T Rex - Calling All Destroyers
CD
Catalogue Number: EARS026
This is a Bolan Society Fan club album not available for retail
• An oft overlooked period of Marcs career but a fascinating one none the less. The seeds for the come back in 1977 were being sewn . songs like New York City, I love to boogie had Bolan back in the charts again
• The very early versions of tracks such as Visions of Domino here still called Funky London Childhood and Soul of my Suit went on to become Bolan latter day favourites.
• The hullabaloo radio sessions had been lost years ago. Capital Radio gifted their entire archive to the National Sound Archive in London but alas the two sessions were not present. Fortunately the Bolan Society was able to purchase tapes from a third party to find they were the owners of the only tapes in existence. These tapes have undergone a thorough cleaning up process but the 1975 session is not as sonically clear as the 1976 session but it is the best we have ever heard them.
• Disc One shows Marcs continued prolific writing process
In the 23 tracks that make up disc one of this set, examine closely, for the first time, what has now been termed 'the lost period' in Bolan's career. A period that saw Marc decamp to America, firstly to avoid the crippling Tax restrictions in the Uk and to continue his never ending assault on the American music market...
Official releases from this period also show a very disjointed approach, with Zinc Alloy & Zip Gun being chuncated into 'Light Of Love' for USA market. The Futuristic Dragon album that finally saw the light of day in February 1976, had in fact been sitting in the can in a near completed form since the tail end of 1974...
The material included here, probably only scratches the surface at the alternative musical world Marc was inhabiting at this time. Of these 23 tracks only reworkings of 'Magical Moon and 'New York City' ever received some kind of formal release during Marc's lifetime. The other 21 tracks offer an eclectic mix of a man desperately working on new sounds, styles and ideas... A great many of which were being put onto tape using American musicians, rather than the tired mid seventies incarnation of T.Rex based in the Uk... Although few of these tracks are completely finished.
Almost all of the songs are close to final vocal, production mixes... As with the previous releases in this series. New master tapes have been unearthed for many of the recordings and the entire set is presented in a uniformed manner for the first time ever...
Hundreds of pounds have been spent on improving the sound quality by cleaning up the tapes and re mastering .
layout/design les clark
Disc One
DISC ONE
1. Funky London Childhood
2. Savage Beethoven
3. Metropolis Incarnate / Teenage Angel
4. City Port
5. Bolan's Zip Gun
6. Brain Police
7. Bust My Ball
8. Reelin' & A Rockin'
9. Sanctified
10. By The Light Of The Magical Moon
11. Rip It Up
12. Teenager In Love
13. Love For Me
14. Sparrow
15. Saturday Night
16. I Never Told Me
17. Ain't That A Shame
18. I Believe
19. Do I Love Thee
20. Two Tone Lady
21. Walking Through That Door
22. New York City
23. Swahili Boogie
TRT 77 mins
Disc Two
DISC TWO
1 . The Flo And Eddie Show Broadcast USA
1st January 1975. Includes Marc & Mickey Interview
HULABALOO 1975
2. Capital Radio Intro
3. Marc Interview
4. 20th Century Boy
5. Marc Interview & Phone In
6. New York City
7. Capital Ads / Marc Interview
8. Soul Of My Suit
9. Marc Interview
10. Get It On
HULABALOO 1976
11. London Boys
12. Funky London Childhood
13. Marc Link
14. Dreamy Lady
15. Teenager In Love
16. New York City
17. Capital Radio Jingle
18. Get It On
Live rehearsal Scorpio Sound 1975
WIMBELDON THEATRE AUGUST 1976
19. I Love To Boogie
20. Funky London Childhood
21. Soul Of My Suit
22. New York City
23. Laser Love
24. I Love To Boogie (Live 76 Bonus track )
T.R.T. 76 mins
Other releases by T Rex
Although it was being shipped from the UK, it mysteriously took the post a month to deliver the disc but it was well worth the wait... the packaging and artwork is beautiful! High quality paper sleeve digipack housing the two discs and a 20 page booklet.
The booklet itself is very nice to look at and informative to read however the first page does have a bit of repetition due to a manufacturing printing error. I was expecting an improvement on sound quality from material I already had and not only was there an improvement but included were versions I had not heard before! If you're a Bolan collector, you will definitely want this set in your collection! The first disc includes some of my favourite unreleased Bolan studio tracks including "Love For Me", "Sanctified"and "Swahili Boogie"and also features the interesting "Walking Through That Door". The second disc is also essential if your a Bolan collector! Nothing but pleased with this release! TANX EASY ACTION!!!
Overall, the sound quality is an improvement from previous sources available which leads me to believe that Easy Action as well as the also excellent Thunderwing Productions will be the definitive preservation of Bolan's recorded legacy soon to eclipse the entire Edsel "Unchained" series and beyond.
I now hope in the soon future EASY ACTION will give the same treatment to the...
