Expanded Edition Bonus Material

Don’t Answer Me (Early Rough Mix)
Eric was a big fan of the early Phil Spector sounds and always wanted to make a record that sounded something like his ‘Wall of Sound’. This bonus track is an early mix, which had not yet had the many layers of overdubs piled on top of the basic track. Alan, who had been an assistant engineer when Phil Spector had worked with the Beatles, was not as enthusiastic as Eric was about trying to re-create the Spector sound. However after a lot of pleading on Eric’s part, Alan eventually said ‘I suppose you mean this’ and pushed a few buttons and faders on the desk, immediately swamping the track with the most glorious reverb effect which can be heard on the final mix and contrasts with the much more basic approach on this bonus version. There is an included “false start” completely devoid of overdubs which is even emptier and gives an insight into what instrumentation was laid on the first takes of the song.

You Don’t Believe (Demo)
This was a demo played and programmed into a Fairlight sampling and sequencing system – a sophisticated computer-based instrument for its time. Although the guitar is a sampled sound it remained in evidence on the final studio version since it had a character we liked, rather than replacing it with real guitars.

Since the Last Goodbye (Chris Rainbow Vocal Overdubs)
This is a piece of Chris Rainbow ‘magic’ which was so well embedded in the final mix that it cannot be heard with the clarity demonstrated here.

Since the Last Goodbye (Eric Guide Vocal - Rough Mix)
This track gives a good indication of how a song can evolve lyrically, very often ending up in a more simplified version, as in this case. What at one stage appeared to be an intrinsic part of the song (heard here), was eventually cut out.

You Don’t Believe (Instrumental Tribute to The Shadows)
Sometimes a track meant to be an instrumental, turned into a song and sometimes a song turned into an instrumental. Although Alan had intended all along that this would be a track with vocals - under some protest he agreed to make an alternate version with Ian Bairnson’s lead guitar (sounding uncannily like Hank Marvin) inserted over the basic Fairlight track. In the end, Eric agreed to try a vocal version and completed the lyrics, and this instrumental version was excluded – “Thank God” adds Alan!

Dancing on a High Wire/ Spotlight (Work In Progress)
As a writer, Eric would often come up with several different elements or ideas, then we would combine them together for a finished song. Basically, we dealt with three sections – a verse, a chorus and a middle or bridge. In this case, we attempted to put the pieces together from two different songs, but as often happened in the studio, as we continued to re-work the musical ideas, this combination was superseded as can be heard in the final mix.

Ammonia Avenue Part 1 (Eric Demo Vocal - Rough Mix)
Although this is a demo vocal of a track where Eric also sang the lead on the master, it does contain some differences to the final version. This was a snapshot at a time when he was clearly still working on lyrical ideas so you get a sense of the composer at work!

Ammonia Avenue (Orchestral Overdub)
An outstanding example of Andrew Powell’s brilliant orchestral scoring, soloed here, and much as we would hear it in the studio when it was recorded, with the backing track bleeding through headphones worn by the orchestra.

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