Some hard to get Triffids related audio files. These are rarities
- demos or live tracks, of variable sound quality, and unavailable
elsewhere.
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MP3
- Jesus Calling - ICA, 25/04/87 (8.58MB)
- Stolen Property demo (9.85MB)
- Nervous Side Of Town (2.73MB)
- Too Hot To Move - 16/02/06 (5.24MB)
- Pale Blue Eyes - Town And Country, 30/10/87 (4.83MB)
- Night Life - Shenton Park Hotel, 25/1/85 (5.07MB)
- Lonely Avenue (3.98MB)
- Can't Stand It (4.69MB)
- Raining Pleasure (4.23MB)
- Everything Fixed Is Killed (11.74MB)
- Field Of Glass - Barrowlands, 20th October 1984 (12.06MB)
- Lanallu (4.17MB)
- The Long Fidelity (5.19MB)
- Kiss Him (he's history) (6.2MB)
- Lullaby (1.88MB)
- Spanish Blue (1.91MB)
- Somewhere In The Shadows (2.35MB)
- Spinning Top Song (4.1MB)
- Foggy Notion (4.9MB)
- Why Don't You Leave For Good This Time (1.8MB)
- Devil Please 2.66MB
- This Whole World's About To Slide(1) 2.45MB
- This Whole World's About To Slide(2 - better mix twice the size) 4.92MB
- Diving Board Harmonic (5.20MB)
- Wide Open Road (3.52MB)
- Too Hot To Move (3.29MB)
- Beginning To See The Light (4.86MB)
- Stand Up (1.15MB)
- Reverie (2.80MB)
- Dear Miss Lonely Hearts (2.69MB)
- Memories (4.13MB)
- A Trick Of The Light (2.06MB)
- Clear Out My Mind (3.72MB)
- Warren breaks his violin at the end of Memories (1.76MB)
- Rent (1.86MB)
- Trick Of The Light (1.77MB)
- I've Heard Things Turn Out This Way (1.8MB)
- When A Man Turns Bad (730K)
- The Good Life Never Ends (500k)
A rocking version of Jesus Calling from the ICA in '87. I'd forgotten that we used to drag this one out in that era every so often.
A Dave solo demo into a cassette recorder of Stolen Property. Some bits you'll be familiar with, others perhaps not so. This almost made it onto the BSD re-issue as a bonus.
This is from Tape Five, a particularly good early Triffids cassette. March/April 1980 with a lineup of David McComb (guitar & vocals), Rob McComb (guitar & violin), Margaret Gillard (keyboards), Bryon Sinclair (bass), Alan MacDonald (drums & vocals). Enjoy.
Trying out a microphone (Behringer B-1 if you're interested) plugged into my shitty laptop I recorded Too Hot To Move with one voice and three acoustic guitars. Very exclusive, a bit rough, but the microphone passed the audition. You might hear the odd truck thundering past my place.
If there's a better version of this song anywhere I'd like to hear it. Adam Peters joining us on cello.
Dave was a Willie Nelson fan well before it was cool and here's a striking version of the Willie classic, Night Life. This is a song Willie is said to have sold for $50 before it became a monstrous hit for Ray Price. He had to be content with a few bucks as opposed to a few cadillacs.
On 14/03/94 The Red Ponies (Dave McComb, Warren Ellis, Graham Lee, Bruce
Haymes, Peter Luscombe and Michael Vidale) played a live session
for Triple J radio. When the official tracks were done we cajoled
Chris Thompson the engineer/producer into letting us play some
more songs for the hell of it what with a Euro tour coming up
soon. Here are three tracks from that session. I'd completely
forgotten about this stuff until I found it on a cassette yesterday.
Listening to it made me wonder what might have happened had Dave
stayed healthy and kept this band together.
I think Warren turned up late because of other commitments as he only seems to be on Raining Pleasure. Actually, on second thoughts he must have had to leave early as this was a bit of a late one.
