The Story Of Anonymous Days
Below is a reply to a query posted on Steve's You Tube Channel.
"Hi,
Again - thanks for the comment!!
There's no real story behind the individual songs generally, at least not behind the reason for writing them, except one of mine.
My compositions were both old - from just after Dark Round The Edges.
'All The Loving I Need' was written about a girl [obviously - which one isn't ;o)] that I was keen on.
She was quite young - well, we both were I guess - but I felt she wasn't keen on me as she seemed very stand-offish - so I put it down to 'unrequited love'!
I wrote the song one evening having got back from meeting up with her and again getting the feeling she wasn't interested.
She contacted about 25 years later and told me she had been totally infatuated with me at the time but was so shy & naive that she couldn't express that to me!
Cover of the 'Kissing Spell' issue of Anonymous Days. Artwork by Martin Weaver
'Don't Worry About That, Take One' - no, nothing to do with popping pills, tablets or the like. Again, it was written in the mid '70s. I took over SIS studios where Dark Round The Edges was recorded and we used to meet up there to write and record. We were recording that song, but it hadn't got a title. The guy who was engineering started recording,
wanted to call 'Take One' - asked what it was called.
I said "Nothing yet. Don't worry about that". So he called -
"Don't Worry About That - Take One!"
The name stuck!
I think Martin's 2 compositions, Shadow Of The Rain and Killin' My Friends,
may have already been ideas that he expanded on for the album.
Miles & Miles Away was based on a Martin composition that we all contributed to.
Madame La Guillotine was based on Ron's composition from the mid '70s.
It was kind of concept song about The French Revolution.
Again, we all contributed to that for the album.
Ron put forward 2 compositions, Journey's End, which harked back to the post
Round The Edges era and On Came The Midnight, which he wrote especially
to include on the record.
We all worked on A Hope Full Of Holes, which was also, basically, one of Ron's.
The album came about because we had all got back together following the furore over the popularity of Dark Round The Edges.
We had amassed a tidy sum from licensing the rights to several entrepreneurs around the World to release it in various formats, so the obvious thing to do with the proceeds was to record another album.
Don't Worry About That & Journey's End were recorded first at Outrider Studios in Northampton, but it closed down before we got any further, so we went to Far Heath in Guilsborough to do the rest.
That's why you may have noticed difference in the sound - especially the snare drum - on those 2 tracks.
I didn't like the sound initially. I felt the snare was too 'boomy', so the engineer remixed taking virtually all the bass out on the equaliser. I think he was a bit miffed at my criticism. We didn't like that result either, but before we could get him to re-do it, his landlord told him there was going to be a rent hike, so he just closed it down!
The title for the album came from a song Ron & I wrote. He gave me a poem he'd written, called Anonymous Days, and asked me to pen the music & melody.
Something just clicked & within a couple of days I'd given him back a recording on which I'd played guitar, bass & sung.
It was his memory of being so impressed with it that he suggested that be the album's title. We didn't include it as it wasn't really a DARK [type] song and we didn't feel it would fit in with the feel of the album.
Our own, pre 'Kissing Spell' version of
The 'Anonymous Days' CD artwork
Since the Dark Round The Edges repressings were released, there have been several bootleg releases that are illegal that we have NOT benefited from.
Neither did we benefit from all the illegal download sites that sprang up, although I think we have now shut most of them down.
There are one or two foreign sites that we can't close as they are not subject to UK intellectual property law.
I am currently in negotiations with an American firm that is planning to release yet another vinyl version. Like the Akarma vinyl, it will be a high quality gatefold replica of the original, except that the booklet will have additional inclusions along with the lyrics.
This will hopefully be released sometime over the summer, barring complications.
You're the first 'outsider' with this information!!
Hoping you find all this of some interest.
Regards,
Steve"
That American firm was Machu Picchu and that new reissue of Dark Round The Edges was very well received and virtually sold out to Pre-Orders.
Since then we have negotiated a deal with Void Records of Millville, New Jersey to release Anonymous Days on vinyl.
Originally Mastered on 24-track tape, I had those transferred to multi-track WAV files and spent several months in early 2016 remixing and remastering those for this LP release.
Unfortunately, with the 9 tracks running at a total of 54 minutes, this was too long to be written to vinyl without significantly reducing the bass response and overall audio quality of the tracks. To avoid this, the album needed to be shortened by at least 8 minutes.
So, we made the very difficult decision to cut 'A Hope Full Of Holes'.
At over 8 minutes long, that meant we only had to cut one track, as opposed to two.
We are hoping that this remixed version of the album will also be released on CD to include all nine tracks.
This LP is now out of print, although they do turn up on
eBay and Discogs:
I have made full length remixed and remastered CDs myself and these can be ordered from the DVDs & CDs page.
These tracks are now part of the Seelie Court series of LPs, spread across 2 records, Volumes 12 and 13.
The remixed tracks can also be downloaded as MP3 or Flac files from the Downloads page.
(For those of you who have bought the LP and are missing the 'lost' track, you can download a full quality WAV file of it,
Free Of Charge,)
