Private Lightning

Well I finally found some time.  The Blue Jay sessions are now available.  http://baselines.com/music/bluejay/index.html .  I’ve scanned in the CD artwork that Scott put together.  These are Photoshop files, but if there is enough interest, I’ll put ‘em up as jpgs.

The sound quality here is quite good.  These versions sound better than the others I have uploaded in the past, which were copies of copies of copies!!

There are also some tracks here that are not part of the old uploads page.

I have some other CDs that Scott has provided and will upload some other great songs from those.

Steve

I have decided to take a few minutes off from playing Hearts to upload some more newsletters.

Private Lightning Newsletters are kept here:  http://baselines.com/newsletters/index.htm

I’ve previewed the new CDs that Scott sent me and they are great.  Some new songs (relatively speaking) are available.  There is a kick-ass version of ‘Do the Man and Woman’ which I will be uploading soon, along with the rest of the tracks Scott sent.

Greets - I’ve been in touch with Scott Woodman.  He has done some work on some of the tapes I brought up to him 19 years ago (hard to believe).  Scott also had some other goodies put aside.  Due to his hectic schedule, he has just reached the part of his to-do list that relates to these topics. :-)  Just kidding Scott.

Anyway, he has some of the earlier recordings we did prior to the album.  These were basic tracks done at Counterpoint in NY, and contains one of my favorite unknown PL songs, ‘We aren’t Young Forever’ - It’s a slow number that probably isn;t the best type of club song, and was performed only infrequently live.  Gotta say, it’s more poignant the older you get … up to a limit … I don’t think you’ll care much for it if you are over 80.

I’m sure there will be lots of new stuff on baselines.com when I get the goods.  Scott has lots of experience with sound mixing so I am expecting some great sounding stuff.

More Later,

Steve

Exciting news from John Edwards (no not that one….no, not that one either) has come thru the electronic grapevine.  It appears as though there is an imminent release of a Private Lightning CD.  John is the president of Renaissance Records, and has acquired the licence from Universal (who bought out A&M) to release Private Lightning tracks on CD.  John had access to the tapes and has done some remastering.  Given the disappointments of the past, it is not a good idea to get too excited, but I have to tell you, it is hard not to be excited by this news.  This feeling of excitement is accentuated based on recent sightings reported to me of ‘pre-order’ pages on Amazon, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble and Newbury Comics.   There are many previously unreleased tracks included on this new CD.  Here is a list:

1. Physical Speed
2. Song Of The Kite
3. Thriller
4. Cultists Of True Fun
5. Heartbeat
6. Bright City
7. Side Of The Angels
8. When You’re Laughing
9. U.S. Love
10. The Moment
11. Laugh And Cry
12. Light Of Lightning
13. We All Fall Down
14. Geneva
15. Give Me The Night
16. Fighting Biology
17. I Want To Take You Away
18. Rock For Real
19. Angelinia
20. Martha’s Song
21. Tight With You

The release is supposed to be around June 16.  Keep your Googles on!

Steve

Pardon the delay here, but to post these, I have to extract from an email attachment, Hypersnap the pages, rotate them slightly, rotate them 90 degrees, paste them into word , save the file, ftp it to the website.  So you can see why newsletters have been going up at a rate of .089 per day.  This latest posting appears to be the first of the ‘Modern’ series, but I am too lazy to re-number them.  If you are creating an archive of your own, please keep the aforementioned in mind.

Greetings - I wanted to post a new email I got from Danny Shewster.  You may remember him as one of Maine’s premiere DJ’s back in the day.  Danny recently discovered the PL Blog and left these comments:

=================

Hello!

I am guessing you are Steve Keith?

I happened upon this web site with lots of Private Lighting recordings and I am overwhelmed! Back when the album came out I was stunned by it’s beauty and played it incessantly on the radio station I worked at in Portland, ME (WYNZ Z101). I had no info about the band but was struck by the music and lyrics. I also had never heard any of the tracks that had been playing in the Boston market. It was just an amazing album that drifted in from A&M amidst the piles of albums form all the various record companies. Scott Woodman’s friend Tim Roy called me one Saturday morning as I was playing tracks from the album to tell me that Scott was from Sanford, ME and that that band was from the Boston area.

I was kind of instrumental in getting PL booked into a club in Old Orchard Beach and also at The Loft in Portland. I also did what I could to promote the album locally and had high hopes that the band would break out and really hit it big. This was such amazing and unique music. The lyrics were so literate and the music was distinct. I REALLY loved Private Lightning (still do) and I wanted the band to really succeed because the music was so different and amazing and wonderful.

I am going to download all the tracks posted and will pass them on to some friends who appreciated the band as much as I did.

Over the years I have found the occasional single for sale on eBay and have bought a few but I have never found as large a treasure as the tracks posted here.

Thanks for making these available. It is a very rich treat to finally find these tracks after all these years. I still have the tape of “Martha’s Song” which Scott Woodman brought to the station although I do not have a reel-to-reel on which to play it.

Thank you for posting these recordings. Private Lightning deserved much much more than it got from A&M. I do not know if the band will ever see the respect that it deserves but the tunes it recorded far outshine much of what was coming out of the record business at that time. I will cherish these tracks, to be sure………

In case you don’t come into this blog from the home page, here is the link to where I am posting the old newsletters:

http://baselines.com/newsletters/index.htm

Just thought I’d wish you a happy Summer!  It’s coming fast.  I’ve been putting some CDs together for a friend and just couldn’t help getting nostalgic.  I’m not one who tends to look back on things and live in the past, but every once in a while the moment is right and the feeling is strong.

Putting these CDs together, I happened to listen to a few songs, I Want to Take You Away, Physical Speed and Intensive Care to be precise.  I wish some of these had made it out there to more people.  Even compensating for trying to be objective, I still can’t get over how good these songs sound to me.  As I get older, Intensive Care for some reason becomes my favorite Private Lightning song ever.  I cannot explain it and never thought that would be the one….but it always brings a grin to my face and a tear to my eye.

I hope I am not just being a conceited son of a bitch, but no matter, I like these songs and I think even an objective listener could agree there is something good here.

Enjoy the Beach!