What A Bastard The World Is: In Praise Of Yoko Ono

For more than 50 years, Yoko Ono has been the acceptable figure of hate for all. Subject of sneering, ridicule, hatred and outright racist vitriol for the flimsiest reasons.  The acceptable hate figure for office bores to lazy to look beyond received opinion and locked-in thought patterns and discredited gossip mongering.  She’s talentless, she’s a homewrecker, she hooked John on drugs to control him and make his work sound like shit.  Have you heard her music? Call that 'music'?  From puff pieces in the press to the lowest form of communication that is the comments section on YouTube, it’s the easiest and most culturally acceptable opinion that is safe to opine freely.

Even now, you have to really stand your ground when defending her.  To actively defend Yoko’s work seems akin to threatening another person’s life.  I happen to think that she is a genuinely original artist.  Her work has value and she has been unfairly vilified.  Even at home, the wife winces when her name is uttered.  However, over the last few years, possibly even as far back as 1992 when Rykodisc launched a reissue campaign in the form of the 6CD Onobox, the voices of support are steadily growing.

It would require a greater mind to cover her career in depth, and we’re still waiting for a thorough biography, so I strictly want to cover her musical career.  However, it’s worth highlighting her ground-breaking work in the world of conceptual art – the book Grapefruit (1964) and the performance art of Cut Piece (1965) – because her foray into the world of music would be rendered all the more striking considering her background of confrontational and unconventional art.  From there, the world of experimental films beckoned and the burgeoning romance with a Beatle would have a monumental impact that is still being felt ever since.

Between 1968-1969, three full-length avant-garde LPs were created by John & Yoko.  Musically, I don’t like them: they are more valuable as documents of their personal lives, from burgeoning romance (Two Virgins), the pain of miscarriage (Life With The Lions) to their burgeoning political outlook (The Wedding Album).  As listening experiences, they are not recommended, being formless and acting more as self-consciously muddled and confused efforts by Beatle John to appear radical.  It may appear that he was intimidated by Yoko’s artistic prowess but compared to the more radical and pioneering free-form efforts by Ornette Coleman and Peter Brötzmann, they are quite immature in contrast.

Live Peace In Toronto was the first glimpse of Yoko’s vocal gymnastics that a majority of the world encountered.  Whereas Side 1 consisted of hurried workouts featuring Generic Clapton and Alan “Beige” White amongst the backing band, Side 2 is Yoko’s domain, wailing through a maze of guitar feedback and relentless rock backing that put everyone in their place.  No Eric, you can’t take centre stage with your rudimentary racist fretwork, it’s Mrs Lennon calling the shots now.

Cue the so-called 'hip' underground press forming a united front of negativity, with only the odd journo daring to toe the line and let a positive comment creep out here and there.

By late 1969, it was time for John and Yoko to put together individual albums under the Plastic Ono Band moniker.  Both Plastic Ono Band albums came as a direct response to Beatle John’s Janov sojourn, but Yoko’s album is a true work of art.  It is the work of someone going through indescribable pain: you’ve had to suffer through some of the venomous attacks from critics, reporters and your husband’s fans, suffered through miscarriage and your first husband vanishing into thin air with your child.  Nobody’s offering any respite.  Everyone and their dog are on a colonial and thoroughly bigoted and misogynst trip, pointing the finger at you for destroying ARE BRAVE BOYS!  No matter what you say or try to prove, those pale, bacon-sandwich eating, ruddy-faced fucks are choosing not to listen.  They have an agenda.  The studio sessions you’ve booked are scuppered because the engineers are turning off the tape decks when you start singing.  What are the results? No compromise.  A full-on sonic assault.  Rage.  Anger.  Grief.  If you don’t like this, well tough shit.  Stick to George whining about having to pay his taxes while you smugly mutter “Good job sticking to the man!”

Yoko could’ve started off with something relatively accessible and commercial along the lines of Approximately Infinite Universe, but the press would have been out for blood regardless, maybe with even more venom and spite, along the lines of “HA! HA! CALL THAT SINGING?!”, so more power to her for what she unleashed, and more respect to her and John for having the guts to ignore the cloth eared cats at Apple Corps who just couldn’t comprehend what was coming out of the speakers.  Yoko simply dug her heels in, throwing fingers and shouting “FUCK YOU!!!”

