Thanks again! These are great. I second everything that Gila said. A second WS-era album would have been amazing. Probably better than WS.
Just send the tracks over to Erie Load. He’ll clean it all up and make a new Ministry album for y’all.
(i mean more and more appearing just when i thought almost everything was unearthed)
Not nearly everything’s unearthed. I know of at least 5-10 songs from pre-1990 that have yet to surface at all. And that’s not counting all the other ones that we’ve never heard of. Or the ones that have only surfaced as terrible-quality live versions.
Now after listening to Dancing Alone it makes me wonder just how much Arista was involved with the wrting process of With Sympathy.
Arista never had any direct hand in writing any song, to my knowledge anyway. They may have been trying to steer Al towards writing another song like “Work For Love” which was the song that got Arista interested. Rather than view it as what negative may have been added to the equation, it’s probably more relevant to ask 'what positive may have been subtracted?". And the answer is, “the band”. Or half the band. The original 4 had great chemistry. It would have been smart to have left it that way at least for 1 album, perhaps on a smaller, more local label.
Arista never had any direct hand in writing any song, to my knowledge anyway. They may have been trying to steer Al towards writing another song like “Work For Love” which was the song that got Arista interested. Rather than view it as what negative may have been added to the equation, it’s probably more relevant to ask 'what positive may have been subtracted?". And the answer is, “the band”. Or half the band. The original 4 had great chemistry. It would have been smart to have left it that way at least for 1 album, perhaps on a smaller, more local lable.
As always, thank you for opening a window into the formative years of Ministry. A full-length Ministry LP release on Wax Trax! would have been great. Did Arista ever consider signing the entire band? Was Stevo part of the Arista “deal” since he appeared in the album cover art? When I bought my first copy of the Arista material in July of 1983, I assumed Ministry was a duo. Clearly, this wasn’t the case. Thanks again.
It’s pretty wild hearing a lot of this stuff. For a long time I used to think “How the heck did Ministry ever get a record deal if they were playing stuff like on With Sympathy at shows?” But, a lot of this other stuff is really catchy and I can see it getting some attention. It would be interesting to hear the whole Ministry story from the very beginning up through the Arista record deal.
TRVTH
wempathy rules.
bump
There were at least a few songs, or at least pieces of songs, that I’m sure were recycled from previous projects. I’m pretty sure that Overkill had it’s origins in Special Affect.
I was just thinking about that recently, while watching the video of the 07/20/83 show in Minneapolis. Just before launching into “Overkill”, Al says “This is real old one, it’s called ‘Just Kidding’!”
I found myself wondering how old could that song possibly be? At this point Ministry had been around a couple of years at best! But if it had been a Special Affect song previously, that would make more sense. Also, somewhere along the line the name apparently changed from “Just Kidding” to “Overkill”.
BTW, wempathy: can you shed some light on the running order of the songs from that tape? It would be great to know the actual setlist was.
Thanks again, man…this stuff is gold.
–SKot
I’m willing to bet “Overkill” was a solo Al track but re-worked for band settings, on Early Trax (not the best source for concrete facts on timelines but) it says 1981 for the year. Ministry didn’t even really form until late 1981, and Special Affect were on their way out by that time.
It does definitely have a Special Affect vibe, and a lot of Al’s stuff seems to sound like some demented new-wave sound around then also, like the Carmichaels.
name apparently changed from “Just Kidding” to “Overkill”.
on other shows he announced it as “this next one is by led zeppelin its called stairway to heaven (pause)… JUST KIDDING!” when the song started
nothing important to contribute other than thanks for the share, wemp, hearing/seeing this stuff is great, and your thoughts/stories are always an interesting read for me.
thanks man, good on ya
Thank you, wempathy for sharing all this great material with us. You have done alot more for us ministry fans than al has in many years.
Thanks Wemp! I’ve never even heard of these until now 
The pleasure is mine.
One word of caution…none of these has been pitch/tempo corrected. They’re nearly a semi-tone sharp and the tempo is about 4% too fast. On one hand, they sound a little crisper this way, but they also sound a little rushed and heliumesqe too.
How come a video of a cat playing piano can get 5 million hits, and so far I’ve only got about 3600 for six songs? [;)]