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

[Jon Jarrett]

On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, Doug Pearson wrote:

> On Thu, 8 Aug 2002 22:48:39 +0100, Jonathan Jarrett
> <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK> wrote:
> >On Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 03:21:21PM -0400, Doug Pearson typed out:
> >> ... [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:
>
> Most interesting ... thanks for digging these up ... I'll have to check the
> full threads sometime ...

        There wasn't much more than that, in those threads at least.

> [forwarded usenet messages snipped]
>
> >        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...
>
> I haven't heard the Rhino version.  But for the price, it had better sound
> three times better than the OzIT version!

        No idea. It sounds good, maybe VG+, but not excellent, the mixing
is a little unpleasant with the voice and trombone further forward than
the guitars but that's almost certainly tape artefact. Not much hiss at
all, but that shows that the actual tape's definition wasn't exactly
beautiful. Nothing wrong with it, certainly a releasable quality. But the
Oz-IT one would have to be pretty bad to be three times better. On the
other hand it's at the right speed and there's all the rest of the gig on
it, inclduing Beefheart tackling a heckler about the importance of poetry
(though not, I admit, terribly insightfully).

> While I don't deny a fundamental truth to that, in that OzIT definitely
> could have done a better job on those, it does seem like this JWB person is
> overreacting a bit, and represents something of an extreme viewpoint (he
> even says, "Why am I the only person here who seems to think this?").  I
> have the 'Bat Chain Puller'/'Safe As Milk (mono)' bootleg he refers to, and
> yes, there's less hiss (and I haven't been able to hear artifacts of
> digital hiss-removal processing, which can sometimes add crunchiness that's
> worse than the hiss itself), but the sound quality doesn't seem *that* much
> better than the OzIT version to my ears.  And I wouldn't hold my breath for
> any Beefheart material coming out of the Zappa estate, if only because they
> have so much Zappa stuff to deal with already!

        They have, but none of that's coming out either... no releases
from ZFT for more than two years now I believe. But anyway. This JWB
person's opinion was the first negative in the group after about four
people going "Wow, I've got _Bat Chain Puller_, I think he was the first
one with the boot to give perspective, and there were more negative
opinions soon after, but I grant you this is coming off a fangroup full of
fanatics and it's interesting to have your more moderate view :-) I'm now
wondering whether I should risk the money after all.

> >        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.
>
> The tracklisting and indexing didn't quite match on 'Distant Horizons'
> (although, technically the tracklist was "correct", and not nearly as bad
> as on 'In Your Area').

        Oh, half of my EBS CDs' indexing is screwed up, and every single
one has a typo somewhere in the sleeve, but there's only two real faults
with them and none have more than one indexing error. The ones that annoy
me are that damn nasty pitch-shift in `Rocky Paths' on the EBS _Sonic
Attack_ and the lack of split between `Choose Your Masques' and
`Dreamworker' on CYM. That one annoys me because I'd quite like to leave
off CYM and begin the album with `Dreamworker' :-) But yeah, the
information is correct, by and large, just the technology is beyond
people. All the tracks have their names given, which is more than you can
say for the Kingdom Come re-releases on Voiceprint. And IYA is a horrible
mish-mash, but only because the person doing the sleeve and the person
doing the indexing clearly got told different things about what the tracks
were. The actual information is still right. Sloppy but they give the
impression of being concerned anyway :-)

        <snip useful Man information>

> >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.
>
> The bass sounds exactly right on the TotalRock broadcast version of the
> show, but of course, that was only 1/3 of the songs.

        Yes, I remember talking to Alan about that when Bedouin played
Cambridge, and there was some reason they couldn't use that tape; I'm not
sure it had everything on. But on the other hand that was while they were
still talking about it so I don't know whether that was eventually the
case or not.

> The recent 'Nottingham 90' release is quite excellent.  It doesn't sound to
> me like there was any significant post-processing, and it sounds like it
> doesn't need it (even if the quality of one of the two source tapes is
> slightly better than the other).

        I'll get it at some point. Hard to be too fussed when _Palace
Springs_ exists.

        <snip to _Spacebrock_ fiasco>

> >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.
>
> We don't know whether or not they had the "right" tape at the time, or if
> they had any other reason to know that the tape they had was the wrong one.

        I remember Dave's mail here saying he'd sent them two tapes and
they'd used the wrong one. I never did figure out why he sent them a wrong
one to start with mind. But if I was expecting one master and got two, I'd
check before sending one to the factory wouldn't you?

> >> 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...
> >
> >        Does it strike you that anyone tried?
>
> My point is, that for this particular tape, there's nothing that you can
> really do until you invent a time machine, go back, and shoot the dog.
> Something like 'Atomhenge 76' sounds more like the kind of recording that
> could have been improved a bit, but it's not that bad, and may even have
> been cleaned up for the release, I'm not sure.

        Fair enough. If it wasn't in the HMV racks at full-price I would
probably love this album anyway, the band were very clearly On. But it is.