'Why' immediately starts rolling down the hill as the play button is pressed.  John’s frenetic slide work melts into the red as Klaus Voorman and Peace 'n' Loov Ringo bash out a solid proto-Krautrock rhythm.  After the introduction, an abrupt edit takes us straight into the maelstrom, with Yoko pouring out tons of genuine anger and frustration like a beacon of truth.  A lesser musician would dribble out incomprehensible diatribes aimed at particular people, real or imaginary.  “WHY?” sums up far more than a standard laundry list of complaints.  It has more of a direct impact than “I don’t believe in Beatles”.  Yoko is pouring her fucking heart out at an unjust world, a world of isolation, and never lets up.  The red mist that overcomes us all when prodded and poked like a cornered animal has never before sounded so direct.  All throughout, the oh-so-familiar echo slap back utilised on many a Mopfabs recording from the era has never sounded so effective, full of the eerie quality that pervaded Ozzy’s vocals on 'Behind The Wall Of Sleep'.

 

Elsewhere, one listen to 'Greenfield Morning I Pushed An Empty Baby Carriage All Over The City' and you can hear where Bardo Pond’s whole sound comes from.  Wordless moans whirr their way through a reverb-heavy, downtuned outpouring of grief.  Yet again, Yoko proves that sometimes words just cannot do justice to a broken heart.  Ornette and co. accompany on her on 'AOS' a 1968 recording before the John/Klaus/Ringo trio reconvene for another spiky punk stab with 'Touch Me' and an exercise in unsettling ambience with 'Paper Shoes'.

I’m not the biggest John fan, and a lot of his work comes from feeling self-conscious and feeling like he has something to prove, combined with an unearned arrogance despite the fact that nobody would ever say it to his face unless they didn’t mind a few teeth being kicked out of their face.  Regardless, the man fully supported Yoko throughout, or at least until he decided to knock back Brandy Alexanders with Harry Nilsson.  A glance at the Apple discography goes to prove this.  While the likes of Mary Hopkin and Radha Krsna Temple released inoffensive platters, and Badfinger and Billy Preston released records sandblasted into inoffensive mediocrity, John signed Yoko and David Peel (Peel’s sole effort for Apple, The Pope Smokes Dope, is highly enjoyable and well worth checking out for his singalong tributes to marijuana and the varied and wonderful powers of the word 'fuck').  An absolute world apart and the nearest Apple got to their slice of the ESP-Disk cake.

A year later, Fly was unleashed.  A larger and far more intimidating canvas, it is also more of a surprisingly diverse ball of confrontational energy, with the first half of the set lulling you into a false sense of security.  'Midsummer New York' and 'Mind Train' are surprisingly playful and upbeat, with Yoko no longer greeting you with a few snooker balls wrapped in a sock.  As we go on, highlights include the proto-punk hysterical majesty of 'Don’t Worry Kyoko' – grabbing you the collar of your shirt for another harrowing ride through Yoko’s personal anguish – and the acoustic wistfulness of 'Mrs Lennon', even beating Miles Davis to the punch with 'Hirake' - a proto-On The Corner jam incorporating heavy funk and world music percussives.

The second half of this collection is admittedly quite an endurance test, one that can be still be quite difficult to sit through, but who said that art had to be tasteful?  Not all music works as background jams, and it certainly doesn’t have to be pleasurable.  You have the admire the courage of the artist to get it out there.  Fly is in the same company as Topography Of The Lungs (Evan Parker/Derek Bailey/Han Bennink), Odyshape (The Raincoats), Thank Your Lucky Stars (Whitehouse), The Fucking Cunts Treat Us Like Pricks (A Flux Of Pink Indians) and The Olatunji Concert (John Coltrane). No compromise.  No prisoners.  Scorched Earth.

 

Yoko presumably felt like the only woman out there standing her ground in the face of an openly hostile man-heavy music industry.  Only contemporary female artists such as Nico (in particular, the timeless beauty of The Marble Index), the free jazz purity of Patty Waters, the Brechtian polemics of Dagmar Krause and the pure sexual aggression of Betty Davis were the only ones on a similarly unique and confident wavelength.  These singers proved you didn’t have wail the blues like Carol Grimes or Inga Rumpf, or be pretty and witchy like Sonja Kristina or Stevie Nicks.

