Before The Dead

Steely Dan's baby pictures? Sort of–these are studio demos Dan honchos Becker and Fagen made as struggling songwriters in the period before they actually conceptualized the band. Some of them–"Brooklyn," "Barrytown," "Parker's Band," "Charlie Freak," "Any World That I'm Welcome To" and "The Caves of Altamira"–later turned up on Steely Dan albums; here they're presented in bare-bones version (mostly just piano and vocals, with only adequate sound) that while interesting obviously don't have Steely Dan's trademark instrumental sheen. The unfamiliar tracks are uneven (a must to avoid: "The Mock Turtle's Song"), but even the least of them show that Becker and Fagen's writing style was fully formed even at this early stage.

The primary impetus behind this ambitious 12-disc box set is to gather all nine of the Grateful Dead's Warner Brothers titles. However, the staggeringly high quotient of previously unissued bonus material rivals – and at times exceeds – the content of those original albums. The Golden Road (1965-1973) truly has something – and usually a lot of it – for every degree of Deadhead…

Rhino Records UK Presents… The Smiths: Complete. The Ultimate Smiths Collection. Fully Remastered by Johnny Marr.
All eight albums by The Smiths lovingly reworked from original tape sources and packaged together for the first time - The Ultimate The Smiths Collection. Presented here on CD in Vinyl Replica sleeves the collection includes all four of the band's studio albums, their solo live album as well as their three compilation albums.

The collection includes all four of the band's studio albums – ‘The Smiths’ (1984), ‘Meat Is Murder’ (1985), ‘The Queen Is Dead’ (1986), ‘Strangeways, Here We Come’ (1987) and their sole live album ‘Rank’ (1988) as well as firm fan favourite compilations ‘Hatful Of Hollow’ (1984), ‘The World Won’t Listen’ (1987) and ‘Louder Than Bombs’ (1987).

The Grateful Dead were literally at a crossroads when they took the stage at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, on February 19, 1971. The previous night, the first of six shows at the venue would, for a number of reasons, be the last for drummer Mickey Hart for more than three years (a primary reason being that Lenny Hart, Mickey's father and the band's manager in 1969-1970, had absconded with a large chunk of their bank account). Suddenly, for the first time since late 1967 when Hart joined, the Grateful Dead were back to their original five-piece lineup: Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir (guitars), Phil Lesh (bass), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (organ and harmonica), and Bill Kreutzmann (the other drummer). They had already shed a second keyboardist, Tom Constanten, in early 1970 and now this new downsizing allowed the Dead to return to the harder, more primal rocking sound of their acidic early days…