HW: actually, really RE: Off: Tull!!! but explicit HW at the end

[Doug Pearson]

Jon,

Truly a pleasure to discuss these issues with you ...

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!

> ... 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!).

>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]).

>Of course you could
>say half these things about EBS releases and add constant indexing errors,
>but EBS stuff looked and sounded better and showed care so I didn't mind.

I'll give EBS credit for those nice full-color cardboard sleeves on the two
live albums ('Business Trip' & 'Love In Space'), as well as doing a lot of
vinyl (although those picture discs of Weird 101-105 sound pretty tempting
except for the fact that I hate picture discs ... I think the only one I
own is the Dwarves 'Blood Guts and Pussy').

>        I hear what you say though, and I realise half their problems are
>at music source not music distribution end...

Yeah, that's pretty much all I'm saying here :^)

>        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').

>Again
>Voiceprint not the only offenders here (there's no photoes of Jerry for
>example, wonder why) but _Hawkwind 1997_ is good quality but untinkered
>with. _Complete '79_ and _Glastonbury 1990_ are surely as valid a target
>as was _Yuri Gagarin_ and _In The Beginning_ for that scenario where
>someone is interested enough in Hawkwind to buy a CD, finds it
>unlistenable and never tries again. The band themselves shouldn't be
>putting that stuff out, and Voiceprint should at least be cleaning it up
>before burning it straight to disc. But I want to live in an ideal world
>of course.

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).

>> Are you suggesting that something like 'Glastonbury 90' should be sold
>> *only* by the band, and not be available in stores ("high street")? ...
>
>        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.

>        In monetary terms what you say makes perfect sense, of course, as
>long as the low quality doesn't kick back. I'm hanging on to an old-
>fashioned ideal here I guess.

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.

>> >        Weren't a fair few bits of _Space Ritual_ re-recorded in the
>> >studio? :-)
>>
>> Possibly some (have we ever had firm evidence on this, besides good
>> guesses by people with good ears? ...
>> it's possible that there are some areas where two guitar parts can be
>> heard because an edit is being cross-faded, so the guitar from part 1
>> can be heard fading out while the guitar from part 2 is fading in) ...
>> but certainly nothing like live albums by Thin Lizzy (according to
>> producer Tony Visconti, all of the lead vocals & bass, and most of
>> the guitars, are studio overdubs) ...
>
>        I don't know, it was Larry Boyd that started that hare. I don't
>think it was serious stuff like _Live and Dangerous_ of course; I seem to
>remember him mentioning Calvert's poetry was mostly rerecorded (or maybe
>just in `Seven By Seven'?) and Dave's guitar in *I think* `Down Through
>The Night'. Hold on. <awakens Pine> Ah yes, I don't quite remember
>correctly. The post I was thinking of went like this...
>
>On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 DASLUD at AOL.COM wrote:
>> Subject: Re: HW: Finest Moments
>>
>> In a message dated 2/6/01 1:27:25 PM, Chuckrecs at AOL.COM writes:
>>
>> <<
>> Live "Space is Deep" from Space Ritual...just after the guitar-and-drums
jam
>> has finished and before the Only Dreaming "whewwwwwwwww" part, Brock is
just
>> picking away mellowly and suddenly there's an extra layer of "wah" laid
on
>> top...really smooth. Yeah?
>>
>>  >>
>> =========
>> if you are suggesting a gtr. overdub on top of the live recording...um...
>> i am reminded of the way 'born to go' is followed by 'down through the
>> night'; there are several moments between the two on the audience tape,
but
>> on the lp, one fades out whilst the next fades up, creating two guitars,
>> briefly.
>> that brock's vocals on 'down through the night' were redone/overdubbed
are
>> another story.

Thanks for digging up this message!

>        Now what Chuck was talking about is well-known now to be Del
>running Dave's guitar through the VCS, but what Larry was saying is a bit
>different. So yeah, what do I know.

It sounds like Larry is describing exactly what I mentioned above ("two
guitar parts can be heard because an edit is being cross-faded...") on
the "Born To Go"/"Down Through The Night" transition (which makes sense
because they were doing everything possible to fit the show onto a double
LP).  So it doesn't really sound like there's evidence of *guitar* overdubs
on 'Space Ritual' (but I'd be really surprised if there weren't any *vocal*
overdubs on the album).

>        I think, as I say, there's a halfway through mailorder outlets
>which would be more appropriate given how ropey some of the product
>is--but since some of it's fine, you then sort of have to stock the whole
>series high-street or none at all...

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.

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).

>        I think basically my stance is, "It's a pity Hawkwind are issuing
>records which sound so awful, especially given how loyally we all harangue
>Dave Anderson for doing it too." But they seem to have stopped doing it
>now? Maybe?

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.

>> 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? ;^)

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com