Not a comprehensive set by any means, but I placed an order for it. It has all the bonus tracks from the Chicago/Detroit reissue, as well as some With Sympathy demos, and the 4-track demo for I’ll Do Anything For you. Pretty exciting stuff. Oh, and it has the Shasta Commercial, lol
Thanks Realm! You called it. Cleo seems to be recycling this stuff while adding a few new tracks here and there. Interested to hear the original demo for “Anything For You”. That track always sounded great from the 1984 live shows. Hoping there is also a demo for “Do You Even Like It?” out there somewhere. Any guess if Al has the master copy of the 1983 Hollywood (LA) Palladium show, or does another former band member have it?
I’m hoping there’s more 4-track demos too. Agree, having a good recording of Do You Even Like would be awesome. The title “Ultimate Rarest Trax” is a little goofy since there’s plenty of songs from this era that still haven’t been released.
But hey, at least the cover art is cool, which is a vintage Brian Shanley original. I’m guessing this is a teaser of a larger box set to come.
I can say this…the official camp has the full masters for all of these live recordings. I have no doubt everything will get officially released at some point (and they’ll sucker us into rebuying everything a few times over)
Overall, nice mastering on these recordings. The live 1982 cuts sound the roughest, but nice to have. Here’s my thoughts on the tracklist-
She’s Got A Cause- from the very first show in 81. This one leaked a while back and sounds excellent. This is a much longer version with extra lyrics that were trimmed down heavily for the album version. Hard to believe that the first show exists in A grade quality, and the fact that it exists at all. There’s some unreleased songs from this show that I have no doubt are in the pipeline, including the long coveted “First True Love Affair” cover.
I’m Falling, Overkill and Cold Life are all from the same 3/12/82 show that also included Knowledge, Le Stupide, Funkamental and Dancing Alone. There’s two cuts remaining from this show- Primental and The Urge to Runaway.
What He Say, Here We Go and Say You’re Sorry Demos :Like the previously released With Sympathy demos, they are all very much the same performances as the final album versions. What He Say has an extended intro and a rougher mix. Here We Go is cool, it features some extra vocal bits that were dropped in the album version. Say You’re Sorry is the same layout as the LP version, but is missing some vocal overdubs, and the backing vocals are someone other than Doreen Chanter, not sure who it is.
Hardman and Revenge- from the LA Palladium 83 show. It might be the only pro-audio WS show in existence, both are awesome. Hardman is a cool track and Revenge is based on the 12" version. There’s more tracks from this show, which should also include a pro-audio recording of So So Life.
Anything For You- Original 4 track…very cool to hear this. It’s the foundation for the version that Al released online, as well as the Trax Box version. Purely the 1984 performance without any of the cleanups and overdubs done in 2014.
The cleo site lists the Shasta Commercial as a track on the set. but it’s not on streaming. I’m hoping it’s included as a hidden track on the CD.
The lost mixes- exactly the same as what’s been released previously.
The artwork is a 1983 Brian Shanley outtake that was showcased at the Without Sympathy event a while back.
Overall, a very cool release, but this feels more like a sampler, as all of these songs are part of larger track lists. I could see them putting out another big box, or a series of related releases.
It’s interesting…in that Yahoo! music interview Al seemed to suggest there was still some kind of legal stuff going on behind the scenes - perhaps with Arista. Maybe it was all a smokescreen, but I wonder if that’s somehow impacting how and when they release material from that era.
I checked this out just to see if there were any surprises.
Strangely enough, I had thought What He Say, Say You’re Sorry, and Here We Go were sourced from the same cassettes I got them from. But they’re way hissier.
The missing notes from Say You’re Sorry are missing on both. They’re exactly the same.
So I’m guessing they got them from a different cassette version of the same demos. Strange since I thought for sure they had the source I got them from.
Well, so much for the January 2024 release date. I already received the physical 2-CD set in the mail. Cool packaging. Interesting that Brian Shanley’s alternative album art from that era had an “industrial” look to it. Kind of prophetic!
At the recent Depeche Mode concert in Los Angeles, I sat next to an independent record store owner who was very familiar with the “With Sympathy” and “Twitch” eras of Ministry. He said that Arista still holds several unreleased tracks (including demos and remixes) in their vaults.
I suppose that Warner Bros/Sire would also have demos and other unfinished tracks that might eventually get released.
Very cool! I caught Depeche Mode in Cleveland, it was phenomenal!
I’m curious to hear what’s out there still for the Arista era. Maybe Foxhole Trot exists in some form.
I think we’ll see some Sire outtakes relatively soon. I know Charlie Clouser is helping Al organize and transfer his vault recordings. He’ll also be appearing on the newly recorded With Sympathy era songs.
There’s The Urge to Runaway and Primental from the Misfits 82 show, and several tracks from the first 81 show- First True Love Affair, Jodie Foster, Make Up Your Mind, Orangotango.
Anything for you, actually can’t remember where i got this track but from what i understand is a bonus track from with sympathy.
The meta data has this listed as track 10.
