HW: Voiceprint, and How do you like your Hawkwind sir?

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 03:21:21PM -0400, Doug Pearson typed out:
> Truly a pleasure to discuss these issues with you ...

        If only I was on top of my mail enough that the exhange didn't
take a month and a half...

> On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 15:08:11 +0100, Jonathan Jarrett
> <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK> wrote:
> >On Wed, Jun 26, 2002 at 05:19:55PM -0400, Doug Pearson typed out:
> >> Why would you blame Voiceprint?  Their only alternative would be to
> >> refuse to release whatever material is deemed "sub-standard" ...
> >
> >        Well, mostly I blame Voiceprint because I think they're a bunch of
> >cowboys, in that their releases show a minimum of care and effort only
> >undercut by Oz-IT,
>
> ... who just (finally!) released Captain Beefheart's 'Bat Chain Puller'
> sessions on CD, so you will NOT hear me complain one word about that label!

        Mmm. I heard dubious things about that release. Thanks to Google
Groups I can repost them, too. You will find in alt.fan.capt-beefheart, or
you would if it hadn't long expired, this message:

>From: "JWB" <mudshark at intergrafix.net>
>Newsgroups: alt.fan.capt-beefheart
>Subject: Dust Sucker.....SUCKS!
>Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 10:26:05 -0500
>Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
>Message-ID: <ua6d8vk73ho209 at corp.supernews.com>
>Reply-To: "JWB" <mudshark at intergrafix.net>
>References: <jTKm8.4639$bh1.393400 at news11-gui.server.ntli.net> <3C9C518B.3ACA2B45 at tonyburke.net>
>
>Sorry, folks.
>
>I got my copy today and I have to say that it's quite poor.
>
>The "Bat Chain Puller" album is definitely from a new, unbootlegged source.
>(The reel-to-reel pictured inside?)
>
>....but it sounds like a 4th or 5th generation cassette dub. The bootleg
>version that is coupled with the mono "Safe As Milk" sounds VASTLY
>superior. THAT bootleg was supposedly mastered from an original promo
>cassette...the one that was released in Europe.
>
>That promo cassette would have been a much better source than the shitty
>piece of oxide used here.
>
>To add insult to injury...there is a 3-second gap of dead silence in-
>between every song. The tracks do not "fade out". So you hear
>"hisssssssssss.......silence........hisssssssssssss". This disc was
>"remastered by Owith Sahmet". Good job Owith!
>
>The blatant hype and incorrect information in the booklet is just
>plain....insulting. "The Captain's original master tapes" my asshole.
>
>The live tracks come with no information. The unientified version of
>"Bat Chain Puller" sounds superb. I don't know which show "Flavor Bud
>Living" comes from either. Anybody know? I'm sure that all of the
>bonus tracks are stolen from other bootlegs.
>
>Three other live cuts are from the NYC '78 show...but they are taken
>from a poor-sounding, off-speed bootleg instead of the MASTER TAPE
>that was released by Rhino.

        Here he refers to _I'm Gonna Do What I'm Gonna Do: live at My
Father's Place 1978_ on Rhino Handmade which is quite fun; I got it
along with _St Cecilia_. The trombone is a bit loud but it's clear
enough. And the encore comes on a separate 3" mini-CD so you have to
love that. But I digress...

>These "Milksafe" people put off an air of "Beeheartian scholar"....but
>in fact they don't seem to know SHIT.
>
>Why am I the only person here who seems to think this?
>
>This release is surprisingly poor, even by "bootleg" standards.
>
>Don't be fooled.
>
>- JWB

        And later this:

>From: "JWB" <mudshark at intergrafix.net>
>Newsgroups: alt.fan.capt-beefheart
>Subject: For Teejo (Dust Sucker)
>Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 01:09:34 -0500
>Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
>Message-ID: <ua811it9lpfn15 at corp.supernews.com>
>Reply-To: "JWB" <mudshark at intergrafix.net>
>
>Teejo -
>
>I listened to it again and noticed some more things:
>
>The song "Bat Chain Puller" has a complete intro here. BUT...."Floppy
>Boot Stomp" is cut at the beginning.
>
>There are tons of dropouts and an abundance of hiss.
>
>Every song has a *slightly* longer fade-out than on any other disc.

