Tracklist

Side A 01	Untitled
Side A 02	Untitled
Side A 03	Untitled
Side A 04	Untitled
Side A 05	Untitled
Side B 01	Untitled
Side B 02	Untitled
Side B 03	Untitled

Notes

Here another tape from Madonna’s early days. Courtesy from a friend who was around at the time in the NYC punk scene. As written on the label, is a set from the Breakfast Club band, so I assume it has been recorded around 1979 / 1980. The label doesn’t offer too many details, so I try to describe its content but without a chance of being too accurate. It seems a rehearsal set; typical room-sound performances we’re all familiar with in known tracks like “Remembering Your Touch” or “Are You Ready for It”. It features all unknown tracks, and exact titles remain a mystery since the card doesn’t help.

A side features a double set: tracks 1 - 3 resemble a session or more sessions collected with Dan Gilroy as lead singer with Madonna on back vocals (and most likely playing drums or guitar). Track 3 is an instrumental. Then an audience, not professional live recording is attouched (with no Madonna vocals audible) (tracks 4 & 5). They may be from the CBGB’s or either Bo’s Space gigs, who knows?

B side is the highlight: tracks 1-3 are rehearsal takes with Madonna as the lead vocalist. Still 3 unknown / undocumented songs. Studio talk can be heard briefly in between tracks.

Musical style is close to the post-punk rock we can hear in known recordings from the "Emmy" band, even if with differences: we have no trace here of "rop" music Madonna seemed to like at the time the most.
I notice here a heavier use of percussions not found on more "recent" pre-fame Madonna recordings.

This tape looks like a collection of rehearsal takes, all not recorded professionally but ambient-like recs; bits of “stop & go” in tape recording and difference of quality among tracks interrupt the flow of the listening.

We can consider this (and the other tapes) a release because pre-fame material from artists and band were usually distributed for the sake of promotion and consideration to producers, managers, radio stations, record labels and mostly club-owners (Madonna & the Gilroys were desperately searching for gigs to be booked in this phase). They wanted to showcase their sound and their compostions. The Gotham tape by Madonna was distributed exactly this way. The 1979 Acoustic demo tapes were distributed among friends and eligible band members to let the music to be learnt.

Barcode and Other Identifiers

• Other: C-60