You Better Stop

You Better Stop.

An outtake from the Tin Machine II sessions in Sydney, “You Better Stop” (its bootleg title) is another Hunt Sales blues, here dominated by dueling cock-of-the-walk guitar licks. Reeves Gabrels apparently cut multiple overdubs, as the various guitars in the solo all seem to be his, which suggests “Stop” had evolved beyond a studio jam and was being considered for inclusion on the record. At first I had thought it was a version of Sonny Rhodes’ soul classic, but its lyric, a barely-audible string of blues cliches, is different and at one point Hunt cues the band with “bridge!” So evidently “Stop” is a half-completed original, and it has as much going for it as the two official Hunt-penned Tin Machine tracks.

Recorded ca. September-October 1989, Studios 301. Unreleased.

Top: “Doublejeopardy,” “Thailand, 1990.”