The Dream Syndicate announce 'Days of Wine and Roses' 40th anniversary box set

Paisley Underground icons The Dream Syndicate already celebrated the 40th anniversary of their debut album, The Days of Wine and Roses, with a 2022 tour, and have now followed that with a deluxe 4-CD box set edition of the album that will be out June 23 via Fire.

The 4-CD box set, titled History Kinda Pales When It and You Are Aligned: The Days Of Wine and Roses, includes the original album remastered, plus three discs worth of bonus material, with 10 rarities and 31 unreleased tracks. Those include the Down There EP, singles, b-sides, alternate takes, two full live shows, and more.There’s also a booklet featuring 30 pages of liner notes by band historian Pat Thomas, new interviews with Kendra Smith, engineer Paul Cutler and producer Chris D, plus rare photos, gig posters, and more.

“Hearing these bonus tracks of live and rehearsal performances of The Dream Syndicate, culled by Pat Thomas from the cassette collection of Dennis Duck, I remember things about that band and what we were doing in 1982 that I had long since forgotten,” frontman Steve Wynn says. “We would actually listen to these cassettes back then religiously, simultaneously for study and clues for what to do next but also just out of amazement that we were suddenly playing in our own favorite band, doing a kind of music we had only dreamed somebody might do someday.”

You can listen to the Down There version of “That’s What You Always Say” and “Some Kinda Itch” live below.

It’s funny how over the years you reinvent a fictionalized history of your past, amended, and reinforced repeatedly until it becomes a brand-new fact, ripe and ready for further revisionism. And for a band with as long and continuously revisited a history as my band The Dream Syndicate, there has been plenty of time for deviation from the original story.

The retelling of the story has hardly been willful or clever, although Karl Precoda and I used to delight in telling journalists that we met at Dodger Stadium, overhearing the other talk about cool rock bands or that we originally set out to be a party band called Hot Rocks that would cover said Rolling Stones album start to finish (the latter was true for about the time it took to consume one tumbler of whiskey at a local bar).

Instead, I’ve found myself buying the myth, investing in the easy narrative of a band that had a shockingly quick impact with a universally beloved debut EP and LP and took it from there. There are stories told in interviews over the last 40 years, songs mutated in performances in those same decades, memories absentmindedly trimmed, sanitized, remade, remodeled.

But hearing these bonus tracks of live and rehearsal performances of The Dream Syndicate, culled by Pat Thomas from the cassette collection of Dennis Duck, I remember things about that band and what we were doing in 1982 that I had long since forgotten. We would actually listen to these cassettes back then religiously, simultaneously for study and clues for what to do next but also just out of amazement that we were suddenly playing in our own favorite band, doing a kind of music we had only dreamed somebody might do someday.

– Steve Wynn

The Dream Syndicate, History Kinda Pales When It and You Are Aligned: The Days Of Wine and Roses (4CD edition)

Disc 1: The Days of Wine and Roses + Down There EP
1. “Tell Me When It’s Over”
2. “Definitely Clean”
3. “That’s What You Always Say”
4. “Then She Remembers”
5. “Halloween”
6. “When You Smile”
7. “Until Lately”
8. “Too Little, Too Late”
9. “The Days of Wine and Roses”
10. “Sure Thing” (Down There EP)
11. “That’s What You Always Say” (Down There EP)
12. “When You Smile” (Down There EP)
13. “Some Kinda Itch” (Down There EP)

Disc 2: Even More Hot Rocks (No Hits & Out of Phase Cookies)
1. “That’s What You Always Say” (15 Minutes / 7-Inch Single Version)
2. “Last Chance For You” (15 Minutes / 7-Inch Single Version)
3. “Too Little, Too Late” (Rehearsal Version, 1981)
4. “Definitely Clean” (Rehearsal Version, 1981)
5. “Is It Rolling, Bob?” (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
6. “A Reason” (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
7. “Like Mary” (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
8. “Outside the Dream Syndicate” (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
9. “Last Chance For You” (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
10. Unknown song with lyrics (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
11. “Some Kinda Itch” (Live at KPFK, 1982)
12. “Open Hour” (Live at KPFK, 1982)

Disc 3: Crackling Noises OK — Do Not Correct
1. “Until Lately” (Live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, CA, 1982)
2. “Sure Thing” (Live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, CA, 1982)
3. “Then She Remembers” (Live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, CA, 1982)
4. “It’s Gonna Be Alright” (Live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, CA, 1982)
5. “Halloween” (Live)
6. “That’s What You Always Say” (Live)
7. “Sure Thing” (Live)
8. “Definitely Clean” (Live)
9. “Too Little, Too Late” (Kendra vocal) (Live)
10. “When You Smile” (Live)
11. “Some Kinda Itch” (Live)
12. “That’s What You Always Say” (Rehearsal Version)
13. “Road Runner” (Rehearsal Version)
14. “Instrumental” (Rehearsal Version)

Disc 4: Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be
1. “Tell Me When It’s Over” (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
2. “That’s What You Always Say” (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
3. “Sure Thing” (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
4. “Then She Remembers” (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
5. “Halloween” (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
6. “Definitely Clean” (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
7. “When You Smile” (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
8. “Days of Wine and Roses” (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
9. “Halloween” (Backstage, Tucson, AZ, 1982)
10. “Definitely Clean” (Backstage, Tucson, AZ, 1982)
11. “That’s What You Always Say” (Backstage, Tucson, AZ, 1982)
12. “Folsom Prison Blues” (Backstage, Tucson, AZ, 1982)
13. “Until Lately” (Backstage, Tucson, AZ, 1982)
14. “Some Kinda Itch” (Backstage, Tucson, AZ, 1982)
15. “Piece of My Heart” (Backstage, Tucson, AZ, 1982)