Predating the likes of Lydia Lunch, Ari Up, Poly Styrene, The Raincoats, The Au Pairs, Delta 5 and Essential Logic, they proved that women didn’t have to be confined to any type of lyric or musical direction.  Be as direct or as abstract as you want.  The strummers high atop Laurel Canyon may have more of a profile and more power, but don’t back down.  You don’t have to resort to copying men to get your message across.  Be defiant, be yourself and your work will still hold up. 

The only act from the same time to attempt anything this radical in the rock world were The Stooges.  Listen to 'LA Blues' and you get the idea.  Radical disintegration and pure howling vitriol grabbing the listener by its neck and making sure the bruises show.  The originally unreleased majesty of Yoko's 'Open Your Box' is practically the mirror image of Fun House, Side 2.  Steve Mackay’s wonderfully taut sax playing and even the Asheton brothers' signature caveman stomp wouldn’t have been out of place on Plastic Ono Band or Fly.  Going back to ESP-Disk, I guess you could highlight the works of The Godz and The Fugs, but these acts had either ceased to exist or their earlier primitive no-shits-given majesty was way behind them once Yoko made her way onto vinyl.

By 1972, the Lennons were settling into their New York City digs and finding more sympathetic ears, ready to hip them to the more radical voices within the counterculture, ones that had lost hope in the carefree pacifist ideology of the 60s.  In the wake of government suppression and the wholesale watering down and destruction of hippy ideals, a more confrontational approach had surfaced, louder than ever.  Whilst John lapped it all up and released Sometime In New York City, a typically self-conscious and naïve effort to stay credible, Yoko took far more of a radical path: stripping back the harsh atonality and audience baiting of yesteryear, she recorded Approximately Infinite Universe, a surprisingly accessible and conventional double album.

Even Yoko herself knew that her voice was not capable of multiple octaves and operatic dives, but she knew what worked and has a really pleasing and effective singing voice.  Not only that, the radical feminist statemens of 'Yang Yang', the satirical boogie of 'I Felt Like Smashing My Face In A Clear Glass Window' and the brutal honesty of 'What A Bastard The World Is' settled quite nicely amongst each other.  It’s far more consistent than other double albums of the period.  Also, with John gradually receding into the background, Yoko takes centre stage and proves that she could deliver a diverse yet pleasurable listening experience, one that is deeply conversational and honest yet never feels forced or exaggerated.  The never-ending attacks in the press have made her stronger and Approximately Infinite Universe is the result of her ever-increasing confidence.

Whilst her follow-ups Feeling The Space (1973) and A Story (recorded 1974, released 1992) can be considered lesser works by many, they still have their moments.  She is finding her own voice, and although Elephant’s Memory weren’t anything like the likes of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, they made a credible and unique backing band for Yoko’s albums around this time.  If the quality starts to dip, then so what?  Most singers or bands have found it impossible to scale the heights of their first albums, maybe some failed to recapture the glory of their first single or their first John Peel session.

No matter the slightly more elevated reception she was given in the wake of Season Of Glass (1981) and her new found lease of life with recent works such as Blueprint For A Sunrise (2001) and Between My Head And The Sky (2009), as well as finally being recognised as one of the leading lights within the worlds of feminism and music, she still has detractors eager to spout the same old ill-informed shit.

Chief among their arguments is that she caused The Beatles to break up, but that is obviously a load of old toot.  Those Mopfabs did a good job of that by themselves, be it through egos unable to be contained within Abbey Road, the death of Brian Epstein or the coffer-draining arrivals of Allen Klein and Magic Alex.  From the shed where they have carefully nurtured their mansplaining chops, they only see women as being unable to create singular works of wonder (ie. “The Slits didn’t actually perform on Cut.  That was all Dennis Bovell’s work, obviously.”) or destructive forces (Yoko).

Another tedious argument is that she has no talent.  This is the woman who was already making waves within the art community while The Beatles had only just stopped tugging each other off in their mam’s house.  All the while, people quick to dismiss her have heaped praise on the likes of Ian Brown, for Christ’s sake.  She wasn’t at the mercy of songwriters, she knew what she was doing and she knew what to write.  Her husband may have put some pressure on the record label to put the records out, but artistically, she called the shots.

