First of all, I apologize to people for being so late in working on another blog post. I just needed to relax, listen to music and read during the interim of my birthday. I needed something resembling normal considering I have some upcoming things happening next year.
Anyway, before I dive in, I notice that a lot of people have been checking two old posts of mine from earlier this year when I immersed myself into writing bootleg series proposals for The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and various artists. For those of you who don’t know, I wote those posts because I felt like I had needed to for a couple of years in some form online. More importantly though, I wrote those posts specifically early this year because I was having to do something in the wake of the incredible sorrow I was going through after having put Sheba to sleep back in March.
I am writing this music post tonight for both people who have known me and for those of you who are members of the Hoffman Forum with whom I’ve come to depend on so much. I hope I’m going to give both parties something at least slightly new to what I’ve been posting at the forum. It is over here that I can really let loose a little bit more.
-The Rolling Stones Official Bootleg Series Announcement: It’s official now. The Rolling Stones are now actually doing an official bootleg series. This is a dream come true for me. But I hope you guys are going to try to make every effort to get this series to go past the 6 shows number that has been bantied about. This involves being very vocal about it on internet forums and e-mailing the new StonesArchive.com website about this. Hell, I already threw in my opening salvo. I wanted to know if CDs are, in fact, going to be a part of the equation.
Look at this this way, people. If the Stones have a tape storage facility that is the size of a football field, you’d think that there’s more than 6 shows in there which are worthy of release.
In my posts to the Hoffman Forum this evening concerning this announcement, there is one thing I’ve failed to mention. Will this series be limited to just the late Taylor Era show (post ’69-’70) and Ronnie Wood Era or do Mick and Keith have a few tapes from the Brian Jones Era that they own outright that they can release on this series?
I am not going to pretend that somebody in the Stones organization read my bootleg series proposals (although I hope somebody did since it is known that music industry people do read the Hoffman Forum). But I find it blatantly obvious that Jagger and Richards have known for years that fans have wanted the Brussels ’73 show to come out. And now here it is that this is the very show that they would announce as being the first one in a bootleg series. It also confirms to me that they damn well know what sections of eras were their peak years and shows they performed that proved to the world they were the best band on the planet on a given night. You can’t tell me they haven’t known all along.
Is it really about the upcoming 50th Anniversary celebration that caused this to finally happen?
I’ll tell you what jolted me once again this evening. It came 24 hours after the announcement of the series. It was the comments from Keith Richards in an interview somebody kindly posted over at the Hoffman Forum that really made me sit up and take notice. Richards has said he has put out the call to commence having Roonie and Charlie over to start working up their chops. But it really hit me like a ton of bricks tonight in reading that Keith has put out the invitation to Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor to join in on the proceedings. Where the hell did this incredible ray of sunshine come in to the world of The Rolling Stones in the last little while. I haven’t felt this dreamy about things concerning the band and the representation of their entity since the ’70s.
There is a sense of some kind of healing and forgiveness coming over this band. They say they are going to keep going until they drop. Is this a new chapter? Does this new chapter include Wyman and Taylor? Or is it a foreshadowing sign of a finality?
We’ve spent so many years living through the “this is the last tour” horseshit that this new spin on things from Richards has my head spinning.
Let’s add another thing into the works here, shall we? Producer Don Was is even lobbying for Mick & Keith to get started to working on Deluxe Editions of Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers soon. Former manager, Andrew Loog Oldham is clamoring for them to perform only the best tracks and deep tracks from their best albums at any new shows.
With the release of the Some Girls Deluxe Edition and the Some Girls In Texas ’78 DVD only a week away, they are certainly not forgetting Ronnie Wood in all of this. In fact, I find it very satisfying that they are releasing unrleased archive material from what many consider to be Ronnie’s best work on an album for the band a the best tour he ever did with them as well. We are getting the best of a lot of worlds here and it’s hard to not come away thinking that this is somehow too good to be a true-a dream, at that.