> >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.
> > ...
> >        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.
>
> This comes down to a question of whose responsibility it is to put in the
> effort to make them "as good as they'll get".  If a label is ONLY handling
> manufacturing/distribution, it's not their responsibility to do the
> mastering and other post-processing; it's only their responsibility to
> deliver the master tape to the replicator.  On the other hand, if the label
> has actually *signed* the band, then it *is* their responsibility.

        Well, we have a kind of middle ground here, where Voiceprint
haven't signed HW as far as we know (they don't do that sort of thing
anyway, do they?) but are e. g. doing promotion and merchandising for
them. They're quite at liberty to consider HW a cash cow of course but it
smarts that the band are happy to do this too. Can't say I blame them
given the cash involved, so I have to blame Voiceprint, simple :-)

> I would suspect that it has more to do with switching from very expensive
> custom packaging to standardized jewel cases.  I seriously doubt that EMI
> would feel the least bit threatened by any Voiceprint release (they seemed
> to have no problem getting Weird 106 pulled for containing EMI-era
> material, which I strongly suspect is the reason for its deletion [I can
> think of only one other plausible explanation]).

        Andy Gilham reckoned, some time before his site was pulled, that
around the time of _Epoch Eclipse_ there might have been an EMI deal for
HW had they not then flooded EMI's potential market with substandard
product priced below HMV's. I don't know if he knew that such a deal had
been offered or was just hypothesising, but it sounded plausible to me
then and still sounds that way now. But I agree with you about _Weird
106_. The same fate befell the GTP release after all (and the
relevant material is the same isn't it?)

> Yeah, I've noticed this too.  I've picked up some good EMI UK reissues
> recently at surprisingly reasonable prices (the first 3 Pink Floyd singles
> on one CD in a gatefold cardboard sleeve ... YUM!).

        That is very cool, I got it when it came out a few years back. But
they still haven't done the *next* three singles (with `Scream thy Last
Scream and `Vegetable Man' as bonus tracks obviously :-) ) and I wish they
would. It's an obvious massive seller so why not?

> >        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.
>
> Yes, that definitely uncovers part of the mystery.  I guess you get to pick
> two items out of three when you select your reissue label:
> 1) Reasonably priced CD's
> 2) Good royalties paid
> 3) Quality product

        HW only got (2) though. IMO. I don't know if the US prices are
better but the 2CD collector sets go for GBP16.99 over here and the single
CDs for not less than 10. This is local HMV I'm citing, though, I have
seen them cheaper even in shops but that was second-hand (very soon after
they came out, too... )

> >        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 I still love it, warts and all, since it presents a fully-jamming
> side of Hawkwind that no other official release (except the Watchfield
> Festival snippet on Anthology/Acid Daze) comes close to.

        I was listening to that earlier, actually, and am now
wondering. Does anyone know who's on bass for the 1970 portion? By my
reckoning it should be Thomas Crimble but I don't have very good data on
this and I wonder if I have the date he joined wrong, as I thought he
wasn't on record. Also, how much of it *is* the 1970 portion? I can only
hear lead guitar on `Hurry on Sundown' but I thought today there was maybe
also some on `Seeing It As You Really Are'. And which bits are May
1971? Is it just the MotU?

        That in itself raises another question. There are three verses in
that MotU, the third one muttered while Nik bleats sax over it, but the
vocals sound like Nik to me. Is there over-dubbing even on this ropey
release? If not, whose is the voice? And does Nik sing the rest, because
it sounds like the same voice to me... Confused am I. Any help appreciatd,
I guess Bernhard can settle my first question at least...

> I'm afraid I rarely even listen to those two.  Fortunately, there's sort of
> an alternate version of "Wage War" in the middle of the Hawklords (Weird
> 104) version of "Urban Guerilla" ... the words are almost the same.

        Ooh. I didn't know that. Well then.

> >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 :-)
>
> I *think* we agree on this part?  I'm all for the packaging accurately
> representing the contents.  Do we differ in that the endless reissuing of
> the same material over-and-over annoys me much more than the sound quality?

        Yes, we agree about the principle, but I was saying, my _Yuri_ at
least looks like it's awful, the Voiceprint stuff in some cases looks
great and sounds lousy, where it's great it looks poor, and these days the
_Yuri_ clones looks better than the real albums, and Dave Anderson should
be strung up. I think that's my position, roughly :-)

> Can't argue with that!  (And hey, shouldn't we be arguing "Dave vs. Nik"
> this week instead of "Voiceprint sorta sux vs. Voiceprint sorta roolez"?)

        Done that, oh man have I done that. Yours,
                                                   Jon

--
"I recognise that I have transgressed many of the precepts of the divine
law, and that I am subjected by various vices and iniquities, disobedient
to the words of the divine mystery brought unto me and a worshipper of the
delights of this military age." Marquis Borrell of Barcelona, 955 A.D.

             (Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College London)