John's Children

There have been so many legit and bootleg John's Children releases that, if you've picked up two or three of them already, it's hard to keep straight what if anything might be previously unreissued on some of the later ones. Most of Jagged Time Lapse's songs previously appeared on the Instant Action boot, for instance, and the super-rare "Midsummer Night's Scene" single has appeared on enough collections at this point that it's hard to think of it as a rarity anymore. If this happens to fit in well with the jigsaw puzzle of your John's Children purchases, though, it's a good collection of odds and ends, sometimes with markedly better sound than previous releases have boasted. The "Desdemona" and "Midsummer Night's Scene" singles are here, as are the weird Andy Ellison singles "Help," "Casbah Candy," "Been a Long Time," and "Arthur Green." As for tracks that aren't that easy to come by elsewhere, there's the chaotic instrumental "Perfumed Garden of Gulliver Smith," a not-too-different alternate version of "Midsummer Night's Scene," and the clumpety-clump risqué mod of "Not the Sort of Girl You Take to Bed" (an alternate studio version, minus the canned applause that afflicts the one on their Orgasm album). Track-by-track liner notes by Andy Ellison and Chris Townson are a nice bonus too. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide