Chris Picks:
SHEEP Rarity of the Week!
(Updated monthly!)
WEEK #15 ~ SHEEP PARTY IN MANTECA, MEMORIAL DAY 1991 ~
Includes: 'HANK & MABEL' / 'BANANA SPLITS' / 'SUPERCHICKEN' / 'THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT' / 'I FEEL GOOD' / 'THE JEFFERSONS' / 'SANDMAN' / 'BABE I'M GONNA LEAVE YOU' / '25 OR 6 TO 4' / 'PSYCHO KILLER'
Taken directly from the soundtrack of the 6-hour-long VHS-only release (Jeanne-Boppin' Video No.3) entitled "THE 1st ANNUAL JEANNE'S BIRTHDAY/MIKE & KATHY'S 2nd HOUSEWARMING-IN-ONE-MONTH/MEMORIAL DAY BARBECUE BASH IN MANTECA - MAY 25, 1991", which was edited on primitive analog equipment by me, Jeanne & Harry at Jeff's school and is totally OUT OF PRINT...
Anyways you'll hear here the splendid drunken voices of me, Danny, Paul, Monique, Lillian, Jeanne, John, Jeff, Harry, Benny, Rob(b), Cheryl, Mike, Kathy, Mike's sister Kim and her newlywed half-naked hottie husband Bob Drake (I hear they broke up), and a young gal named Sally Cobau (who was renting a room at Jeanne's). The first song is actually a semi-rehearsed performance by Lillian & John (with Danny and Robb augmenting), then the rest of it is from one of those endless fun singalong jams Danny is so good at leading...
Then, near the end, I briefly interview young Casey Edwards, who was the only Sheep child in existence at this time! True fact! He probably says one of the only two things he knew how to say: "Big Bird" or "Soda!" Adorable! To give you an idea of the age of this antique recording, Casey is now 31 and a California State Senator! O, how time flies...
Click on Casey's face to begin the festivities...!
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WEEK 14 ~ "FLOATING" (DEMO) / KEN vs LAWRENCE HARVEY ~
The first part of this week's rarity is the original demo version of "Floating", recorded by Danny, me & Paul the night we wrote it at Grant St.: April 25, 1986. 'Twas an exercise in mild complexity and three-part harmonizing. Two weeks later we taped the final remake for the SHEEP FOR SALE album. This demo, with all its ruf edges left in, has only been previously issued as part of the limited-release SHEEP COLLECTIBLES cassette, in 1994.
The addendum at the endum is an unheard snippet discovered on one of Paul's ancient reel-to-reel tapes, which I had always thought was completely blank. Just as I was about to throw the yukky old thing in the trash, I suddenly wondered if the microscopic 'peep' I had heard at one point while checking it might mean there really IS sound throughout the tape, but at a sub-sonic level. Sure enough, once I had digitized the recording and massively raised the signal (over 1000%!), various conversations from the Grant St. apartment, recorded by Paul circa 1986, began to appear. Using a noise-reduction program, I took down the gargantuan amount of ultra-loud tape hiss, and this fragment was one of the more interesting things buried underneath -- it's Ken Garkow listlessly jamming on guitar to the rhythms of Lawrence Harvey's poetry on the classic LP "THIS IS MY BELOVED" (a favorite of the era whilst doing whippets and/or acid). The other voices heard briefly are a couple of Paul's intellectual college mates named Ken & Liat.
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WEEK #13 - "LILLIAN AND THE THREE BEARS" by Sheep
From the same marathon session as last week's rarity comes this ditty, featuring Lillian's very first recorded appearance with the rest of us weirdos (me, Jeanne, John, Tina & Jeff). Just months earlier Jeanne had first introduced her new buddy to us all. She was still Friman then and not yet Wilson. She impressed us all duly there that day in Steve Wirth's back bedroom-makeshift-studio, belting out a one-take performance that we suspect she had rehearsed years earlier maybe, and teaching us all when to do our singular hand-clap accent and what to sing at the end. You can hear John say "She's in the Club!" afterwards, and they got married the very next day. It's true, I read it in "Rolling Stone"...
