One of These Days...

Narrow Way Pt. 3- Pink Floyd MP3

11/17/11

No beeradvocate.com rating

Barrier Brewing Frau Blucher- Brouweji Lane- Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY- 32oz. Growler into Belgian Beer Glass - N/A ABV

Head- About a 2 finger of head, airy and receded quikly, not much lacing

Color- Pilsner colored with a bit of an orange complexion

Mouthfeel- Light to a medium bodied pilsner quality

Aroma- At first I was not sure what I smelled but then I read a review and the nailed it...smoked meats. Yes that is right almost like a buttery smoked ham

Taste/ Overall- Interesting beer her is the official description:

“A 5.4% German ale with a light golden color and a heavy addition of German beechwood-smoked barley malt. It has big smokey flavors and aromas reminiscent of bacon and ham hock, along with a nice toasty, bready malt complexity and a subtle hop bitterness to balance.”

That smoked pork smell is there, although I don't quite get it in the taste. But this is a very easy drinking beer and the smokey aroma adds a really nice dimension to this beer. I haven't had a beer from Barrier Brewing in Oceanside, NY before but I am intigued and it is nice to see another quality brew from a Long Island Brewery. Glad I chose this brew.

On the turntable is Ummagumma- Pink Floyd. A double LP released in 1969 and is compromised of live tracks and new studio material. My friend is getting married on Saturday so I thought I would play this record in his honor. We are both very big fans of Floyd but I would have to say he took his dedication to them a little further than I did. I found this record this summer at a garage sale and got it for $2 which was a steal. I remember asking for this album for Christmas when I was in high school and actually got it that year. Of course it was on tape and after seeing the gatefold presentation of this LP I realize now what I was missing all of these years. I don’t remember the photograph from the back of the LP jacket, which is awesome, being included in the tape packaging.The vinyl was in VG condition but the jacket two split seams.



My friend who is getting married and I both got to see Pink Floyd play at Yankee Stadium in the summer of 1994 but we went separately. This was Floyd on the Division Bell Tour and was being fronted by David Gilmour. It was an exciting time in NYC because both the NY Knicks and the NY Rangers were both in the playoffs of their respective leagues. Eventually the Rangers went on to win the Stanley Cup but our beloved Knicks, well.... we all know how that championship ended. I mention this because the two teams being involved in the playoffs led to a charged atmosphere becoming an absolutely electric one. I remember distinctly walking up through the old Yankee Stadium, which was my first time there, up to our seats which were in the last row of the stadium and people were going absolutely nuts. Between the excitement for the show, the pregame festivities and the chants of Lets Go Rangers echoed by Lets Go Knicks; I pretty much was in heaven. It was an amazing show. Of all the concerts I went to that one is one of the most memorable for me. I remember bumping into more than a few friends and people I knew at the show which is pretty impressive considering the size of the stadium. It also illustrates the impact that band had on me and my peers even though at that point Floyd, the band, was about 25 yrs old!

I chose this album tonight party because of my experiences of listening to Pink Floyd with him. More specifically this story is about listening to Pink Floyd with him on his former car's stereo. Now let me preface this story by saying I have never been a car person so much. I don’t know why but I am not. I was more interested in Star Wars figures than Matchbox cars for instance. A car was more of a means to an end with me and it still is. I have learned to appreciate cars more since I have grown up a bit. In general I think I prefer riding trains but that is a whole different post. With that said, this car was really cool!! It was a black Pontiac Firebird and bared more than a little resemblance to the Batmobile. In addition to it being a cool car it had a stereo system that was at the time better than most home stereos. Now the song which really captured the essence of this stereo system the best for me was One of These Days from the album Meddle. Hearing One of These Days through that stereo on a summer night with the t-top open is still a memory which is hard to articulate but one which resonates with me like it happened yesterday. Crackling treble and surging bass made me feel like I was speeding down a desert out in California instead of a Long Island turnpike. Unfortunately my copy of Meddle is packed away so I chose to listen to Ummagumma which stylistically shares somethings with Meddle and is from around the same period. Included above is an MP3 for Narrows Way Pt. 3 which is a nice vehicle written and sung by David Gilmour. It demonstrates some of the wistful, melancholic vocals and guitar work that made Gilmour such an important addition to this band after Syd Barret departed.

