HW - The album, the whole album and nothing but the album

[ANDREW GARIBALDI]

30th Mar (or whatever day it is - I get lost with these wek things....),
Doug Pearson scribed:
 Me, I love 'Text of Festival' because the
jam on disc 2 of the vinyl set is IMO one of the most incredibly
psychedelic jams *ever* recorded, sound quality be damned!  I'll state
the
painfully obvious in saying, if that crap can be reissued again and
again
and again, why the *#&%R^ can't at least one of the releases have the
whole
album on it?!?
------------------
Well, ignoring the fact that it has now become painfully obvious that
the reason I hated the 'G'bury '90 so much is because I don't have
living room full of equipment, that equates more to NASA HQ than a
living room, in order to process ny CD's, let me just explain for anyone
that doesn't know, that Dave Anderson never realised that the original
release of 'Text' on CD, did not have the final side of the vinyl on it.
Much later, coming to last year, he re-licensed the album to a label
called Dressed To Kill, who were supposed to release a five-album box
set of the Demi-Monde material with 'Text' taking up two CD's, restoring
the missing stuff. But, surprise, surprise, it came out as a 4-CD set
(forgotten the title) with 'Text' as a single CD. I called Dave
(Anderson) to see why this was and he was dead annoyed 'coz it should
have been the full thing and it turns out that the guys at Magnum, who
distribute and have a lot to do with the Demi-Monde stuff, never knew
what was missing in the first place, and just carried on with the
original master. So, Dave came up with the idea  of doing an EP just of
the missing stuff, changed his mind, and decided to get Magnum/DTK to
redo the 5 CD set. So, guess what came out - yep, another 4 CD set (in
fact the same one) now retitled and repackaged and called 'Entire and
Infinite History of Hawkwind' or something like that, but still without
the missing stuff.
I gave up.
Then, months later, lo and behold we find that the Demi-Monde material
was coming out yet again, this time across two new double CD's, and
restoring the entire 'Text' album onto CD. Distributed by Pinnacle this
time, and with the music actually remastered by Dave ('don't expect
miracles' was the quote I got), all looked well when the first double
was sold in by Pinnacle and actually came out. So, we waited eagerly for
'Vol 2'...and waited....and waited...and waited.
Nothing - not a sausage!!!!
We're still waiting.
Maybe this saga will end one day, but if you want a story of how to get
something so wrong as to defy belief, this one has to take the biscuit.
Hope you all appreciate this little slice of the history of Hawkwind
retail and the pitfalls that can pursue the average dealer (next time
I'll tell you about the aborted BBC Sessions album if you ask me
nicely).
Andy G.