        <snip>

>The live tracks are NOT all from My Father's Place '78.
>
>I think that "Bat Chain Puller" and "Flavor Bud Living" might be from
>the Amsterdam '80 show. That is the only soundboard that I don't
>have...I don't recognize these versions, they are definitely
>from 1980, and the sound quality is A+ stereo.
>
>13. Bat Chain Puller - Amsterdam 80?, excellent stereo sound
>14. Harry Irene - My Father's Place 78, off-speed...poor sound
>15. Flavor Bud Living - Amsterdam 80?, excellent stereo sound
>16. Floppy Boot Stomp - My Father's Place 78, off-speed...poor sound
>17. Owed T' Alex - My Father's Place 78, off-speed...poor sound
>18. Well Well Well - Decals outtake, very noise reduced
>19. My Human Gets Me Blues - stolen from "Grow Fins"
>
>- JWB

        So, in summary, they've used tapes worse than the most
available bootleg, filled it up with live stuff of which two tracks
actually justify the hype, but the rest is already legitimately out
there bar one, and all sounding terrible, the mastering's sloppy, the
sound is bad, and the liner notes downright wrong. Sounds like an
Oz-IT:Morpheus job to me, sorry to say. Okay this critic's a purist
fan, most probably, but you can safely say that had Oz-IT just procured
themselves a copy of one of the bootlegs of _Bat Chain Puller_ and
pressed that they'd have had a better product. Now the chances of Gial
Zappa ever releasing the real thing are even further reduced because
there's already a `legit' version out there. Hmph.

> > ... but on the other hand they get the stuff out
> >there. They are essentially a distributor so maybe that's why, but
> >incomplete tracklists, botched credits, substandard artwork, no
> >post-production, you can say all this about so many of their products,
>
> This is true for a lot (but not all!) of the Hawkwind stuff, but, for
> instance, the Man and Fall reissues are *very well* done IMHO (of course
> the artwork on the Fall reissues is very "substandard", but with the Fall,
> it's supposed to be that way!).  And "find-the-mistakes-in-the-credits" has
> been a fun game for Hawkwind fans since long before they started releasing
> stuff through Voiceprint (hello, Doug Buckley!).

        Ho yus indeed. But when it was EBS doing it it was just typoes
and imaginative additions of credits for new synth backings. Not the
wrong tracklist.

        What Man issues have they handled? I thought all Man stuff was
coming out on BGO? Lots of it does seem to be...

> >and the whole mispressed _Spacebrock_ as bonus CD affair suggests to
> >me that they're doing half this stuff on a wing and a prayer.
>
> But at least they actually re-pressed it with the correct version.  That's
> more than you can say for EBS (see: 'Distant Horizons', which never got
> proper mastering, versus 'Yule Ritual', which most certainly *did* get post-
> production mastering, even if it made the bass sound like !#%$@ IMHO [as a
> bass player]).

        EBS didn't actually issue anything after that, so you could say
they never got the chance. _Distant Horizons_ wasn't ready but it
doesn't sound bad, it just sounds unfinished to me. And I'd rather have
it that way, with proper mixing, than _Yule Ritual_'s Dave-up
Jerry-down post-production, and I agree with you about the bass. I do
think it's the best thing Voiceprint have issued under the HW name in
terms of the label's input but it still leaves something to be desired
as a release.

        <snip>

> >        Yeah, it's the distribution I have the issues with really. _Yule
> >Ritual_ is good though the vocals are oddly high up in the mix; I can't
> >stand the artwork though, the credits are wrong and the photos mostly from
> >a different gig, several of Huw who's not on the disc, so on.
>
> I believe that Voiceprint have made a replacement booklet available for
> free (has anyone gotten one?).  If that's true, they deserve a lot of
> credit for it (just as they do for properly repressing 'Spacebrock').

        I believe they said they would do it but no-one has one. And I
also believe they repressed _Spacebrock_ because they hadn't done a
full run yet and Dave rang them up and gave them hell. It's up to Dave
whether or not they can release after all. I'm sure they'd have carried
on if he hadn't protested. And using the wrong tape is not a thing you
want a label to be doing haphazardly. It's not like this is an amateur
concern, they're turning over thousands of units.

> Well, there's only so much you can do to clean up a lo-fi live recording.
> The problems with 'Glastonbury 90' are especially troublesome; filtering
> out wind noises and audience speech are next to impossible.  Getting rid of
> tape hiss and adding "clarity"/"punchiness" to a recording are much easier
> (although unfortunately the latter is easy to overdo these days, witness
> the 'Yule Ritual' bass).

        Does it strike you that anyone tried? Rob Ayling posted here
saying, more or less, that he just took the tape Dave gave him and
pressed it. Again not great business practice IMO.

> >        I'm not sure that these things are advertising mainstream product
> >particularly well! No, I don't think they should be band-distributed, I'd
> >expect to see them in mail-order catalogues, that sort of stuff, I don't
> >think they should be considered to be high-street-able. I reckon if you're
> >going to put Collector on it anyway you might as well put it where the
> >Collectors are looking.
>
> That's a good point.  I could see selling stuff like that
> through "specialty" outlets like CDS or (if they're at all active) the
> Freak Emporium or Forced Exposure, etc.