Post WFMU Record Fair Post

11/01/11

Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale- Euro Market, 31 St. Astoria, NY- 12 oz. Bottle into Brandy Snifter- 6% ABV

beeradvocate.com rating

Head- Nice 1 1/2 finger head, no lacing

Color- Hazy orange

Mouthfeel- Kinda loose feeling, light

Aroma- Pumpkin spices, namely cinnamon, but a funkieness as well

Taste- Think this beer may be a bit skunked. I don't know. There is an unpleasantness to this ale. Maybe just hop bitterness I wasn't expecting. Not super pumpkiny but definitley spiced and no trace of alcohol. Kind of disappointing but I would try it again just to see if the flavors were intended or maybe I just got a bad bottle.

Since I am now officially inundated with records I decided that Instead of a standard blog post I thought I would write one regarding my post WFMU Record Fair analysis. I ended up with 25 records and spent about $80. I didn’t listen to them all, not even close, but I did listen to a couple. I cashed out a coffee can and a half of change at a local Coinstar machine a few days prior the fair and ended up with a nice little bankroll for the fair without going to the ATM.

So upon returning from a wedding in New Jersey the night before I headed downtown to the record fair during what some are now calling one of the worst storms the east coast has experienced in October. I was not dressed for the weather and once I arrived at the fair I was cold and wet but I was energized by the thrill of the hunt. My initial approach this year was to focus on some higher end records that the usual bargain bins I am normally drawn to. I also wanted to refrain from buying any country records. I succeeded at the latter but not the former.

I stopped at the WFMU bins near the front, which I usually do, but it was pretty crowded. I picked up an unexpected record, a double LP by John Renbourn from the group Pentangle. This was $3 and I think it is partially because the LP jacket was in pretty bad shape with at least one split seam, but the vinyl is in good condition. I did some research yesterday and this actually appears to be a twofer collection of his first two solo LP’s from 1965-66. I think Bert Jansch accompanies him on some tracks.

Then I headed into the main area and approached a few vendors’ tables here and there trying to find some things off my list of 10 or 12 records. I had very little luck and the tables were crowded for the most part. After about a half an hour I found a corner filled with about 20 crates advertising $3 records behind two dealers tables. Surprisingly there was only one other guy back there digging so I started flipping pretty furiously.

After about a half an hour or so I had gone through about 2/3 of the records and pulled out about 12. The crates were a mix of oldies, classic rock and miscellaneous. They were all in pretty good condition considering and I ended up with a couple of 80’s metal and classic rock LP’s. I even found a copy of Black Sabbaths Sabotage, which I passed on once and since got on CD, the cover was a bit worn but the record was in pretty good condition and I had always regretted not picking it up when I first saw it because I never saw it again until the fair. When I got home I cleaned the record with my friends cleaning solution and it took off quite a bit of grime and the LP now plays with minimum surface noise. I also found No Dice by Badfinger in these crates and I had been looking for it for some time.
After taking a bit of a break I ended up finding another list record Nursery Crymes by Genesis. The Genesis was an $8 (most expensive record of the day) British pressing, I wasn’t looking for a British pressing but that is all I could find. It was in really good condition. I haven’t listened to this yet but I have no doubt I will enjoy. At the same dealers table I also picked up The Dynamic Clarence Carter by Clarence Carter. This wasn’t on my list but it was a record I had seen before and wanted to buy but not at the price I had originally seen it for. I got this for $5 but the LP did have some light scratches.

For the rest of the time I was there I wondered from vendor to vendor hoping to pick up a few more “list” records. I didn’t. I did pick up a couple of more albums though and one by a group I hadn’t expected to buy was The Kenny Clarke/ Francy Boland Big Band. I found one of their LP’s I didn’t have for $5 and was pretty psyched because there LP’s can be expensive and I have never seen this one before. This particular LP has David Pike on Vibraphone which is cool because I like the presence of vibraphone in a big band setting.

So my aim to focus on nice, higher end LP’s was left unaccomplished, maybe next year. The dealer tables were really crowded and I put in efforts at some of them but if I had spent more time at them I may have higher end stuff to report. I probably could have also found some more things on my list but I enjoyed the crate digging I did since the element of surprise in the bargain bins really adds a different dimension to the experience for me. I am happy to report I didn’t buy any country stuff unlike last year. Overall I am happy with my haul and should be kept busy listening for awhile.

