The Free Radical

Always popular as a live act, Missing Peace liked to use the live setting to experiment with song arrangements and especially with lyrics, just to see what worked. Certain tunes had different lyrics every time they were performed. Shane really liked to ad lib a lot! These songs are taken from a live show in Whitehorse. They’re anything but perfect and polished, but then they are still to this day works in progress.

This one is my favourite Missing Peace song in which I had no involvement whatsoever until the post-production stage. I just mixed it down from the tapes I was given.

Touchy Feely

I suppose an explanation is in order. Missing Peace was primarily a five-piece band, but after I left the band, they continued on for another year without me with a decidedly heavier sound. I thought they kicked ass as a four-piece, but I’m glad to be part of the family again.

Here’s another that saw many transformations over the years of playing it live. I always found this one difficult to play… though I did usually manage it adequately. In this version however, I am absent. We haven’t decided yet whether I’ll add a track to the studio version currently in production. Sometimes less is more.

Typically

(There was a second word in the title of this one: “Typically… something???” It’s been so long since we used the full title I can’t remember it. Oops. It was also alternatively called “Under the Apple Tree” and “Have a Nice Day”)

Next we have a simple number from the same Whitehorse tapes called Hammer On. I think this is very close to its final version.

Hammer On

Written by our bass player Ian, Tumbled Leaves was always a heavy favourite. There’s a couple of minor glitches in this recording and I think Shane is just trying out lyric ideas here, but this is just our rough work. The studio is for spit and polish; live is all about booze, drugs and rocking the fuck out! (Note to our moms: we don’t do the drugs and the booze so much anymore.)

Tumbled Leaves

So these are all songs for which we have studio versions in various stages of production. If they make the cut for the new album we can all see how they compare to their live counterparts.

If you’ve been able to listen past the obvious flaws in these live recordings and have liked the raw potential depicted here, it would be totally fantastic if you’d consider picking up our first album Tense Moments to help fund our future projects. Physical copies of the album are available from my website here. And digital download versions can be purchased from all the online music stores including amazon. It’d be great if someone would write a review too.