Hi Keith!

[Homeostasis]

I've lurked around this site for quite a while now and figured it was time I popped my head in.

But first I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the work you've put into and the generosity you've shown through this site. I can think of no other fansite (for any artist I admire) that is this thorough and well put-together. You've done both yourself and the innocence mission proud.

About me, well, my name's Gareth. I'm from Dublin and I'm quite possibly the only person in Ireland who's heard of the innocence mission. I discovered the band I suppose sometime after Now The Day Is Over - I heard a 2-minute clip of Tomorrow On The Runway on a website somewhere and fell in love immediately. My discography is nowhere near as complete as I'd like it to be, but I have Glow, Bright As Yellow, Birds Of My Neighbourhood, The Lakes Of Canada, Christ Is My Hope, the Evensong promo, Small Planes, Befriended [Standard + Japanese editions], One For Sorrow, Two For Joy, Now The Day Is Over, We Walked In Song [US + EU editions], Awake My Soul / Help Me To Sing, as well as Ten Silver Slide Trombones and Go When The Morning Shineth ... and Street Map is on the way as well. And you may be pleased, or disappointed, to know that I'm not a Star Trek fan. 

And there's something I wanted to ask you.

I've made it my mission to expand the IM wikipedia entry and would like to use some of the info on your site, mainly for the discography page. It won't be much - I won't be linking to your music files or anything - but basically I want to make a separate page that lists every major album, EP and single they've released. But more to the point: I'd also like to include some info about the unreleased material. I think it'd be useful to do so - a google search for something like 'the innocence mission lyrics' can bring up results about rare tracks like 'He Said', 'Pride Takes A Fall', 'Revolve', 'In August', etc. - and their catalogue can be quite confusing to a new fan.

It won't be much, just a tracklist for the 2 "albums" ("Pre-1988" & "Post-1992") as well as a small blurb. Would you mind if I did that? Your site will, of course, be referenced and credited.

I've another question though, regarding that "Post-1992" tape. I read on a website years ago that they made a 3rd album with Larry Klein but they were unhappy with the results, so the record was scrapped and they made Glow instead. Would this "Post-1992" tape be the material they were referring to? Or was that a whole load of rubbish?

Also, how did you manage to get a hold of all this stuff? Are you close to the band?

Anyway, I really appreciate what you're doing with the site. It would have been very easy for you to hoard all these super-rare songs, but you chose to put them out here. I really respect that.

Thanks again,
Gareth.

[keith]

You're quite welcome Gareth. I know there are some UK fans out there, but you could be right as far as Ireland goes. But likely there are more out there, somewhere. And for the record Star Trek isn't all that bad. It was always a bit too formulaic for my tastes, but for some reason I'd still watch it anyway. LOL!

You've posed an interesting question about the unreleased material. However, that said, isn't wikipedia very particular about the content they allow? If not, the one thing I'd stress is to distinguish between what were considered live unreleased recordings and unreleased demo recordings.

You say that the catalog is confusing? is there something that could be done to make it less confusing?

I don't mind you using bits and pieces. It'd be okay with me anyway.

As for a 3rd album with Larry Klein, I don't believ Larry ever worked with the band on the demos for the supposed third album. As to how I got most of this stuff, it's been a combination of purchasing rarities from CD shops, to tape trading with fellow fans, and insider donations. The band has not been forthcoming in providing any of this unreleased material, but I have met them many a time and they all know of me and the website. They've turned a blind eye if you will to much of the unreleased material and trading. I can make the fans happy, but I know that Don and Karen weren't thrilled that I made some of this stuff available. But back to the discarded 3rd album tracks...

One day out of the blue I was contacted by someone who had the tracks and wanted to make them available to everyone. He or she came to me and gave me a little background info on the tracks and then sent them to me on CD. Here's some of what was said..