        Freak Emporium is alive and well, staff of eight these days
which makes me wonder why they can never keep anything in stock for
long, shiny new website at <http://www.freakemporium.com>, increasingly
mainstream selection of stuff but still unrivalled in their precise
field, albeit swamped by CDS in most others. Forced Exposure I don't
know about; and there are millions of others too. Well: a few.

> I guess you're saying, "don't release it unless it's near perfect" and I'm
> saying, "don't release it unless it's as good as it's gonna get".  Neither
> one an invalid outlook IMO.

        Oh no. I agree with you, I'm being realistic, I just don't
think effort has been made to get them `as good as they'll get', or to
indicate how good they aren't.

> Yeah, you have to look at it from several perspectives.  There's the
> hardkore fan (like me) who wants it all, and is more than willing to forego
> sound quality for a good performance ... *I* want to be able to get all the
> stuff at the local shop.  Then there's the casual or new fan (however, I'd
> have to believe that there are not very many of either of these with
> Hawkwind these days) who might see both the EMI mid-price remasters and the
> Voiceprint Collectors' series at the store, and runs the risk of buying the
> hardkore-fans-only releases instead of the essential EMI ones.  And then
> there's the band/label perspective - if they limit distribution to only
> specialty outlets, they're cutting off a good proportion of potential
> sales, which is obviously not in their best interest.  And from the band's
> (well, at least Dave's) perspective, I would bet that he sees a much larger
> royalty rate from the Voiceprint releases than the EMI ones.

        I think the slew of Voiceprint material may have something to
do with the drop in price of the jewel-case remasters. On the other
hand lots of EMI's remasters seem to be going cheap at the moment
too: HMV haven't caught up with it yet but I can find the Deep Purple
Mk II remasters for less than a tenner now, even the 2CDs. They were
overpriced, however. I can see EMI bringing the price down to make sure
it's their stuff that gets picked in that situation, all the same.

        You do also appear to be right about the Voiceprint royalties,
as I say, so that does explain a lot. And of course we know how they
can afford to pay those royalties, right, because they aren't exactly
running a high-cost quality operation here.

> Another way to do it would be simply to make sure that poor sound quality
> is matched with "cheap" artwork, along the lines of those 20-some Pearl Jam
> live albums that were released a couple years back (in what looked like
> rubber-stamped paperboard sleeves).  Although part of the reason to
> own 'Complete 79' is for the nice reproduction of the tour programme
> (better art than *any* EBS release IMO).

        That is true. But some of us just have the programme
:-) (Although I confess I didn't have when the thread started :-))

> And I guess that's where our difference of opinion lies.  The only reason I
> don't like 'Yuri Gagarin' is because I think the performance is weak; the
> sound quality is perfectly acceptable *for what it is* (pretty much the
> ONLY documentation of the post-'Space Ritual' Calvert-fronted lineup).  And
> there are kollektors out there who would KILL for *any* tape with Lemmy
> performing the 'Warrior' live set (because one is not known to exist), even
> if it sounded like it was recorded from under someone's seat at the back of
> the hall.  But 'Text Of Festival' is still one of my alltime favorite
> Hawkwind albums ... the only one that really demonstrates what they were
> capable of in those early days.

        I do like _Text of Festival_ even if there's a reason that
second LP has never made it to CD (cor dear it's ropey, and not just
for dropouts and fading... ), but _Yuri Gagarin_ is unparalleledly
awful and it annoys me a great deal that I have to have it just so I
can occasionally play `Wage War' and `In The Egg', because nothing else
on there is audible enough to be worth the candle. And again, "what it
is" is not stated on the sleeve. I have a copy which does say inside,
"The quality is sometimes raw...", which must be Dave Anderson's
biggest ever understatement and has boring grey artwork but it was
going at full album price when I first saw it (I got it at half
eventually) and the numerous subsequent issues have shiny artwork and
no such indication that what you're about to listen might be awful. So,
yes, that is where we disagree, quite strongly too, though obviously
amicably as all get out :-)

> >> P.S. If anyone's listening - Collector Series spring '84 or
> >> Stonehenge '84 ... PLEASE!!!
> >
> >        Can I add a resounding "Hell yeah" to that?
>
> ... as long as the sound's up to snuff? ;^)

        Well, we know from _This is Hawkwind Do Not Panic_ what the
sound *should* be like... now if they take it from an off-speed fifth-
generation audience tape with glass-swallowing dog on it I might be
less enthusiastic... Yours,
                            Jon

--
        Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
                 jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
        --------------------------------------------------------
  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)