One of the seminal bands of the 00’s they may be, but a b-sides band Arcade Fire aren’t. During their short career so far they’ve released two overwhelmingly brilliant albums that both deserve to be hailed as true classics of the current decade – and others – and that may partially be because they focus all their energy and inspiration on the songs that actually end up on the said albums. Despite releasing several singles you can count their b-sides with one hand’s fingers and some of those are even songs performed by other artists (not covers by AF, genuinely different artists sharing the space). Same thing goes for more non-canonical releases: there’s almost no non-album non-single rarities lingering around.

That’s not stopping us from going through some most of them because there are some fine songs there.

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I love b-sides, rarities and all this other material. They’re my special musical passion. Things that artists take time to write and record but which never get widespread releases, often verging on the border of being forgotten forever if it wasn’t for the most fanatic fans and b-side compilations. To quote the name of the Manic Street Preachers’ b-side “best of”, they’re the secret histories of these artists. Hit songs that arrived with the inspirational flow at the wrong time, stylistic experiments, drunken studio jams and yes, also average filler fluff custom-made to slap something on singles to give some incentive for people to buy them. Often they, if released on the last single of its parent album, also hint at the direction the artist is going to take on their next album.

MP3 posts are fun and this is one concept of them. Hidden treasures, going with the ever-popular “updated when I feel like it” update rate, are tiny collections of particular gem that are worth giving digging up and giving a special mention to – especially if the said artist hasn’t had a b-side compilation left or they decided to leave something out from the one they had.

Inspired by my recent find of one such gem, today we tackle on the already well-discussed John Frusciante. Frusciante’s never been much of rarities fellow, partly because of his very musically focused nature and partly because the guy’s only had about two singles during his entire career, and one of them was partially filled with songs he ended up releasing on the internet-only demos compilation From the Sounds Inside. But he does have something to offer.

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