New Bottles For Old Wine 1999

There are many compilations than there are actual albums from the Townedgers in the 30 year history as I continue to try to horn my craft into something more meaningful.  There's comps that do a good job, 2009's Country comes to mind, so does Observations From The Forefront which gave me a played song in Teri.  And there's comps that have way too much filler or songs that sounded good at the time but not any more.  Such is the case of New Bottles For Old Wine which took certain failures that didn't make the cut and when this album didn't tickle my fancy, the better songs got used for More Rodney Smith And The Townedgers and Even More.  The ones that didn't, remains here in this junkyard of tunes.

The outtakes from albums of that era.

Lover's Night Out (Light At The End Of The Tunnel) 1996  Originally part of The First And Last Reunion, I decided to revisit this song three years later. This is a better version but since we have enough songs for Light, this one didn't make the cut.  Later appeared on More.

Walk A Thin Line (Tales Of The Red Caboose) 1987  Two different versions of this song was released, the first one was a edited version that made Tales but the better version was reworked with a better drum sound for Travelogue, our 1988 live double.  This version ended up being on Stories From The Road, The Best Of The Townedgers and remains the definite song.  We made another attempt of this song for 2012 Soul Biscuits album and although it's a noble effort it pales next to this one. Side note, this was one of the last songs that I ever did using my old K Mart Telisco guitar and with the tube stack volume up high the sound kills.  After that the guitar blew up.

The Question Remains (1989 Single)  First song that I did on a regular four track and not exactly working the controls very well.  Too much echo and the backing vocals are buried.  Later attempted for 1993's Modern Problems In Reflected Living but never used till We're Getting Nowhere CD.

Hard Tellin- (Tales Of The Red Caboose 1987, drums overdubbed in 1995)  Had we had a four track, Tales would have been a good album but with wrong headed ideas (recording on metal tape?).  Richard Dennanbaugh convinced me that if we added new drums to the guitar it would sound better.  Which does but one glaring fact: the guitar's out of tune!  But at least I got the drum breaks right. 

Girl From The Other Side Of Town (Tales Of The Red Caboose 1987)  First version which was about going down highway 1 in Mount Vernon and seeing some chick sunbathing topless which became the inspiration of this song.  Jack Orbit's lead didn't work very well and couldn't get the drums right till much later.  Includes the line Sweet enough to eat which Maier Records rejected upon hearing it and we did a different take.  But this one would make it to the More R.S and TEs CD.

The Way I Look At Things (1989)  Attempted a couple times in the studio and then forgotten.

Jenny Sez Hi (Tales Of The Red Caboose 1987)  We had plenty of ideas going full tilt during Tales and this one was more of the harder rocking tracks but that crappy assed marching snare drum didn't do much favors for me.  Another bad idea gone wrong.  Originally on Collecting Beer Cans For Fun And Profit, the first batch of TE leftovers ever put on cassette tape.

Miss Crank (Moonlight Chronicles 1989)  Love Geoff Redding's Wilko Johnson guitar licks but the lyrics didn't fit the song very well. Attempted a few more times and gave up soon after.

Material Girl (Moonlight Chronicles 1989)  A lot of songs that I writing back then dealt with bad girls and most of the time forgettible.  It has some nice breaks in this but I didn't like this song much to give it a second thought.  Purple Passion was much better.

Cocaine Train (Floodlands 1989)  A acoustic version of the Paraphernalia song that the guys did back in 1984.  Russ chose it since it had the C word in it.  The TEs have done it on occasion.

Highway Of Love (Nice Weather We're Having 1990)  Not as wild or over the top as the Postcards From The Edge version but Geoff adds some nice LA Woman type of guitar work on this and Jon Castleman plays bass. Left off the cassette version of Nice Weather but was later added on the CD version of said album.

Black Girlfriend (Nice Weather We're Having 1990)  A song about racial tolerance but I think I wrote that song in response to my folks saying no of bringing a black GF home on a date. Didn't make the cut on Nice Weather, always thought it was lacking something.....

Sometimes I Do (Drive In Blues 1992)  A cover of the Social Distortion song, sped up and full of backing vocals but thought it was too busy and not good enough so left it off  DIB.  10 years later, we would do a much better and much more faithful to the Social Distortion version on The Road Less Traveled and five years later done to better effort on a 2008 live showcase.

You're Gonna Miss Me (Light At The End Of The Tunnel 1996)  On a B Side You can do anything and so we did a attempt of the 13th floor elevator's only hit.  It's kinda clumsy in its own way but I thought our version was better than the Sand Rubies version that made it to their live album.

Midnight Blue (Light At The End Of The Tunnel 1996)  Trying to do something different so I lifted the chorus from Melissa Manchester and Carol Bayer Sager and gave them credit although I was also incorporating Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground's I Found A Reason in a way.  We had enough songs for Light, this appears on More.

Her Lightning Ways (The First And Last Reunion 1993)  Appears on the beginning of side 2 of the cassette version of Modern Problems In Reflected Living, this song pretty much is a jam song like Getting To This is a jam song or Tornado is a jam song.  I was using my long time old K Mart guitar amp on this with the digital echo running through it.  Left off the CD version of Modern Problems.

Gone Fishing (Diamonds In The Skies 1991)  Originally slated to be the last song after Back To Marion but after hearing the final version, I didn't like the mix nor vocals to this.  The titled lifted from Chris Rea but that's there the similarities end   Not sure who I wrote it about, maybe Sweet Melissa or some part time chick at work that I had an eye on.  Attempted to do this song a couple more times later on, but got bored with it and moved on to other things.