Queen Keep yourself Alive long version from acetate

the_hero wrote:

can you read John's post BEFORE typing please

nice. as always

For definite, this acetate was made in the uk - and not usa. my best guess is that this acetate is pre-emi, and that is it was recorded at trident studios - but the band were not signed with emi. Remember the first LP was made in downtime - and not as official trident product.
This would date it c1972.

Interestingly, this track is refered to as a "long lost retake" on the hollywood version - also giving creedence to the above.

Long Lost Re-take 4:05 Queen: US 1991 Hollywood HR-61064-2

This ties in with ferdy's own timings:
long version is 4.05
short 3.29

The short version sounds like a "butchered" edit, in that the 30 missing seconds seem to be one bit pre drum solo, and another missing piece post drum solo, but as it is unreleased elsewhere, i think it should be ok to "release" here.

Master Room is indeed a London-based audio production company. It is not a 'proper' recording studio; it is more like Chop 'Em Out. It specializes in sound postproduction (editing, mastering, etc). Given that Trident had cutting facilities, my guess is that QUEEN/Trident commissioned a radio friendly edit of the Keep Yourself Alive re-take from Master Room, perhaps considering it for a single release. This acetate might be one of the tests sent back from the company to them. It is common to include also the un-edited version in such tests, for comparison. Or maybe Master Room mastered the track aswell (prior to editing), so they needed the reference.

Anyway, it would be interesting to compare VERY closely the "long version" of your acetate with the Hollywood Records digitally remastered "long lost re-take" or "long lost original version" (as labeled on the KYA HR promo CD5).

While I can figure out why QUEEN did not use this version in the single (it has an even slower opening), I wonder why they did not use it in the album. ...And if it was meant for it or not. The apparent contradiction between both HR names (I mean: "re-take" but "original"???) could be solved if we think of it as "original for the album". Of course this is all highly speculative.

By the way, I think that this version should have worked very well as an opener for the album, bearing its peculiar 'noisy' intro - still better if a 'reversed' counterpart is added at the end of the last track, Seven Seas Of Rhye...

Wilkie: are you able to provide a short mp3 of the reversed bit as you suggest - please? it would make it easier for me to fully understnd what you are saying!

(i have no imagination - sorry!)

I also think this acetate was chopped-out as a "demo disc" which could be hawked around the more professional studios - while Queen were trying to obtain a professional contract.

Again this points to c1972(ish)

John: Your wish is my command! ;-) I have edited my previous post. By the way, it was not lack of everybody's imagination but a honest mistake by me: I originally posted that text with two different approaches in mind and left it with half an idea, half nonsense. (In fact one of the ideas was not even a creative one, as it seems very likely that I have already heard some sort of "long-lost re-take" of Seven Seas Of Rhye... - a fan mix made by Bart Lammey a long time ago!)

Now back to Keep Yourself Alive...

Being this really a "re-take" (which is supposedly confirmed by the Brian May quote on the sleeve notes of the QUEEN HR reissue), it should be placed after the original QUEEN album sessions which ended in November 1972. The problem is to set an upper limit. July 6th 1973 is the UK release date of the Keep Yourself Alive single, being the album issued one week later. But on February 5th QUEEN recorded their first session for the BBC, and the regular version was used as a reference, not the re-take (please note that the latter has a slightly faster tempo - besides of course all the different licks and stuff). Has it not been recorded yet? Or was it discarded already? The second BBC session was recorded on July 25th and the re-take was (again?) completely overlooked. Was it forgotten? Or just not recorded yet? Could it be possible that it was devised later, for a re-release of the song perhaps?

Hello,
First of all a big thanks to JJS for all the help in classify this acetate (7").Below you'll find the link to donwload the short version mentioned above. It's my present to the Queenzone community.. the day of my birthday (june 16th). Why don't share this passion with other people? I love this piece.. it's one of my favourite in my collection and it has no sense whatching it and handle it without share these feelings with other collectors/fans.


http://rapidshare.de/files/2407276/Queen_-_Original_Acetate_Keep_Yourself_alive_-_02_-_Keep_Yourself_Alive__short_version_.mp3.html

Thanks Ferdy for sharing this with us.

Yeah, thanks. It's a little piece of history :)

Thank you very much Ferdy

Thank you so much, Ferdy!

Thanks! AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

http://www.queenzone.com/queenzone/forumnew/forum_topic_view.aspx?Q=550615 I just listened to the short version and it's great to be able to have this song. I know the long lost retake is official as John S. Stuart said before, but I'm not sure if this is the same version shared on the link above. Can anybody tell me something about this?

ah so you are the one who bought it Ferdy :)

this disc originally came from a bloke from England who once wanted to sell it to me in January 2003. I couldn't afford it back then so I had to pass it. Later on it seemed that GB bought it but already wanted to sell it in November 2003. Nice one Ferdy :)

It's pretty funny by the way to see that even the unreleased versions on acetates seem to be released in the end on re-issues. In this case the long lost retake.

Hey Ron! Updated June 03???

Wonder if we should send this (the MP3) to Brian and/or QP? :)
I'm sure he'd appreciate it