Modern Lovers - A Vacant Stare 1971-73 LP

New collection of tracks cleaned up using "new technology" to give us a great picture of the earliest version of the band... with The Real Kids' John Felice onboard! 




Here's the notes from the compiler...

Jonathan Richman formed the Modern Lovers in August, 1970. When they broke up in April 1974, they had not released a single record. In 1976, just a month after Richman released what he considered "his" debut album, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, his label issued another Modern Lovers record -- this one made of remixed demos and sessions recorded between 1972 and 1973.

Widely hailed as a classic, that second record -- The Modern Lovers -- has been reissued countless times with varying tracklists and bonus packages. In the 1980s, Greg Shaw's BOMP! Records issued a bootleg compilation of alternate demos from Richman and co., this time called The Original Modern Lovers. Despite this wealth of material, there was more out there from the 1971-1974 sessions.

This collection attempts to collocate those un-reissued demos and sessions with a more pleasurable listening experience, thanks to AI de-mixing technology. Since these tracks have not been given the remastering treatment by major labels, the overall sound was quite poor. I used AI to demix the sources to their stems, then rebuilt them from the ground up to improve upon the bootleg quality.

A note about the dates/labeled sessions: I haven't found definitive sourcing on which dates/sessions they come from. I tried my best to lock it down, but some may be wrong. Let me know if you know for certain and I can update.

UPDATE:

The two original primary sources for this collection were (1) the fan compilation "Unreleased Studio Demos 1971-1973" that circulated on DiME a while ago, and (2) the "Songs of Remembrance" bootleg from the late 90s, plus a few other goodies.

Six or so weeks after uploaded this collection, a kind person (thank you, @sharethemodernworld !!) donated lossless copies of two Modern Lovers bootlegs that were unknown to me: Modern World [Wild Child 2AC 0001, circa 2002] and Modern Rock & Roll, 1971-1974.

Modern Rock & Roll appears to be a 3-disc compilation of everything available out there, including a selection of live rarities. But Modern World is an eye-opener: acetates of both the 1972 John Cale sessions and 1973 Kim Fowley sessions. The acetates not only give us upgraded sound, but also adds an alternate John Cale mix of "Roadrunner" to this collection! (Nothing revelatory, but still fun to hear.)