Wednesday, June 6, 2018

THE JACKIE EARLE HALEYS - The Unreleased Tapes


Dug up some stuff from the vault.I was supposed to release this last year at this time,as there was a song to be pulled from this session,(our last full recording,recorded,mixed ,mastered and put to cassette ,all in one night!),that was slated for the 100 band compilation ,"Big Tit Hoagie" ,which has still not got it's shit together ,and gotten released yet,sheesh! Myself was on vocals,lyrics,and drums,mostly,maybe a little guitar as well.Billy Drake,did all lead guitars,and was/is the greatest guitarist I've ever known.Even though this band was based on 70's bands like T.Rex,Sweet,Kiss,Slade,and other rock and hard rock bands,Billy was as knowlegeable at  70's rock as he was at psych,folk,flamenco,grunge,and any other style you may want to mention.As well as being a multi-instrumentalist,as most all of us were in the close-knit Ft. Myers scene.Vance Burdge ,my best pal,is on bass,and some guitars as well.He did the recordings thru an analog 4-track cassette recorder,the same kind of old machinery that I still use til this day.Vance also mixed this stuff ,I believe,It may have been me,we both would do those duties,sometimes both of us would do our own mix,so there would be different versions /mixes ,of the songs.Vance is one of the most talented musicians I know of,multi-instrumental,plus studio ,mix,master,recording know-how.Anyway,back to these recordings,10 tracks of 70's styled rock,although we were getting a little bit too far away from home here,straying off into ballads,blues,funk,southern-rock,a cover of a Supersuckers tune,and a handful of tunes that both musically and lyrically,hearken back to our beginnings.When the band started it was just me and Vance.Billy joined ,eventually ,because he was usually hanging out while Vance and I were writing songs.At one point ,we had a full -line-up adding Mike Smith on drums,and recorded 3 practice sessions,2 of which I have,and need to upload.The first Haleys release was cobbled together from almost every tape session we recorded.There were many songs left off,and there will be a new compilation posted here,soon,as well as those live sessions.We were practicing so we could play gigs,but our drummer didn't really like the "rock and roll" sound of the band and left soon after.We never played live,but Vance and I did acoustic versions of a couple Haleys tracks at an open mic night at The Draft House in downtown Ft. Myers,back when it was a shit hole,and not all glitzy and glamorous like today.We did record one more song after this session,our last tune is called ,"(I Wanna Be A) Busboy",and is on the first compilation ,found elsewhere on this blog,if you want to hear the sound of a band making it happen,even in the face of breaking up.There's more to come,don't be sad.This isn't our best work,but it still ranks up there .
CLICK HERE
https://archive.org/download/TheJackieEarleHaleys-TheUnreleasedTapes/JackieEarleHaleys-unreleased.zip

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