"DISC ONE – The Kingsway Mixes – Kingsway Studio, New Orleans
Bright As Yellow
Everything Is Different Now
Happy The End
Our Harry Sails
Goodnight Margeret Wissler
There
Brave
Heyday
Spinning
Joy Comes to The House
(inst.)
Lift You Up
Following You (demo recorded in Lancaster?)
Joy Comes To The House
Wave
Spinning

These recordings were done in New Orleans and it was after listening to these that the decision was made to “finish” the album in Seattle that would become GLOW. Of note is the exclusion of JOY and LIFT from the final release of GLOW.

DISC TWO – 1992 Songs
Micheal’s Song
Joyful
Now And Then
Heyday
I Wish You Gone
Walkabout
Lament
I Need Thee Every Hour
A Talking Down
An Old Sunday
An Old Sunday (alternate vocal mix)
You Chase The Light (acoustic version)

These songs were all recorded in Lancaster by the band after the Umbrella tour ended. This group of demos was handed in to A&M and rejected. Which led to the decision to write and record a “new” batch of songs which would becaome GLOW. It is unclear whether YOU CHASE THE LIGHT was recoded at these sessions or earlier?"

Hopefully that will clear it up a little. It turns out the Instrumental was reused on Don's 2nd album. Go figure.

Keith

I've lurked around this site for quite a while now and figured it was time I popped my head in.

But first I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the work you've put into and the generosity you've shown through this site. I can think of no other fansite (for any artist I admire) that is this thorough and well put-together. You've done both yourself and the innocence mission proud.

About me, well, my name's Gareth. I'm from Dublin and I'm quite possibly the only person in Ireland who's heard of the innocence mission. I discovered the band I suppose sometime after Now The Day Is Over - I heard a 2-minute clip of Tomorrow On The Runway on a website somewhere and fell in love immediately. My discography is nowhere near as complete as I'd like it to be, but I have Glow, Bright As Yellow, Birds Of My Neighbourhood, The Lakes Of Canada, Christ Is My Hope, the Evensong promo, Small Planes, Befriended [Standard + Japanese editions], One For Sorrow, Two For Joy, Now The Day Is Over, We Walked In Song [US + EU editions], Awake My Soul / Help Me To Sing, as well as Ten Silver Slide Trombones and Go When The Morning Shineth ... and Street Map is on the way as well. And you may be pleased, or disappointed, to know that I'm not a Star Trek fan. 

And there's something I wanted to ask you.

I've made it my mission to expand the IM wikipedia entry and would like to use some of the info on your site, mainly for the discography page. It won't be much - I won't be linking to your music files or anything - but basically I want to make a separate page that lists every major album, EP and single they've released. But more to the point: I'd also like to include some info about the unreleased material. I think it'd be useful to do so - a google search for something like 'the innocence mission lyrics' can bring up results about rare tracks like 'He Said', 'Pride Takes A Fall', 'Revolve', 'In August', etc. - and their catalogue can be quite confusing to a new fan.

It won't be much, just a tracklist for the 2 "albums" ("Pre-1988" & "Post-1992") as well as a small blurb. Would you mind if I did that? Your site will, of course, be referenced and credited.

I've another question though, regarding that "Post-1992" tape. I read on a website years ago that they made a 3rd album with Larry Klein but they were unhappy with the results, so the record was scrapped and they made Glow instead. Would this "Post-1992" tape be the material they were referring to? Or was that a whole load of rubbish?

Also, how did you manage to get a hold of all this stuff? Are you close to the band?

Anyway, I really appreciate what you're doing with the site. It would have been very easy for you to hoard all these super-rare songs, but you chose to put them out here. I really respect that.

Thanks again,
Gareth.

[Homeostasis]

Hi again Keith.

Thanks for the reply and sorry for not getting back to you sooner. My work shifts were "altered" just before Christmas and I've really been messed around for the past few weeks (the phrase "Worst Christmas and New Years Eve Ever!" comes to mind). But that's a rant I'll save for my blog.

