This is the
second volume of DAC’s version of the Art Collins Tapes, and l
ike Vol.1, tracks 1 to 6 on have the
drawbacks of Art Collins Tapes And More ..., with the reversed left and right
channels, higher pitch, and uneven volume. As with Vol.1, not all songs on this
tape will appear for the first time, so first check which songs have been released:
on Disc One Wanna Hold You, Pretty Beat Up, Cooking Up aka What I Am Saying Is
True, Chris' Song, Part Of The Night aka Golden Caddy, Pink Pick and
on Disc Two Melobar all come from Bird's
Vault --RI 61/16 Volume Three (OBR 93 CD 039) and other boots. The sound
quality is almost the same, although sometimes pitch has been slightly
modified. Unknown Instrumental (The Dog) on Disc One and on Disc Two The Dog
and Show Me A Woman come from Bird's Vault --RI 61/16 Volume Two (OBR 93 CD
038) and can also be found on other boots.
Disc One begins
with Wanna Hold You featuring a nice guitar lead by Richards. Then Pretty Beat
Up,
which is the backing take of the
released song; there are no guitar and harp overdubs with regards to Think You Like
It" (DAC 109).
Feel On Baby is
the short take featuring Keith on vocals.
The Unknown
instrumental is the same song as Rocker (The Dog) presented in the previously
released Vol.1, an unnecessary repetition.
Keep It Cool seems
the same take as the one presented in Vol.1, in the same sound quality, but in
fact is 10 seconds longer.
Can't Find Love, Heartbeat
and Eliza saw the light first on Too Much Blood (DAC 182), but here there is
little less hiss and they are easier to listen to. The next three songs Can't
Find Love, Heartbeat take # 1 and Eliza on Disc One were also featured on Too
Much Blood (DAC 182) in the same sound quality. The following five songs,
namely Heartbeat take # 2, Heartbeat take # 3, Something I Want, Pull Over on
Disc One and Show Me A Woman (track 3) on Disc Two were released at first on Bird's
Vault --RI 61/16 Volume One (OBR 93 CD 037) and then on other boots.
Takes 2 and 3 of Heartbeat
for the first time are presented as on the original tape and the blanks between
songs are left as they were, however their order seems wrong.
The rest of Disc One
has tracks like Cooking Up, Something I Want, Chris' Song, Part Of The Night, Pink
Pick and Pull Over (with off mike vocals) which were also released by OBR. Here
they seem to have a more natural sound quality than on those OBR discs, maybe
they do come from a master tape.
On Disc Two 7
songs, namely The Golden Mile, In Your Hand, Run And Take, Dance Mr. K, Christine,
Identification and Flirty are also found on All About You (DAC 187), but this
time the sound quality is better than those.
The instrumental track
The Dog reappears after The Golden Mile, as recorded on the original tape and
the sound quality is the same. Since this work is based on the concept of presenting
tracks from the original master tape, it seems that they are present even if they
are duplicates, luckily not on the same disc.
Show Me A Woman,
which is presented in 2 takes, is an early version of Tie You Up (The Pain Of
Love), which was also featured only on the OBR disc and here we find the
earliest (I) take, but on Vol.1 there was Slinky and that is the same track
which was called Instrumental Pain Of Love.
Melobar featuring
Ronnie's slide was also released only on OBR's Bird’s Vault Vol.3. Track 15 is reported
here as Melobar, but in reality it is like track 4 Show Me A Woman on this disc.
Track 6 is called
Mick's Idea, but in reality is track 5 Melobar on this disc .
Hideaway is an
upgraded version of the number found on Chainsaw Massacre (DAC 110), a song
that was called Blues Jam # 3 /The Stumble on Chainsaw Massacre, but here seems
to have the right speed and Stu’s piano shines.
Munich Hilton is
a familiar outtake from Lonely At The Top (DAC 096), but the one recorded here
is a valuable take that has not been announced so far. It starts with a fade-in
in the middle of the song, but maybe Charlie was trying various fills and
Ronnie stopped playing the guitar in the middle, maybe it's been a long time to
play so far, it's a little full take.
Although the label
claimed to be better than DAC 187, that release originally had better sound
quality, but this work may have a slightly more subdued texture.
There are many
existing takes in this work, and three songs first appeared on the Art Collins
tape recorded in this work. However, one of them may overlap with Vol.1.
Many of these
releases were recorded in the OBR release, but it has been remastered
independently from the original tape, and the original content seems to have
been restored, however it sounds like many of these tracks are lossy, so we can
question the Master Tape Recording DAC is so proud of.
Vol.1 presented
recordings of newly written songs in a studio with all band’s members, without
relying on past songs as it happened for the creation of the previous work Tattoo
You which was Mick's idea. This can be perceived here more directly listening
through Vol.2. Mick seems to be playing the guitar everywhere, as heard on Show
Me A Woman (the guitar in the center). Overall, it seems that the studio
atmosphere is more relaxed in this Vol.2 than on Vol.1. Anyway, even those that
believe to have a lot of outtakes from Undercover will find many discoveries here
that leave them satisfied.
