All the Um Dudes in OUTSIDELEFT

Fuck, thy kids are barely back at school and lo, and behold, the holidays are here, Christmas is coming and so dads everywhere, get ready to rock! The legacy record labels, large and small have legacy product polished, pushed, paid for a million times already, all ready for your beloveds to prise off a few squids for once more, in your name.

Erm, that doesn't mean they're not always great. And nearly always by bonafide rock royalty whose name a dad would recognize at 40 feet across across from the cardigans and belts and bows in AssDa.

I'm possibly not the family man these are aimed at but I love all the giving and taking in the holiday season and I love the audacious record label creative. As they say, you couldn't make it up. But as ever, choose carefully do you have the type of Dad who would love a front row seat at the Mariah Carey Christmas spectacular. Or a Morrissey compilation or a Mott The Hoople box set. Western dads are so spoiled.

Mott 6 CD Box Set
Mott's huge 6-CD box set features all of Mott The Hoople's recordings (previously unheard and unreleased tracks too) between 69 and 71, including hits like ‘Thunderbuck Ram’, ‘Laugh At Me’, ‘Waterlow’, and a new version of ‘Rock And Roll Queen’.

Also here 50 pages of rare photos of the band in a brand new booklet and extensive footnotes by Hoops-expert Kris Needs. There are four studio albums, unheard tracks, live recordings, and covers of classic tracks like ‘Hey Jude’, ‘You Really Got Me’, and ‘Like A Rolling Stone’. Available on November 2nd via UMC, an essential purchase for Mott fans the children of Mott fans hoping to impress them. In some ways the essential present for the Mott fan!

Disc Titles:
Disc One: Mott the Hoople plus bonus tracks
Disc Two: Mad Shadows plus bonus tracks
Disc Three: Wildlife plus bonus tracks
Disc Four: Brain Capers plus bonus tracks
Disc Five: The Ballads of Mott The Hoople
Disc Six: It’s Live and Live Only

TRACKLISTING:
CD1 - MOTT THE HOOPLE
Originally released November 22 1969 – Island Records ILPS 9108

You Really Got Me
At the Crossroads
Laugh at Me
Backsliding Fearlessly
Rock and Roll Queen
Rabbit Foot and Toby Time
Half Moon Bay
Wrath and Wroll
Bonus Tracks
If Your Heart Lay with the Rebel (Would You Cheer the Underdog?) (Instrumental Take 2)
Rock and Roll Queen (Single A side)
Road to Birmingham (Single B side)
Road to Birmingham (Guy Steven’s Mix)
You Really Got Me (Complete take)
You Really Got Me (Vocal mix)
Rock and Roll Queen (Guy Steven’s Mono Mix)
Rock and Roll Queen (Kitchen Sink Instrumental)
Little Christine (2 Miles)

CD2 - MAD SHADOWS
Originally released September 1970 – Island Records ILPS 9119

Thunderbuck Ram
No Wheels to Ride
You Are One of Us
Walking with a Mountain
I Can Feel
Threads of Iron
When My Mind’s Gone
Bonus Tracks
Thunderbuck Ram (BBC Session)
Thunderbuck Ram (Original Take with Organ)
No Wheels to Ride (Demo)
Moonbus (Baby’s Got a Down on Me)
The Hunchback Fish (Vocal Rehearsal)
You Are One of Us (Take 9)
Going Home (2 Miles)
Keep A-Knockin’ (Studio version)

CD3 - WILDLIFE
Originally released March 1971 – Island Records ILPS 9144

Whiskey Women
Angel of Eighth Avenue
Wrong Side of the River
Waterlow
Lay Down
It Must Be Love
The Original Mixed Up Kid
Home Is Where I Want to Be
Keep A-Knockin’ (Live)
Bonus Tracks
Midnight Lady (Single A side)
The Debt (Single B side)
Downtown (Single A side)
Brain Haulage (Whiskey Woman)
Growing Man Blues (Take 10)
Long Red (Demo)
The Ballad of Billy Joe
Lay Down (Take 8

CD4 - BRAIN CAPERS
Originally released December 1971 – Island Records - ILPS 9178

Death May Be Your Santa Claus
Your Own Backyard
Darkness, Darkness
The Journey
Sweet Angeline
Second Love
The Moon Upstairs
The Wheel of the Quivering Meat Conception
Bonus Tracks
Mental Train (The Moon Upstairs)
How Long? (Death May Be Your Santa Claus)
Darkness, Darkness
Your Own Backyard (Complete Take)
Where Do You All Come From (Backing Track)
One of the Boys (Take 2)
Movin’ On (2 Miles)
Black Scorpio (Mommas Little Jewel)

CD5 - THE BALLADS OF MOTT THE HOOPLE
Unheard and unreleased music from the Island archive

Like a Rolling Stone (Fragment)
No Wheels to Ride (1st House)
Angel Of 8th Avenue (Tape 816)
The Journey
Blue Broken Tears (Tape 816)
Black Hills (Full Ralph’s Version)
Can You Sing the Song That I Sing (Full Take)
Till I’m Gone (2 Miles)
The Original Mixed Up Kid (BBC Session)
Ill Wind Blowing (2 Miles)
I’m A River (Vocal Rehearsal)
Ride on The Sun (Sea Diver) (2 Miles)

CD6 - IT'S LIVE AND LIVE ONLY
- Tracks 1 - 7: Fairfield Hall, Croydon, 13 September 1970
- Tracks 8 to 12: Paris Theatre, London, BBC Radio One, In Concert, 30 December 1971

Rock and Roll Queen
Ohio
No Wheels to Ride / Hey Jude
Thunderbuck Ram
Keep A-Knockin’
You Really Got Me
The Moon Upstairs
Whiskey Women
Your Own Backyard
Darkness, Darkness
The Journey
Death May Be Your Santa Claus

mott Oh and you'll still need this from Amazon or a local charity or somewhere more than anything else.

Morrissey
This Is Morrissey
International Conglomerate Recordings

Was it a stellar year for Morrissey? He did manage to draw the attention of the excellently entertaining JPEGMAFIA, on his what'll most likely be the album of the year, Veteran, "I Cannot Fucking Wait Until Morrissey Dies" seemed to express what a lot of people were feeling this year.

Elsewhere Morrissey himself might've alluded to being closer to death than is more generally known; There was scary talk of scrapings. Some tape recorded chitter-chattering about Kevin Spacey or someone and the UKIP hierarchy got Morrissey back in more papers than is usual these days. Die hard fans talked about separating the music, the art from the man and so on and flummoxing conversations that had say troubled Jerry Dammers a while ago when he penned "If you have a racist friend it's time for that friendship to end." What do you make of all that? Chucking out your denim jacket that you hand-printed VERY MORRISSEY onto yet?

But dads mightn't be watching too closely to the comings and goings of the UKIP hierarchy or whatever else chitter-chattering about got Morrissey into the newspapers that love to hate. And their kids might not be that bothered either way either and so heading out to a website near them they may well look at This Is Morrissey, a collection of songs I don't really understand the need for, as a gift.

This Is Morrissey has good cover art, like the fonts, like the photo very much. Not so much some of the song choices. When I was a child I thought if I could only touch the hem of morrissey's jeans, my life would be transformed. I'll be thinking about that this christmas.

So. Is This Is Morrissey better and more desirable for your dad than a super, almost Joseph and Joesph stylish very-now-green, super-slender, tent-carpet dustpan and brush? Think about it. Both are as thin as gruel. Both are mainly made from vinyl.