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Post by ells1972b on Sept 4, 2023 21:06:05 GMT
Apparently unreleased from 1977 and produced by Richard Tandy.
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Post by Chippa on Sept 4, 2023 22:09:00 GMT
Interesting. I wasn't even aware of its existence.
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Post by Timeblue on Sept 9, 2023 23:02:11 GMT
Interesting. I wasn't even aware of its existence. Me neither, don't know much about him apart from he was a musician from Birmingham and he passed in 2012.
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Post by ShardEnder on Oct 4, 2023 12:55:29 GMT
There's quite the interesting history behind this album... According to a session sheet*, it was recorded at AIR in '76, with Richard indeed credited as producer. However, the client was given as ELO, and it looked as if the band was in London to work on a classical interpretation of The Planets, which may have been the only way Dave and Jim were able to get their foot in the door. When the powers that be at Jet received an invoice for the completed project (which was intended to have been released as simply Morgan Cleary) and there was no sign of the listed group, Don Arden refused to cover the bill or release what was being offered, leading to the masters being retained by the studio in lieu of payment. For years, Dave had been selling copies of this material at live shows and even to members of his Top Table Club fan subscription service, though my understanding is that he acquired the rights again last year and wasted no time in officially getting these songs out, plus a few bonus treats from his similarly unreleased "Grand Oaks" archive. Now I think about it, I'm surprised he didn't try remaking more from this album, as a new version of Paradise Garden turned up as one of the B-sides to the Action! single back in '86. P.S. Jim Cleary was the only non-ELO musician to be part of the impromptu reception band at Dave's wedding on May 4th 1982. The date was apparently Richard's idea! *Found it:
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Post by lawrev on Oct 4, 2023 13:49:18 GMT
Speaking of Dave's 1982 wedding, has any photos surfaced of this impromptu reception band playing? I've seen a couple photos of ELO members in attendance, but none of an actual performance. The photos I've seen include Bev, Jeff, Richard, and Mik, but not Kelly. Was Kelly frozen out by May 1982 and thus not invited, or simply a matter that he could not attend?
I would figure that photos of such an impromptu performance would have surfaced in the past 40 years.
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Post by edmw1965 on Oct 4, 2023 14:37:19 GMT
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Post by ShardEnder on Oct 4, 2023 18:57:35 GMT
Speaking of Dave's 1982 wedding, has any photos surfaced of this impromptu reception band playing? I've seen a couple photos of ELO members in attendance, but none of an actual performance. The photos I've seen include Bev, Jeff, Richard, and Mik, but not Kelly. Was Kelly frozen out by May 1982 and thus not invited, or simply a matter that he could not attend?
I would figure that photos of such an impromptu performance would have surfaced in the past 40 years. Here you go: Based on the date, I'm guessing Kelly had solo promotional commitments, as it turns out he wasn't even frozen out of the August-December '82 sessions at Wisseloord as once thought: This one shot (courtesy of the late Brian Jones) is a real timeline-breaker!
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Post by lawrev on Oct 4, 2023 21:38:26 GMT
Speaking of Dave's 1982 wedding, has any photos surfaced of this impromptu reception band playing? I've seen a couple photos of ELO members in attendance, but none of an actual performance. The photos I've seen include Bev, Jeff, Richard, and Mik, but not Kelly. Was Kelly frozen out by May 1982 and thus not invited, or simply a matter that he could not attend?
I would figure that photos of such an impromptu performance would have surfaced in the past 40 years. Here you go: Based on the date, I'm guessing Kelly had solo promotional commitments, as it turns out he wasn't even frozen out of the August-December '82 sessions at Wisseloord as once thought: This one shot (courtesy of the late Brian Jones) is a real timeline-breaker! Thanks ShardEnder for these photos. Well, the timeline regarding Kelly is certainly different now. I think most of us were under the impression that by the summer of 1982 that he was frozen out, as Jeff didn't want the band supporting the release of his solo album. Kelly was around in the studio through 1982 (and that one photo is a very weird one, like it is a special effects photo with Kelly in it).
If the original release date of SM had been stuck to (December 1982?) then Kelly would have been on the entire album instead of four songs? Or did Kelly play on more than four songs and wasn't given credit in the end?
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Post by ShardEnder on Oct 5, 2023 2:34:19 GMT
Jet originally gave December '82 as a deadline for when SM - then still to have been called Unexpected Moments - was to be delivered, and Jeff did turn in a "final" assembly, but I'm unsure whether that was intended for release later the same month or in early '83. At the very least, I reckon a few days wouldn't have been enough lead time to get a double album with gatefold artwork on shelves, and I can see why CBS might have used the oil crisis excuse to cut this down. Anyway, my understanding of the timeline is that the band flew back to London for the RNRIK video shoot in mid-December, only Jeff then returned to Wisseloord for another two months, where he worked alone on further remixing, overdubbing and recording all interludes before making even further changes at Soundcastle and Allen Zentz in March, which is when Bill Bottrell left the project due to having other commitments. Without having access to those earliest completed mixes, I can only speculate on whether more of Kelly's contributed were later wiped, but I can imagine it would have been difficult to do anything about RNRIK, since this was finished so close to the video shoot that the scenery designers were stuck with set pieces thematically linked to the wiped Motor Factory set of lyrics. As a side note, I've been lucky enough to hear Jeff's initial demo for Johnny Rocker: the semi-autobiographical interim rewrite about someone who has grown weary of being on the road, and it's devastating! {Sample lyric}No more love No more fame No more load on the crane Tired and so lonely It's just all on the brain Every night, every day I don't remember if I've ever posted the original tracklist for UM, so here it is again: A - Secret Messages/Loser Gone Wild/Bluebird/Take Me On And On B - Train Of Gold/Time After Time/After All/Endless Lies/Hello My Old Friend C - Stranger/No Way Out/Beatles Forever/Letter From Spain/Mandalay D - Four Little Diamonds/Buildings Have Eyes/Danger Ahead/Rock 'N' Roll Is King Each quarter was going to be a standalone conceptual suite. A is about how messages grow from whispers to signals floating endlessly in space, B is a cautionary tale of being wronged by a woman with expensive taste, C spanned the history of music from the '50s to a prediction of the near-future, while D was simply described to me as the rock side. If you take out all the interludes, it's possible to get a fairly accurate idea of how this version might have flowed.
