google on the title gives this result:

HAPPY THE MAN
1973-1976
Demos, Out Takes and Rare Live Tracks
"Gems And Germs"
SOUND BOARD RECORDING


GEMS AND GERMS - Track Listing
01 - Hidden Moods (Kit - Rhodes Piano - 1975)
02 - UNTITLED (Frank - Moog Piece - 1975)
03 - UNTITLED (Frank - Moog Pipe Organ Simulation - 1975)
04 - UNTITLED (Frank - Clavinet & Moog - 1975)
05 - No (Kit - 1975)
06 - Tricky Dick
07 - Staring Song (Kit - 1973)
08 - UNTITLED (Kit - 1975)
09 - UNTITLED (Frank - Rhodes Piano - 1975)
10 - UNTITLED (Stan - Martin Guitar - 1975)
11 - To Bee (Kit - by Andrea Fisher - 1975)
12 - Percussing (Mike - 1973)
13 - Awake The Simpleton (HTM - Arlington, VA - New York Ave. - 1974)
14 - Cloud Colors / Clown Parade (HTM - Harrisonburg, VA - Wilson Hall - 1974)
15 - Unforgettable Death Of Mr. Mirror (HTM - Harrisonburg, VA - Wilson Hall - 1974)
16 - Helix (Frank, Rick & Mike - 1976)

Nice find Steamingears! Interesting stuff on this album, to bad HTM wasn't involved with this release.

Sounds like an interesting album...

Other "rarities" (mostly live-recordings from the old days, which have been circulating over the internet for some time now:

LIVE AT WGTB STUDIOS (LIVE AT WGTB STUDIOS, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC 7/4/75) (JAPANESE TACHIKA MINI LP SLEEVE) $20
SOUNDS REASONABLE STUDIOS (LIVE ON WGTB-FM RADIO AT SOUNDS REASONABLE STUDIOS, WASHINGTON, DC 10/30/75) (JAPANESE TACHIKA MINI LP SLEEVE) $20
LIVE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND - BALTIMORE (LIVE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE, MD 4/376) (2 CD) (JAPANESE TACHIKA MINI LP SLEEVE) $25
LIVE AT THE RAINBOW’S END (LIVE AT THE RAINBOW’S END, WILLIAMSBURG, VA 4/24/77) (JAPANESE TACHIKA MINI LP SLEEVE) $20

Also from Syn-Phonic.

Because I ordered a rare live-recording from David Sancious from 1976 I included this rarity-album from HTM. I'll let you know what you miss

Quite an interesting album. I got it yesterday and it shows a lot of sides from a young band: introvert, experimental, highly talented, moving. Most of the pieces are solo-works, buth the final tracks are live recordings from '74 (Harrisburg and Arlington) plus a track from the studio with Frank, Rick and Mike). Indeed, it's the same tracklisting as in the post above.

Interesting post. How is the sound quality on this album that you bought. I guess that this is stuff that I really wanna hear.

It's quite good. I expected a more demo-sound quality, but they've managed to let it sound quite fresh. Even the live-recordings are better than many audience-taped bootleg I've heard. The album is particularly interesting because it doesn't only show the melodic side of early HTM, but also their experimental side. There's also a lot of percussion-stuff in some tracks, which will especially please fans of Mike Beck.

^ Sounds like this would have been a very fine "official" release from the band, but I dont really know the history and why it was release this way.. do you? Anyway thanks steamingers for the info.

Well, you have to see it this way: Tachika Records, whoever runs it, is trying to release as much hard to get, but quite interesting stuff as possible. I guess they are searching for all kinds of demo's, often available on the net, and make it into a somewhat dubious but interesting release with a nice cover. It would be more interesting though to know what Frank or Stan think about this kind of releases: does it improve the knowledge of the existence of HTM? Do they think this stuff has enough quality to be released? Did they have their own plans to release this? The last question would probably be answered with "No", knowing they both rather look forward than backwards.

