Quicksilver Messenger Service - 1967-xx-xx - First LP acetate (STU/FLAC)

(Studio FLAC)

Quicksilver Messenger Service 1967-xx-xx First LP acetate (FLAC)

01 Pride Of Man
02 Light Your Windows
03 I Hear You Knockin'
04 Back Door Man
05 Dino's Song
06 The Fool

In late summer 1967, QMS tries to do their album, with Harvey Brooks producing. They cut an acetate (only 150 ever made, and none of it offically issued, remains very rare) with him. Harvey did a more pop approach to the music, and sometimes added the Electric Flag horns on a few tracks. David Freiberg talked about it, in an interview with John Barthel, in 1997...

JB: ...I know that there are apparently, at least two versions of the first Quicksilver album. One that was recorded down in LA…

DF: Yeah, we did one with Harvey Brooks. We wanted Nick because we knew Nick Gravenites, but he didn’t feel confident enough. And he was playing with the Electric Flag, and Harvey was an experienced producer. So we went down…we did it with Harvey, and I think "The Fool" was lined out. Gary played 12 string first and we overdubbed everything else. I think we actually ended up using a "little bit" of that in the actual "Fool."

JB: There were some horns on some of the recordings.

DF: "Pride of Man". Well it WAS the Electric flag horns that were recorded up here. I think it was just "Pride of Man".

JB: Up here… being in San Francisco?

DF: Yeah, we overdubbed that up here. That was from the first recording, so we DID use that and there were some horns on one other song...but it didn’t make it unto the album...I don’t think. But it’s on the unreleased album. I think there’s something...but I can’t recall. Duh! [laughs]

JB: I have copies of it myself and I don’t remember which ones have horns in them...

DF: And then Harvey mixed it and said "This is it." Everybody listened to it and said "Not it, Harvey!" [laughing] "Uh, I think we’d better re-do some stuff." So we came back up and played all the things live for a few months, and practiced like we wanted to. Then went back in with Nick and Pete Welding and re-did what we needed to re-do, and that’s how it went… pretty well. Actually...I "still" think it was pretty good.