Its Raining Outside and On This LP

Here Comes The Flood- Peter Gabriel MP3

10/27/11

beeradvocate.com review

Autumnation Sixpoint Pumpkin Ale- Community Beverage, Queens, NY- 16 oz. can into Pub Glass- 6.8% ABV

Head- Creamy 1 ½ finger head. The head on this beer lasted a while and continued to hang around for almost ¾’s of the beer. No lacing.

Color- Cloudy, orange. At first I thought it may have been an unfiltered beer but I don’t see any sediment collecting in the glass. Medium carbonation.

Mouthfeel- Nice creamy medium bodied ale.

Aroma- Grassy, slightly hoppy aroma. More of a piney quality and not much citrus at all. No pumpkin spices.

Brewed in Brooklyn, NY, the taste has an almost farmhouse or saison quality to it which was not what I was expecting. Kind of bitter and grassy. Maybe even has wheat beer qualities. This was described on beer advocate as a pumpkin beer but I detected very little spices or taste associated with other pumpkin beers I have had. This ale also lacks some of the qualities I associate with an autumnal/fall seasonal beer. Like I said above this beer reminds me of some of the Saison/ Farmhouse ales I have tried. A lot of the reviews I read were describing things I completely did not find in this ale. One review I did read mentioned wet-hopping and that may be what I am getting out of this beer myself. On a the good side this beer has a really nice mouthfeel with a creamieness similar to Boddingtons and a head that had almost stout like qualities but not quite as thick.

On the turntable is Peter Gabriel’s first solo album known variously as 1, Car and Windshield released in 1977. Its stark, vaguely creepy cover and LP insert were designed by the world class design group Hipgnosis. Try and count how many albums you have whose LP covers have been designed by this group! I got this and a few others at a thrift store this summer including Gabriel's more well known LP So. More encouragement towards my current Genesis fixation. I am not sure I am too happy about this fixation to be honest. I am actually fairly certain that as a younger man I would have cringed at the thought of listening to Genesis circa 1973 but what can I say I am enjoying a lot of it. In some ways there music reminds me of Pink Floyd. Some would call that comparison sacrilegious but I see parallels between the two bands. There are also glaring differences which for me is in their approach to lyrics. The dense, surrealism present in Genesis’ lyrics, for me, make them less easy to digest than Floyd’s lyrics have much more tangible and relateable quality. I guess what I find similar in both groups is their overall ambitious musical directions and the subtle, refined “Englishness” in mood experienced when I listen to their music.


LP Inner Sleeve - Kind of Creepy

As ubiquitous as Peter Gabriel is I haven’t really heard much of his stuff with a critical ear until now. I didn't even know Solsbury Hill was on this LP, I had assumed it was the product of one of his 80's LP's. When I think about he is really is a remarkable singer and stylist. You can't really mistake a Gabriel vocal for anything else. I did have his third solo LP at one time known as ‘Melt” but I think I actually gave it to someone because to be honest at the time I didn’t really give it the listens it needed for me to fully appreciate it. I will be keeping my eyes open for some Genesis and or Gabriel LP’s at the record fair this weekend to augment my collection. Particularly I would like to find a copy of Nursery Crymes by Genesis and the live Peter Gabriel LP from 1983. There is probably not a whole lot that I can contribute to the discourse on Gabriel but I would recommend digging into his catalog beyond the hits like Salsbury Hill, Sledgehammer and In Your Eyes. There are a lot of layers to his music and as with a lot of artists who have experienced mainstream success as wide as Gabriel his more experimental and less known works get neglected. This record includes music that borders on Vaudeville (Excuse Me) and Down the Dolce Vita is a clavinet driven track with instrumental backing by the London Symphony Orchestra. I included the MP3 of Down In The Flood, which to me, has that Floyd feel I mentioned above.

Mean Town Blues- Johnny Winter MP3


Jumpin Jack Flash MP3

10/20/11

beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/12959/45074

Captain Lawrence Pumpkin Ale- Brouweji Lane- Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY- 32oz. Growler into Belgian Beer Glass - N/A ABV

Head- About a 2 finger of head, dense but receded pretty quikly

Color- Reddish orange

Mouthfeel- Medium bodied

Aroma- Nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, not overpowering, mild and appealing

Taste/ Overall- I find this beer more enjoyable than the Pumking. Everything from the aroma to the taste to the alcohol is dialed back to actually make for a beer which is truly drinkable. Would definitely revisit this beer.

