Science and archaeology are constantly finding or proving the existence of things that were thought to be non-existent. But what about things that you were told never existed or if they did (e.g. films) have been lost/destroyed?
For me it happened with The Yardbirds. I discovered them in the late 70’s and began a quest to find everything the did as part of my quest to follow the foundations of Cream (Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker). Between released recordings and bootlegs, I managed to piece together most of what was available. The missing link was the short lived Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page version of the group. It was fact that recorded only two songs together Psycho Daisies and Happenings Ten Years Time Ago and only footage of them together was in Blow Up (1966). I accepted that as fact and stopped my search, though occasionally finding compilations of works in process and BBC studio recordings. Then about 8-10 years ago, I did a Youtube search and found several videos of them playing together that to my knowledge had never been documented to exist before. This honestly shocked me.
Related to this was the sudden appearance of a video of Blind Faith’s free Hyde Park debut concert. Again, never any mention of any audio recording, much less film footage of the entire concert was ever even rumored. Now I’m waiting for the day complete of both days days of Cream’s final concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in 1968 appears as there have been rumors of people seeing alternate versions of The Farewell Concert of Cream in theaters in the 70’s!
My apologies for any confusion. I used the Yardbirds and Blind Faith as examples of what I was surprised about. The topic is meant to be anything in general (not limited to music) that shocked/surprised the posters. Which is why I started out with a statement about scientific and archaeological discoveries.
The band Bad Finger was quite tight with the Beatles. They where the first to sign on Apple records (the Beatles started that). And the name ‘Bad Finger’ was chosen because John Lennon had hurt a finger on a piano and was trying to play “A little help from my Friends” with one finger.
Listen to some Bad Finger songs. They where heavily influenced by the Beatles. Or the other way around.
20 years ago something obscure - a tape or video - might be discovered, and be seen by a few people. Today it gets posted and thus seen by millions.
My mother had a comedy record on a 78 called “Essen” about a resort in the Catskills. This is probably from around 1950. One day I searched, and there it was on YouTube. Also lots of Dylan stuff I’d never thought I’d hear.
OK, here’s an example of what I think you’re looking for. Years ago I was browsing through a second hand bookshop and I came across a copy of Mein Kampf - English translation, 1939, 71st thousand (copies). I was stunned.
Looking back from distance, I don’t know why the existence of the translation surprised me quite so much; plenty of the English aristocracy were sympathisers, and the Daily Mail was - hmm, how should I put this - more sympathetic than you might have expected towards fascists (Daily Mail - Wikipedia). But even now it amazes me that so many copies had been sold and that the book was still being published long after (some) Nazi atrocities were known; and when the country was on the brink of war.
BTW - I bought it as a birthday present for Mrs Trep. I know how to show a girl a good time.
In reading about the life of Groucho Marx, I knew that he amused himself in later life by writing letters to companies, which I would have thought would have been fascinating to read.
Then, about 2 years ago in a used book store I found a book from 1967 called “The Groucho Letters” where someone had collected many of these letters into a book. I felt like I had found a buried treasure.
I have a collection of baseball cards of anyone who ever played for my favorite team, the Kansas City Royals. However, for 6 players, I had long resigned myself to only having a photo of them, as I did not think any officially-published baseball cards of them existed. Then, last summer, just on a lark, I did a search on one of their names and was quite surprised found some hits on eBay for Venezuelan Winter League cards of two of them. I eventually found proper cards of all 6 (3 Venezuelan, 1 Puerto Rican, 1 Japanese and 1 American minor league team set).
Yeah, eBay and other sources like Amazon Japan, UK. etc are great for finding things that never existed. I read about a lot of people clinging on to their crappy prerecorded videotapes or home recordings from TV because “It’s never been released on Laserdisc, DVD or Bluray!”. I suggest they expand their search to sources outside of the U.S. or whatever country they’re in and sometimes that higher quality video that didn’t exist is found.
The famous mathematician and musician Tom Lehrer recorded a concert in Denmark in 1967. Everyone forgot about it for more than 40 years. Eventually, some archivist found it & posted some clips to YouTube. Dr. Lehrer found the clips & contacted the poster, who eventually admitted that he never thought that Dr. Lehrer would still be alive.
The complete performance was subsequently officially released on DVD!
Amazon has fooled me more than once. That, or made me a believer in parallel universes!
It has long been a “fact” that the 1977 film The Incredible Melting Man was never available on home video under any format. I often used it as an example of movies that disappeared. Still, I routinely check Amazon, just in case. And just last week, there it was! Except, it said it was released in 2013. I’ve checked since then, and it was not available. But now, it’s retroactively available back to 2013. Spooky.
What are we going to believe in when the lost ending to Big shows up?
