Smiths Original Demo Reel

Back in the early to mid 90's Dale Hibbert (the original bass player for The Smiths) auctioned off an original Smiths demo reel which included early versions of 4 tracks one of which was "Suffer Little Children" including the sounds of children on a playground (which was obviously later removed). For the winning bidder a tape would also be included of The Smiths unreleased cover of The Cookies song "I Want A Boy For My Birthday". As evidence of the track, a 30 second clip of the song was posted on the web and continues to circulate today. I believe a copy can be found at "Ms. Shankley's MP3 Of The Week" site.

Anyway, I followed the auction at the time and as best I can recall, someone from Europe won the auction. Does anyone else have any recollections of the auction (this was before eBay I think and just posted on a website) or know what became of the demo reel or the "Birthday" cover? At the time I remember thinking that the demos would eventually be released or the winner might share/sell the "Birthday" cover. Unfortunately the items never seemed to surface after the auction. I'm sure those reels deteriorate over time if not properly stored and I just wonder if whoever won the auction was able to preserve that bit of Smiths history. If anyone has any additional info, it would be interesting to hear.

Thanks!

A couple years ago I emailed the guy that won that auction about it - and this was his response:

I've been a Smiths fan since 1986. I'm 30 years old now and I was 14/15 at
the time. That's probably the age where a lot of people got to know The
Smiths. A couple of years later I 'became' a hardcore Smiths collector.
Over the years I got a lot of amazing stuff. One of the nicest pieces in my
collection is the 1 inch 16 track studio reel-to-reel of the very first
demos The Smiths (the name didn't exist at the time) ever recorded along
with Morrissey's cassette copy of 'I Want a Boy For My Birthday'. I mixed
the studio tape and found some amazing bits on it. It contains 'The Hand
That Rocks The Cradle' and 'Suffer Little Children'. On the cassette of 'I
Want a Boy' I also found Morrissey's recordings of children on a playground
and a terrifyingly crying little child. These sounds were used in the studio
recordings (Suffer Little Children) I mentioned.
'I Want a Boy' was recorded in Johnny Marr's bedroom (just Morrissey with a
microphone and Marr guitar). The sound quality is far much better than the
30 sec. sound clip you can find on the web.
I was lucky to obtain these items on an internet auction years ago (1996).
At that time, internet was not as commonly used as now. I'm sure these
items would fetch a much higher price nowadays. I always found it incredible that a studio reel-to-reel of The Smiths was available for private use.

Hope that helps!

It talks about the said reel in Song That Saved Your Life. It went for £12000 to a collector in one of the nordic countries, as has been said. Obviously, a quality version of 'I want a boy for my brithday' will never be released as it would devalue the reel immensely. So if anyone has a spare 20k, then maybe you might get to listen to it one day. Maybe the holder of the reel could do a presentation at a smiths convention some day so we all can hear this rare piece of Smiths history, without devaluing the item.

MBB321

Great info Erik. Thanks for sharing!

> A couple years ago I emailed the guy that won that auction about it - and
> this was his response:

> I've been a Smiths fan since 1986. I'm 30 years old now and I was 14/15 at
> the time. That's probably the age where a lot of people got to know The
> Smiths. A couple of years later I 'became' a hardcore Smiths collector.
> Over the years I got a lot of amazing stuff. One of the nicest pieces in
> my
> collection is the 1 inch 16 track studio reel-to-reel of the very first
> demos The Smiths (the name didn't exist at the time) ever recorded along
> with Morrissey's cassette copy of 'I Want a Boy For My Birthday'. I mixed
> the studio tape and found some amazing bits on it. It contains 'The Hand
> That Rocks The Cradle' and 'Suffer Little Children'. On the cassette of 'I
> Want a Boy' I also found Morrissey's recordings of children on a
> playground
> and a terrifyingly crying little child. These sounds were used in the
> studio
> recordings (Suffer Little Children) I mentioned.
> 'I Want a Boy' was recorded in Johnny Marr's bedroom (just Morrissey with
> a
> microphone and Marr guitar). The sound quality is far much better than the
> 30 sec. sound clip you can find on the web.
> I was lucky to obtain these items on an internet auction years ago (1996).
> At that time, internet was not as commonly used as now. I'm sure these
> items would fetch a much higher price nowadays. I always found it
> incredible that a studio reel-to-reel of The Smiths was available for
> private use.

> Hope that helps!

That's a good idea. I know there are lots of rarities floating about in the collector community often being used in trade for other unreleased items. It's been great in the past few years to see many of these tracks (Oh Phoney, Striptease etc.) shared. Like you said though for those that don't want to share a copy for whatever reason (paid lots of $ for it etc.) it would be cool to for it to be played at a conevention or something. At least then it wouldn't just be collecting dust.

Thanks.

P.S. I also posted the original message in the "market place" forum as well in case anyone wants to see other responses ragding the original demos.

> It talks about the said reel in Song That Saved Your Life. It went for
> £12000 to a collector in one of the nordic countries, as has been said.
> Obviously, a quality version of 'I want a boy for my brithday' will never
> be released as it would devalue the reel immensely. So if anyone has a
> spare 20k, then maybe you might get to listen to it one day. Maybe the
> holder of the reel could do a presentation at a smiths convention some day
> so we all can hear this rare piece of Smiths history, without devaluing
> the item.

> MBB321

> Back in the early to mid 90's Dale Hibbert (the original bass player for
> The Smiths) auctioned off an original Smiths demo reel which included
> early versions of 4 tracks one of which was "Suffer Little
> Children" including the sounds of children on a playground (which was
> obviously later removed). For the winning bidder a tape would also be
> included of The Smiths unreleased cover of The Cookies song "I Want A
> Boy For My Birthday". As evidence of the track, a 30 second clip of
> the song was posted on the web and continues to circulate today. I believe
> a copy can be found at "Ms. Shankley's MP3 Of The Week" site.

> Anyway, I followed the auction at the time and as best I can recall,
> someone from Europe won the auction. Does anyone else have any
> recollections of the auction (this was before eBay I think and just posted
> on a website) or know what became of the demo reel or the
> "Birthday" cover? At the time I remember thinking that the demos
> would eventually be released or the winner might share/sell the
> "Birthday" cover. Unfortunately the items never seemed to
> surface after the auction. I'm sure those reels deteriorate over time if
> not properly stored and I just wonder if whoever won the auction was able
> to preserve that bit of Smiths history. If anyone has any additional info,
> it would be interesting to hear.

> Thanks!

All I knew about it was that the guy that won it is Norwegian.He is a SERIOUS collector of Smith's memorabilia and is not for sharing in any shape or form.Which is his right.

From what I gather he has a lot of very rare Smiths stuff.