On the turntable is Live- Johnny Winter And. Released in 1971 and recorded in1970 live at the Capitol Theater in Florida and New York. I don’t have too much to say about this LP other than it’s an enjoyable record which doesn’t demand too much attention. Just solid blues/boogie rock circa the early 70’s and sometimes that is all I need. This is one of the records I had in my stack of summer purchases which needed to be listened to. I am chipping away at these recent summer purchases so that by next weekend so I will have fresh ears following the WFMU record fair. All the records won’t get listened to by then but if I continue the pace of the last 2 or 3 weeks I should be able to make it down to about 5 LP’s next weekend. Then I will have to improve upon the cursory listen I gave them all and dedicate some more to time to digesting a portion of these records. Some of the records from this summer were merely filling gaps in my collection (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc.) but others need to be examined more closely (Oscar Peterson, Harry Nilson, Eric Dolphy, etc.)

This is LP could make the case for why I started to buy records. It is a record I was curious about but did not want to buy at the price of a CD but was willing to spend a few bucks for it on vinyl. Again not a knockout record but I try to look for records that could be interesting merely from a guitarist’s perspective and this one fit that bill. After I started learning to play guitar I started becoming more interested in musicians and genres I would have never have approached if I had remained purely a listener. Johnny Winter is a good example of someone who I read about in Guitar World but whose music I had never been exposed to. So when I saw this LP I was excited. This LP gets really good reviews from what I have read. This illustrates the problem with reading reviews prior to listening since I was mildly disappointed. I actually expected some more well executed solo's on this one but all in all the energetic boogie styled riffs are enough to hold my interest here.The gatefold sleeve shows all of Winter’s band members including Rick Derringer in all there fuzzy haired glory. A motley looking crew who probably wreaked their own brand of havoc in Holiday Inn’s across the country in the early 70’s. Included here as MP3's is Mean Town Blues and a Stones a rocking version of Jumpin Jack Flash.

Pumking On Draft with Shades Of Jade

Hot Sake- Cal Tjader MP3

10/13/11

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2010 Review of Pumking at thursdaynightrecordsandbeer.blogspot-

thursdaynightrecordsandbeer.blogspot.com/search/label/Southern%20Tier%20Pumking%20Ale%3B%20The%20Final%20Cut-%20Pink%20Floyd

Southern Tier Pumking Ale- Brouweji Lane- Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY- 32oz. Growler into Belgian Beer Glass - 8.6% ABV

Head- About a finger of head, which receded almost immediately after the pour

Color- Between light to medium orange

Mouthfeel- Medium to light mouthfeel, very mild fizzy carbonation

Aroma- Pumpkin pie crust is the best description. Nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, etc.

Taste/ Overall- Pumpkin beer time again and I have been looking forward to these. This the first pumpkin beer I ever tried (last year) but this time around I got it on draft. Unfortunately it doesn't really seem to be any different than I remeber it. Maybe a bit less boozy. I was really hoping I may get a creaminess from the draft that I din't get from the bottle. Though I am enjoyinging it. I do think that this style would well in a Boddingtons Pub Ale style. Kind of a medium, heavy body with a creamieness to it and pull back on the spices a bit. I think this would really make for a drinkable pumpkin beer. This is good but probably wouldn't want more than two pints in a sitting.

On the turntable is Shades of Jade- Cal Tjader- This is a seminal record for me and it has been some time since I have listened to it. This was one of the first records that captivated me as an object and as an exotic style of music. My friend started DJ’ing and collecting records in the early 90’s and we were hanging around one summer night at his place listening to music and he pulled this LP out. At this point in my life I was about 20 yrs old and I didn’t listen to jazz or instrumental music. When he put this record on I was pretty much hooked from the get go. I can honestly say I had never really heard anything like it before.

Personally I didn’t really grow up with records. My parents didn’t listen to LP’s much and when I started to buy my own music, around 1989, it was in tape format. CD’s weren’t economically feasible or very accessible at that point and I didn’t have access to a record player so it was all tapes until about 1996. Even as a high school kid I started to accumulate a pretty broad, eclectic collection of tapes. I also taped songs I liked off the radio and then would seek out the bands I really liked in the music store. In addition to music I bought at the store I had a pretty nice lot of tapes I had dubbed from my friends collections. Unfortunately when I went to college, specifically my freshman year, I didn’t take very good care of my collection and the tapes dispersed through various hands and the collection was irrevocably damaged. In all honesty I was actually still buying tapes to some degree until about 1999.

