Rarities

SWW fan Steve Thorpe, who was a major driving force behind the box set project, approached Dave Bartram who found a number of tapes in his collection, and after listening to them for the first time in many years, it was deemed they were of good enough quality to put on the CD – ie the quality of actual tapes had not deteriorated.

After being put through the remastering process by Alchemy they came out sounding as good as new.

There was one discovered recording that unfortunately did not find its way onto the box set, an early version (mid-80s) of “Out On The Town”, this was due to it not being considered of good enough quality to be put out on the set.

But we are lucky to have included “Mona Lisa”, a 1981 version with Dave on lead vocals, never heard by the public until 2013. This track was released by Showaddywaddy in 1983 on the “Living Legends” LP, with Buddy Gask on lead vocals, and without the drum intro by Romeo. In fact, Malcolm Allured played drums on the 1983 release.

“Pretty Little One”, also a 1981 demo, is included, and eagle-eared listeners will notice its similarity to the ‘Living Legends’ track “Hey Little Girl”. (Incidentally, “Hey Little Girl” has got to be one of the worst SWW tracks!)

“Under The Moon of Love” (Try Your Hand Version) was retrieved form the original Genie vinyl 12″ single – many thanks to Keith Hudson for that!

“Old Habits Die Hard” was a 1988 track, and first released a few years ago as a bonus track on a ‘best of’ compilation, however the sound quality was absolutely awful – something clearly going wrong with the mastering for this release. But those problems are sorted here and it’s great to finally hear this song in the quality it deserves. How it was never a single at the time is sad – I think listening to the song in the context of the time (ie the late 80s) then it would have suited the music tastes around that period. An opportunity missed that would have surely seen the band improve on their comeback a year earlier with the release of the single “Why?”

Finally, three other tracks which were true bonuses to have on this disc were the instrumental versions of “Pretty Little Angel Eyes” and “When”. Listening to these without the vocals gives the listener a whole new angle, and it is interesting to bear in mind that these tracks were part of the recording process, ie Dave’s vocals to be added later, rather than being recorded as karaoke tracks.