When I said that the catalog was confusing, I wasn't referring to your site. Your site is what helped me make sense of their discography. I meant more the actual volume of unreleased songs and the random results you can get from Google sometimes. That's why I think it's a good idea to sort out their Wikipedia. It's usually the first place people go to when they're looking something up.

It'd be great if they put out a 2nd volume of Small Planes, would it? I'd love to hear the studio versions of I'm Alive and You Are The Light Of The World. And it'd be really cool if they went as far back as the likes of A Talking Down, I Need Thee Every Hour, Following You and Lift You Up, but I'm sure they'd have to get clearance from A&M (or whoever took over that label) for those older songs. One can dream.

Thanks again for all that info. So there are 2 versions of Heyday? I take it you've shared the Glow version on the site? Is there much of a difference with the other one? It's probably my favourite ever unreleased track of theirs. It's up there with my all-time favourites. It's so beautiful.

And I wasn't taking a swipe at Star Trek, by the way. I found myself watching that Battlestar Galactica (although it's probably something completely unrelated to Star Trek lol) for a while, but like everything else, I had little free time to watch it. It was a pretty cool show. I don't know, do they still make that or did it wrap up years ago?

[keith]

Not a problem. I know hectic.

That's the truth. Wikipedia is the main link source for those coming to imdiscog.com. Don mentioned that they might release some of that material one day, but he didn't exactly sound too promising. I think it's more likely we'll see their A&M material get re-released one of these days. From what I recall, I think it was Don, but they are trying to buy back their old A&M catalog but it's not been as easy as it was getting BOMN. It's pretty expensive. It's my understanding tIM owns the rights to the unreleased non-covered songs. They just have to decide whether or not to release them.

There are no two distinctly different versions of Heyday. There's the live version and the recorded version. They are the same, other than instrumentation. No changes in lyrics or the way it was written. And yep it's available.

I don't keep track of the new Battlestar Galactica on Sci-Fi channel. I watched the pilot and wasn't all that impressed with the changes.  I did like the original except for the fact they always reused their space battle footage.

Hi again Keith.

When I said that the catalog was confusing, I wasn't referring to your site. Your site is what helped me make sense of their discography. I meant more the actual volume of unreleased songs and the random results you can get from Google sometimes. That's why I think it's a good idea to sort out their Wikipedia. It's usually the first place people go to when they're looking something up.

It'd be great if they put out a 2nd volume of Small Planes, would it? I'd love to hear the studio versions of I'm Alive and You Are The Light Of The World. And it'd be really cool if they went as far back as the likes of A Talking Down, I Need Thee Every Hour, Following You and Lift You Up, but I'm sure they'd have to get clearance from A&M (or whoever took over that label) for those older songs. One can dream.

Thanks again for all that info. So there are 2 versions of Heyday? I take it you've shared the Glow version on the site? Is there much of a difference with the other one? It's probably my favourite ever unreleased track of theirs. It's up there with my all-time favourites. It's so beautiful.

And I wasn't taking a swipe at Star Trek, by the way. I found myself watching that Battlestar Galactica (although it's probably something completely unrelated to Star Trek lol) for a while, but like everything else, I had little free time to watch it. It was a pretty cool show. I don't know, do they still make that or did it wrap up years ago?

[Homeostasis]

Hey Keith.

Thanks again for all this info. It's nice to know they've at least considered releasing some of these demos. I'd be tempted to say that it's almost criminal for the likes of Rhode Island or East Virginia to not be released officially at this stage. Many of them are up there with some of their best album tracks. To be the fly on their studio wall ...

[keith]

Don't get your hopes up too high. I'm still waiting on a recorded version of Pride Takes A Fall. 

Hey Keith.

Thanks again for all this info. It's nice to know they've at least considered releasing some of these demos. I'd be tempted to say that it's almost criminal for the likes of Rhode Island or East Virginia to not be released officially at this stage. Many of them are up there with some of their best album tracks. To be the fly on their studio wall ...