1) SISTER PAT HALL album, sessions and Marc's home demos
2) a newly composed expanded edition of BILLY SUPER DUPER including the original recordings of "Billy Super Duper" and "Depth Charge"
3) in the liner notes, Andrew Gardener describes how Marc and Steve Currie confirmed 12 "heavy" tracks in 4 days in Union Studios, Chicago. I have yet to read the outtakes book but am very curious as to what this might be and where the tapes are!
4) A disc of all the recorded Marc and Gloria collaborations and demos!!!
500 only so pick up a copy before they disappear! TANX AGAIN EASY ACTION!!!
top marks for the collectors I would think.
The liner notes were well written with some great information.
The audio quality varied with the source tape,but was an improvement over the old Edsel UnChanined series.
I will pick out a few Tracks that I really liked and a few that I have a bit of criticism.
My personal taste would of been to have all the really well recorded and close to be finished demo's in the first part of the CD.
Track1 Funky London Childhood
sounds great nice opening Track
.
Track2 Savage Beethoven
another great Track,great sound
.
Track3 Teenage Angel
good Track,but I would of put it down the list a bit as it is a bit slow
and you lose the pace of the album.
Track4 City Port
fair Track,same thing with the pace.
Track5 Bolan's Zip Gun/Futuristic Dragon version
,interesting tack,good sound.
Track6 Brain Police,
not a fav,but great sound.
Track7 Bust my Ball's
Great Track ,
but Marc sings a bit off key,but it is a good rocker.
Track8 Realin and a Rockin Great
sound and Marc really should of done something more with this Idea.
Track9 Sanctified
Brutal start to this Track,should of edited out the terrible false start.
The Track it's self I would rate as a fair demo.
Track10 By the light of the Magical Moon(newer version)
I would of reflected the title to show it's an updated version,
again I would done a bit of an edit in the opening of this other wise Great Track
with some really nice guitar fills.
Track11 Rip it Up
Great version of this Standard,sounds like there were having a lot of Fun playing this.
Again great sound quality.
Track12 Teenager in Love
another Fun Track.
Track13 Love for Me
Great demo,Marc should of kept going with this one,suffers from a bit of tape drag,no doubt from the original source tape unfortunately
.
tack14 Sparrow
fair demo,sound quality quite good.
Track15 Saturday Night
another fair demo sounds from the same session as Sparrow.
Some nice guitar fills.
Track16 I Never told me
another good demo,good start to it,but it seems to not progress much.
Track17 Ain't that a Shame
good demo with bits taken from here and there;)
Track18 I Believe
A really good Track,well polished and played.
Could of used the Tony V touch on this one,it might of really been something.
Track19 Do I Love Thee
Fair demo with some tape drag which is unfortunate,
interesting that Marc is singing in his old Tyranno style at times on this one.
Looks like he was trying for something here.
The Girl chorus is a bit up in the mix.
Track20 Two Tone Lady
For me the Best Track on the whole CD,should of been in the opening Tracks
It's a bit rough,but there is really something there I love.
It's got that old T.Rex feel about it.
Another Track Marc should of kept going with.
New York City
sounds like an earlier working version of the Track,
a fast pace version,good sound quality.
Walking through the Door
Sounds like a finished version,but suffers from some tape drag and distortion unfortunately.
Interesting Track as it sounds like it was made for a movie or TV show?
Track23 Swahili Boogie Woogie
Ah this was the Track I have been waiting for ;)
The sound quality is much better then the edsel version and it sounds like a longer version if not a a different one.
It is limited by having a lot of Echo from the source recording.
Of all the demo recordings Marc ever made this one had the potential of taking Marc's music in a whole new direction in my opinion.
I think he was a way ahead of his time when he recorded this demo.
It's like an African version of Reggae!
You can clearly hear Marc trying to get the rest of the Band into it.
Clearly it was an experiment that sadly Marc never finished or went back to as far as we know.
Disk 2 offers some great interviews,radio live Tracks and some rare live performances.
The sound quality as not always as good as disk one,but then there quite rare and limited to the tape source.
Track 18 offers a funky/reggae demo version of Get It On that gave me a smile,
a bit rough as the band is not up to the task quite yet.
It would of been nice to hear a finished version,Marc was playing some great guitar riff's,
but the rest of the Band was struggling with the Reggae beat.
The Best Surprise of this double CD set are the last 6 Tracks,
Live from the Wimbledon Theater.
The Band put's on a Great Performance.
They play really well together and I like these live versions of the Dandy cuts better then the album version which I thought sounded to sterile.
All in All a great double CD Project,Well Done!
My only thought would be to make the fonts a bit bigger in the liner notes
as there a bit hard to read with old eyes.
My only other thought is that you could polish up some of the intro's
with an edit or fade in to give the Track a bit more of a finished sound;)
Stewart McLean Sept 09
Good luck with the new company and mega-congrats on a fantastic album...tracklisting, booklet and artwork are superb . I just wish that Marc had released 'Futuristic Dragon' with this artwork in 1976 instead of the original sleeve which (aged 15) I was disappointed with.
Thanks,
Quality so amazing in not only production but also in sound.
Easyaction sure set their standard high, this is not the first Marc Bolan release off them & sure won't be the last.
No fan will ever regret adding this to their collection.
PEACE
Marc