Liz Phair
'96 Shelved Demos
Demos for Whitechoclatespaceegg album

01. Oh My God
02. Headache
03. Desperado Theme
04. Ride
05. Hurricane Cindy
06. Rocket Boy
07. Perfect World
08. Fantasize
09. Russian Girl
10. Stuck On An Island
11. Tell Me You Like Me
12. Girls' Room
13. I'm Like That
14. Waiting For The Bird (White Bird Of Texas)
15. Freak Of Nature

CD-R unknown lineage>Exact Audio Copy (secure mode)>Flac

These demos are part of the story of the lead-up to Liz'a third album Whitechocolatespaceegg. The short version is that Liz recorded an album that was rejected by the label and later reworked the material, dropped some songs and added others. A nice fan compiled anthology of this material was assembled but I have only ever found copies with a lossy image (including CD-R trades from ~15 years ago). Finding lossless versions of this material is one of my holy grails (as well as lossless copies of the two Girly-Sound tracks that were not included in the Girly-Sound to Guyville Box Set.

This is the complete story of the Whitechocolatespaceegg Sessions compilation compiled by Liz Phair super-fan Ken Lee.

Okay, enough folks asked, so here it goes:

It all started in early November...

I received an email from some person who said he was
roommates of Blast and Stoley from the Lupins (Blast
being Jason Chasko, who produced some of the songs on
whitechocolatespaceegg). He said that they moved out
and left behind a bunch of original studio tapes from
Trax Recording Studios as well as a cassette of Liz
and Scott Litt alone in studio (this turned out to be
the fabled '96 Shelved Demos/Studio Recordings tape).
Since they weren't coming back for the tapes, he
offered them to me, since he liked my Liz website.

With the help of several people (due to several desperate
pleas on the then 6'1" digest), I raised enough money
along with my hard-earned cash to purchase these tapes.
Around December 14, I had the tapes in my hands.
And the person who had the tapes bought himself a nice
camera (he's a photographer, if you wondered).

I received a total of seven different cassettes. Here
is an analysis of the seven cassettes (shamelessly
copied from my original post from December 22):

tape one (dated 4-9-97):
1. White Chocolate Space Egg - early version
completely different from the album version
slightly different instrumentation, lyric
arrangement and alternate lead vocal
obviously a working version (lyrics flubbed)
2. Big Tall Man - the instrumental track,
similar to the album version (sans the
vocal, of course)

tape two (dated 5-1-97):
1. Tell Me You Like Me - different lead vocal
and lyrics than the version on Shelved
Demos / Studio Recordings
2. What Makes You Happy - rough mix NOT the
Brad Wood, produced by Scott Litt?
incomplete (it appears Tell Me You Like
Me was taped over this song)

tape three (dated 5-20-97):
1. Bars Of The Bed - an unreleased recording
that was originally on the WCSE running
order (more later). It's a sped-up, rock
rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner.

tape four (undated):
1. Blood Keeper - an unreleased recording
it's a slow rock number with chords similar
to Nirvana's "Come As You Are" (at least to
my ears). Lyrics include: "I'm obsessed,
I'm a wreck, I'm insane / Isn't that what
you want me to say? / Don't you need to
feel my blood on the tracks again?"
(This track was intended for the "Scream 2"
soundtrack, but was ultimately shelved.)

tape five (undated):
1. What Makes You Happy - apparently a Scott
Litt production, different arrangement
than the released version.
2. Big Tall Man - similiar to the version
released, save for the ending.

tape six (whitechocolatespaceegg - undated):
this is the original running order that was
presumably presented to Capitol Records exec
Gary Gersh (who rejected it):
1. White Chocolate Space Egg - slightly different
mix than the released version
2. Fantasize - alternate mix with more instrumentation
3. Headache - alternate mix with sleigh bells (!)
4. Big Tall Man - slightly alternate mix and more
at the end (instrumentation break up)
5. Baby Got Going - alternate mix with quicker fade
at end. This is fun because you can hear Liz
laughing and talking.
6. Only Son - alternate vocals. Lyrics different.
Instead of "So long, goodbye, I'm gone already"
it's "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy".
7. Bars Of The Bed - similar to the version mentioned
above, only there is dialogue in the background.
Apparently, it's a little story about an affair.
8. Oh My God - same as the Shelved Demos / Studio
Recordings version
9. Ride - only difference between the released
version and this one is that this one features
Liz saying "I need a ride..." at the very beginning.
10. White Bird Of Texas - same as the version found
on the Polyester Bride Japanese CD single (more
production)
11. Perfect World - same as the released version
except for you hear Liz set up her guitar at the
beginning
12. Desperado Theme - more overdubs, etc.
13. Tell Me You Like Me - similar to the version
described in tape two.
14. What Makes You Happy - Scott Litt (?) produced
version -- different (see tape six)
15. Freak Of Nature - same as version from Q101
Local 101 CD (anyone want to sell me their
copy of this CD???).
16. Girls' Room - same as released version
17. Russian Girl - double tracked vocal. Liz sounds
more confident. And she doesn't flub the lyrics.

