early spiritualized songs?

snakeseatinfrogs · Post by **snakeseatinfrogs** » Tue May 10, 2005 7:58 pm

I remember reading about two songs of spiritualized's from their very early days, "harmony" and "codeine". Do these actually exist? Do people know of them and are they any good?

thanks.

anorthernsoul · Post by **anorthernsoul** » Tue May 10, 2005 8:02 pm

i think harmony's a short, bass-led instrumental that's available on one of the early boots - maybe that burberry (?) show or whatever it is. it's nice, kind of fifties-y.

Post by **runcible** » Tue May 10, 2005 10:02 pm

I have live recordings of these songs.

I remember Harmony pretty vividly from those gigs. A finished version appears on the first, self-titled, Slipstream album. Its good but the Spiritualized versions were inevitably better. I know it pissed Mark off that he wasn't allowed to include it on a Spiritualized release and you can see why as it fits in nicely with the material from that time.

Sim · Post by **Sim** » Tue May 10, 2005 11:14 pm

This thread kind of links with something I was mulling over this morning.

One of the most exciting things I always look forward to about going to see bands live is the prospect of seeing them perform some new, unrecorded material. With the obvious exception of the early gigs, Spz have always proved to be a let down on this front. The last track I can really remember as being new and unreleased at the time was when they used to play Clear Rush (E Mainline). Paricularly the tours for LAGWAFIS and LICD were notable for only containing previously recorded material.

I may be wrong on this. If so, does anyone have any more recent examples of unreleased stuff Spz that have played live and then subsequently recorded (and I don't mean old Spacemen 3 tracks that they've done live but never put down in the studio).

I suppose a lot of this may have to do with the band dynamics, in that Jason controls the the songwriting processes and in general the band as they don't try out new ideas unless they're in the studio.

anorthernsoul · Post by **anorthernsoul** » Tue May 10, 2005 11:23 pm

i think 'i am what i am', whatever that was, could be filed under live experimentation. i think it's difficult - if spiritualized have become less experimental in playing new things live, as they've progressed, i'd attribute it more to the scheduling of tours and things like that. as a littler band they were probably more often likely to play a sporadic gig between albums, now they're touring directly before and after, and usually before they start putting new songs together. this is particularly true of the last lp where the songs were barely finished before they were released, or at least so you could say, and this contributed to things like cheapster becoming pretty different live.

all that said, i remember reading an interview with jase where he mentioned that more and more often, if you saw the band a few dates running, they'd play the same setlist because they knew where it would take them, but the songs would change, or that they'd be more intense for them having done it night after night.

according to the press blurb for the newcastle gig at the end of the month, spiritualized'll be playing stuff off the new lp ...

A saint · Post by **A saint** » Tue May 10, 2005 11:37 pm

"Codine" (sic) is a cover of a Buffy St. Marie song, which was also covered by the Charlatans (the 60s S.F. group, not the English band,) the Litter and a bunch of others. The Spiz version's pretty faithful to the Charlatans' one, which is on the first Nuggets box. Great song.

"Harmony" does indeed appear on the first Slipstream record. Their version is slow, and quite lovely actually. The Spiritualized version is faster, and I'm guessing was dropped as it sounded too much like "Run." That's one listener's theory, at least.

Frankly, the Spiritualized versions of both are nice (if recorded with such piss-poor audience-level fidelity I don't play 'em much,) but the respective versions above are better.

veep23 · Post by **veep23** » Wed May 11, 2005 3:31 am

whatever happened with "i am what i am"? that was a pretty rockin song... kind of a foreshadowing of some stuff on AG.

Jasonsmith · Post by **Jasonsmith** » Wed May 11, 2005 7:02 am

They played lots of (then) unreleased stuff from Amazing Grace during the mini US tour in June 2003. There were, ahem, 'prerelease' versions knocking about though. I was at the Philadelphia and New York shows, and think these were the least satisfying of the eighteen or so shows I've seen. This was the first time I'd heard the slowed down version of electric mainline, the fast climaxing version of which always used to be a high point of the shows for me. Looking forward to Newcastle though.

SpaceLine · Post by **SpaceLine** » Wed May 11, 2005 6:52 pm

well, they played an early version of stop your crying on the lagwafis tour(often titled nothing hurts on setlists) and also the freakout the preceded on fire during the licd tour became power/glory on AG i think.

the AG tour, as far as i know, featured released tunes exclusively.

Starfish · Post by **Starfish** » Thu May 12, 2005 10:26 pm

the cover of Codeine was played live in the first couple of years of the band's existence.
Stop me if I've told this story before, but at Manchester on the Feel So Sad tour, me and a drunken mate, both drunk, spent the entire set yelling "Codeine!!", hoping they'd play it. They didn't, but a few weeks later I met Will and he told me they thought it was someone in the audience shouting that they had codeine for sale.

Other covers of that song worth checking out are by The Barracudas and Ultra Vivid Scene.

botox · Post by **botox** » Fri May 13, 2005 11:05 am

All the recordings I've heard of Codeine are not good quality. Are there decent ones flying about? I don't think it was played that often. Harmony is on a few recordings I've heard though.

johanur · Post by **johanur** » Sun May 15, 2005 8:24 am

Goddammit. i have a few bootlegs old spz concerts but i have never heard harmony. first time i have heard about that song. I know the slipstream version pretty good....
Where can i find it? soulseek perhaps? i have some boots here in sweden that are awsome (and top sound) around LGM era. i can make some copies if someone is willing to trade a show with harmony in it.
Cheers.
Johan

andyblacktoo · Post by **andyblacktoo** » Tue May 17, 2005 9:00 am

Jasonsmith wrote:They played lots of (then) unreleased stuff from Amazing Grace during the mini US tour in June 2003. There were, ahem, 'prerelease' versions knocking about though. I was at the Philadelphia and New York shows, and think these were the least satisfying of the eighteen or so shows I've seen. This was the first time I'd heard the slowed down version of electric mainline, the fast climaxing version of which always used to be a high point of the shows for me. Looking forward to Newcastle though.

there are internal industry pressings of amazing grace with another 2 additional tracks. i know of one that exists.

anorthernsoul · Post by **anorthernsoul** » Tue May 17, 2005 12:11 pm

what are the others ..?

i would've expected things to surface as b-sides if they hadn't made it on to the lp. i remember an nme interview where jase talked about going down slow as something that didn't make it on to the album, only for it to be released a little later.

does anyone remember the poster here who had a couple of alt mixes lying around? perhaps a bmg employee that had an extended if i were with her now and such.