by The Uninvited
~ How many times can you record one song?
To the rest of the world they were from San Francisco, but to folks who lived in Northern California and knew their way around a map, they were actually from Santa Rosa. The Uninvited were one of those fringe bands you hear on the radio once or twice in your life and would play to sold-out club crowds all over the country but somehow would hit a ceiling of about a few hundred fans in any given market.
We’ll talk later about how many times we’ve seen these guys live, but for now just chill with this song of wistful regret that they’ve managed to record about five different times. The best version is the one that was on the last independent album before they got signed to a big label (Tragically Hip); it’s the one with the acoustic guitar higher in the mix and with Bill’s harmony vocals over the outro. This one here is from their self-titled major-label debut, that didn’t make a major dent in the music world largely because the record company didn’t seem to give a shit.
Checking out while we’re still young? Sure, the first time I saw these guys over 20 years ago…
Incidentally, Celtic-rockers The Young Dubliners recorded a pretty solid cover of the song, too, with a fiddle in the mix