SUGAR - BESIDES/THE JOKE IS ALWAYS ON US, SOMETIMES

If I could go back in time, one thing I would definitely have done is have tried to get this album earlier. I did see it in Paris (I don't think it's ever had an official release in the UK) but I don't think that there was a live album with it. Surely I would have noticed.

Anyway, this became the Holy Grail as far as I was concerned - I knew it existed but I never expected to find it. So when faced with a need to purchase another CD from Vinyl Vendors to get the Egoverride EP, I bought this, but only because there's a few tracks on "Besides" which haven't been released in the UK. When I opened the package (which took weeks to arrive) I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw the Free Live Sugar CD sticker on the front.

So jammy bastard then. Definitely. But what's the record like?

The main disc, "Besides", compiles a lot of b-sides apparently never available in the US. However in the UK most of this material has been available, although the session recordings off one of the "If I Can't Change Your Mind" eps don't make it here. So it's arranged in strict chronological order and features non-LP tracks, live versions and alternative takes. It starts therefore with the wonderful "Needle Hits The E", the best Sugar song never to appear on an LP (up until this one.) and the rest of the "Changes EP" follows.

Some of this stuff wasn't easy to get a hold of in the UK, live versions of "JC Auto" and "After All The Roads Have Led to Nowhere" both featured on 7"s, but otherwise the UK b-sides are present and correct. The edited "Tilted" is omitted, which is a bit of a shame.

The real bonuses for UK fans are the 3 tracks taken from "The Joke ..." which close the LP. "After All The Roads ..." is one, but also present are "Explode and Make Up" and an eerie slowed down version of "The Slim", which is well worth having.

The live album is almost completely different from the live set I saw in 1992. "Copper Blue" barely gets a mention at all, "Beaster" not at all and even "FUEL" doesn't feature that heavily. Instead we get lots of B-sides and even a song which I don't think has appeared on any other official release. The quality's pretty good , although the readings of the songs are in the main pretty faithful to the recorded versions. However this must rank as one of THE Sugar collectibles and taken together this package is well worth tracking down. Happy hunting.

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