Med den opsigtsvækkende fremkomst af en flok til da ukendte demo-optagelser i 2010, troede man vel, at det nu måtte være forbi med ‘nye’ gamle optagelser med The Smiths. Men se så hvad der skete i dag…

Here’s one that you haven’t heard before…

In May 1983 (exact date unknown), while preparing to record their first album, The Smiths ran through a selection of songs at a rehearsal in a room in manager Joe Moss’ jeans warehouse. The tape was recorded for Troy Tate, in order to give him something to work with before going into the studio. It’s pretty rough but considering it was only recorded on cassette with a stereo mic pointing into the room, the quality isn’t too bad. Morrissey’s vocals are a bit distorted – maybe singing too close to the mic or maybe the cassette mic was too close to the PA – but everything else is surprisingly clear. There is some tape flutter at various points.

I was lent the master cassette by a source close to the band who made the recording – let’s call him Pablo Cuckoo – in 1997, with a view to trying to put it out as a semi official release, as it was recorded before the band had signed to Rough Trade, so technically he had the rights to the recording. But a combination of the poor sound quality and threats from Warner Bros, meant that the idea was shelved. The master cassette was transferred to DAT at that time but the DAT copy disappeared shortly afterwards. To my surprise it resurfaced a few weeks ago while I was going through some boxes of old tapes. The quality is a lot better than I’d remembered too!

I’ve done a little work on the overall sound but only on the EQ, no compression has been applied. There is a possibility that some noise reduction was done when it was first transferred to DAT as you would expect more tape hiss, but I can’t be sure.

Anyway, it’s a good listen and must be one of the earliest recordings of the band, certainly in a non concert setting. Sadly there isn’t much between song chat, which could have been interesting…

Enjoy the tape and please circulate freely but don’t charge for it!

The man from Hojo, 2013