More recent aquisitions

Fifty Foot Hose - Cauldron.





This is just the latest in what is turning out to many a re-issue on CD of this LP. Very rare 60's psychedelic out of San Fransisco they had a very similar sound on par w/ the likes of Joe Byrd & The Field Hippies



& The United States Of America.



This time around Big Beat (CDWICK158) out of England own the tapes & put out a very nice package that includes demo recordings of most of the LP as bonus material. Known for their compilations & box sets (They did a excellent Zombies set a few years ago) this is the latest release in their "Nuggets From The Golden State" line. Past issues have included original EP releases of Country Joe & The Fish, Frumious Bandersnatch, Mad River & Notes From The Underground. Good sound although not remastered by any means this is a great example of what good psychedelic music is.

During its existence IA released 12 albums and 39 singles and was owned by a group of businessmen in Houston. Among its staff were producer Lelan Rogers, brother of country singer Kenny Rogers. The label is famous for its roster of well-known Texas psychedelic rock bands, including The 13th Floor Elevators, The Red Crayola and Bubble Puppy, as well as lesser known bands such as The Golden Dawn, Lost And Found and Endle St. Cloud. International Artists also released an album by blues guitarist Lightnin' Hopkins that featured session work by the 13th Floor Elevators' rhythm section. The label didn't last long. A total of 12 LP's & 38 45 singles was all to be had.

Nice little history from a very cool label. All of it was top notch music & prime examples of Texas Psychedelic were in mass abundance here. This issue of Power Plant By The Golden Dawn is the second issue on CD. (The first being on Charley out of England.) No bonus material to speak of but sound qualities excels. This is a rarity in CD's where the CD may actually sound better then the original LP issue. Glad I found this as there appears to be word that the entire I.A. catalog will be re-issued here soon & there appears to be a limited to 3,000 copies 10 CD Box Set of The 13TH Floor Elevators (The most famous I.A. recording group) called Sign Of The Three Eyed Men. See previous link for more info in case someone wants to buy me an early Christmas present. :)

Latest aquisitions.

This is a killer of a find! All nine (one is a double CD release) studio recordings by Magma in one huge box set. Bonus discs (2 of them) include unreleased material bringing the total disc count up to 12. The set came out Dec. 8 of 2008 & I had not found a copy until now. Let's just say that where I live isn't the cultural hub of the world. Issued on LE CHANTE DU MONDE (release #90832) & at the cost of $125.00 this was no cheap or easy find. Distributed by The Laser's Edge I am surprised one turned up in these parts at all as they are a relatively small speciality type company. The CD's they do carry are all high quality items such as Walter Wegmuller Tarot (w/ The Cosmic Jokers), Klaus Schulze (entire catalog), Peter Michael Hamel (Solo. No Between to be found.) & The Bevis Frond. (Latest only.) Whether it's Progressive jazz, progressive folk, progressive rock or progressive metal you'll find it carried by The Laser's Edge.



The music reminds me of a cross between The Residents (mid period) & Goblin. (Dario Argento Tenebre period). Odd, esoteric sounds mixed in w/ rhythmic jazz fusion. Magma refers to this as Zeuhl Music. (As also the whole scene that grew around them.) The lyrics are a completely different story as they are written in a language refered to as Kobaïan. Written by Christian Vander he uses this language to tell the story of a group of people fleeing a doomed Earth to settle on the planet Kobaïa. Later, conflict arises when the Kobaïans — descendants of the original colonists — encounter other Earth refugees. Later albums told different stories set in more ancient times; however the Kobaïan language remained an integral part of the music.

Breif dictionary

more on Zeuhl Music

& here's a bit that appears on the back of one of my miscellaneous flyer's for the release of Üdü Wüdü....

Our world - many centuries into the future, after society as we know it has decayed to a spiritually void chaos of degradation.

Space travel and colonization has become commonplace. A handful of enlightened Earth people seeking a better existence, finance the construction of a private spacecraft and leave the planet in search of a world where a new, more spiritually guided civilization can be born.

After a long and hazardous journey they find that new home on the distant planet Kobaïa, where the party settles and begins the long process of building a new society according to their vision. They learn how to live in harmony with their new surroundings while attaining a high degree of technological advancement.

