Originally posted February 1, 2016
Tom Verlaine - The 1986 London Sessions
aka - Vanity Fair
(UK sessions from 1986 intended for an album but later shelved)
Studio soundboards @flac
Studio soundboards @flac
**Original Notes**
Sometime in 1986 or early 1987 Verlaine and Dave Bascombe produced at least 10 tracks intended for an LP that was shortly thereafter rejected by Phonogram/Fontana. The known 10 tracks from these sessions are sometimes called the ‘Bascombe sessions’, the ‘1986 London sessions’, the ‘Lost Album’ - or the ‘10 b-sides’ (as the tracks later appeared on b-sides of various Verlaine UK single releases).
Subsequently, Verlaine recorded the album Flash Light (1987). A version of The Scientist Writes A Letter from the Bascombe sessions ended up intact on Flash Light; the non-Flash Light, b-side version of Scientist is known as the ‘Paris Version’, has a different spoken section in the middle and lacks, to my mind, the power of the album version. Another of the 10 b-sides, One Time at Sundown, was re-recorded in a different version for Flash Light. Caveman-Flashlight, Circling, Smoother Than Jones, One Time at Sundown (The 1986 London Version) and The Scientist Writes a Letter (Paris Version) do not exist in a CD format.
Anna, Circling, Call Me The and Vanity Fair certainly rank with the best of Verlaine’s recorded work and we can only guess at why these tracks were not acceptable to the record company. Not ‘commercial’ enough? Well, surely no-one would sign Tom Verlaine in the mid-’80s and expect him to make an album that would outsell, say, Dire Straits or the Police (or The Thompson Twins or whatever else was passing for popular music back then). Would they?
Track List:
Track 01. Sixteen Tulips
Track 02. Caveman/Flashlight
Track 03. Anna
Track 04. The Scientist Writes A Letter (oop Paris Version)
Track 05. Call Me The
Track 06. Circling
Track 07. Smoother Than Jones
Track 08. Vanity Fair
Track 09. One Time At Sundown (the London 1986 version)
Bonus Tracks
Track 10. Marquee Moon (Live) {mp3 version only}