Underground releases

The Sister Morphine label
Reviews by Hendrik Mulder

Sister Morphine is an American cd-r label which releases unreleased recordings or already released recordings in significantly better quality. It comes with professional artwork and is pressed on high quality discs with beautiful label design. These are the releases so far:

Live at the double door (Morph-001) This is the Double door gig from Sept. 18, 1997 in Chicago. It has already been released on, for example, Behind the double door (VGP) but Sister Morphine remastered this recording which resulted in a clear recording with more depth. One of the best audience recordings around!

Stoned in Rio de Janeiro (Morph-002) This is the incomplete Rio de Janeiro show from April 11, 1998. Probably taken from the video which is also incomplete. The missings songs are It's only rock 'n roll, Wanna hold you and Tumbling dice. The video got drop outs and there is noise during the entire broadcast. Sister Morphine did an excellent job on the remastering: the noise has been took out and the drop outs are removed; great. The Stones gave a great performance in Rio with Ruby Tuesday and I just wanna make love to you and the entire show is very well documented on this release. Unfortunately Stoned in Rio de Janeiro is in mono though the broadcast was in stereo but till now there is no (complete) stereo broadcast on regular cd available.

Radio San Diego 98.3 FM (Morph-003). The San Diego show from february 3 was a radio roadcast and after a few weeks VGP released their first release but was soon thereafter sold out/withdrawn. The radiobroadcast wasn't very good and Sister Morphine used the original Westwood One discs and gave it more 'depth'. Radio San Diego 98.3 FM is a great soundboard recording with a clear and detailed sound with great versions from Gimme shelter, Memory motel and Sympathy for the devil. VGP announced a re-mastered SanDiego of their first release and it wouldn't surprise me if they copied this Sister Morphine release.....

Sister Morphine will release more shows in exciting quality soon. For more info e-mail: [email protected].

Bridges to Bootlegs
Reviews by Jaime Castaneda

The Stones tour brought us a new wave of bootleg recordings many with great sound and some with bad sound. To date there are over 30 B2B titles from VGP including a 12cd mini sized box set of the 6 tokyo shows!

Stripped Sessions in Toshiba EMI Studios Tokyo have surfaced ! The songs are Lets Spend the Night Together, No Expectations, Beast of Burden and Memory Motel. They are all in excellent Stereo quality and along with the offical release of Honest I Do (on the soundtrack to the movie Hope Floats) this means 5 new tracks from the Stripped sessions that are not on the Stripped Album or any of the Stripped singles! Some of these unreleased tracks appear unlisted as "secret bonus tracks" on the end of each of the VGP Amsterdam releases listed below.

RockNRoll Babylon(VGP): Live at the 10 Spot, 97 Fashion Awards and 2 songs from the first show; also found on a european release by dandelion.

Piece of Gold : Chicago on 23rd September 1cd incomplete stereo soundboard.

Take me Up St Louis (VGP): the USA TV broadcast of the St Louis show in excellent stereo Quality this is also found on many other titles, but beware not all of them have great STEREO sound !

Stoned in San Diego(VGP) The radio broadcast from San Diego 98 there are 2 versions of this title by VGP. Version 1 is made from a recording off the radio and includes 3 bonus tracks, No Expectations from Atlanta, Respectable from Seattle and Shine a light from Norman, Oklahoma. Version 2 of this title is mastered from the official westwood one radio discs and therefore has superior sound but does not have the bonus tracks listed.

Bridges to Argentina : This is the best title to get from the Argentina 98 shows, since it contains the complete show. There is also a european release called Argentina 98 but it is missing some songs and instead has bonus tracks that are taken from Osaka 98.

Rio 98: A european release on 2cds containing the RIO TV broadcast in stereo, there is also an incomplete mono VGP release of this show (Old Friends From Rio). VGP are rumoured to soon be re releasing a new and stereo version of it.

Paris 98: Another european release a fantastic soundboard recording in mono from 25th july in Paris, also found on VGPs Micks Birthday Party... see below.

The European CD called "You Get The Best of Me" contains 30 of the rarer web choice etc tracks including Time is on my side from Osaka 98, Just My imagination from Michigan, Street Fighting Man from Houston, No Expectataions from Atlanta, Factory girl and Star Star from New York and many more ....

There are also new titles appearing from the European leg of the tour including Welcome Back Keef - 2CD Nuremburg 98 VGP from the opening show of the european tour, great recordings but mixed with a little to much bass for me. Mick Jagger looses his voice during out of control and for the rest of the show.

One Day In June - 2CD Hannover 98 VGP. Excellent DAT recording from Hannover including Love Is Strong which was the internet web choice.

We Came To Rock The Arena Like this 2CD VGP Amsterdam. 1st A.dam show excellent quality DAT recording.

Babylon Four on the Floor - 2cd VGP Amsterdam. 2nd A.dam show excellent quality DAT recording

Check Out whats Rolling - 2cd VGP. 3rd A.dam show excellent quality DAT recording. Dave Mathews was a guest at these shows during memory motel.

Micks Birthday Party at World Champions Stadium - 2cd VGP. A concert Ill never forget! This is an excellent mono soundboard recording from Stade de France with Paint it Black in the set list!! This recording also appears on a new european CD called PARIS 98.

Out Of Control - 2cd No Label. Another excellent DAT recording. This one is the complete show from Gelsenkirchen 98 and contains bonus tracks from Dusseldorf (under my thumb and little red rooster). Nice art work !

New soundboard recording expected out soon: Forth Worth 72 soundboard!!!

Basement News
Schwarzbuch

If you are collecting bootlegs and other rare Stones recordings then the publications Basement News and Schwarzbuch by Dieter Hoffmann is a must! Write to:

Basement News Distribution
Waldstr. 59
D-63110 Rodgau
Gernany