| A few Decca-related thoughts...
Firstly, I just want to address the notion that there is an edit towards
the end of September In The Rain, which leads to a momentary excursion
into waltz time. It's actually good old Pete coming in too early with
the coda (the instrumental bit that can be heard at 1' 43"). Thinking
they've reached the coda, he hits the snare at the start of the bar, then
realises his mistake and makes a ham fisted attempt to sort it out, throwing
the band into mild confusion. It can't be a beat edited out because if
there had been it would have occurred in the middle of the final 'rain',
which is clearly intact.
Secondly, this is obviously not the actual Decca session tape. The original
tape would have count-ins, and be reverb free. It seems to me Mike Smith
made up this tape for Epstein either as a favour, or Brian actually paid
for it to be compiled. My feeling is that the performance order is untouched,
partly because John recalled in 1963 that they'd played Money at the start
of the session and their own numbers towards the end, and also because
the performances improve as the tape winds on.
Thirdly, were there two copies originally? Brian obviously had one, and
I assume this is the one that ended up being used for Anthology. But there
must have been another because it was being offered to American collectors
in the mid 70s. A newspaper article from the 80s stated that a British
journalist asked Decca for a review copy and they agreed. This could be
bollocks and it was actually Mike Smith who had the tape, not Decca (more
likely I think) and it was he who loaned it to the guy. An English gentleman
is also described in Clinton Heylin's book as someone who had the Decca
tape in the 70s and travelled to the US periodically where he met several
bootleggers (it is said he also sourced the famous Dylan Albert Hall bootleg).
At any rate, a certain entrepreneur met three guys in the US in the early
70s who between them rustled up enough cash to buy a copy of the tape.
One of them kept the original; the other two (one of whom was Joe Pope)
made copies of the copy. Joe issued 14 of the songs on the famous 'Deccagone'
series. The English guy also apparently made another sale to an independent
party, who released their own version on Circuit Records in 1979, with
15 songs. Joe responded with his own album, 'The Deccagones'. So multiple
copies abound. God knows which one this is. But it sounds pretty good
to me.
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2011-
