Various - Closed on Account of Rabies - Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (1997) (@256)

Well, try the following (for those not afraid of the dark). Lie down on your beds, switch off the lights, close your eyes and put your headphones on to listen to The Black Cat as read by Diamanda Galas. Shivers down your spine will definitely attack you during this totally evocative recording.
The tribute to Edgar Allan Poe continues. Hal Willner gathers a tour-de-force of artists to read works of Poe. It is as attractive as it sounds.

Tracklisting:
A1-Marrianne Faithfull - Alone
A2-Christopher Walken - The Raven
A3-Iggy Pop - The Tell-Tale Heart
A4-Ken Nordine - The Conqueror Worm
A5-Diamanda Galas - The Black Cat
A6-Gavin Friday - For Annie
A7-Ed Sanders - To Helen
B1-Ed Sanders - The Haunted Palace
B2-Jeff Buckley - Ulalume
B3-Dr. John - Berenice
B4-Deborah Harry & the Jazz Passengers -The City An The Sea
B5-Marianne Faithfull - Annabel Lee
B6-Gabriel Byrne - The Masque of the Red Death
B7-Abel Ferrara - The Raven

review link: here

download link

Tell-Tale Hearts - The Tell-Tale Hearts (1984) (@256)

We read from Guardian (October, 8): "By the standards of any age, it was a miserable way to go. Edgar Allan Poe, dark romantic writer and poet credited with inventing the genre of detective fiction, enjoyed a death far more Gothic and gloomy than any of his stories.
It began badly when he was found, aged 40, wandering the streets of Baltimore, penniless, raving unintelligibly, dressed in someone else's clothes, possibly having been beaten up. He died four days later, on October 7 1849, in hospital, having uttered the final words: "Lord, help my poor soul."
From there it only got worse. Although he was at the time probably the most famous writer in America, his cousin Neilson Poe omitted to tell anyone he had died, and so fewer than 10 people turned up for the funeral. The priest couldn't be bothered to give a sermon, and the entire ceremony lasted three minutes.
This Sunday, 160 years almost to the day since his sorry passing, Poe will finally be given the send off that his multitude of fans passionately believe he deserved. At 11.30am, a life-size recreation of his body will be carried in a horse-drawn carriage from his Baltimore home in Amity Street, to the Westminster Burying Ground where not one, but two full-length ceremonies will be held in front of up to 700 admirers, some of whom will have travelled from as far away as Vietnam.
The ceremony is being held as part of a year-long series of events to mark the 200th year of Poe's birth. To the amusement of Poe experts, the double anniversary of the start and end of his life has led to an unseemly scramble between several US cities - notably Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, New York and Boston - to claim ownership of the writer."

Celebrating the aforementioned event as well as the 200th year from his birth, I'll start a series of uploads that will, with one way or another, deal with Poe. After all, as you'll realise/ have already realised, far too many musicians have been heavy influenced by him.
The first related upload is an 80's garage group, which seems to have taken its name from Poe's short story. Their album is easily within the top-5 of its genre. Do not miss it!

download link: here

Various - A Manchester Collection: Bands of the Manchester Musicians Collective (1979) (@256)

I've promised some time ago that I'll have an upload about Band on the Wall. The reason is the Manchester legendary venue's reopening on September, 25, after a serious renovation that lasted four years.
This upload features bands of the Manchester Musicians Collective. The members of these bands are posing for the cover art of the album in front of the Band on the Wall, which hosted them for quite a while on Sunday nights. Although these bands are unknown, the overall result of this release is pretty good, giving a nice glimpse of how post-punk was perceived by local musicians. It should be also stressed out that members of the Collective were, for short or long, the Fall, Warsaw/Joy Division, Spherical Objects and A Certain Ratio.
Finally, the trivia here is that the label Object Music who is responsible for this release was founded by Steve Solamar, founding member of the Spherical Objects and deejay in the Electric Circus.

Band on the Wall website

download link: here

Booker T. & the M.G.'s - McLemore Avenue (1970) (@256)

I couldn't miss to have a post about the recent reissues of fourteen Beatles albums. Although I avoid buying cds from albums that were released prior to 1985 (or even later), I think that I'll make an exception with these. The reason is that the current editions have been remastered by expert studio engineers at the Abbey Road studios to offer the recordings of the band that has raised the bar to unreachable levels, in its highest fidelity ever.
The related upload is an album that was recorded as a tribute to Abbey Road. All the songs of McLemore Avenue are covers of Abbey Road tracks; the track order was rearranged to form long medleys, while other tracks (Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Oh! Darling and Octopus's Garden) are absent. Finally, as you can see, the cover art is reminiscent of the famous Beatles album, while McLemore Avenue is the location of the equally legendary Stax studios in Memphis, where Booker T. & the M.G.'s triumphed as it's main house band.

review link: here

download link: here (mirrorcreator) and here (rapidshare)

P.S. For those interested a cover version of Sgt. Pepper's can be found, in an older post, here

Various - Ellie Greenwich songs (@256)

(1) Ellie circa 1968 (2)The Raindrops (Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich along with Ellie's sister Laura who did not participate in the couple's recordings!)

Another major loss... Ellie Greenwich, one of the most prominent composers of the Brill Building left us on August 26. This upload reminds us some of the songs that Ellie Greenwich co-written; most of them are of course with Jeff Barry. It is amazing how outrageously infectious these songs are.

Tracklisting:
01-Bob B. Soxx and The Blue Jeans - Why Do Lovers Break Each Others Hearts (Spector-Powers-Greenwich) (1962)
02-Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron (Spector-Barry-Greenwich) (1963)
03-Darlene Love - (Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry (Spector-Powers-Greenwich) (1963)
04-Exciters - He's Got The Power (Powers-Greenwich) (1963)
05-Crystals - Then He Kissed Me (Spector-Barry-Greenwich) (1963)
06-Ronettes - Be My Baby (Spector-Barry-Greenwich) (1963)
07-Raindrops - The Kind Of Boy You Can't Forget (Barry-Greenwich) (1963)
08-Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (Spector-Barry-Greenwich) (1963)
09-Ronettes - Baby, I Love You (Spector-Barry-Greenwich) (1963)
10-Tommy James & the Shondells - Hanky Panky (Barry-Greenwich) (1964)
11-Dixie Cups - Chapel Of Love (Barry-Greenwich-Spector) (1964)
12-Manfred Mann - Do Wah Diddy Diddy (original single version) (Barry-Greenwich) (1964)
13-Dixie Cups - People Say (Barry-Greenwich) (1964)
14-Jelly Beans - I Wanna Love Him So Bad (Barry-Greenwich) (1964)
15-Shangri-Las - Leader Of The Pack (Morton-Barry-Greenwich) (1964)
16-Ellie Greenwich - You Don't Know (Barry-Greenwich-Morton) (1965)
17-Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep - Mountain High (Spector-Barry-Greenwich) (1966)

check also:
elliegreenwich.com
Ellie Greenwich interviewed

download link: here