 

Fuck the xenophobic critics who couldn’t understand that their virginal British songsmiths were tearing themselves apart, and that a foreigner happened to be in the vicinity of the ensuing drama.  Fuck all those emotionally stunted rage-filled boomers over at the Steve Hoffman forum clutching their Beatles lunchboxes.  Fuck unfunny blowhard Bill Burr constantly calling her a cunt while ranting about her TV appearance alongside Chuck Berry and her hubby.  Fuck Frank Zappa and the legion of intellectual midgets that were his fans, bellowing for her to “shut up and sit down” because her hollering put an end to Frank & Flo & Eddie’s tedious sexist drivel about groupies and training bras.

Lesser beings would have been utterly destroyed from the outset and quietly walked away, but Yoko’s made of stronger stuff and has been through more than any human deserves.  She watched her husband get shot in front of her, all the while receiving very little sympathy in the aftermath.  This example as well as others outlined previously show how disgusting the pack mentality can be.

Yoko’s a fighter and she’s still here, creating in her own way and on her own terms.  As far as poetic justice, she has managed to outlive some of the loudest naysayers and doesn’t give the slightest toss about criticisms.  She should be an example for all to follow.  Her persistence and never ending levels of energy still shine through, but the main difference between now and then is that what often felt like the loneliest voice out there now has a few kindred spirits and like-minded souls out there to fight the good fight.

 

When punk rock and its post-1978 diverse roots and branches took shape, Yoko’s music suddenly had a lot of kindred spirits.  'Frankie Teardrop' by Suicide and 'Horizontal Hold' by This Heat all have elements seemingly influenced from Plastic Ono Band and Fly.  The directness, intensity and challenging nature of the material is plain for all to hear.

As challenging as it is, I think her work is unique, straight from the heart and has a lot to offer if you’re willing to go further.  Not all music is meant to be a comfortable experience.  Look at other vocalists such as Peter Hammill, Kat Bjelland, William Bennett, Linda Sharrock and Mark E Smith.  Look at the work of Scott Walker from Nite Flights onwards.  Look at An Electric Storm by White Noise: an awe-inspiring masterpiece co-written and performed by Delia Derbyshire, another woman whose work was neglected and brushed aside in her lifetime.

Personally, the worst crime in any medium is to be mediocre: whether your work is universally loved or loathed, it remains a talking point to be debated, examining the pros and cons and your reasoning behind your opinions.  Regardless of which side they sit in, the mind behind the work has done their job.  Take a side, listen to other’s contrary opinions and examine why you and they think and feel this way.  Yoko Ono’s work still has such a divisive impact that it will never go away.  Those who rant at great length against her music continue to make her work a talking point.  Works of mediocrity will quickly be forgotten and ultimately serve no purpose.

Open your mind (or open your box if you prefer), stand your ground and get stuck in. You may not find yourself changing your opinion, but hopefully you’ll respect what Yoko is trying to do. 

Yoko rules!

If You Don't Know This Song…What The Fuck Are You Doing Here? In Praise Of Bootlegs

(Before you ask, the title comes from a Misfits bootleg and the bootlegger responsible says: "One of the worst release[s] in regards of artistic merit...was my absolute biggest seller: The Misfits' If You Don't Know The Song... - I didn't know the names of the songs, that's why I called the album that. - Heylin, 2003)

In an age where practically anything and everything can be downloaded onto your computer with little to no effort being exerted, we are already losing the thrill and exoticism of encountering bootleg records in the wild.
 

A bootleg LP, CD or tape is defined as being a collection of rare and unreleased material issued without the artist’s consent.  Your average illegal platter would normally consist of studio outtakes (normally let out into the wild via someone working inside a recording studio, an individual that was handed this stuff via the musician directly or an associate, and in rare circumstances a benevolent artist themselves) or a live recording (either taped by an audience member from their seat or via connections from the mixing desk).  Depending on the source material or the production quality, the results could end up being a mixed bag and you may often get stung when you eventually purchase it – well, you can hardly go and complain to Trading Standards can you?

Before we go any further: bootlegging is not the same as piracy.  Bootlegging is based around unreleased material.  Piracy is just a simple case of copying what is already legally out there, as anyone in my age group can attest to if you’ve seen those shoddy tapes at local market stalls during the 80s and 90s, courtesy the Saudi Arabian 747 cassette label.  You're not missing out on these ones, these tapes were truly cat shit and often featured missing songs, censorship (eg. DAF's 'Der Mussolini' being shortened to 'Der' on a compilation) and other songs pulled from other albums, with crackles, record skips an' all.  A friend's dad had a cupboard full of these things, but I wouldn't be proud to show off a stash like this.  There would be a much more positive response if you pulled out a load of used syringes and blackened spoons instead.

