We recently acquired a couple boxes of the Green Pajamas’ 2009 out-of-print vinyl LP Hidden Minutes from the late Tony Dale’s Camera Obscura label. Get one while they last, at $10 buck each that will not be very long!
“…simply another batch of superb songs: the pop nuggets “Valerie Rose” and “Watching Jaime Dance,” the brooding beauty “The Mystery,” the naked plea “Please Come Home,” the folk-rock confection “Lady of Spain.” Great stuff.” – Michael Toland, Trouser Press
From the Camera Obscura website…
Much along the lines of Camera Obscura’s earlier Narcotic Kisses compilation, Hidden Minutes is a compilation of odds’n’sods that seemed to beg to be brought together into neat package for fans of Jeff Kelly’s fertile song-writing imagination and psych-pop recording stylings. Various singles that had been made available on the internet only needed a place on the “permanent record”, and as Jeff’s says “I have a double album’s worth of stuff that doesn’t really go together all that great. I’ve got the ‘album’ sort of tracks for a new release and then a whole other batch of songs that sound more like singles”. So here you have it, a virtual cornucopia of tracks that in an ideal world would be spinning out of your car radio in classic 7″ fashion.
Digging deeper, “Hidden Minutes 1” and “Hidden Minutes 2” were written for the 2007 Box of Secrets album and ultimately left off, as was “Valerie Rose” one from the archives that got redone for the album but in the end didn’t fit. “Claire’s Knee” was written right after Jeff got his new Gretch guitar. He’d thought for a while of writing a song inspired by the movie (a personal favorite of his). “She Is a Dream'” goes all the way back to around the time Jeff was recording This is Where We Disappear for UK label Woronzow. A new drum track has made the track sparkle.
“Between Yourself and Me” was originally called “Lizzie Siddal’s Eyes” with all different lyrics. It was rerecorded for the free download album If You Knew What I Dreamed album. Jeff wanted a psychedelic lyric and the Lewis Carroll poem fit exactly. It was never intended for release it but everybody who heard loved it. So…here it is. “The Mystery” goes way back to the summer of 1984. Fellow long-term band member Joe Ross and Jeff had always liked that one so one Jeff decided to record it again.
“Highway 93” was written about the night Jeff was driving the band back to Providence from Boston at about three in the morning. A Terrastock road trip through rare sober eyes.