...or on the Internet. Okay maybe that was later. Anyways this was December 1989, and the song was released on SHEEP SHIT in 1992. The photo below was snapped that day by Jeanne, I presume, and shows Lillian with Tina plus Joey, the 8-year old neighbor kid learning advanced recording techniques -- but that's another story...
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WEEK #12 ~ "I SAW THE LIGHT" by Sheep
Jeff sings normal while the rest of us (me, John, Steve, Mike & Danny) behave obnoxiously as backing vocaliststs in this real rarity from December 1989, less than a year after he and I first met! This was just one of a stunning number of songs taped that day at Steve Wirth's pad (listen closely and you can hear his ever-glowing TV and ever-blowing fan in the background). Earlier we had done a ten-minute basic music track for the "Theme from The History of Sheep", recorded Rrob's "Oakland (White) Christmas", Lillian's "Three Little Bears", vocals for the "Washing Machine Song", and a version of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" sung by an 8-year old neighbor kid. Each one-take recording featured whomever happened to be dropping by, and much of it got released on the "SHEEP SHIT" compilization in 1992, including "I Saw The Light" -- BUT that mix was a very short edit, and few of you have EVER heard this complete version, mixed for a limited-edition CD long ago called "THE ROMANTIC TALE OF CHRIS & JEFF." (Did you hear we're getting married? "Honey, all the luck in the world...")
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WEEK #11 ~ HEY BIG SPENDER by Jeanne, Tina, Cheryl & Dana ~
This rather hilarious bit is from Jeanne's 1st album "IF I WERE A SHEEP" (1989, not yet reissued on CD). It's a scene from "SWEET CHARITY" that, I gather, she had done back in high school, and she brilliantly re-cast it here using Tina Rainwater, Cheryl Vaughn Perrone and Dana Callen as her co-hookers, first "acting" with dialogue, then singing. HA! Cracks me up...
The performances are not bad, eh? Rob(b) is heard in there, whistling and bossing the "girls." I played all the instruments, struggling to learn new orchestral-type chops at Jeanne's behest (often using many of David Daniels' cool keyboards) and the ambience of Sylvia's Diner is obvious throughout...
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WEEK #10 - "BRUNO BABY" by Ken & Danny, 1980
These guys would always sneer at the mention of this song, for some reason, though I know not why -- I always thought it was clever and reasonably well-done for a one-take "Wowie Zowie" joke recording! It's certainly the first-ever performance we have of Ken on tape, singing lyrics he (presumably) wrote with Danny, who croons along and steers the song with his brand-new first electric guitar... I have no recollection of taping this, though I was there -- you can hear me attempting low harmony vocals next to Danny; I think I just walked in at the last minute...
Within weeks the three of us would strike up our first real rock band along with Rob(b) Perrone, and it's at one of these early "Quadrilateral" jams in Danny's garage that this excellent black-and-white portrait came about -- shot, developed and printed by Paul! We were 16 years old!
(I just gave Paul mp3s to post of Danny's LP from this same era, "WISE FOOL", which contains a lot of classic insanity from all our newfound friends...)
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WEEK #9 - CAN YOU SPARE A DIME? (BERKELEY 1986 VERSION)
This is an unreleased 4-track studio recording by me, Paul, Danny & Jeremy from the Berkeley jam-band version of Sheep, in 1986. We played this often. It was originally written & performed by Danny, me & Rrob for the 1984 Lp "NO SMALL THING IN LIGHT OF YOUR WILD DUCK HOOK." Here, I do the double-tracked vocals, and Danny's harmony -- as well as his lead guitar solo at the end -- are missing cuz he moved back to LA right then! (Isn't Jeanne's classy black-and-white pic of us just swell?)
