I'm quite surprised that there seems to be no post on the demos for Golden Heart, or maybe I can't find it.
Anyway, I have a copy of the "Golden demos", and I actually like them better than the final album!
Does anyone else have a copy?
More info here: http://www.oneverybootleg.nl/goldendemos.htm
The thing about the Golden Demos is that they came from a tape a friend of mine bought in London around 1997/1998, can't recall exactly.
He told me that story probably about 24 years ago, as I became friend with him while waiting for MK outside of Cadena 100 Radio in Madrid, Spain, as MK was there the day of STP release to do an interview, so my memories about what he told me are a little blurred.
He met someone in London that was selling tapes, and he saw one labelled as Mark Knopfler, and asked him about that as it didn't have any titles, the guy played the tape to him and as soon as he noticed he was listening to unreleased songs he did his best to control his face gestures to avoid the price of it get increased. He bought the tape and as soon he got to Spain he contacted the person who run the fanzine Rockaway, who is an AMIT member, so if he reads it and wants to add anything, please do it.
Copies of the tape were being offered to all the Rockaway fanzine subscribers, and that's how those songs ended betwen fans, by a series of coincidences, my friend meeting that guy selling the tapes, my friend being generous and offering the tape to the Rockaway fanzine etc
Who was that guy selling the tapes? I remember that when he told me the story about 24 years ago he told me a name, actually he had contact details of him, but I asked again some years after and he sadly lost it so there eas no way to get in contact with him again.
How this guy got that tapes? probably was working ar Air Studios (where some of that songs were recorded) or knew someone working there and got copies or even the original tapes (in that case they would had been stolen...), but we don't know that.
MK recorded some sessions at Air Studios, according to an interview published in "Record Collector Magazine January 1994" so probably those sessions happened somewhere around 1993, this is what the magazine says:
MK talks about playing with different bands those days, an Irish one, a Nashville one and a British one, and about that British one in one of his answers says:
"I wrote a song about shipbuilding in England and you have to do that with a British band"
In other answer he says:
"I had a great time in Air Studios a couple of weeks back - with Nick Lowe on bass, Bobby Irwin on drums, Paul Carrack on keyboards, Don Orleano on bouzouki and mandolin, who's on the Irish sessions as well, and Kevin Brown on guitar, and Brian Masterson from Mill Studios in Dublin came over to do the stuff"Don Orleano must be Donal Lunny, as he was in the Irish sessions playing exactly that instruments and the person from the magazine misssunderstood the name.
That shipbuilding song must be "My claim to fame" that talked about the Swan Hunter shipyard and appeared at that documentary. The tape of the Golden Demos had three intrumental tracks, and those can be heard also in the Swan Hunter Documentary.
The golden demos tape had some takes of an unreleased track titled "No wonder he's confused" which remains unreleased and an early version of "Secondary waltz". These songs were recorded with the band mentioned in the inreview as you can listen to MK talking with someone called Bobby about the drums. Also a recording of "Done with Boanaparte", "A night in summer long ago" and "The lily of the west" that clearly came from the Irish sessions. The tape also had a demo of "I'm the fool" that sounds with just MK guitar and a keyboard, there are also a bass, drums and a mandolin that can heard just at the end of the song, as during the song only MK guitar, the keyboards and a bass can be heard clearly, so probably this song comes from the same sessions than the first ones with the same band. And also the three instrumental songs from Swan Hunter, that accordingly to a DSIS newsletter were recorded with Guy.
So, the golden demos doesn't come just from the Air studio sessions as they contain songs recorded as well during the Irish sessions, so my guess is, as far as Brian Masterson worked in both the Air Studios and Irish sessions, that the person who obtained the tapes had any connection with him, and copied those songs from Masterson tapes, or directly stole the tapes from maybe the Mill Studios in Dublin?
However, I remember very vaguely that it was mentioned in an Italian fanzine at the time that there were more tapes circulating as there were mentions of two more songs, "Batting for England" and "Speedway TO Nazareth", I had that fanzine many years ago but lost it, so I can't tell more.
I guess someone should have more songs somewhere but we were not as lucky as we were with my friend being generous, and the rest of songs on other tapes remains hidden in someone collection.
If anyone knows anything else about the Golden Demos or anything I told here, please comment!
