Vredenburg Hall, Utrecht, Holland December 8th 1985
Dutch FM Broadcast, top quality A+
Please note: track 08 is derived from a minidisc ATRAC/SP transfer from analogue cassette. **If you redistribute these files, please include all the notes and questions below**
Paddy McAloon - vocals, guitar
Martin McAloon - bass
Neil Conti - drums
Wendy Smith - backing vocals
Mike Shipley - Keyboards
Kevin Armstrong - Guitar
01 Bonny
02 Hallelujah
03 Wicked Things
04 Johnny Johnny (Goodbye Lucille #1)
05 When Love Breaks Down
06 Cruel
07 Faron Young
08 Cars and Girls (start missing)
Lineage - Tracks 01-07 CD received in trade, presumed recording from Dutch FM; Track 08 from different minidisc recording (ATRAC SP) believed to be copy of cassette, slightly lower quality. Tracks transferred from original medium and separated and exported to FLAC using Audacity. see http://psgigs.wikispaces.com
This is short but very sweet, and marks as much as anything a piece of research in progress as a finished recording. More of that later.
However the recording as it stands is wonderful, to my mind the best Prefab Sprout live recording of all those professionally recorded for broadcast. It sounds lovely, with the keyboards being warmer in the mix than usual and the sound fuller and richer, and it squarely falls into the great lost live album category in my opinion.
It's in two parts, the first part being a complete recording of a 20 minute broadcast segment for Dutch FM which I received via a CD trade and which I believe to be a clean analogue transfer from a tape of the broadcast. I've checked it as thoroughly as I know how. I also have a minidisc copy of that segment plus Cars and Girls which is an inferior recording (lower frequency range), and so that song has been appended to the set here as a "part 2", unfortunately minus the first few bars. Some sources also document the inclusion of "Appetite" in the Dutch broadcast but I've never yet found a copy of that. I also have an MP3 sourced Cars and Girls which is complete.
This isn't the whole story however. The concert was also broadcast by Capital Radio in London in an edited format. A recording of this exists in the British Library Sound archive which is available for listening on Soundserver (BL catalogue references given).
Tape 1 - C628/396 Broadcast show introduced by Tony Hale:
01. Faron Young (as Dutch tape)
02. Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
03. Wicked Things
04. Don't Sing
05. When Love Breaks Down
06. When the Angels
07. Appetite
Additional tapes also in the British Library appear to be the rushes and edits from the broadcast.
Tape 2 - C628/712 Presumed Rushes and Edits
01. Moving the River
02. Cars and Girls
03. Bonny
04. Faron Young ("Spanish" lead in only)
05. Hallelujah
06. Lions (spoken intro only)
Tape 3 - C628/713 Presumed Rushes and Edits
01. Cruel
02. Faron Young (Reprised version, starting "Pardon me boy, is that the Chatanooga choo choo?")
It's unfortunate that this tape isn't directly accessible, because if it were it would be possible to reconstruct almost all the concert in impeccable quality. But there is the possibility that it was sold to other radio stations in addition to Capital, in which case tapes may exist somewhere. If anyone can locate anything, let me know via the address on the http://psgigs.wikispaces.com site.
If any tapes of the Capital Radio broadcast exist I'd love to know of them (also looking for a 1984 broadcast of the ICA Rock Week featuring Prefab Sprout (3 songs) and Billy Bragg, amongst others, also from Capital.
And can anyone identify the station that made the broadcast in Holland? The biggest clue is probably the DJ Outro spoken section at the end of Cars and Girls.
Just for completeness, the presumed set list for the concert based on other similar concerts of the period would have been something like:
01 Moving The River
02 Cars and Girls
03 Bonny
04 Faron Young
05 Hallelujah
06 Lions In My Own Garden
07 Wicked Things
08 Goodbye Lucille # 1
09 Don't Sing
[10 Tiffany's] - not on any tape
11 When Love Breaks Down
12 When The Angels
13 Appetite
14 Cruel
15 Faron Young
+++
Kousei Nenkin Hall, Tokyo July 2nd 1986
Japanese FM Broadcast, MAJOR UPGRADE - A+ quality
Previous copy of this uploaded was a multigeneration copy of a tape digitised and suffered from some light tape hiss. This version from a commercial bootleg ("Sprouted Shows") is a pristine FM recording with very low noise and is a superb recording, much sharper and crisper than the previous version. It lacks the spoken promo at the end of the recording but is otherwise a complete replacement and a significant upgrade.
As a bonus, a recording of The Golden Calf from a 1989 TV Broadcast (Big World Cafe, Brixton Academy) has also been included, this being also present on "Sprouted Shows".
I've also taken the opportunity of correcting the name of the Japanese venue in the notes on the advice of a Japanese contact.
Paddy McAloon - vocals, guitar
Martin McAloon - bass
Neil Conti - drums
Wendy Smith - backing vocals, keyboards (Golden Calf)
Gary Hughes - Keyboards (Kousei Nenkin)
Dave Brewis - Guitar (Golden Calf)
01 Moving the River
02 Faron Young
03 Hallelujah
04 Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
05 Goodbye Lucille #1
06 When Love Breaks Down
07 Appetite
08 Cruel
09 Faron Young (reprise)
10 The Golden Calf (Brixton Academy 1989)
Lineage - Sprouted Shows Bootleg -> Mac wav import with error correction -> CD -> DBPowerAmp FLAC rip
There were some difficulties extracting the audio from the disk, which appears to be a CD-R copy of an original (possibly released in that format) and unreadable in places. These were eventually solved using a Mac fitted with a Mitsibushi drive and full error correction, this appeared to read the disk without any problems. However the bad reads didn't affect this particular concert in any case.
Japanese recording is top quality from FM broadcast, very low noise, 19kHz FM guide signal still present. Golden Calf recording is a reasonable transfer from TV source, unknown processing, but has had about a second of audio appended by me from another source (WMV audio from the youtube video).
1986 saw Prefab Sprout's sole excursion outside Europe as a live band, as part of the five band "New Artist Showcase" mini tour of Japan - the other bands being Drum Theatre, Face to Face, Eurogliders and 'til Tuesday. Each band played 2 dates, one in Osaka, and one in Tokyo. Gary Hughes joined on keyboards, replacing Mike Shipley who had played on the preceding dates in Europe, and various promotional activities were undertaken in support, including the release of When Love Breaks Down in Japan, and the broadcast of part of the Tokyo concert on FM radio. Following extensive touring in support of Steve McQueen, the band were playing absolutely at their best, and they are beautifully captured in this recording.
Something worked, because Prefab Sprout maintain a strong following to this day in Japan. Indeed anyone who likes the band should do their best to locate the stunning mini-LP format remasters of their albums which were released only in Japan.
The Golden Calf performance was part of a few promotional outings in support of singles from Langley Park to Memphis. Sometimes (as on the Hippodrome Show), Prefab Sprout sang live to backing tapes, sometimes they mimed, and in one memorable "Wired" feature Paddy McAloon did an accoustic version of the King of Rock and Roll in Newcastle City Centre which was criminally inset with a mimed performance on broadcast.
But this performance at the Brixton Academy was completely live, and was the best performance from a set of attempts which also reputedly included Paddy playing Maggie's Farm to keep spirits up through some technical difficulties. A partial version of the broadcast is on youtube with the video.
It's notable for having Wendy Smith on keyboards. Wendy recalled that "I haven’t seen this footage before – I do remember it – it is the Brixton Academy and it was filming from a TV show which I can’t remember... I think we only played one song and I played keyboard because on the track I played percussion, on the video I mimed guitar and didn’t sing. So I had to play keyboard live." (And no, before anyone asks, I don't have a line of contact to Wendy, you'd have more luck getting God's telephone number than getting a reply to a question from an ex Sprout, sadly. The shutters are drawn).
"Sprouted Songs" is a 2 CD Bootleg and my copy appears to be a CD-R copy of an original commercial release with colour photocopied inserts. The bootleg contains what may be a recording of a broadcast of the BBC Transcription disk version of Reading 1985 In Concert (i.e. containing Appetite and omitting Don't Sing and Cruel), but which is a downgrade to the version posted on Dime last year, and a recording of Utrecht 1985 posted here last year and adding nothing.
+++
Swoon Pre-Demos c1983
From CD-R transfer of unknown generation cassette (A)
Paddy McAloon - vocals, guitar
Martin McAloon - bass
(Mick Salmon - Drums)
Wendy Smith - backing vocals
01. Glass Slipper
02. I Never Play Basketball Now
03. Talking Scarlet
04. Green Isaac
05. Couldn't Bear to Be Special
lineage: Unknown generation cassette (appended to "Hurrah! Newcastle Mayfair 1984") directly transferred to CD-R some years ago, ripped to FLAC. Songs were labelled "Pre-Swoon demo's" on the cassette.
This is a great selection of demo recordings pre-dating Swoon. Copies have been circulating from MP3 sourced recordings as part of the "CD Fanzine Series" from the late 1990s, but the current recordings are as far as I can tell completely audio sourced with no lossy intermediate steps and were tracked down to the earliest known source - unfortunately the original cassette has been lost. The songs are unretouched from the CD-R, and have a little light hiss, but otherwise very nice indeed. Dating to 1983 is a little speculative, but it won't be later than 1984.If the recording dates from 1983 then Mick Salmon was most likely a band member, although he is not evident on the recording.
The unreleased Glass Slipper is unique to this session, and in the best tradition of Prefab Sprout is a song that grows on you on repeated listens. All the other songs made it onto albums (eventually in the case of Talking Scarlet" which had to wait until Protest Songs was released in 1989), but have significant differences lyrically in most cases. Couldn't Bear to Be Special, with gently double tracked vocals, is worth the price of admission on its own.
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