A foreign spaceship gets into orbital difficulties over Kobaïa, a ship manned by a crew from Earth. The rescued astronauts tell of the continued degeneration and disasters that have afflicted Earth, and at the same time are impressed with the ecological, scientific, philosophical and societal progress that the Kobaïans have made. They request the Kobaïans visit Earth and attempt to propagate their philosophy in order to save society from its certain destruction. After some deliberation, a small party agrees to accompany the stranded visitors on their journey home.

They arrive back on Earth to a seemingly friendly welcome. The people listen to the stories of the establishment and growth of Kobaïan civilization, to their philosophy and ideas for the betterment of life on Earth through purification and spiritual enlightenment. But after airing these ideas at a meeting with the Earth authorities, the Kobaïans are promptly imprisoned and their spacecraft is impounded. A message is sent to Kobaïa, and a rescue effort is begun.

The rescue party offers the Earth authorities the choice of releasing the imprisoned Kobaïans, or facing certain destruction by their ultimate weapon. The prisoners are promptly released, and although they vow never to return, their visit is to be remembered by the few they came in contact with. Their ideas are secretly preserved and passed on for future generations.

We are here introduced to the story of the Theusz Hamtaahk (Time Of Hatred) which concerns the time on Earth between the Kobaïan visit and the celestial march for enlightenment led by Nebehr Gudahtt - a spiritualist who's blatantly Kobaïan message is that the only salvation from an ultimate and certain doom is through self purification and communion with the divine spirit of the supreme being, the Kreuhn Kohrman.

At first Gudahtt is rejected, and the people march against him - but as they march they begin to question their very existence and purpose. One by one they begin to see Kobaïan truth, slowly reaching enlightenment, and begin to march with him instead of against him.

If you have the time & a little scratch burning a hole in your pocket them may I recommend the following discs as a place to start.

Udu Wudu (1976)





Buy disc here.

Attahk (1977)



Buy disc here.

Merci (1984)



Buy disc here.

Happy Birthday George Harrison.

On the BBC in 1975 there was a show called Rutland Weekend Television starring Neil Innes (Ex- Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) and Eric Idle. (Ex-Python). Here is an appearance by George that makes it's way around the audio bootleg market every so often. I think the last time I saw it was on a Vigotone re-pop (well.....at least mine is being on CD-R & all) of a boot called Pirate Songs.

Lego boredom..................

Here's some fine examples of creative boredom. Obviously a Beatles fan..............

Understanding the mastering wars..........

From what I can gather the mastering process has taken a turn for the worse............ actually......I dunno if I can call it a "mastering" at all.

In the final stages of making a recording (i.e. LP, Cassette, CD ET AL.....) generally the artist(s) will sit down w/ the producer(s) & go over all the different mixes of the songs & first decide which ones they like best. Then they choose how to mix the song....... "Do I want the guitar the most prominent in the mix or do I want the vocals?"........ "Put more echo on the bass." ............. "MORE COWBELL!!!" Stuff like that. They then mix the track to their preference. Now comes the final step. Mastering. Mastering the mix means you've taken all the elements & put them together to make a song. Your vocal track along w/ your bass track along w/ your kazoo track.......... you get the idea. Now here comes the final bit that I don't understand. It sounds like the producer is taking the final track & boosting the lows of the song & in the process burying the highs........... here.........watch this............



It sounds like that they are taking the track & applying a sort of normalization process. But instead of making a track sound even keeled this process is jacking up the volume on the track & in the process losing the low end feel.......... sort of like a loud MP3. the only difference is an MP3 cuts the unused information off the left & right sides of the track (unfortunately killing off the "feel" of the track) this new method of mastering a track is squashing away the top end of a track.

Thankfully this only seems to apply to CD's that have come out in the past couple of years. I've heard complaints of the latest Eagles CD suffering from this. Also heard complaints of the last batch of Iron Maiden re-issues being re-issued like this. (Which means this also extends to remasters as well.........more on that in a bit.) The worst case right now seems to be the latest CD by Metallica. Death Magnetic. When it first came out there were tons of returns by fans who thought their CD's were somehow defective. They were not. This is actually how thew band wanted to put out their music. See, before their CD came out they released a version of the mix offer to the lovely folks who put together the audio for Guitar Hero. This mix of the CD sounds great! So great in fact there are people out there capturing the audio from the game & mixing their own versions of the CD & posting them to Bit Torrent sites.

