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St. Cecilia: The Elektra Recordings
New reissue of the out of print pre-Blue Oyster Cult compiliation released on Rhino Records.
"Compilation of all still existent Elektra recordings by The Stalk-Forrest Group, who later became Blue Öyster Cult. The timeline and location of these recording sessions has been reconstructed using what historical documents and memories remain, but is not without some ambiguity and contradiction. What follows is a distillation from the liner notes and images of the Rhino Handmade CD.
There were at least two recording sessions by the band. The first, possibly at Elektra's NYC studio, was archived under the briefly-used band name Oaxaca and resulted in a 10-song master tape. The second recording session, as The Stalk-Forest Group, was at Elektra's Los Angeles Sound Recorders studio where six songs were re-recorded. These six songs were combined with three songs from the Oaxaca master to produce a 9-song Stalk-Forrest Group master tape. Both versions of the album were rejected by Elektra and not released, although the Stalk-Forrest Group album was assigned the catalog number EKS-74046.
Images of the original master tape boxes included in the CD booklet suggest the following tracklists for the two versions of the unreleased album:
Oaxaca album (A-side/B-side not indicated):
01) Ragamuffin Dumplin'
02) Arthur Comics
03) I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep
04) What Is Quicksand?
05) Donovan's Monkey
06) Curse of the Hidden Mirrors
07) Bonomo's Turkish Taffy
08) Gil Blanco County
09) St. Cecilia
10) A Fact About Sneakers
On the Rhino Handmade CD, the Oaxaca session tracks are tagged with 'Original Version', except for three songs reused for the Stalk-Forrest Group album and "Bonomo's Turkish Taffy", which was neither re-recorded nor spliced into the Stalk-Forrest Group album.
The Stalk-Forrest Group album (EKS-74046)
A1) What Is Quicksand?
A2) I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep
A3) Gil Blanco County
A4) Donovan's Monkey
A5) Ragamuffin Dumplin'
B1) Curse of the Hidden Mirrors
B2) Arthur Comics
B3) A Fact About Sneakers
B4) St. Cecilia
The Stalk-Forrest album is a combination of six re-recordings done in LA in February of 1970 and three songs from the earlier Oaxaca master: "What Is Quicksand?; "Donovan's Monkey" and "Arthur Comics". Despite being from the Oaxaca session, they are not tagged as "Original Version" on the Rhino Handmade CD, presumably as they are the only versions included.
This CD also includes the promotional single released by Elektra, What Is Quicksand? / Arthur Comics. These two songs are supposedly from the Oaxaca sessions in New York. However, as engineer Brian Ross-Myring worked at Elektra's LA studio, it raises the possibility the Oaxaca sessions occurred in Los Angeles as well. There is also a potential confusion with sessions done by Soft White Underbelly for Columbia Records in 1969, which can be found as bonus tracks on expanded editions of Blue Öyster Cult."