Dream Syndicate - The Day's Before Wine and Roses

year: 82 - review: There are some radical reworkings: "Some Kinda Itch" is a slower, smokier number in this incarnation, the late-night setting perfectly matching its strung-out mood, while "John Coltrane Stereo Blues" appears under the name "Open Hour"" as a slightly more stripped-down jam. Other things don't change at all -- "The Days of Wine and Roses" itself, which understandably closes the set, is as blasting as one could want. The inclusion of the covers is explained away by Wynn thus: "If you're going to bootleg this, we don't want to have to worry about the royalties." Some choices are obvious -- Buffalo Springfield's "Mr. Soul" and Bob Dylan's "Outlaw Blues" -- but the revamp of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" is more unexpected but plenty exciting.