Being the obsessive Gorillaz fan that I am, bootleg releases of the band's music immediately grab my attention; largely due to the fact that these releases tend to feature content found on
no official discs, as is true for both of today's subjects. To be clear -I'm far from an audiophile, and lack an on-hand have a record player to test the quality of these discs. I'll be concerning myself solely with the record's appearance and contents.
We'll be looking at two neat bootlegs,
both on vinyl -
Demon Days Instrumentals, and
Gorillaz 2017. I found these records at a local music shop, and, as of the current date, both seem somewhat common. However, as tends to happen with these inherently
illegal releases, they definitely won't be around for long - find 'em while you can.
First up...
Demon Days Instrumentals!
Demon Days' instrumentals have never been released on vinyl, appearing only once on a rather rare CD. I'm not quite sure why they decided to include the "promotional use only" tagline on a mass-release bootleg, although the original Demon Days instrumental CD was, in fact,
for promotional use only. I suppose it must be an attempt to feign credibility.
The clunky cover art
isn't exactly pretty, in all honesty. I personally wish they had replicated the cover art found on the
premium edition of Demon Days, which inverts the borders of the original photo. However, it has a bit of low-quality charm; there's something sort of retro about the red-on-white look paired with the oddly formatted text and paralleled profiles. If anything, it's unique.
The back cover is equally rough, though serviceable. The tracklisting has one minor error, listing the songs Don't Get Lost in Heaven and Demon Days under one title; although, to be fair, these songs flow seamlessly into one another, making the difference somewhat debatable. Upon first glance, The group photo appears to be cloned directly from the
original record - however, upon further inspection, one will find many differences. Noodle and Mike the Monkey are traced, with Mike being inexplicably colored via
markers, despite Noodle's color appearing to be digital. One will also notice a small section of miscoloration under Noodle's arm, which has been left white. Murdoc, Russel and 2-D, while not traced, come from
a completely different promotional photo; with Russel's lower body being totally new, as it was previously obscured by a now removed Noodle. It all looks quite strange, and one must wonder... why not use the
original artwork?
The disc art looks pretty neat, featuring each character's silhouette below the Gorillaz logo. Murdoc and 2-D appear against a dark red backdrop, with Noodle and Russel against a dark purple. I actually really like this design - simple but effective.
DD Instrumentals isn't a stellar bootleg, but it's a neat rarity for hyper-fans. I highly doubt these songs will appear on an official vinyl anytime soon - it took Gorillaz thirteen years to repress the standard edition of Demon Days, let alone a collection of obscure instrumentals that was never on vinyl in the first place. If you want 'em, this is how you'll get 'em.
Next up...
Gorillaz 2017!
Why the anomalous title? This vinyl consists of Gorillaz' WFUV set, an in-studio live performance of various songs from the album Humanz. The website these tracks originated from listed the performance simply as
Gorillaz: 2017 - thus, "Gorillaz 2017". Fair enough. As can be seen on the back cover, the bootleg's creators have given credit to WFUV - probably only to acknowledge that this is not a full album.
Ah, Game Boy green... perhaps the
least appealing base color possible. I suppose the color sort of fits in with the military aesthetic present throughout most Gorillaz art.
This collection's artwork is entirely unique - as in, it is not based on what appears in any pre-existing album. What isn't so unique, however, are the sources of the artwork appearing throughout - a hogepodge of official and unofficial drawings poorly ripped from Google Images. A piece by Gorillaz' official head artist, Jamie Hewlett, can appear directly alongside a piece by any random fan artist - and, more often than not, the difference is extremely clear.
For some reason, the full thirteen minute edition of DoYaThing is included on side B - despite this song having nothing to do with Humanz, let alone the WFUV show. I'm thrilled to finally own this song on a physical format, as it's only other official releases have been on extremely limited singles. For that matter, the WFUV performance exists on no other physical media whatsoever - making this an impressively exclusive collection. I loved the WFUV show, myself!
Believe it or not, this is, in fact, a gatefold vinyl - surprising, for a somewhat randomly assembled bootleg. Despite the scattering of unrelated artwork, I actually quite like the inner art - it's probably the highlight of the set's entire design. Can't go wrong with purple.
The blurb on the left sleeve, partially quoting the original WFUV website, reads as follows;
"Gorillaz are an English virtual band created in 1998 by musician Damon (Blur) Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett. The band consists of four animated members, 2-D (lead vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar and vocals), Noodle (guitar, keyboards), and Russel Hobbs (drums and percussion). These members are fictional and are not based on any "real life" musicians involved in the project.
Kara Manning, wfuv.org:
Gorillaz, the shapeshifting, multi-platinum band co-founded by Damon Albarn and illustrator Jamie Hewlett, took over New York City last week in anticipation of the release of their fifth album, Humanz.
The day after their exhilarating, stripped-down show at Rough Trade NYC, the band's first in New York in seven years, Albarn and his bandmates also transformed FUV's studios as Gorillaz' own hideaway for a full day, bringing along their crew, full gear, soundboards and lighting rig. Their six-song set was a marvel, as Albarn sang with Chicago house legend Jamie Principle on the haunting "Sex Murder Party" and the soulful Peven Everett on "Strobelite." The first of the WFUV videos are available below (on VuHaus.com and YouTube), as is my latest conversation with Albarn, followed by the band's full Studio A performance.
It took Albarn a stretch of seven years to record and release Humanz, but it wasn't due to time spent idling. Since the release of Gorillaz’ 2010 album, The Fall, he's recorded, released, and toured behind his solo debut, Everyday Robots, and returned with his longtime band, Blur, for their first album in years, 2015’s The Magic Whip. (He's chatted with me about both albums for FUV Live.)
Last year, Albarn toured and recorded with the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians for a live Africa Express album; and he also saw his Alice in Wonderland-inspired musical, Wonder.land, produced in London and Manchester. In other words, Albarn has been very busy.
But now Gorillaz is back, and for Humanz, he was inspired by house and hip hop, and up-and-coming artists that his teenage daughter Missy had put on his radar (yes, Albarn wants to be a cool dad too). There's an impressive and diverse lineup of guest artists populating Humanz, like Principle, Everett, D.R.A.M., Grace Jones, Vince Staples, Mavis Staples, Savages’ Jehnny Beth, Pusha T, Benjamin Clementine, Kali Uchis, Popcaan, frequent collaborators De La Soul, and even Blur’s former Britpop rival, Noel Gallagher, formerly of Oasis."
Although a bit questionable in some regards - including, of course, grammar - the blurb is, at the very least, a fancy addition. Nice of them to, once again, credit WFUV - giving me the feeling that, despite the fact that this bootleg was seemingly created to fool fans, fans themselves created the set. That's pretty cool, in some respects, and I can appreciate the effort.
The discs feature two random pieces of art; one fan-made, one by Hewlett. What's weird is that the fan-mad artwork is directly based on a piece of official art, which actually appears on the album's back cover. Why they didn't universally use the official version is beyond me.
The contents of this set are the real drawing point; the WFUV show cannot be found on any other medium but digital, and DoYaThing's original release is so costly it really isn't worth considering. Though the set looks fairly strange, it's a neat release to have.
At the end of the day, I'd recommend both of these bootlegs to fans; though, as that statement implies, their worth is only really apparent if you aim to own Gorillaz' more uncommon tunes. Otherwise, you'll be fine sticking to what is readily available.
Be on the lookout for an inevitable part two - my Gorillaz collection is rather large, and I have plenty of bootleg items worth looking at!
