"The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" original, full length (Decibelle Studios) posted on YouTube



Description:

The original Decibelle recording. Brings back so many memories. Thanks to Philipe Delcloque, one of the many unsung heroes of the late 70's, early 80's Manchester music scene.


UPDATE Jan. 1:

Additional clips added (Domu Kafe channel):








UPDATE Jan. 3:

Link posted by Famous when dead:

Listen to The Smiths’ earliest studio demo from 1982 — including isolated guitar, vocals - Slicing Up Eyeballs


Related item:
 
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Undoubtedly it is similar,’ confirms Marr, ‘because that’s how I play piano, I can’t play it any other way. That was another one worked out on the upright I inherited when I moved into the house in Bowdon, the same piano I wrote “Oscillate Wildly” on. It had a pleasingly eerie quality about it. You could only play certain things on it. Weird, doomy music, which suited us fine.’"


:rolleyes:

How very dramatic.:drama:
The Dramatic One,they call him.:anguished:
 
He didnt inherit the piano, it belonged in Shelly's house where he rented a bedroom, he was friends with her son.
 
Incredibly interesting to hear the very earliest version of these immortal tracks. Awesome of Dale to share.

Also it seems as though the genesis of 'Asleep' was floating around since '82.

The piano pat at the end adds another layer of sadness, desolation and gloom to the lyrical content of the song. Not sure that the song needed that.
Anyway, I am glad that the idea was saved to resurface later as one of the darkest Smiths songs.
 
He didnt inherit the piano, it belonged in Shelly's house where he rented a bedroom, he was friends with her son.

Another monumental DramaJ fib.:straightface:

probably chopped it up for firewood before he left.:rock:
 
I've read the book twice, and Johnny makes no such claims. In fact he has said in interviews that Andy came up with the bass parts and he "produced" them - which is open to interpretation. It was Morrissey who said after the lawsuit that Johnny came up with Mike's drum patterns.
I will take your word for it.. if i ever revisit the book i will either quote the passage of which i was thinking or just realize i am not remembering it clearly - which i fully admit is possible maybe even probable.

that said, i dare say that he seems to have sided more with moz re: the court case, specifically the contract.
 
Marr's comments from Set The Boy Free re: the recording session at Decibelle:
"Another condition of using Decibel was that the studio engineer, Dale Hibbert, would be around to watch us and essentially make sure nothing terrible happened as a result of my being there. Dale was a likeable fella who’d once helped me engineer a Freak Party demo. I didn’t know him very well, but we’d talked about The Velvet Underground, which gave us some common ground and which I always took as a sign of someone I could relate to.
When I’d first met Dale he was playing bass in a band, and although he didn’t look the part I asked him if he’d be up for playing on the demo for The Smiths, as not only was it the obvious thing but it would also give me a chance to play with a different bass player than Andy and see how it worked. Things seemed to be looking good for us until I got a call from Si to tell me that he was having second thoughts about playing with us and didn’t want to leave his job. It was a blow, and I couldn’t understand why it was so hard for other people to get on board, as I had such a strong sense that I was on the right track. I couldn’t let us fall at the very first hurdle, so I tracked down Bill Anstee from Sister Ray and asked him to play drums on the demo instead. He was sceptical at first, and then he agreed to come down to a rehearsal. I was relieved when he showed up, but I knew immediately that it wasn’t going to work and that he didn’t like my new band. Maybe it was because we were singing about the Moors murderers, but he was so nice about it I actually felt bad for him. There was no way I was going to let the chance of a free night in the studio disappear though, so I went back to Si with the biggest bag of weed I could get and he finally agreed to come down to play on the demo the following week.
All the while I was wondering about whether I was going to be able to find anyone as good as Andy on bass. I ran through the songs with Dale, but it didn’t sound right. I even packed him off to Andrew to get a decent haircut, but no, it still didn’t sound right. When the night came to finally make the demo, Si showed up with his kit and we ran both the songs down. We did ‘Suffer Little Children’ first and it went surprisingly well for our maiden voyage. I was pleased with how quickly it came together, and to hear ourselves in a studio for the first time felt like validation and a massive step. When we came to record ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’ though, my doubts about Dale were there for all of us to hear. I had written the bass line, and even though it was just six notes repeated over and over, he just couldn’t get it. We tried a few times and were as supportive as we could be, but in the end I had to play the bass on the demo myself."

He then goes on to add the rather sad:

"We got into things quickly and Andy was great on bass. He and I picked up where we’d left off in the last band, playing off each other, and we all knew he was the right man for the job. The day then got a little strange when Mike informed us that he could see Dale looking in through the window in the kitchen upstairs. I assumed our drummer had been taking mushrooms again, but when I went to check it out I saw Dale myself, loitering in the garden and peering in through the window. I went out to say hello and see why he was there, and he went to great lengths to convince me that he just happened to be taking an impromptu look at the studio on the day we were in there recording. I was curious about why he wanted to check out a studio from the garden, but I gave him my best and left him to it."
Regards,
FWD.
i am so glad you posted this, i knew i remembered something along those lines ... this must have been it.. thanks
 
:rolleyes::sleeping:




If he did say that, he probably means that Johnny gave Mike an idea on how he would like the drums to go in a song, and not that Marr wrote out charts with drum notation for Mike to follow.
i read the posted "spoiler" and it sounds like that i was basically remembering correctly.. unless again i misunderstood something
 
Dale has posted some individual guitar, drum and bass parts in the last few hours:







MP3s now available in the download section (he's already deleted a couple of earlier YT vids).
Regards,
FWD.
 

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