The Joker (demo) by Dark Company.
Album: Signmaker
Bonus track!

Fun Facts:
* This song is very closely related to Armed & Dangerous as they both share the same tune in the verses.
* George considered this tune-sharing conundrum a challenge and set about making this song and Armed & Dangerous appear to not be all that similar after all.
* The tempo is 138BPM and the key is B minor.
* George composed and recorded a demo of the guitar part whilst looking through Pete's lyric book during a marathon 72-hour session of studio work.
* Ben recorded the drums at the same time as George’s guide guitar track, which was played on the Ice Maiden plugged straight into the mixing desk.
* George was attempting to give directions to Ben throughout their performance.
* When Pete laid down a guide vocal track, Simon was rehearsing his trumpet parts in the background.
* If you listen carefully, you can hear little snatches of his horn being picked up by the vocal mic.
* Some of it is rather wonderful.
* George then added a guide bass track on the Plank, which in those days was tuned as a standard bass guitar.
* The bassline was unplanned until its recording, and has since become a main feature of the song.
* There is a touch too much trigger flange across the cymbals and liberal amounts of delays from the Alesis Quadraverb in this rather fun and dubby mix.
* Even the click track makes a tastefully calculated occasional appearance!
* It is not certain why this recording of The Joker was never finished.
* We felt that it has a curious merit all of its own, despite a few musical blunders.
* This demo version of The Joker was first included on the Signmaker album for its first re-release, in March 1992.
* There is a subsequent version of The Joker by Dark Company on their Alien Heat album.
* When Pete became too ill to perform in 1994, his replacement Andy would sometimes sing different and rather comical lyrics.