On a brief side note in 2009, during my last move from Brooklyn to Queens, I actually threw out the last vestiges of my once formidable tape collection. It was sad to see what remained of the collection but even sadder to hold on to it in the condition it was in. I dumped the remaining 15 or so tapes, along with years of accumulated stuff from my 20’s and early thirties, into a dozen or more loads of garbage and bid them farewell. I have no nostalgic allegiance to tapes and the current resurgence of “tape” culture and bands issuing music via the magnetic tape format is a curious one. As a commercial product, used to distribute and store music, I don’t care for it to much. People always bitch about reading liner notes from CD’s but I know from experience that reading liner notes and/or lyrics from tape inserts was far, far worse.



Now, back to LP at hand Shades of Jade; I asked my friend if I could look at the LP jacket. I inspected the cover and the back. I quickly became infatuated with its bold colors, photographs and the detailed notes on the inner gatefold. However it was only today that I noticed that the jade statues on the cover were provided from my former employers personal collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had no idea who Cal Tjader was, the significance of Verve Records or who the dozen or so musicians listed in the notes were. I did know, on a pure musical level, I was hooked. That summer we spent a couple of nights drinking beer and just listening to his collection. A couple of LP’s which stand out for me was his Instrumental Banjo records, Barry Whjite, Memphis Soul Stew by King Curtis and the Hair Soundtrack. Those may not seem like ecclectic record now but those records were really foreign to anything I had been listening to at the time (Classic Rock, Alternative and a bit of Hip Hop). Despite my naivete I had instant connection and appreciation for that music. For me it was exciting to know there was so music out there I had no knowledge of. It would be a few years before I got my first turntable, which was given to me by the same friend, and started my own collection but the desire was conceived during those nights leafing through and listening to old, unfamiliar LP’s. Conducted by Lalo Schfrin and featuring one of my favorite jazz guitarists Jim Raney this LP is really a pleasure and posted above is one of my favorite tracks, Hot Sake.

Back Again....Naturally

Use Me- Esther Phillips MP3

10/1/11

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/3818/58688

Southern Tier Farmer's Tan Pale Lager- Superior Market, Sunnyside, Queens, NY- 22 oz. bomber into 10 oz. Brandy Snifter- 9.0% ABV

Head- About a a half finger of ligh head, which receded almost immediately after the pour

Color- Between light orange, straw colored

Mouthfeel- Medium to medium heavy mouth feel. Moderate carbonation.

Aroma- Kind of boozy...not much else in there for me. Maybe I'm out of practice.

Taste/ Overall- In my opinion this tastes like a boozy IPA rather than a Pale Lager. Beeradvocate.com describes this an Imperial Pilsner but that is not what the bottle indicates. I am not to happy with this beer, basically because it doesn't taste like what it is advertised to be. Would not get this again which is unfortunate because I do enjoy Southern Tier beers a lot, but this one didn't deliver.

On the turntable is Alone Again, Naturally- Esther Phillips- Recorded for Kudu/ CTI in 1972. After another long break due to two destination bachelor parties over the last two weekends I am finally doing a post. Now I hope to have an uninterrupted string of reviews to share. I certainly have been listening to a lot of music between revisiting old records and working my way through my summer purchases which I hope to be caught up on by the end of October when the WFMU Record Fair happens! I have been trying to make a mixtape/cd of stuff I have been listening to recently and I have been having some trouble finding a coherent theme. I haven’t made a mixtape/cd in quite some time and basically I wanted to compile some things from LP’s I have been listening to over the last 2-3 months. Mainly these LP’s are of the jazz/funk/fusion variety but I added a vocal track from this LP along with a Roberta Flack track, on an otherwise instrumental mix, which seemed to fit in with the sensibility of some of the other tracks.

I am not going to get into Ms. Phillips life to much here but overall she was an underdog often caught in the shadow of Aretha Franklin’s mainstream success. These two artists were considered contemporaries, whose careers followed similar arches but Ms. Phillips was actually a few years older than Ms. Franklin. Additionally Ms. Phillips life was affected early on by both alcohol/drug abuse and whose music seems to have jazzier leanings in my opinion. This LP was tucked away in a $2 bin. I picked it up because I had heard her name before and records on the Kudu/CTI Level from this time period are a pretty safe bet especially for $2. I am often perplexed by how retailers determine the price of their used records. Obviously scarcity, demand and condition all play a role in this decision but it seems unfair that a record this good gets relegated to cheapo bin, but, the stores loss is my gain.