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WEEK 8 - "Don't Mind Me. (The Armadillo Song)" -
Recorded in November 1983 at Steve's pad in Azusa by Jeanne, whom we had not known all that long at that point... She'd first met Danny only the year before, and here they show up together at one of our regular endless-weekend parties where we just happen to be WRITING A NEW SONG! We never got any further with it than this run-through version, though, and thankfully Jeanne was there with her trusty Walkman to capture it... Written and sung by Mike, me (Chris), Danny (who plays the swell guitar), John, Benny (!), Rrob, and Jeanne -- with a title coined by the very-drunk Steve Wirth, whom you can hear stumbling about in the background...
Excerpted from the cool compilation album JEANNE'S ATTIC, which just got put up in full on the ALBUMS/SONGS archive page. There you can hear much more of this very unusual Sheep "session."
[A NOTE ABOUT THE PHOTO: Jeanne snapped this picture sometime in 1984. So it's not really a photo of the recording session for this song. There are no pics from that party. Just so ya know.]
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Another geeky cover tune, recorded at Sylvia's Diner in late 1991. Mike is clearly in his Wide-Open-Spaces phase as he sings the smoov lead vocal. Lillian and Jeanne, along with me and Jeff, provide the Blackground singing. Paul did the bass, and I (Chris) played all the other instruments and produced it. Ugh. The end percussion jam section is played by all the above people (except Mike, for some reason). This was originally recorded to be the "new" song for the 1992 rarities compilization "SHEEP SHIT." Indeed.
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This obnoxious version of the classic schmaltz tune is from the not-on-CD Mad Morticians album "TECHNICOLOR DALMATIAN" from 1991. Robb sounds so serious singing it! He also plays bass, piano and organ on it. Brian and John play guitars. I (Chris) play drums and the intro guitar riffs. And me, Tina and Jeff provide appropriate background vocals. If hearing this should make you wanna dance around your room naked, DO IT!
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Week 5 ~ "HEY LITTLE ONE" by Sheep
Some know this cover tune from Glen Campbell's version. We knew it from the Grateful Dead. Our version was taped at our Oakland rehearsal space during the "SHEEP FOR SALE" era, with Paul singing & guitar-picking, Me (Chris) on drums + b.g. vocal + producing, Danny on swell guitar + b.g. vocal, and Jeremy on excellent bass! For some reason 'twas left off the final LP lineup, only to appear much later on the "JUNK & SONGS" compilization in 1989.
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Week 4 ~ "LEGEND OF DIAMONDBACK RIDGE" by Ken & Brad
One gets the feeling this is not really a first-time "improvisation" by Ken Garkow and Brad Shimels in this rare recording from 1980, semi-produced by Dan(ny) at the breakfast bar in his parents' Gragmont Street home, with me (Chris), John, Benny & Steve Wirth all trying not to laugh in the background...
(p.s. The EVA D school pictures here are from 1976 -- these guys didn't look anything like this when this tape was made, but alas, I have no other photos of Brad to use!)
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Week 3 ~ "I PUT A SPELL ON YOU"
This Sheep recording from 1987 is not a true "rarity" but it is, so far, unavailable on CD. It's from Mike's only "solo" album, MINKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD. Mike sings it, John & Steve play the guitars, I play drums, and Robb plays the bass. This is a cover version of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins song made famous (to us) by CCR of course. Signed, Chris.
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Week 2 ~ "INTO YOUR ARMS" by Mike, Paul & Steve
It's not multi-track, so i couldn't remix the vocals or anything -- I just EQ'd the whole song here and there, obviously...
I did however lay in some unused wild guitar solo stuff Paul did from c.1981 that was on one of his old reel-to-reel masters, and it sounds in key and everything! Amazing!
Also I laid in some of the Benny poetry improv stuff he did with Paul and Jeremy from "Daniels Family Dinner Stories," and it just brings a whole new dimension to Steve's lyrics...
Week 1 ~ "IT'S TOO LATE" by Sheep (featuring Jeanne)
I recorded drums & piano in 1985 for Ken's request on the SHEEP COVERS album, but he bailed out just after Danny added rhythm guitar. Jeanne and I finally finished it in 1991 for the SHEEP SHIT compilization, with Paul and Danny adding lead guitars.
(Click on the nice picture below to hear the song!!!!)
