The Soundhouse Tapes
1979
This is the "holy grail" for the Iron Maiden fan. There were a total of four tracks recorded on December 28, 1978 (Iron Maiden, Invasion, Prowler and Strange World). This vinyl EP (45 RPM) is EXTREMELY RARE with only 5,000 copies pressed and available by mail-order or live shows only.
There is another recording called "The Soundhouse Tapes And More". This is a "bootleg" plain and simple. Maiden never released this compilation. It's widespread demand seemed to inspire the release "Eddie's Archive" in 2002 which includes most of the "And More" part, but mysteriously leaves out "The Soundhouse Tapes". In fact the band could have made a small fortune back in 1979 re-pressing "The Soundhouse Tapes" due to extreme demand. However they refused to bow to the "industry demands" and kept the original number at 5,000 for the "true hardcore fans".
Iron Maiden is quite possibly the greatest band to ever grace a stage or record in a studio. Each and every member is of world-class status and the writing is unlike anything else in history. However, Iron Maiden cares ONLY about what they call their "true fans" The ones that will wait outside in the cold and rain or camp out to buy tickets and new releases. Unfortunately we all don't have the time to devote to this ritual or even live on the Continent on which the material is released. Therefor we do what we have to what to collect the music from our favorite band.
Maiden is guilty of a few atrocities. One being that when they release a highly sought after item such as "Eddie's Head" or "Eddie's Archive", they only press enough copies to ensure total madness. There's a seller on Amazon.com at this moment (Christmas 2006) asking $994.88 for the 16 CD set of Eddie's Head + shipping! And it's used! We all know that Maiden has enough resources to press enough copies to satisfy the needs of a majority of their fans, yet they choose not to for various reasons. The main reason is that they make most of their fortune from live concerts and memorabilia. Their latest single "The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg" is not even eligible for consideration in the U.K. charts due to its length (7:21). You probably won't hear it on the radio or see it on MTV, therefor you'll have to BUY the full-length CD or the single. Either way Maiden wins and you pay more for a product than you should. This behavior by the band has led many to produce counterfeits, bootlegs and illegal downloading of their music. No matter though, remember they make a fortune when you pay $120 for seats in the "nose-bleed" section IF you just happen to be near a huge metropolitan city in Europe.
Beware of COUNTERFEITS when collecting the vinyl version of this recording. Here is a great page describing the counterfeits and history of The Soundhouse Tapes.
Track Listings:
Songwriter/s are in (parenthesis)
- Iron Maiden (Harris)
- Invasion (Harris)
- Prowler (Harris)
- Unreleased-Strange World (Harris)
The Players:
- Paul Di'Anno (vocals)
- Dennis Stratton (guitar, background vocals)
- Dave Murray (guitar)
- Steve Harris (bass, background vocals)
- Clive Burr (drums)
I've collected approx 99% of everything Maiden has ever recorded. If you need help with the site or finding any of these CD's, MP3's or just want to chat in general, E-Mail Me...
or copy and paste: Sound_Man73@Hotmail.Com
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