Demonoid

Pirate's Bay

You've got tons of people offering their version of the mix. There's the Moderus Remaster (2 different versions by this person), DeathMagnetic, DECEiFER, There's the Covax version, the Original Bamboozy version, Darksound.............. the list goes on & on for a total of 46 separate torrents............ & Pirate's Bay was worse........... it showed 8 pages of the stuff!!!!!!!!!!! & this is just one side of the coin......... some even got so pissed they started a online petition about it.

Here's the info on the petition.

& here's the petition itself.

Now.......... after all that here is an audio comparison of the audio CD & the Guitar Here rip.



If you watch the waveforms in the examples you can see there is a huge difference in them. The CD waveform is flat. (No hills & valleys. No peaks. No ebb & flow.) The Guitar Hero version has ups & downs thus allowing the music to have subtle nuances that the CD version can not. There's (once again) to me more feeling in the G.H. version for that single reason. NOT EVERYTHING IS BLASTED IN MY FACE. I can control the volume at which I want to hear the music at. Which is preferably a volume at which I can hear everything........ not just the blaring loud but the soft as well. Imaging hearing Ouverture Solennelle, L'Année 1812, Op. 49 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. You would blow your speakers every time a cannon went off! & folks....there are 16 cannon shots written into this piece.

Now back to Iron Maiden. It seems that the Reissue department of CD's are suffering from the same effect. Claiming on the package that they have gone back to the original masters, cleaned them up & now here they are in all their glory when this statement fails to be true on so many levels. Remastering a reissue is very tricky. Paul McCartney & Wings Band On The Run failed. George Harrison's All Things Must Pass is a mess. Pink Floyd's remaster of the Mono mix of Piper's At The Gates Of Dawn sounds wonderful! But they remixed the CD for Mono. It in essence is a new Mono mix. Not the original Mono mix. (They cheated as you'll read below. They made a digital master of a new mono mix thus eliminating the analogue to digital realm on a master level altogether.) It is hard to get right. The Hawkwind reissues from 8 years ago got it right! 25 years has parts of the song brought out in such a clarity that now I can hear that it's a voice in the background not guitar manipulation as once suspected. Now the process in which most CD plants fail. You are talking about making a new analogue master. Not a new digital master. From the dawn of studio recording to the mid nineties the recording method of choice was tape. TAPE, TAPE, TAPE!!!! Tape is an analogue source. No "0's" & "1's" but a waveform. The proper way would be to make a new analogue to digital mix from the tapes & master that. It seems that when they say they went back to the original tapes they are referring to the first analogue mix. Not the original tapes. The original tapes would be the mulit-tracks. Pre-mixed tapes............. bass on one track. Guitar on another........... they would need to go back to those & re-mix it for the CD realm. Instead they are taking a mix designed to sound optimal on analogue equipment & adding emphasis on the entire disc to "clean" it up & there you go folks. In my opinion they even may be taking the above mastering process & just applying that theory across the board to encompass ALL releases..........old or new. If this is the case they are in for a big surprise.

There is a growing desire out there for some of the original mixes on the first wave of CD's. Led Zeppelin on the Warner Bros./ Swan Song target CD. Sony plain silver tops w/ the "One Eye". Black Triangle Japanese issue Pink Floyd. These prime examples are being posted & downloaded at a high rate due to one huge factor. They were transferred at a flat setting. No high, no low, no emphasis, no normalization. Just Equalizer set to "0" across the board. Meaning you, the purchaser could take said disc home........ put it on........& judge for yourself how you want to hear the song. Just by playing w/ your equalizer settings you could make it bass heavy........... or make it as trebly as a pre-pubescent boy's voice.

Even The Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab mixes are making a comeback. While these have never really sounded all that great to me there is a resurgence in popularity on these titles for the same reason as above. The master tapes were cleaned up & a flat transfer was made. The only difference between these & the first generation CD is once the initial transfer was made another transfer was made from that transfer. One utilizing deepend bass & cleaner highs. Not to the extent that CD's are issued in now............. we'll call M.F.S.L. discs the middle of the road if you will.............

In the long run the majors need to clean up their act............. loud is not better. What would be better is to be given a choice on how I want to hear the music I purchase. Not the way the producer(s) do(es).

Update....

This is the latest mix by Disastro!

Round 2

Well..............since I can not for the life of me remember the password to my other blog.......& since I now have time again (work has dropped down to 40 hour weeks) I think I am going to give this another shot. Let's see if I can get more then 1 or 2 posts up here this time.