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Post by lawrev on Oct 5, 2023 7:16:55 GMT
Jet originally gave December '82 as a deadline for when SM - then still to have been called Unexpected Moments - was to be delivered, and Jeff did turn in a "final" assembly, but I'm unsure whether that was intended for release later the same month or in early '83. At the very least, I reckon a few days wouldn't have been enough lead time to get a double album with gatefold artwork on shelves, and I can see why CBS might have used the oil crisis excuse to cut this down. Anyway, my understanding of the timeline is that the band flew back to London for the RNRIK video shoot in mid-December, only Jeff then returned to Wisseloord for another two months, where he worked alone on further remixing, overdubbing and recording all interludes before making even further changes at Soundcastle and Allen Zentz in March, which is when Bill Bottrell left the project due to having other commitments. Without having access to those earliest completed mixes, I can only speculate on whether more of Kelly's contributed were later wiped, but I can imagine it would have been difficult to do anything about RNRIK, since this was finished so close to the video shoot that the scenery designers were stuck with set pieces thematically linked to the wiped Motor Factory set of lyrics. As a side note, I've been lucky enough to hear Jeff's initial demo for Johnny Rocker: the semi-autobiographical interim rewrite about someone who has grown weary of being on the road, and it's devastating! {Sample lyric}No more love No more fame No more load on the crane Tired and so lonely It's just all on the brain Every night, every day I don't remember if I've ever posted the original tracklist for UM, so here it is again: A - Secret Messages/Loser Gone Wild/Bluebird/Take Me On And On B - Train Of Gold/Time After Time/After All/Endless Lies/Hello My Old Friend C - Stranger/No Way Out/Beatles Forever/Letter From Spain/Mandalay D - Four Little Diamonds/Buildings Have Eyes/Danger Ahead/Rock 'N' Roll Is King Each quarter was going to be a standalone conceptual suite. A is about how messages grow from whispers to signals floating endlessly in space, B is a cautionary tale of being wronged by a woman with expensive taste, C spanned the history of music from the '50s to a prediction of the near-future, while D was simply described to me as the rock side. If you take out all the interludes, it's possible to get a fairly accurate idea of how this version might have flowed. Thanks for this information ShardEnder . I continue to be fascinated by this period in ELO's history, largely because Jeff doesn't talk about this period and Kelly is no longer around to get an absolute timeline on how things unraveled. It also appears that nobody else, at that time, or at least through the Balance of Power period, spoke about this issue. The firing of Kelly must have caused a disruption within the band, I suspect?
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Post by ShardEnder on Oct 5, 2023 12:46:00 GMT
Another detail from this period that recently surprised me was learning how Kelly was invited to see ELO play Wembley Stadium in '86 as a guest of the band. I now suspect the one quote we have from Jeff during the '83 lawsuit was filtered through his lawyer and may have been something he came to regret, as it's clear there wasn't really anything else that could be done after the settlement except dismiss Kelly to ensure he couldn't profit from his continued association with the band - an agreement that remained in place right up through him not being able to contribute anything until late into production for Moment Of Truth. On a related note, I found a comment from Phil Bates confirming that Twist Of The Knife was a rewrite of Ships That Pass - a title first seen in documentation for Kelly's unreleased second solo album, to have been called Lights Out. In short, just as I'm starting to think I've got a lid on how things played out, some new piece of information shows up that sends me back to the drawing board.
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Post by lawrev on Oct 5, 2023 13:01:48 GMT
Another detail from this period that recently surprised me was learning how Kelly was invited to see ELO play Wembley Stadium in '86 as a guest of the band. I now suspect the one quote we have from Jeff during the '83 lawsuit was filtered through his lawyer and may have been something he came to regret, as it's clear there wasn't really anything else that could be done after the settlement except dismiss Kelly to ensure he couldn't profit from his continued association with the band - an agreement that remained in place right up through him not being able to contribute anything until late into production for Moment Of Truth. On a related note, I found a comment from Phil Bates confirming that Twist Of The Knife was a rewrite of Ships That Pass - a title first seen in documentation for Kelly's unreleased second solo album, to have been called Lights Out. In short, just as I'm starting to think I've got a lid on how things played out, some new piece of information shows up that sends me back to the drawing board. I saw a quote from Bev that he saw Kelly backstage at the Wembley gig. Either he snuck in, or he was invited by the band. Turns out the latter was the case.
But then Kelly was quoted in 2001 (the big ELO piece in a UK magazine) as saying that Jeff hates him - Kelly wanted to grab a beer with Jeff but the latter would have nothing to do with that. So if Jeff was ok with Kelly seeing the band at Wembley, why would Jeff continue the grudge at least 15 years later, and why didn't Jeff issue a press release when Kelly passed away? So many questions.
I'm sure the settlement didn't come out of Jeff's pocket directly but rather what was left of Jet.
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