I’m not going to speculate about what could be the next show in the series. I’ve already listed a shitload of stuff over at my old blog post for the series proposal. You can check it out and see what I have listed there. All I’ll say is that if material had already been released on an official live album, it shouldn’t come out. A lot of those tracks, though worked on in the studio with overdubs, etc, it’s already ground covered. In the case of Love You Live, don’t have them do the stuff from The Forum in Inglewood in ’75. Let it be another strong ’75 candidate (like the Cow Palace shows in San Francisco like I mentioned in the old blog post). And don’t let the very same Paris ’76 show be used for a series. Believe it or not, the only exception I would make to this sort of rule is to release the entire El Mocambo-Toronto run from ’77.
This bootleg series though may be a sign of changes for me as well. If they don’t put out CDs in this series, then I’m not going to ahve any other choice but to upgrade my computer, get a high-speed internet connection and invest in an iPod and a really good sounding (if it’s possible-a misnomer perhaps?) iPod docker to go with it.
You see, Mick and Keith are doing a wonderful thing here. But if they stop at 6 shows, I’m going to end up eventually searching for shows from traders circles that I’ll want to download for myself to supplement what Mick & Keith have given me. In this regard, they need to hire a full-time tape archivist to prep shows for download and eventual CD release through some kind of exclusivity deal through their own website and/or Amazon. Between the whispers of the physical product landscape undergoing a radical change (at least here in the U.S. (my speculation by the way concerning the US of A) and the industry getting ready to go into specialized releases, there had better be a clear and well-thought out plan in place because I am counting on you music lovers out there to really be pushing hard for this series to live beyond the 6 titles initially being mentioned.
Somebody over at the Hoffman Board also mentioned something along the lines of a rumor of some sort that there may be a box set of unrelease studio tracks from over the years that’s going to be worked on as well. If that’s the case, it’s got to be material from the albums which have not gotten the Deluxe treatment yet.
God! It’s just so strange how we have gone from me bitching about their never being any archive stuff to pick up at all to a flood coming at us. Let’s put aside the arguements over the adding new vocals and some instrumentation to exisiting tracks like which was done for the Exile On Main St Deluxe Edition and for the upcoming Some Girls Deluxe Edition. God almighty, people! Let’s just enjoy this wave while we’ve got it. And don’t forget to do your part. A lot of us older guys want CDs. Let them know, o.k.?
-In Appreciation Of The The Past Years Work By The Sundazed Label: The great Sundazed label has really done an exceptional job this year of giving us some great titles. I am referring specifically to the run of great mono edition titles they’ve done. It’s really a blessing to us all to have dedicated mono mixes of albums that so many of us listened to back in the ’60s. For those of my old friends and acquaintances who are not well-versed, please let me explain why mono editions of albums are so revered.
Back when you were growing up back then, almost all of the albums you ever listened to prior to 1969 were in mono. Not all of you were living in households with stero consoles and systems. Most of the time, you were listening to music on a little system which had one speaker (usually one you pulled out of a box or was enclosed in carry-around unit). Well, one speaker gave you mono sound. Even if you played a stereo record on it, you were listening to something in mono.
Records were mixed back then for two distinct markets. You had stero LPs and then you had mono LPs. Stereo mixes had their own mixes. A lot of them were wide stereo mixes. Have you ever noticed, while listening to a ’60s stereo recording why the sound is so separated? That was part of the mixing process back then and it was a way of making people buy into the whole stereo concept. There were narrow stereo albums as well.
But mono mixes, if they were dedicated mono mixes, were made with the one speaker in mind. It was not designed to be wide. It was designed to be packed with punch. There were such things as mono fold-downs which were stereo mixes that were folded down to mono and with no variations in the mixes themselves. The release of the Beatles albums in he stereo and mono box sets are good examples of listening to the differences between stereo and dedicated mono mixes. There are cases where mono mix might feature instruements lower or higher in a mix to maximize impact or a philososphical feeling about what a mono mix should emphasize.