For a more in-depth look at this whole phenomena (as well a handy way of compiling a shopping list), I would strongly suggest purchasing Clinton Heylin’s thorough and entertaining book Bootleg! The Rise & Fall Of The Secret Recording Industry (Omnibus Press, 2003) for a more insightful overview, replete with juicy anecdotes from the people behind these artistic labours and the major events that unfolded.  For the purpose of this article, I am merely going to tell my own story with a personal combination of favouritism and some dice.

You never forget your first encounter with a bootleg LP (or CD).  For me, it was trawling through the Ipswich Record & Tape Exchange, a small poky and smelly shop located in a then-crumbling and partially vacant area of the town centre.  Ever since I was given my first shonky little record player at age 7, I needed vinyl to play on it.  As a result I gravitated to this shop, buying up stuff I would later regret for pennies before common sense, growing up and developing your own taste became prevalent (eg. 50p for a bag of 50 singles straight from Radio Orwell’s bins).  One day, I walked in to see them riskily selling some down and dirty bootleg vinyl on the wall and it was pretty pricey.  Madam Stan by Adam & The Ants was the one that caught my eye: homemade with track listings written in fake Italian on the label, I scooped up what money I had and it was mine.  I knew that it was a risky purchase as it could turn out to be a load of unlistenable codswallop, but I loved the illicitness and the forbidden fruit nature as well being an Adam Ant fan.

When I got home, I placed it on the turntable.  I was pleasantly surprised.  There were familiar tracks such as 'Physical (You’re So)' and 'Friends' but these were all considerably different versions, all recorded by the spiky post-punkers responsible for  Dirk Wears White Sox, not the chart-topping swashbucklers soon to come.  There were even songs I never knew existed such as 'Boil In The Bag Man', 'Rubber People' and 'Bathroom Function', and the LP seemed to come from demos recorded in between their tenure at Decca and the aforementioned album that didn’t surface until a year later.  Best of all, the sound quality was excellent throughout.  This was definitely a surprise to me.  Needless to say, I bolted straight back to the shop next Saturday to snatch that Stranglers bootleg, but either someone else had bought it or they decided not to risk it and took it off the shelves.

Cut to a few years later, I was doing voluntary work for a local company, which had its own in-house radio station (yes, yours truly had a show there for a number of years).  Bruce, the boss of the organisation (and former member of noise-rockers Tender Lugers and Earth Mother Fucker) tolerated my new found love for obscure post-punk and he introduced me to a number of bands and artists that I only had a passing knowledge of.  He let me borrow his exhaustive collection of original Stooges vinyl (including the death throes encapsulated on the 1974 live offering Metallic K.O.) as well as his well-worn copy of MC5’s Back In The USA.  Having also discovered the majesty of The Velvet Underground at around the same time, he lent me his horde of Velvets bootlegs too.  I didn’t have to beg because once I gave back the current trove of goodies, these mysterious bootlegs were now mine to hear too.

First on the turntable were two late 70s bootlegs originating from Australia, Etc. plus And So On.  What a revelation!  The first side of Etc. was devoted entirely to a pre-VU Lou Reed’s tenure at the cheap and cheerful Pickwick International, cutting cash-in ditties such as 'Cycle Annie' and 'The Ostrich'.  Not only were they fascinating, they were also really good, especially 'The Ostrich'.  There were also rare outtakes such as 'Foggy Notion' which, although it sounded cruddier, sounded more authentic than the horrid 80s remix on my Peel Slowly And See CD boxset.  There were also the some 1969-era live cuts and a couple of John Cale solo experiments that were quite tough on my teenage ears.

 
Next up was the jewel in the crown: Sweet Sister Ray.  Described in Heylin’s book as “perhaps the most avant-garde vinyl statement ever made on behalf of the Velvets”, the double album is a hymn of praise to 'Sister Ray', the final cut on their White Light/White Heat platter which still sounds incredibly powerful, demolishing and ear-splitting after 50 years.  Sweet Sister Ray consists of the 40-minute title track followed by two separate performances of “Sister Ray” by the Doug Yule line-up.