This is a good record with some solid tunes and tight, polished arrangements preformed by a collection of session musicians anyone would be happy to include on their recordings. I was unfamiliar with Ms. Phillips work before I bought this LP. Phillips has a highly personalized approach to her vocals and it seems that a modern day artist like Macy Gray may have taken more than a few cues from Phillips phrasing. I have included an MP3 of Use Me, the lead off track of Side A, which has a particularly well crafted groove stripped of any overproduction some Kudu/CTI productions had.

Back From Ireland With Some Outtakes

She Belongs To Yesterday- The Rolling Stones MP3


Paint It Black (Instrumental)- The Rolling Stones MP3

9/5/11

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/140/60420

Sierra Nevada Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale- Brouweji Lane- Greenpoint, Brooklyn- 32 oz- Poured in to Snifter Glass- 5.5% ABV

Head- About a a half finger of dense tan colored head. Some small clusters of lacing.

Color- Dark brown but when held to the light there quite a bit of red highlights.

Mouthfeel- Medium to medium heavy mouth feel. Smooth, good texture. Actve carbonation.

Aroma- Malty, breadieness. Sweetness.

Taste/ Overall- A smooth beer and very easy to drink. Though it is the unofficial last day of summer I chose a seasonal, autumnal beer because none of the other offerings at the store really interested me. There was a pumpkin beer but I felt like it was a bit early for that, but, I am looking forward to drinking some of those again soon. This is ale is really enjoyable. A definite sweetness and an unabashed maltiness. Probably not the perfect beer for today but give it another 4-6 weeks and this will be a go to ale for a late fall afternoon while watching football or listening to music. I will definitely pick this up as a six pack if I see it in a local store.

On the turntable is As Time Goes By- Brilliant Outtakes From The Early Years- The Rolling Stones- Its been over three weeks since my first post but that wasn't due to apathy or fading interest. More specifically we were in Ireland for the last two weeks and the week prior to leaving I was running around preparing for the trip. It was a great trip but its good to be home. Below I added a picture of my Guinness Stout from the Guinness Brewery Gravity Bar following our brewery tour. Definitely the freshest Guinness I will ever have!



Visiting the brewery renewed my appreciation for this marvelous stout and in my opinion Guinness does taste just a tad better in Ireland. They don't have many varieties of beer over there but we did get to drink Smithwicks, Beamish Stout, Carlsburg and Carling while we were there and enjoyed them all.

Onto the music. I didn't find much in the way of records while I was in Ireland but in all honestly I was not really there to dig for records. However I did buy one record our first day there at a small store which was closing up shop in Temple Bar, Dublin . The stores vinyl stock was mostly bootleg LP's for some reason, at least when I was there. I was hoping to find some interesting Thin Lizzy, Van Morrison or The Pogues boots but I didn't really see anything which really grabbed me. Additionally most of the LP's were 20-50 Euros which is expensive and I did not really want to spend more than 15 Euros which is basically like $20. So I picked up the above mentioned LP of early Rolling Stones outtakes for a discounted price of 12 Euros which wasn't bad and I was genuinely intrigued by the LP. The tracks range from 1963-1966 and were recorded at Chess Studios, Regent Sound In London and RCA Studios in Hollywood.





First off this seems to be a high grade pressing. Maybe 180 grams, feels like it. It also includes some nice photos on the labels. I don't often listen to early 60's era stones but this is a great reminder of how good they were then and even at that time had a pretty polished sound. Polished in the sense of a group who could really swing and had already had taken great steps in crafting both an attitude and sound even when covering other musicians material. The track Good Bye Girl is a great example of the boys finding there groove with some tasty keyboard licks, Chuck Berry styled guitar riffs and some nice call and response vocals. A real oddity here is the inclusion Con Le Mie Lacrime the Stones Italian version of Heart Of Stone. Odd indeed. I have include two tracks above. First is This Girl Belongs To Yesterday which was written by Jagger and Richards but never released as a Stones tune and was given to singer Gene Pitney and proved to be a hit for him in 1964. I think it is a well written song and shows the direction the two principal songwriters in the Stones were headed to in the mid sixties. Lyrically it demonstrates a psychedelic feeling even though musically it has all the hallmarks of song produced in the early 60's. The second song is a instrumental version of Paint It Black one of my all time favorite Stones tunes. I was introduced to this song as a grade school kid when it served as the theme song for the CBS television show Tour Of Duty which was about a platoon during the Vietnam War.