Smiling At Grief – The Definitive Edition

Buy the CD: £12.00

Line up: Andy Revell, Brian Devoil, Clive Mitten, Geoff Mann, (Rick Battersby)

Recorded: 1981

Disc 1

  1. East Of Eden (3:29)
  2. This City (3:13)
  3. The Honeymoon Is Over (2:35)
  4. Creepshow (10:13)
  5. Puppets (Intro) (1:25)
  6. Puppets (2:50)
  7. Three Dancers (2:54)
  8. Makes No Sense (4:02)
  9. Fur Helene Part II (10:48)
  10. Kindergarden (3:05)
  11. Midnight (poem) (0:51)
  12. Keep The Aspidistra Flying (9:40)
  13. Convenient Blindness (3:27)
  14. Makes No Sense (instrumental) (5:10)
  15. Eleanor Rigby (3:03)
  16. This City (alternative version) (3:19)

Disc 2

  1. Kindergarden (3:05)
  2. The Honeymoon Is Over (2:50)
  3. Eleanor Rigby (3:38)
  4. Makes No Sense (5:20)
  5. East To West (9:39)
  6. Three Dancers (3:44)
  7. Puppets (3:50)
  8. This City (4:16)
  9. Creepshow (10:13)
  10. East Of Eden (3:29)
  11. Sequences (20:15)
  12. Convenient Blindness (3:27)

The first of our ‘Definitive Edition’ releases from March 2009.

This double CD features the original cassette release / enhanced CD release coupled with our own archive release Smiling At Grief Live, plus three previously unreleased tracks, including the original demo of Eleanor Rigby and a very different early version of This City!

As keyboard player Rick Battersby started his ‘sabbactical’ year during the recording sessions he only features on some of the tracks. Although Clive took over keyboard duties the 4-piece line-up was relatively short-lived, though it did go on to write and record the Fact and Fiction album. The original purpose of Smiling At Grief had been to gather together some demos to try and stimulate some record company interest and also to satisfy the growing number of fans who had been eagerly awaiting new material, particularly now that Geoff had joined the band.

This reissue sees Smiling At Grief available again for the first time in 12 years. It comes with brand new artwork, sleeve notes and previously unseen photographs. It includes three recordings never previously released, and as a bonus disc – the only live recording known to exist of the four-piece line up.

Disc 1, tracks 1-10 are the original Smiling at Grief cassette album, recorded at Woodcray Manor Farm Studios, Berkshire, November 1981. Tracks 11-14 were bonus tracks first released on the 1997 MSI CD reissue. These were recorded at Burghfield Mill, Reading, in September 1981. Track 15 previously unreleased. Recorded at Woodcray Manor Farm Studios, Berkshire, November 1981. Track 16 previously unreleased. Recorded in Geoff’s cellar in Salford, September 1981.

Disc 2, tracks 1-11 recorded at The Target, Reading, 10 December 1981. Track 12 previously unreleased. Recorded at Burghfield Mill, Reading, September 1981.