The cover is a self-made one based on the t-shirt with the water-ibby. The name of the band is in white, the rest of the cover in black. The letters are somewhat ancient. The back shows black-and-white pics all taken from the Live-cd, except the drum-shot from Mike Beck. The CD-print is from the rainbow-ibby, indeed from the t-shirt, with the same letter-type. It all has the spirit of a hand-made cover, done by a fan.

The back also has Jeff Garringer's HTM Mandala as shown in the inside of Beginnings.

Ok, thanks for the detailed info. Of all the Ibby's I do prefer the Crafty one. Very nice colors.

Hello guys,

First of all, sorry for not having showed up in a long time. I wish you all are super fine.

Now, excuse me for bugging you once again with this request, but it is something very dear to me, so here I go:

Can anyone tell me where to find that bootleg recording of the song "Julia" from the band Vision that Stan, Rick and David formed after HTM splitted and that was once available on the Net?

I used to have a copy I got from a seemingly-dissapeared HTM fan (Alan Ekland), but lost it when my hard drive crashed.

Just for those who don't know the story: Julia was a song that won a radio contest back in the 80's. The recording is from a radio broadcast. You can hear one of the guys being interviewed by the program host (David, if I am correct) and announcing him that Vision had won the contest, then you can hear the song playing.

I remember the recording was an mp3 file (the sound quality was more than acceptable) that was uploaded to Alan's website, which is no longer in existence.

Well, that is all I can recall about it. All that I know is that I really loved that song, specially Stan's solo and miss it so badly.

Thank you guys for keeping this forum alive and letting us be in touch with each other.

PS: I am really glad to know that OS is back in the studio!

Peace, love and light to you all.

Regards,

Hector the man

Welcome back, Hector.
I'm afraid I can't help you with Julia. The only weird page I found is mentioning the song and others. Does anybody know what kind of information these pages shows?

If people want to read more about how progfans are looking at Tachika the following discussion might be interesting:
www.progressiveears.com/default.asp?bhcp=1

As you might know I bought some stuff from them and have thought about buying this Kevin Gilbert-box too plus the new HTM-live recording, but haven't decided yet. Not because of the arguments given in that discussion b.t.w.

Here's another live-bootleg from Tachika:

HAPPY THE MAN - LIVE IN STONY BROOK 1977 (LIVE AT THE UNION BULIDING, STATE UNIVERISTY OF NEW YORK, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY, STONY BROOK, NY 3/4/77) (JAPANESE TACHIKA MINI LP SLEEVE) $20

Do you know the playlist of the Stony Brook show?

According to this site the following songs have been played:

77-Mar-4: Stony Brook, NY

Total Time: 69.19
1 Death's Crown Pt 3 >
Death's Crown Pt 5 (Open Book)
2 Tune ups
3 Starborne
4
5 Stumpy Meets The Firecracker..
6
7 Hidden Moods
8
9 Upon The Rainbow (Befrost)
10
11 Basic Urges In 7/8th
12
13 New York Dreams Suite
14
15 Knee Bitten Nymphs In Limbo
16
17 Mr. Mirror's Reflections On Dreams
18 Good-Bye & Return
19 Leave That Kitten Alone Armone
20 End 8.57

Pretty interesting setlist. Don't think I have heard this one. I wonder about Basic Urges in 7/8th and End. Any idea? Happy The Man didn't jam on the stage so they must be written songs, or am I wrong?

I wouldn't be surprised if these were working titles for songs that would later appear on Crafty Hands, but I hessitate to buy all these stuff especially because HTM don't earn a penny from this kind of releases. It shouldn't be too hard to release them by a label like Cuneiform.

The band, or might I say - the former band HTM should release something interesting, like unreleased songs. May I suggest a studio reunion of the original band, to record the material. That would be really fun!

According to this Wikipage on Stanley the song Julia was later released as a single by the John West-lineup from Vision.

Also on the wikipage:

I didn't know that. Sounds like a funny project.

I can now see the connection - Wind Up Doll and puppets

Ha, ha, yeah, great find!

There's nothing about puppets on stanleywhitaker.com/ though. But we have read about it earlier in this interview: www.allthingsif.org/archives/1845 they are called "Mother Nurture Fairy Tales",