In bootleg heaven...

The closest I ever come to heaven is listening to the Beatles. Some of you already know this about me, but I spent most of my formative years in pursuit of lost Beatle songs; many, but far from all, of these ended up on the BBC and Anthology series. (All the people in the house who've heard "No Pakistanis," say "Yeah!") It was a rather brutal hobby--always expensive, the sound quality varied from muffled to absolutely horrible. Plus, the record stores always seemed to reek of cat pee. Later, after I had moved on to other pursuits and didn't have any spare money to spend anyway, there was another generation of Beatle boots out there, on CD and much more worth the dough than the endless "Let It Be" session retreads--"Hear Yoko say something spacy!" "Hear George coughing!"--I suffered through.



So anyway, a friend of mine has just forked over three of the best (to my ears, at least) Beatle boots out there: Free As A Bird (The Dakota Beatle Demos), Unsurpassed Demos, and Stars of '63 . The first is a collection of the best unreleased Lennon demos from his "househusband" days, 1976-1980; this includes the legendary "third song," redone by the Threetles in 1995, "Now and Then." Really nice stuff; it will be in my player a lot. Unsurpassed Demos is a collection of White Album-era demos recorded at George's house in Esher; I'm listening to it now and it's actually making me like the White Album. I know, I know, it's beyond the pale to admit that any Beatles album doesn't do it for me, but just between you, me, and the turntable, I've always found the White Album to be a really lousy listening experience--some great songs, but it just oozes bad vibes, as far as I'm concerned. Finally, Stars of '63 is a recording of a Beatles performance in 1963 for Swedish radio. Live Beatles is usually awful--they couldn't hear themselves play, so their showmanship actually deteriorated from around 1964-66. But this is very tight, very nice, "She Loves You"-era stuff.



The only non-Beatle bootleg I've ever been interested in is "Smile," Brian Wilson's great unfinished pop symphony from late 1966-early '67. (Do you own "Pet Sounds"? YOU SHOULD.) The version of Smile I have is decent, but it really only whets the appetite, so I've joined a Yahoo Group called The Smile Project, which is a group of fans that are refining the collection of Smile tracks, and will burn you their current version. I cannot wait. Meanwhile, here's a link to a nice site devoted to Smile.



And of course there's The Beatles Anthology just released on DVD...A birthday present? Or can I wait that long?