In his own words:
Super Furry Animals – Odiau & Sodiau : 1996-2008
Dutch Ditch
(Drawing) Rings Around The World (Billy Joel Intro Version)
Y Brawd Houdini
Semi-Professional
Earth 1
The Gateway Song (Acoustic Full Version)
Religious Experience
Zoom (Peel Acres Version)
Earth 2
DX Heaven
Juxtaposed With U (Bob Dylan Outro Version)
The Warmth Of The Sun
Hot Nutz
Earth 3
Head First
Stay Another Day
Welcome To The Family
Best Mindfuck Yet
Bonus Track: The Greatest Last Song…Ever
Track Details:
1. Dutch Ditch
This was used by SFA as their intro music when they toured between the releases of ‘Ice Hockey Hair’ and ‘Guerrilla’ in 1998. It has never been released. I assume that it is an original piece, but don’t really know – it sounds a little like Ennio Morricone. This is from a 1998 bootleg on CD. I assume the title is correct as it apparently comes from a set list at the time. This should not be confused with the similarly titled ‘Dutch Bitch’ which was a ‘Derek & Clive’ routine which was covered by SFA at their charity gig at Cardiff Barfly on 5th March 2004. To my knowledge, no recordings of the latter exist.
2. (Drawing) Rings Around The World (Billy Joel Intro Version)
This is a great session version of ‘(Drawing) Rings Around The World’ performed on Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio 1 show in 2001. It is included on this compilation because of its unique intro, based upon a keyboard demo that plays a muzak version of Billy Joel’s ‘Just The Way You Are’. This will be familiar to many SFA fans, as Gruff used it as his intro and outro music on his ‘Yr Atal Genhedlaeth’ tour in February 2005.
3. Y Brawd Houdini
This is a cover version of the legendary Meic Stevens’ most famous song ‘Y Brawd Houdini’ which he released as a single in 1969. The song was a staple of SFA’s live set in 1996. Various versions have turned up over the years from sessions and bootlegs - some being acoustic, and some including the full band. This is the live version broadcast by Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 1 (although it was known as ‘1 FM’ at the time), as part of the Evening Session’s ‘Soho Live’ outside broadcast on 12th November 1996.
4. Earth 1
Bunf wrote a very short tune called ‘Earth’ in Cork , Ireland . When touring ‘Hey Venus!’, the song became part of the live set. It was a bit of a performance piece, involving the whole audience doing ‘bunny ears’ with their hands, and wiggling their fingers. The band would sometimes play it several time in the same set. The versions on this compilation come from a bootleg of SFA’s performance on 22nd February 2008 at Cornell University , Ithaca , New York . This is the first version played that night.
5. Semi-Professional
This first turned up on YouTube on 9th March 2007, when Dylan Jones posted a short film of the band in the studio as they were recording the ‘Hey Venus!’ album in Miraval Studio in the South of France. The footage starts with an outside shot, whilst the band can be heard rehearsing the more familiar ‘Into The Night’. However, it then cuts to the band seemingly improvising two new songs. The performances seem tongue in cheek, and the band seem to be having a good laugh. This is the first of those two songs.
6. The Gateway Song (Acoustic Full Version)
This comes from a performance that Gruff and Bunf did for Q Magazine. It saw the light of day in July 2007 as a ‘Q Session’ on Q Magazine’s 39th podcast. It features on this compilation because of the exclusive inclusion of the 2nd half of the song which was left off the eventual recording because, in Gruff’s words, “There’s not much going on. There’s no lyrics, just a bit of doo-doos, you know?”. He also goes on to reveal that the original, unedited version recorded for ‘Hey Venus!’ had a “fantastic drum roll from Daf”.
7. Religious Experience
This is a cover of Kevin Ayers’ 1970 single which he originally recorded with Syd Barrett. The song has been covered by Gruff as a solo performer during the ‘Candylion’ tour, and notably with ‘Bright Eyes’ when he guested at their Bonnaroo 2006 Festival appearance. However, this is a version from a Super Furry Animals session (performed by Gruff & Bunf) for XFM’s ‘Live from Leicester Square ’ show on 10th August 2007.
8. Zoom (Peel Acres Version)
This is the original version of ‘Zoom’ which went on to become Love Kraft’s epic opener. It was performed and broadcast live on BBC ‘Radio 1’ from John Peel’s home (Peel Acres) on 12th July 2001. Gruff revealed that the song was so new, that the lyrics had been written that same day on the way down to the session. This features on this compilation as it is a very different version to the one eventually released, and the lyrics are completely different.