Recorded live in April 1968 shortly before Cale was asked to leave, 'Sweet Sister Ray' is a 40-minute meditative preamble which has an almost ethereal folky atmosphere to it before Lou “I’m sorry I was a cunt to you but I am on a diet of wheat husks” Reed stomps on the distortion box to let some holy feedback consume itself before punctuating the organ-dominated swirl with sharp intermittent barks.  The nearest comparison point to this track is Fred Frith’s 'No Birds' from the free-form yet magical Guitar Solos album from 1974.  Both tracks are in the same key of C and maintain the same manifesto: improvisation isn’t the name of the game but conjuring an atmosphere and a presence is the primary reason for being.

Onto LP 2 and the previously described run throughs of 'Sister Ray'.  Side 3 is not as aggressive or attention grabbing as you would expect but still has an insistent and borderline swing to it.  If you want assorted electronic shrieks and howls, Side 4 is the place to go.  Taken from a source known as the 'guitar amp tape’ because it’s dominated by Lou’s guitar to the detriment of everything else, it is still a wonderful righteous howl.  No legitimate record company would ever dare to put this stuff out, but you’ve got to hand it to the bootleggers to throw some interesting and compelling stuff out there.  From hereon in, I picked up a copy of Heylin’s book and made a note of what seemed like the most interesting platters to track down.

 

I was a late comer to Bob Dylan’s material, in fact so late to the party was I that my first encounter with the infamous electric set recorded in Manchester '66 came via its legitimate release (and what a violent corker it was).  From that point on I preferred my Dylan output from the speed-addled pissed off little sod of the 1966 tour up to the Basement Tapes period of 1968.  The latter was documented perfectly on A Tree With Roots, a 5CD collection of basement tape material and featured the much superior original versions of 'Open The Door Homer', 'Odds & Ends' and 'Billion Dollar Bash' in all their rough and ragged glory, as opposed to the Robbie Robertson botch job compilation from 1975.  There were also a lot more folk and country covers such as 'That Auld Triangle' (aka 'The Banks Of The Royal Canal'), but this set has finally been given a proper release with much more pleasing sonic improvements to tapes that were never intended to be put out in the first place.

The rejected version of Blood On The Tracks (Blood On The Tapes) was much more a slow burner for me.  Although roughly half of this material made it onto the album, Bob’s brother decided that the other half was far too repetitive and monotonous, twisting his brother’s arm into re-recording most of it.  Luckily for us an acetate of the aborted New York sessions got out there and was duly bootlegged.  Having heard the official release and being left cold, the acetate was a work of beauty.  Yes, most of the tracks are in the same key, but that it is not a minus.  If anything, the original sessions have more of a spark and confidentiality that really tugs on your heart strings.  As with A Tree With Roots, the complete Tracks sessions have since been released, with the acetate track listing eventually seeing an official release in time for this year’s Record Store Day event.
 

A chapter in Bootleg! Covered the nefarious and godlike activities of Richard, whose finest work toed dangerously close to piracy, but these were not the Dictaphone-pointed-at-an-Edison-photograph scams of the 747 variety, this was Wild Geese-style rescue shit.  First on the block is Michigan Nuggets (aka Michigan Brand Nuggets).  Featuring a mocked-up cereal box featuring Iggy Pop on the cover (but not amongst the track listing), this double LP set scoops some of the finest 7” jewels unleashed between 1966-1970 by the likes of Bob Seger & The Last Heard, The Rationals, Terry Knight & The Pack and MC5.  It’s pretty hectic non-stop fuzzed up bangers, although they could have included 'Mona' by The Iguanas (featuring Iggy) in place of 'The Ballad Of The Yellow Beret'.

 

It's because of Michigan Nuggets, my wife became a devout fan of Bob Seger’s flawless streak of late 60s stripy-shirt garage stompers, thankfully unaware of his overall career of mellow brunch jams.  In fact, my wife could easily write her own piece on all these grey-area psych and garage comps, as she owns an enviable amount of them (The Pebbles Box, Girls In The Garage) as well as three instalments of Las Vegas Grind.

