Dentists - Mega Rarities Collection 1983-1994

Rehearsals, Demos & Alts + Live Versions

1983-1994

various sources, variable sound quality (range = GD to VG++)

The Dentists as young men, pondering their musical futures...

Rehearsals, Demos, Alt. Versions

01 First Ever Rehearsal (1983 montage)

02 I'm Not the Devil (demo)

03 You Make Me Say It Somehow (demo)

DENTISTS:  UK contenders in 1980s & '90s

04 A Fine Day (rehearsal)

05 Excellent Dream (rehearsal)

06 Purple Haze (rehearsal)

07 Something That Will Never 

     Happen (early rehearsal)

08 Black Magic (rehearsal)

09 Reading the News (rehearsal)

10 What the Fat Controller Said 

       (rehearsal) 

11 She Dazzled Me With Basil 

       (rehearsal)

12 Ugly (rehearsal)

13 She Dazzled Me With Basil (demo)

14 Peppermint Dreams (demo)

15 What the Fat Controller Said 

       (demo)

16 You Took Me By Surprise (demo)

17 Dawn Overdone (demo)

18 Ugly (demo)

19 Reading the News (demo)

20 Crimson Skies (demo)

21 She Dazzled Me With Basil

      (rough mix)

22 Daffodil Scare (rehearsal)

23 (We Thought We'd Got to) Heaven
       (rehearsal)

24 Kebab House Crawl (rehearsal)

25 Ugly (1987 version)

26 Box of Sun (early version)

27 Outside Your Inside (demo)

28 Ace of Spades (rehearsal)

29 I Believe In Father Christmas (rehearsal)

The Dentists: lounging around at the War Memorial, 1986

Live Versions 1984-1994

01 Crime of the Century (live 1984)

Photo shoot for 1st album, 1985

02 The Sun In the Sands (live 1984)

03 Doreen (live 1984)

04 Everything In the Garden (live 1985)

05 Tony Bastable vs. John Noakes 

       (live 1985)

06 Watcha Gonna Do About It (live 1985)

07 The Little Engineers Set (live 1985)

08 You Took Me By Surprise (live 1985)

09 Crimson Skies (live 1985)

10 Wheel's On Fire (live 1985)

11 I Tripped Across the Skyline

        (live 1986)

12 Writhing On the Shagpile (live 1986)

13 Punk Rock (live 1986)

14 Both Sides Now (live Feb. 1987)

15 Both Sides Now (live March 1987)

16 We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together (live 1987)

17 The Dentists on WFMU

18 Writhing on the Shagpile (live 1994)

19 This is Not My Flag & chat (live)

MP3@320

Alt. link (Filefactory)

ROB SEZ: For UK music fans in the mid-1980s to mid-90s, the Dentists were a viable alternative if more popular New Wave / Alternative / Indie acts weren't floating your boat — if, say, Morrissey wasn't your cup of morose tea. The Dentists had enough jangle, tunefulness and all-around smarts to propel them to "next big thing" status in the early 1990s — just before they broke up, of course! ALL SORTS OF LAVISH PRAISE goes to Dentists guitarist Bob Collins as well as Nicholson Burr for opening up their musical archives for the fans. If you're new to the band and want to check them out, don't start here. For beginners, I recommend either 1985's Some People Are On the Pitch or 1994's Behind the Door I Keep the Universe. A note of caution: my ears tell me there's been no attempt to clean up the sound in these archival tracks. So keep your expectations sufficiently low, and you'll likely find much to enjoy. I've sequenced them in chronological order. (Detailed source info for all tracks are in the Comments tags.)
   

Not gone, not forgotten: band & friends, rehearsing for a reunion show in 2015
fab photo by Phil Dillon

Learn more about the music of The Dentists at 

the band's official site, Trouser Press 

& Wikipedia