTION
Twin/Tone Records

Hailing from the cultural mecca of Champaign/Urbana, Illinois (home of the University of Illinois), Poster Children have hooked up with producer/"musician" extraordinaire Steve Albini (Big Black, Rapeman) to create one of the best grunge/power pop albums of the year in Daisychain Reaction. Taking their cue from the thriving Chicago musical scene, the Poster Kids manage to blend gut-wrenching guitars and a keen sense of melody and rhythm into a sound unequaled by any other band I've heard lately. Singer Rick (they don't use last names) can sing with a scream that would wilt the Pixies' Black Francis like a parched flower ("If You See Kay" - try saying that out loud), and yet he can also sing peacefully and gently ("Where We Live"). Their press kit says Steve Albini used such studio trickery as live lemurs (?) on one track, but I'll be damned if I can find them. [2009 interruption - the mentioned lemurs feature in "Space Gun".] Great idea, though - what good are lemurs for otherwise? Lyrics such as "I am the Paranoid King" (from "Frustration" are typical of the Poster Children, as many of their song sing of fear or tension. Poster Children do for upbeat grunge what New Order did for club music - they make it worth it and fashionable to listen to it again.

Not the greatest writing, but hey, I was much greener behind the ears back then.

- - - - -

DAISYCHAIN REACTION
(1992 re-issue on Sire)



01 Dee
02 Cancer
03 If You See Kay
04 Love
05 Freedom Rock
06 Space Gun
07 Water
08 Want It
09 Carver's
10 Chain Reaction
11 Frustration
12 Where We Live


"THINNER, STRONGER" b/w "POINTED STICK"
(1990 Sub Pop Singles Club SP88, limited edition of 4500 copies)



01 Thinner, Stronger
02 Pointed Stick

- - - -

Both these records are out of print, so before downloading (link below) I suggest you pay a visit to the band's website and click the link to drop some cash in the hat, since you did not obtain these records in a record shop. It'd be a nice gesture at least.

Get the above 2 records (single RAR file)

New Order - Western Works demos followup

Now that the dust has settled a bit from this blog's freeing of the Western Works demos taken from the master reel, I thought it appropriate to discuss this a bit further.

There were quite a few fans who made this possible - I can't thank them all, because of course everybody wishes to remain anonymous, but were it not for the generosity of many, this would likely have ended up in the hands of a notorious bootlegger who would not have seen to it's proper care and feeding.

It's been quite apparent from my logs that this post has been shared worldwide. While I'm grateful for the exposure, please leave a comment and let me know what you think!

The band is aware of this material's existence in the wild.

Those who doubted about New Order's involvement in the NO/Cabs jam "Are You Ready Are You Ready Are You Ready For This?" - doubt no further. A member of New Order - who was of course there at the time, he was in the band! - was the direct, to me, source of this information, not secondhand or thirdhand.

When this bunch of fans obtained the reel, this track was completely unknown and it was just pure speculation at the time that it was a Cabs/NO jam. I had this New Order member identify it for me - it was he who revealed its title to me - and this same member also confirmed the instrumentation:

Hooky - bass
Bernard - guitar (and "whooping" in the background)
Steve - Simmons drums, and the same Dr Rhythm drum machine used on Truth
Rob Gretton - vocals
various Cabs - sonic alterations

This member also stated there was another collaboration recorded at the time, which was a bit more classic New Order-y in sound, but alas this appears to have been lost in the mists of time. It was not on the reel as purchased off eBay.

You may be of course asking how the auction win came about.

The reel was advertised as being rescued in a Chorlton charity shop, and was described as containing "unreleased" Joy Division mixes, specifically "She's Lost Control" and "Atmosphere". Alas, neither are unreleased mixes - the reel contained test pressing vinyl captures of the FACUS2 "She's Lost Control" b/w "Atmosphere" 12" single, and a transfer of the Sordide Sentimental 7" "Atmosphere", presumably for comparison sake. Nothing JD on the reel was unreleased, and in fact both were of fairly poor quality for a vinyl transfer to reel. Not listed on the reel, and not mentioned in the auction description, was the New Order material.

On the reverse side of the reel - labeled "!SBAC" - are 4 Cabaret Voltaire tracks that eventually saw release in the early 1980s. You would have needed a 4-track reel-to-reel machine to play these properly, it's obvious that neither New Order nor the eBay seller didn't have such a machine, at least at the time.

Here are photos of the reel itself...

Side 1



(detail)



and Side 2



(detail)



Note how Side 1 starts with "Cabaret Volt. Demos" - I'm wondering if this was New Order's shorthand for the Western Works session.

And here's some detail on the Cabs material on Side 2, the "!SBAC"-labeled side:

I have identified the 4 Cabs tracks on the reel.

They are:
1. Doubled Delivery
2. Venusian Animals
3. The Outer Limits
4. She Loved You

These are the B side of the Industrial Records cassette, IRC-35 Cabaret Voltaire 1974-1976. There is also a later Mute Grey Area CD release.

The original cassette was released by Industrial in early 1981, so this fits into the time frame and seems to point to Chris Watson as the original source.

Please be advised we've no info if Watson was indeed the source or not, that was just pure speculation.

If you only had a 2-track reel machine and attempted to play Side 2, it would play backwards - hence the label being backwards. The labeler knew it was Cabs material but couldn't play it back properly.

So please discuss!