Mott The Hoople unofficial CD: "All David's Dudes"

Sleeve and track listing

Catalogue details not available

Review

One look at the track listing should be enough to tell you: these guys do not know what they're doing. Not when it comes to quality Mott The Hoople product anyhow. What they are good at (and I use the term loosely) is pulling a fast one. Take an n-th generation tape of the original FM broadcast, do nothing to clean it up, just bung it onto a CD with a couple of colour photos, sit back and make money.

The fact that these guys manage to confuse Drivin' Sister with Jerkin' Crocus (on the sleeve) says it all. The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired, with too much tape hiss throughout - obviously much more than on the Stockholm To Philadelphia album, and the dynamic range is much more limited. At least they leave it in - some guys go too far with noise reduction and remove too much, leaving a rather dead sound (eg on Flash and Crash).

The recording also contains numerous minor glitches - we're not talking major defects, just those momentary, split second fades, warbles, etc that come from having a few too many generations on the source tape. The first track cuts in mid-sentence as the radio announcer is speaking at the beginning of Jupiter. David Bowie's introduction is not present.

All of which is irrelevant anyway, what with the official Stockholm To Philadelphia release which offers sterling sound quality and packaging.