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Boston - Mission Aborted (1976)

Track listing:
  1. Love 3:26
  2. Help Me To Forget Her Name 3:21
  3. San Fancisco Bay 3:29
  4. Smokin' 2:31
  5. Talkin To The Wall 5:38
  6. Rock N Roll Band 2:56
  7. Life Isn't Easy 2:58
  8. More Than A Feeling 4:07
  9. Don't Be Afraid Of Love 3:44
  10. Peace Of Mind 4:53
  11. San Francisco Bay (Plus Unrelease 3:12
  12. Hard Luck 3:38
  13. Nothing To Lose 3:59
  14. What To Do 4:31
  15. Mean Woman Blues 3:55
  16. Leavin Tonight 3:27
  17. Dreams 3:34
  18. What We Make It 3:13
  19. Sailin' Away 1:50
  20. Cold Cold World 4:52

Notes

I have mixed feelings about this bootleg. I like it because it is the only CD bootleg to include the Mother's Milk demos. But I dislike it because it shamelessly rips off Barry Goudreau's solo album.

The demos found on this bootleg are what make this worth the money. We are treated with the six demos from the bootleg LP We Found it in the Trashcan, Honest! plus six of the seven Mother's Milk demos. If you want to hear unreleased songs or early unreleased versions of songs, this is the boot for you. There are three unlreleased songs and three early versions of songs never before heard. The missing Mother's Milk demo is "Foreplay". Who knows why this song is missing, perhaps to make room for the "filler" that occupies the rest of the CD. What the back cover claims is "[Boston's] Unreleased 3rd Album", is really Barry Goudreau's solo album which was released in 1980. It's a great album in its own right and for which Barry deserves due credit. This is what we in bootleg land call a counterfeit. Very uncool.

Sound quality ranges from the professional studio quality of Barry's solo album to the amature studio quality of the demos. The Mother's Milk demos sound like they were recorded on a four-track live in the studio. The other demos sound like they were meticulously recorded and mixed on a 12-track. They sound better, but lack the spontaneity and edge of the earlier Mother's milk demos. However, the less than perfect sound quality does not detract from the overall enjoyment of the recording.

The artwork is interesting to say the least. The front cover is a photo taken from an exhibit of a model alien craft and beings at the UFO Enigma Museum in Roswell, NM. Quite funny. The back is a nice 1978 era shot of the band posing in Tom's basement studio.

Bootlegs are cool, counterfeits are not. Buy this one for rhe demos. But also buy Barry's album for the "Unrelesed 3rd Album". Also, be aware that the demos are floating around on non-commercial bootleg CD and they include the missing song "Foreplay"..