This blog is going to be about whatever I acquired over the course of a week or so that excited me the most.

This week I am going to split things up a bit..... as I am all whacked out form Vicodin my dentist prescribed me due to an extraction of the #13 molar & will be lucky if anything I post makes any sense.

The first thing is I have a friend named Disastro who is posting mix CD's of tracks he's diggin' at this moment. I have downloaded them all & I couldn't recommend them more to anyone looking to find some new sounds. He's flipped my whig on lots of things in the past & has never let me down so go here......

Disastro's Mix Tapes

Second thing is I FINALLY learned how to use PowerISO to convert a FLAC'ed CD into separate tracks using the .cue sheet.................. annoying it is but as some of my archives are in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) it was a necessary evil. Guess you have to convert the single FLAC file into a single .WAV file THEN apply the .cue sheet. Whatever..............

OK...... now to the meat of all this. I am not sure what I want to delve into this week. Was thinking of discussing The Golden Dawn............. or The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band..........but realized that the only reason I wanted to was they were both files I was able to convert. So maybe next time..........

I think this week is going to be The Chocolate Watchband..............not just because they were damn good.......... & not because they have a goofy "food" name. (Will touch upon The Strawberry Alarm Clock & The Electric Prunes some other time.) But because their latest re-issue "Melts In Your Brain.....Not On Your Wrists" (2005 Big Beat U.K. 2 CD's) really just pisses me off. Right from the start it has got to be one of the most inane titles out there............... I mean......c'mon.............. They should have titled it something less silly like "The Complete Recordings" since that is what it is. This is the only thing the set has going for it in fact.............. there is no new info on the band in the liner notes. No recently discovered "Lost in the vaults" tracks. No "Never before seen photographs".
What there is in fact is pretty standard. All 3 of their Tower Records plus singles on 2 discs.

The only bonus the buyer gets is that the original lead singer David Aguilar came in & re-recorded 3 vocal tracks (Let's Talk About Girls, Medication & 'Til The End Of The Day) after the original vocal track was wiped by producer Ed Cobb & replaced (intentionally) by singer Don Bennett. Yes, this is a very crappy thing to do but the new vocals add nothing to the songs. This is not how people remember hearing those songs & I have only listened to them once. (They do nothing for me.) Neat idea? Yes. Except for the fact that 15 years previously there was a budget label (long gone) called Europium out of the U.K. that was doing that very same thing. Only they were taking the lead singer.....say Reg Presley of The Troggs (I had this disc) & playing an instrumental version of the song while Reg re-cut the vocals. Then they would issue said disc as a cheap best of...... needless to say this practice didn't last very long. Unfortunately Ed Cobb set the tone for the bands releases as on all 3 of their LP's (No Way Out, Inner Mystique & One Step Beyond) feature different musicians calling themselves "The Chocolate Watchband".

They did, at least, give some credit where credit was due by denoting that "Blues Theme" & "Loose Lip Synk Ship" are performed by "The Hogs", "Inner Mystique" & Voyage Of The Trieste" are performed by "The Yo-Yoz" & "Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go" is performed by "The Inmates". Once I went thru both discs I just ended up cutting up the CD's into the original issue 3 LP's & slap on the singles as bonus tracks. Then returned the set.

Reissue labels really need to be very careful when messing w/ the customers memories. I think Big Beat blew it on this one. Everything was out of order & spread out over 2 discs only made it worse. No new pics, no new info, no unreleased tracks. Just re-recorded vocals & plenty of disarray. (Waste of time.)

Tho they didn't blow it as bas as Capitol did when The Beatles CD's first came out into the market. They put the UK versions out ONLY. The US versions of the LP's were very different then the UK versions & when The UK CD's came out there was mass confusion w/ the US buying public. The names of the CD's were different........the pics were different............. & some (if not most) of the tracks were different. Some people even thought that The Beatles had put out new material. On the other end of the spectrum we have EMI who issued Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut". They did put a bonus track on it. Which is very odd for Pink Floyd to do as they are very stingy w/ releasing anything from their vaults. But they stuck the song ("When The Tigers Broke Free" [from the movie "The Wall"]) in the middle of the track line up. Bad move guys. This may just be where the song would fit for you but is not how the LP now flows............. especially after listening to it for 25 years now. Bad juju.............just bad juju...........