Back to Richard, he was also responsible for the infamous 10LP Dylan box Ten Of Swords (released before CBS' Biograph box and causing massive shitfits upon its circulation) and Tis The Season To Be Jelly, a live recording of Zappa & The Mothers from 1967 before he started writing unfunny shit accompanied by marimbas.  Just as infamously, he was also the mastermind behind the hysterical Elvis’ Greatest Shit.  Gathering together the deposed King’s worst songs ('Yoga Is As Yoga Does', 'Ito Eats' and 'There’s No Room To Rhumba In A Sports Car') and wrapped up in an incredibly vicious cover (click on the image nearby for more detail) and a prescription allegedly scribbled by Elvis’ personal doctor.  As someone who only ventured as far as Mr P’s Sun sessions, I can totally applaud this compilation and it withstands repeated listens.  To paraphrase Richard himself in the book, Elvis collectors found the album so distasteful yet had to own a copy to complete their collection.

Television’s Double Exposure is another release that we should all be thankful for.  It combines the rare Eno demos cut with the Richard Hell line-up, replete with that oh-so-familiar bouncy bass work that belongs to the Blank Generation, plus a few cuts from Terry Ork's apartment (exit Richard, enter pock-marked Fred Smith on bass duties) perfecting that Television precision on the same tape that the awe-inspiring 'Little Johnny Jewel' single may have sprung forth from.

Finally, as I cannot think of a good way to round up this piece, I have to highly recommend the thoroughly dubious and illegal-right-from-the-start Spanish LP Los Exitos De Sex Pistols por Los Punk Rockers.  The story goes that a Spanish record label were too cheap to license Never Mind The Bollocks by The Sex Pistols for general release in Post-Franco Spain, so they simply corralled a local band (who may or may not have the horrific prog band Asfalto) to re-record it in what sounds like a lathe cut on one of those Russian x-ray flexidiscs.  As far as I can remember, the official record itself did not come with a lyric sheet so the leader of Los Punk Rockers gives it a shot, with as much of an approximation of snotty nosed Lydon-isms as much as possible.  As writer Taylor Parkes remarked on an episode of the Chart Music podcast, the vocalist obviously knows a little bit of English as words appear that didn’t appear on the Sex Pistols record, as well as sounding like the Great Cornholio from Beavis & Butthead.  Needless to say the results are pretty much indescribable and the album is quite easy to find on things like Soulseek and it may have to stay this way as there’s pretty much no chance of this ever getting an official release.  Then again, you have to wonder whether Los Exitos De Sex Pistols Por Los Punk Rockers was ever legitimate to begin with.

In summary, bootlegs were grand and it is always a pleasure to uncover unheard gems that the artist in question would undoubtedly nix if the subject of an official release comes up.  There have been a number of examples (eg. any Macca reissue) where the artist responsible has their own bizarre and dubious ideas about what should and shouldn’t be unleashed.  This does not mean that anything consigned to the vault is automatically great (Van Morrison’s The Contract Breaking Sessions being another example), but there is always something out there that will be of interest to die-hard fans.  Some fans may be content to simply own a greatest hits package or the albums meant for general release, but others want to explore further.  If it’s a musician or band that you love you’ll hopefully have no problem uncovering tape after tape of raucous live shows or studio throwaways.

I love the fact that I have the complete 35-minute version of Can’s 'Doko E' (of which only roughly a minute is out there in remastered form) or that I can throw a rock anywhere and hit an excellent live soundboard recording by the Miles Davis Ensemble circa 1965-1975.  As a Stooges fan, there are countless grey-area releases and outright bootlegs in varying quality – I am a sucker for rare live recordings where you can practically feel the tension in the room and the sound of Iggy literally spitting teeth, or perhaps crooning 'The Shadow Of Your Smile' before launching into 'New York Pussy Smells Like Dog Shit' (Easy Action released this 1971 audience tape, so go listen for proof).  They may not have been perfect but if you’re not fussed about the packaging and only care about the contents, most of this is easy to find in the right places and at least you don’t have to pay extortionate prices for something which may or may not be cat shit.

Finally, here’s a short film from 1971 highlighting the bootleg phenomenon in its early days.  The morals of this story are: Yoko is the only one who’s got it right and don’t fuck with Peter Grant.  Also keep an eye out for Rick Wright’s expression when they are treated to their very own illegal platter (belly laughs ahoy!)

Also, I finally found a copy of The Stranglers’ bootleg mentioned above (London Ladies) and it is a good 'un.  Recorded at the Roundhouse in late 1977, it is far superior to the official hodgepodge Live (X Cert) and I’m still kicking myself for not having the money to buy the bugger on that fateful day.