Are the Esher Demos worth it?

[Walk In My Shadow]

Just asking for a friend.


Before he gets the 3CD version.

[naughty boy]

It's just beatless ( ) acoustic strumming, like plain boiled rice.

The really good stuff is on discs 4 5 and 6.

[Walk In My Shadow]

I want a second opinion.

[toomanyhatz]

Don't listen to Coan, he hates acoustic music. They're great - every single one impresses, either for how fully- formed they are, or for bringing out qualities not as prominent in the fully-produced version. Absolutely worth having.

[toomanyhatz]

I should add, also, that Paul is the best acoustic accompanist of the three by far. Although John and George are more inventive overdubbers.

[yomptepi]

I wasn't thrilled by them. A bit dull.

[Bent Fabric]

The Esher Demos are the albatross of the whole collection.

Lets say you ordered a gourmet meal (the album, the outtakes) and the restaurant insisted you also have a heaping side of parsley* brought to your table (the demos).





*Edited for "reduced crassness".

I mean, "acoustic music" in theory, but this isn't exactly Pentangle we're talking about here. These demos have been around forever, and I did duly attempt a "good faith listen" yesterday in some vain hope that hearing them all together and cleaned up (as a half dozen of them were on Anthology 3 a couple of decades back) would reveal some heretofore evasive charm, and I'm afraid they still strike me as sort of sub-perfunctory (which the Beatles never were) and generally free of chemistry and spark.

"Happiness is..." might be the jewel of the demos - John sounds "present" in a way that stands out.

[Bent Fabric]

Granted, if "Beatles minus magic" scratches a particular itch you might have....

[Charlie O.]

My take is somewhere between hatz's and JSJ's. They're... "interesting." I'm happy enough to have them, but I doubt they'll be played all that much.

I will say this, though: the Esher version of "What's The New Mary Jane" is far more listenable than the EMI one (for what little that distinction is worth). And I kinda wish George had revisited "Circles".

[Charlie O.]

Oh, and I like the demo for "Sour Milk Sea" better than the Lomax record (I may be on my own with that one).

[fange]

Looks like i'm gonna have to splash for the full set rather than just the 2-disc release.

[Bent Fabric]

And I kinda wish George had revisited "Circles".

[Charlie O.]

And I kinda wish George had revisited "Circles".

Ha! I half-expected such a response - there's a bunch of GH albums I can't claim to know well.

Listening now. Let me rephrase: I wish he'd revisited it somewhere in the 1968-1971 time frame (with or without the Fabs).

[Charlie O.]

A fun(?) thought: we've always talked about whittling the White Album down to one LP... or not. But I say it could have been a triple!

Bearing in mind that there are five normal-length LP sides' worth of music squashed into those four sides... they only would have had to fill another 17-20 minutes to make a triple with normal-length sides. And they had "Junk", "Circles", "Sour Milk Sea", "Mean Mr. Mustard", "Polythene Pam", "Not Guilty", "Child Of Nature" (maybe Paul could have encouraged John to write a better lyric - although it probably wouldn't have been "Jealous Guy" at that point), "Look At Me", "You Know My Name" and a few others to pick from...

[Bent Fabric]

Ha! I half-expected such a response - there's a bunch of GH albums I can't claim to know well.

Listening now. Let me rephrase: I wish he'd revisited it somewhere in the 1968-1971 time frame (with or without the Fabs).

Yeah, for sure there's something about a Ray Cooper co-production credit that suggests George at his most checked out.

[Bent Fabric]

A fun(?) thought: we've always talked about whittling the White Album down to one LP... or not. But I say it could have been a triple!

Bearing in mind that there are five normal-length LP sides' worth of music squashed into those four sides... they only would have had to fill another 17-20 minutes to make a triple with normal-length sides. And they had "Junk", "Circles", "Sour Milk Sea", "Mean Mr. Mustard", "Polythene Pam", "Not Guilty", "Child Of Nature" (maybe Paul could have encouraged John to write a better lyric - although it probably wouldn't have been "Jealous Guy" at that point), "Look At Me", "You Know My Name" and a few others to pick from...

Well, "Across the Universe", absolutely.

(Lamentably, the lovely and lilting "Goodbye" dates from the following year)

And (though I sadly can't find it on YouTube), I may have finally accepted that my own deep and undying love of the unedited/unmixed (and oft-bootlegged!) Take 4 of "What's the New Maryjane"* is probably a solitary pursuit. For me, it would have been the jewel of any record it graced (3 LP White Album or elsewhere) - for lack of any better descriptor, I find it quite "colorful" (ala the emerging acid anarchy of the MMT/Yellow Submarine era).

Two LPs is probably just right, but...it's tempting to wonder how utterly mad the world's biggest group would have seemed plunking down a triple LP set just in time for Christmas 1968.








*Re "Maryjane", I first heard it HERE -



something like 35 years ago

Also available here:



and elsewhere.

You can find it a fairly doctored and somewhat neutered mix of it on Anthology 3.

[Phenomenal Cat]

A fun(?) thought: we've always talked about whittling the White Album down to one LP... or not. But I say it could have been a triple!

Bearing in mind that there are five normal-length LP sides' worth of music squashed into those four sides... they only would have had to fill another 17-20 minutes to make a triple with normal-length sides. And they had "Junk", "Circles", "Sour Milk Sea", "Mean Mr. Mustard", "Polythene Pam", "Not Guilty", "Child Of Nature" (maybe Paul could have encouraged John to write a better lyric - although it probably wouldn't have been "Jealous Guy" at that point), "Look At Me", "You Know My Name" and a few others to pick from...

Well, "Across the Universe", absolutely.

No reason to exclude "Hey Jude"/"Revolution"

[Walk In My Shadow]

Listening now on Spîtofoi.

Some of these are better than the originally released product!

[sloopjohnc]

I'm not buying the album, but I did listen to them through my music service which I do pay for.

They're interesting in the way some of the anthology demos are, a look into the formation or gestation of finished songs. I think it's always interesting to see the evolution of songs.

It's like going to the British museum and seeing edited drafts of famous works by authors.

Huck Finn wasn't Huck Finn until it was published.

[pcqgod]

I heard an interesting version of "Helter Skelter" on the Sirius Beatles channel the other day. What's that on?