To start heading into the direction of Sundazed, let me ask you something. Have you ever noticed the difference in how the song “California Dreamin’” from The Mama’s and The Papa’s sounds? Back when you were living in the ’60s, you very likely heard the single on the radio. The likelihood is that you heard a dedicated mono mix. The version of the song you were hearing of the song back then made the middle flute part sound a little less out front in the mix and you got used to hearing that back in the day.
Over the years, on Classic Rock stations and A.M. oldies stations, you likely loved revisiting the song. As you were revisiting it, whether you heard it in mono or stereo, you very likely were hearing a version where the flute part in the middle was likely louder while everything else was more harsh sounding-including the fantastic vocals. When you were listening to an A.M. oldies station, you were likely listening to a stereo mix folded own to mono.
Well, Sundazed has taken the If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears album from The Mama’s and The Papa’s and restored the original dedicated mono mix which was considered the primary mix. This is the way producers, musicians and many fans remember the album. Sundazed has just released this baby in all of its original glory. And it’s a keeper considering that many Mama’s and the Papa’s mixdown masters were destroyed. Let’s hope Sundazed will reissue more of their albums in the original mono the way they were supposed to be heard.
They have done marvelous work on other albums as well that are stereo mixes too. The ones I’ve picked up speak for themselves and are gems. There’s the new Strawberry Alarm Clock-Incense And Peppermints album which features a young Ed King on guitar. Ed King would later go on to be in another little band and play a significant role in their first two albums. That little band was later to become known as Lynyrd Skynyrd.
They have also released the John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers first album (aka-The Beano album). I did not pick this one up because I have ther Steve Hoffman mastered Godl disc of the mono mix of the album. But they also released the A Hard Road album (with a young Peter Green-later of Fleetwood Mac fame) and the Crusade album (with a young Mick Taylor-later of Rolling Stones fame) in dedicated mono mixes. These albums are magnificent to listen to in mono and they make great complements to their stereo counterparts as you can tell differences between the two.
Back during the Summer, they also put out The Yardbirds-Little Games album which featured Jimmy Page in the sole guitar role. The only unfortunate thing with Sundazed is that you don’t get bonus tracks, but the stereo CD reissue counterparts of these albums do have them on Deluxe Editions. This does not hold true for the Mama’s and Papa’s album as, as far as I know, because I don’t believe there is a stereo version of the CD to be found. I’m not 100% sure anyway.
As an aside, since I am hearing impaired (and musical cosniderations not withstanding and something of which I love to immerse myself into), mono mixes are definitely easier for me to listen to for obvious reason when I am using headphones. Thanks to CD remastering over the years, I am able to listen to a lot of wide stereo mixes pretty much fine without straining to listen to parts wide and low on the stereo horizon. But there will still be some parts where I can’t hear much going on in that bad right ear of mine when I’m using headphones. I do not wear my hearing aids when I listen to music through headphones.
So, anyway, you can support the Sundazed label and know that you are getting something that has been lovingly worked on.
-Gregg Allman Clears Some Legal Hurdles For Future Allman Archive Projects: In the hoopla over a lot of news over the past few weeks, it almost got overlooked that Gregg Allman has apparently cleared some legal hurdles which is making it so that he is reissuing some old Allman Brothers titles-including one of the official bootlegs from the Duane Allman Era. The news also mentions that it will also clear the way for more stuff which hasn’t come out yet to surface. Anything involving Duane is cause for major celebration and it’s too bad that this news didn’t get more coverage than it did. I am hoping Rolling Stone Magazine and others of their ilk will do some further reporting on what we can expect in the future. Let’s hope that the unreleased Duane Years box set will finally see its way out finally. It’s pretty much criminal that this material hasn’t made it out yet. Start letting the people over at Hittin’ The Note to pass it along to Gregg that you want to start seeing more live shows and studio material from his late brother getting released.
