The Rolling Stones, ‘Demonic Confidence’ (Golden Eggs EGG 162)
Brown Sugar (early mix) / Gimme Shelter (alt vocals) / Angie (rough mix) / Factory Girl (alt mix) / Wild Horses (acoustic mix) / Prodigal Son (alt mix) / Dear Doctor (alt take) / Bitch (alt mix) / No Expectations (alt take) / Parachute Woman (alt mix) / Loving Cup (alt take) / Dead Flowers (alt vocals) / Winter (rough mix) / You Got The Silver (alt vocals) / Sister Morphine (alt take) / Brown Sugar (alt mix) / Wild Horses (alt mix) / You Can’t Always Get What You Want (alt mix) (78:38)
‘Demonic Confidence’ dropped in late 2021 to some applause – This compilation of the ‘best of the Jimmy Miller years’ brings together some of the finest outtakes from arguably the Stones best era. If it sounds good, then that’s because it was put together by fans and put up on the forums first (March 2021, to be exact, as ‘Auction Masters’, the write up was thus, “This release was carefully compiled from the best available sources. There has yet to be a release that collects the best moments from these tapes in one place, from the actual original reels. Many releases, even new ones, are still using cassette dubs and other inferior sources. Sound quality is at an official release level throughout with little to no tape hiss.”)
The Golden Eggs label made the right decision to press it to silver-disk however as, if the band were to release it as an official outtakes compilation, it would be lapped up by collectors (Indeed, ‘Loving Cup’ has already made it to the ‘Exile On Main Street’ re-issue in 2010) – Claims that the sound couldn’t be bettered are not over-egged and the quality on these tracks is magnificent. Heck, even the line up has a commercial aspect to it, leading with an early take of the almighty ‘Brown Sugar’, through to the epochal ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’.
The fact that all of these tracks have already been released on various other different LP or CD releases in the past can be easily overlooked as they’re now all in the same place, the timing of the CD is packed to the gills at over 78 minutes long, that said, it’s either a throw on listen for the car or an immersive deep dig in to a classic set of outtakes.
The standard tri-fold packaging applies again – The benefits over shadow the original release however as, for the completist, there are some neat liner notes by “Ratbag, Rasputin and Syphilis’, a brief Jimmy Miller obit from the NYT and a detailed listing of the recording dates for each session for those who like to follow these things.
An exemplary compilation in every respect and one outtakes set that you should definitely have in your collection
3 Comments
Just a general comment here commending you on this entire set of reviews. A real tour-de-force, Stuart. Thank you. As an aside, I don’t see the Paypal ‘donate’ button any longer. Too bad.
Thank you as always, John – it was the matter of a couple of different reasons, however, it’s nice to have a weekend of a big drop, plenty to read!
Appreciate your compliments.
Stu, This is not only a great review but an alert for me. I just received this disc in the mail and it is indeed one of the greatest Stones CDs I’ve ever heard ! Thanks!