The advantage of being of the classic rock generation is that now we’re old, the business knows that the music we loved and bought in vast quantities went culturally deep with us, so that if they can unearth live recordings or unused tracks and put them on vinyl or CD, there’s a waiting audience for them. I know there’s no Jethro Tull or Deep Purple live recording I won’t buy.
The archive has now surely been raided to such an extent that there can’t be much left. I was looking at a collection of Beatles outtakes recently, and unless you want to listen to 20 takes of Taxman, there’s nothing new left to release. They’ve raided the vaults until they’re empty. And some great stuff has come out. My favourite is Tull’s Chateau D’Isaster Tapes. Some had already been released in one form or another, but it's nice to have those excellent tapes all gathered together.
The amazing thing is the high quality of the album. Why they rejected it in the first place is a mystery, because the music is superb. Sometimes things that didn’t make the original album are not brilliant, which is why they left them off in the first place. But not here. Similarly, their War Child II made up of recordings made during the War Child sessions from late 1973 and early 1974, is excellent, which makes me wonder if more excellent unreleased material exists.
I think it’s unusual for 50-year-old unreleased stuff to be so good. Because why wouldn’t you use it? Live recordings are a better source of material because so many bands played so many gigs over so many years. I couldn’t resist a triple by Yes, Progeny: Seven Shows from Seventy-Two, which is as good as you’d imagine. But my favourite is Ten Years After’s set at Woodstock. It was a time when they were always on the road and were super tight.
And how many live Deep Purple live CDs were released? For years there were rumours of live tapes or studio outtakes which came out on legendary bootlegs. There were loads of Rolling Stones ones. Some of these have since found an official release. The surprising thing, probably cost-related, is that many are CD only. Mountain released lots of live shows which would have made great live albums on vinyl.
There are also releases like those from radio shows, which are out of copyright. There are some great gigs from lots of bands, and they’re usually quite cheap.
We’re an easily identified cohort, and while these releases might not sell in hundreds of thousands, but I bet we’ve all got at least one.
The classic rock generation...