Comment Or Two On The 40th Anniversary Box Set of Aqualung from Jethro Tull: It is almost unanimous over at a couple of music forums. The work which was done by Steven Wilson in subtley re-mixing as well as mastering the Aqualung album for standard CD and 5.1 mixes for the box (as well as Quad ) is considered possibly the best that has ever been done for the album. As a side note, I should say that the Steve Hoffman mastered DCC disc of the original mix is still a great piece of work because it is the definitve edition of the original mix. Not everybody knows that Hoffman was given something like only 3 days (yes, that little amount of time) to work on the album before he had to send the tapes back to Ian Anderson. Given the incredible duress that Hoffman had to work under, the job he did on the disc becomes all that much more miraculous once you get the full picture.
Wilson has taken an album which has never been considered an audiophile’s dream and pretty much almost made it one. The key ingredient is that he has added bass to the album when it never really had any in any form over the years. The original LP never had any low-end balls and the CD reissues never had any either. Wilson has breathed life back into this album.
People can debate over whether even a subtle re-mix is treading on sacred ground or not. I don’t believe that its even the point. Wilson did not take away from the original integrity of the album. He has given it a stronger soul. The sonic clarity brought to the album brings the ideas behind the songs into greater focus. I heard lyrics I’ve never heard in detail before in this presentation.
So, ladies. If you’re looking to buy box sets for your music loving husbands and you have 5.1 capabilities on your A/V systems, I seriously doubt your spouses or significent others will be complaining about this box of they are Jethro Tull fans.
And by the way, in looking through the book in the box, I never knew that Tull had played up in Corvallis at Gill Coliseum in October of ’70 before the album came out. It was a tour where they were beginning to perform some of the songs off of the album before it was released.
-John Prine-The Singing Postman Delivers: If any of you people love great songwriters, then you definitely need to pick up a new archive release from John Prine which just came out called The Singing Postman Delivers. This is prime (as in best era of his career) Prine as you will ever find. Why this thing only got a 3 and a half star rating in the latest issue of Rolling Stone has me baffled. It is 2 -discs of pure bliss. Maybe they docked it because you get some song repetition?
What you get from this album is directness by way of a radio studio recording in Chicago and a live gig that was taped by John himself and was sotred away in his garage for all of these years until his wife made him clean out the garage and he managed to uncover this little lost treasure. Both the radio studio cuts and the live stuff are from 1970 and from before John cut his first album. And let me tell you something. It sounds as fresh as it must have been to witness him back then. The versions of “Sam Stone” on these two discs alone will tear your heart out.
I had the great honor of seeing this guy perform on a double bill with Cowboy Junkies back in 1992 when they were touring together. The man kept me riveted. the beautiful thing about his brand of songwriting is that he manages to find the simpler things in people which lead a path to the profound. He’s got this uncanny ability in this regard. He makes us see the parts of us that we have a hard time seeing a good chunk of the time. This release will make you appreciate this gift of his he has. I’m not terribly fond of CDs in slip-cases, but that’s a reality in this day and age of eco-packaging. I prefer trays. But this is great stuff to own.
Anyway, I’ve spent a good chunk of my write hammering out this long post for all of you. I will get around to writing about my old days again. It’s just that this 4th Quarter of music has caused me to be thinking about a lot of music issues. I have a FB friend who has inferred to me that I should never write about the experiences I had on the Tunnel of Love Express Tour of Bruce Springsteen back in 1988. She says that those people aren’t worth thinking about again. She has a point. But if I don’t tell that story someday down the line, you may not understand some of why I have turned out like I have and what has been a part of the growth in life.
I hope this stuff didn’t overwhelm you. But music is my life.
Tags: aqualung 40th anniversary box set, brussels affair '73, cowboy junkies, eric clapton, jethro tull, jimmy page, john mayall, john mayall's bluesbreakers, john prine, mick taylor, peter green, rolling stones official bootleg series, sundazed label, tape storage, the mama's and the papa's, the rolling stones, the yardbirds