tape seven:
no dialogue tape, but the Shelved Demos / Studio
Recordings tape:
1. Oh My God
2. Headache
3. Desperado Theme
4. Ride
5. Hurricane Cindy
6. Rocket Boy
7. Perfect World
8. Fantasize
9. Russian Girl
10. Stuck On An Island
11. Tell Me You Like Me
12. Girls' Room
13. I'm Like That
14. Waiting For The Bird (White Bird Of Texas)
15. Freak Of Nature
16-30. same titles as 1-15

The original plan was to distribute these tapes
via a tape tree, but I decided (foolishly perhaps)
to treat everyone by burning the tapes to CDs.
Well, that was a tremendous effort and took a
year to complete. The double-disc set became
(aptly) known as WCSE Sessions.

Here are the contents of those two discs:
Disc One
1996 Studio Recordings (taken from tape 7)
1. Oh My God
2. Headache
3. Desperado Theme
4. Ride
5. Hurricane Cindy
6. Rocket Boy
7. Perfect World
8. Fantasize
9. Russian Girl
10. Stuck On An Island
11. Tell Me You Like Me
12. Girls' Room
13. I'm Like That
14. Waiting For The Bird (White Bird Of Texas)
15. Freak Of Nature

Sidenote 1: I only used the Studio Recordings
portion of this tape. If you are interested
in the Demos portion...

1997 Studio Recordings
16. White Chocolate Space Egg (tape 1)
17. Big Tall Man (tape 1)
18. Tell Me You Like Me (tape 2)
19. What Makes You Happy (tape 2)
20. Bars Of The Bed (tape 3)
21. Blood Keeper (tape 4)
22. What Makes You Happy (tape 5)
23. Big Tall Man (tape 5)

1998 whitechocolatespaceegg Rough Mixes
24. Johnny Feelgood
25. What Makes You Happy

Sidenote 2: tracks 24 and 25 are not from the tapes I
acquired from the roommate of Jason Chasko. This is
is from a different tape. This tape from the summer of
1998 was an advance preview cassette that an engineer
acquired who in turn dubbed for a friend. This friend
mentioned this tape in the USENET newsgroup
alt.fan.liz-phair. As a result, this persons email was
swamped with requests (and he eventually changed email
addresses as a result). But as fortune would have it,
he said he would dub a copy for me. Well, there are few
differences between this tape and the official
whitechocolatespaceegg album. Save for these two songs.
Johnny Feelgood features a slightly different mix. What
Makes You Happy is a features a few more differences.
The intro guitar part is missing and the song has a
complete ending and doesn't loop to fade.

Disc Two
1997 whitechocolatespaceegg Running Order (tape 6)
1. White Chocolate Space Egg
2. Fantasize
3. Headache
4. Big Tall Man
5. Baby Got Going
6. Only Son
7. Bars Of The Bed
8. Oh My God
9. Ride
10. Waiting For The Bird
11. Perfect World
12. Desperado Theme
13. Tell Me You Like Me
14. What Makes You Happy
15. Freak Of Nature
16. Girls' Room
17. Russian Girl

Bonus Tracks
18. Blood Keeper (tape 4 - same as disc 1 track 21)
19. Greased Lightning (from Japanese Polyester Bride CD EP)
20. Hurricane Cindy (from Japanese whitechocolatespaceegg CD)

Sidenote 3: the last two tracks were added for the benefit
of those who couldn't find those Japanese imports.

I was going to torture myself further by making a color
cover and booklet featuring pics from the Katrin Thomas
photo shoot as well as the history about these tapes,
but if I did that, I would be bankrupt...

And that is the long-winded story of the WCSE Sessions.

Thanks for listening... :)

If anyone has this in lossless quality PLEASE share it here,

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