The version(s) of Everything Fixed Is Killed are presented here as an example of an early working version of a song that later appeared in a dramatic and more complete incarnation done by costar. There are two versions, the first one falls away after a promising start and we do another straight away that's much better as a whole. We (the Red Ponies) never did this song in live performance as far as I recall. It sounds like I had been listening to Robert Quine.
In which The Triffids take on a rabid Bunnymen crowd with their killer punch. Not sure that the crowd is impressed but Dave certainly gives his all. What would the band have seemed to be to a Bunnymen crowd at that time? How could this fail to impress? It's a bit large.
From 1982, this is a song obviously recorded at home, as evidenced by Dave's Mum hitting the record button. Features some lyrics Dave used again, much, much later.
Recorded in 1984, this demo is taken from a London portastudio recording from November, '84. What a song, especially when you hear it in this very raw form and out of its normal context as the closer of BSD. Taken from the Jack Brabham cassette only release (if you can call 50 cassettes a release).
This is costar live at the Cherry Tree Hotel. Someone requested this song recently on the forums so here it is - badly recorded but you might be able to get the drift. There's a Stolen Propertyish ending that was actually quite dramatic on a good night. Yet another of Dave's songs inspired by 60s girl-groups.
A demo done at Dave's place in about 1993. On a cassette 8 track machine with Dave, Phil Kakulas and me. This was a B side on Clear Out My Mind single.
This is from Dungeon Tape and probably is familiar to quite a few of you. I've cleaned it up a bit.
From Tape Six I believe. It sounds very like Jill singing with Dave but is Margaret Gillard if I'm not mistaken. Dave liked this song well enough to put it on a compilation cassette he called Early Triffids Songs For Teens And Tycoons.
A demo of Spinning Top Song recorded in Perth in 1988. A little low tech perhaps but you get the idea.
Foggy Notion - the Red Ponies in Amsterdam, 28th April 1994.
This is how Goodbye Little Boy started life. Just Dave and acoustic guitar with an early version of the song before he decided to tailor it for Jill.
Another of the front room demos, this one is a song written by Dave with Paul Kelly.
A demo recorded on my trusty reel to reel 4 track in 1997 or 8 I'm thinking. Just stumbled across it and painstakingly dragged it from its crusty analog coocoon onto my laptop for a bit of a scrub up. The tape had deteriorated slightly but it's ok for a rough mix. Phil Kakulas on bass, Kiernan Box on piano, G Lee on acoustic guitar. We fucked up the change but you can get the general idea. A world exclusive.
From Chris Abraham's solo piano record Glow. There is a single untreated grand piano recorded live with no effects in very low register only but you can hear a high ghostly clanging that wasn't actually played. When all three Necks play in a largish room through a PA stranger sounds can be heard.
Acoustic version from Dutch radio broadcast I think.
Just me and Dave from a similar Dutch radio broadcast as WOR.
The Velvet Underground Song. Comes from the Shaw Theatre 12th April 1989.
The first vinyl single from 1981.
Lead track of a 7" vinyl EP from 1982.
One of the B-sides of the 12" single Wide Open Road from 1986.
From the Red Ponies' 1994 tour of Europe Recorded in Malmo, Sweden. Unreleased.
From the Red Ponies' 1994 tour of Europe Recorded in Malmo, Sweden. Unreleased.
From the Red Ponies' 1994 tour of Europe Recorded in Malmo, Sweden. Unreleased.
From the Red Ponies' 1994 tour of Europe Recorded in Hultsfred, Sweden. Unreleased.
Recorded during the sessions for Stockholm.
This was recorded during the In The Pines sessions and probably written the morning it was recorded. Hence the lack of middle eight tune, and some different lyrics. It's a very straightforward version and I don't think it was ever in contention for the final track list, mainly because it needed work to achieve full potential.
Recorded by Victor Van Vugt, Marty on bass and Conway Savage on piano. This is an FM quality mp3. It's a beautiful song and was co-written with Mark Snarski but I'm not sure who did what.
Real Audio
Four track recording by Dave
Unreleased.
(D.McComb/Mushroom Music)
From recordings done at Julian Wu's place
by Julian with costar. Unreleased.
(D.McComb/Mushroom Music)