9. Earth 2
Bunf wrote a very short tune called ‘Earth’ in Cork , Ireland . When touring ‘Hey Venus!’, the song became part of the live set. It was a bit of a performance piece, involving the whole audience doing ‘bunny ears’ with their hands, and wiggling their fingers. The band would sometimes play it several time in the same set. The versions on this compilation come from a bootleg of SFA’s performance on 22nd February 2008 at Cornell University , Ithaca , New York . This is the second version played that night.
10. DX Heaven
This is an original SFA instrumental which was broadcast as part of their Peel Session on John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show on St David’s Day 2000. It may or may not relate to the long lost, so called ‘techno’ album, and/or the aborted ‘Das Koolies’ project. Nevertheless, it has never had an official release.
11. Juxtaposed With U (Bob Dylan Outro Version)
This is a cool session version of Juxtaposed With U performed on Mark & Lard’s BBC ‘Radio 1’ show in 2001. It is included on this compilation because of its various unique features. It starts with Mark & Lard’s drum machine which was often used on their show at the time. The song itself is a stripped down affair, which is mostly based on the harp part that Gruff claimed was being played live by ‘Betty’ – presumably a reference to Beti Rhys, who played on the album version – although in reality, the session was performed by only Gruff and Cian. (Cian was described by Mark Radcliffe as the ‘smiliest person’ he’d ever met!). The strangest thing about this version is that Gruff decides to sing the final chorus in a Bob Dylan style whine.
12. The Warmth Of The Sun
This is a cover of the Beach Boys’ classic 1964 song from their ‘Shut Down Volume 2’ album. It was performed in session for Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 1 for the Evening Session on 29th May 2001.
13. Hot Nutz
This first turned up on YouTube on 9th March 2007, when Dylan Jones posted a short film of the band in the studio as they were recording the ‘Hey Venus!’ album in Miraval Studio in the South of France. The footage starts with an outside shot, whilst the band can be heard rehearsing the more familiar ‘Into The Night’. However, it then cuts to the band seemingly improvising two new songs. The performances seem tongue in cheek, and the band seem to be having a good laugh. This is the second of those two songs.
14. Earth 3
Bunf wrote a very short tune called ‘Earth’ in Cork , Ireland . When touring ‘Hey Venus!’, the song became part of the live set. It was a bit of a performance piece, involving the whole audience doing ‘bunny ears’ with their hands, and wiggling their fingers. The band would sometimes play it several time in the same set. The versions on this compilation come from a bootleg of SFA’s performance on 22nd February 2008 at Cornell University , Ithaca , New York . This is the third version played that night.
15. Head First
This is an original Super Furry Animals song which is yet to be released, despite being in existence for several years. This is from an XFM session, but I’m not entirely sure when it was recorded. I think it may be from 2003, because I’m sure they did a session version of ‘Father Father’ as well. However, I could well be mixing up XFM sessions there, and the song might pre-date that. Can anybody help in dating the performance?
16. Stay Another Day
This is a cover of East 17’s 1994 Christmas Number 1 single. It was recorded for Charles Hazelwood’s BBC ‘Radio 2’ show, and broadcast on Christmas Eve 2007. This continues a seemingly bizarre connection with East 17 as Gruff claimed, back in 2001, that ‘Juxtaposed With U’ had been written as a duet with either Bobby Brown, or East 17’s Brian Harvey in mind! Both turned him down, hence the vocoder, and non-vocoder parts. Anyway, I digress. This is quite a rough and ready version, but has some nice brass added towards the end.
17. Welcome To The Family
This is the original version of the song that was destined to become ‘Ice Hockey Hair’. It was written and performed live during the Radiator tour of 1997. It has completely different lyrics to ‘Ice Hockey Hair’, and the song was officially un-named for some time, with the band giving it a different name each night they performed it. Gruff says that the version on this particular night of the tour, was actually called ‘Amy’. The song is missing the “Maybe you think I’m shady…” bit completely. Also missing are the lyrics to the ‘Now That You’re Here…” bit.
18. Best Mindfuck Yet
Super Furry Animals gigs in 2001 and 2002 would tend to finish with this techno workout based around a sample of Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking in his 1990 film ‘Total Recall’. This is a live recording from that period.
Bonus Track:
19. The Greatest Last Song…Ever
This was performed in session for Tom Robinson’s Evening Sequence on BBC 6 Music when David Arnold was sitting in for him in late August and early September 2005. It seems that the show needed Gruff & Bunf to do four songs, but they’d only rehearsed three. That led to this seemingly improvised number. Don’t forget the dinosaurs…
Copy and paste the link:
http://www.4shared.com/zip/wqFquqXiba/Odiau__Sodiau.html
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yzzj2giggcfwb4r/Odiau%20%26%20Sodiau.zip?dl=0
