Hi Maarten,
Yes, you are right about the tenacity of a collector! I found the images some years ago online. I haven’t checked but I think it could have been from Dominique Boile via Dr Guy’s old site. Update - I've just done a quick search to confirm that and I can't but I did find this interesting scenario -
https://lithub.com/interview-with-a-boo ... -two-owls/
What’s the craziest situation you’ve ever had to deal with in the store?
Just in case you didn’t know, we almost were the only public place that played in a world premiere event “Helen’s Theme, Incidental Music” by Leonard Cohen.
The story goes: two years back, an event was set to launch the second edition of a book on Leonard Cohen written by Mircea Mihăieș, a literary critic and a literature professor at the Faculty of Letters in Timișoara. A week before the event, he found a cassette that was given to him by Leon Wieseltier with homemade recordings by Leonard Cohen for his album, “The Future.” On the cassette, there was a song called “Helen’s Theme, Incidental Music,” that later became “Tacoma Trailer.”
He brought the cassette and we managed to find a cassette player (thanks to our friend Mircea). We tested it out by listening to a minute of one song, being too scared of doing any damage to the cassette. Then, we wrote a new press release and we posted the news in the Facebook event.
The day of the event, the bookstore was full. That’s when something crazy happened. We were playing the cassette when Mr. Mihăieș said, ”It’s not this song,” playing it forward. He repeated it – “it’s not this song,” “it’s not this song,” so on so forth until he said, ”That’s it, we don’t have the song, thank you for coming tonight.”
A couple of weeks later, he called us and said: “Listen to this.” It was the song, but on the other side of the tape.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the cassette tape. I wonder how many Columbia/Sony Music made or handed out?
I'm guessing you are right and now reading the above quote, the songs on it are extremely likely to be the same as on the released album. But being the eternal optimist that I am, maybe there's a very small chance a few of them could be different versions as on the 1991-1992 Be For Real - The Future demo tape:
Democracy (there actually exists 3 or 4 outtake or versions of it somewhere)
Closing Time (recorded in 3/4 time with a really strong, nostalgic, melancholy country feel with entirely different words)
The Future (early version called If You Could See What’s Coming Next but maybe not recorded)
Be For Real (probably the same)
There were earlier versions of (The) Anthem and Waiting For The Miracle but I very much doubt they would be on this cassette tape.
Anyway, as you say, you will soon find out! I wonder if I could too
If that’s possible please let me know or better still if by some microscopic miracle there are actually different versions, I’d love to hear them!
Also Helen's Theme of course!
And you take care up there in your part of the world too!
during an Interview in 1992 "The Future Radio Special" from a special CD released by Sony music.