Dire Straits on Super Audio cd Part II

 After a four year gap we return to this topic with a new entry.

Dire Straits bowed out in style when they released On Every Street in 1991 some 6 years on from the massive selling Brothers In Arms which was both the first big selling compact disc being used to promote that format and the first in this series of Dire Straits albums issued on sacd in 2013.

They'd taken their time since the knockout success of Brothers In Arms, waiting six years to deliver a follow-up which would satisfy fans of their inimitable sound. 

Mark Knopfler's dusky tones weave many a tale, and there's that pervading sentimental mood hanging over the record like a Dire Straits album should have, but there's also some of those Southern boogie rhythm sections to lock onto, not least on the drawn out splendour of 'Calling Elvis'. 

Remastered by Rob Lo Verde at Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, this has a much better sound stage and dynamics than the stock Vertigo/Warner Bros issue this released a few days ago joins the remainder of the collection.

Dire Straits on Super Audio CD

Revisiting the 2012 era Beatles remastered lps

 There have been countless re-issues of the Beatles studio albums since there first issues mono with the much acclaimed 2014 Beatles In Mono series which you could buy disc by disc as I did or as a box set and the stereo series which can be divided between those cut prior to 1987 using analogue tape to the cutting lathe and those after that used digital files of which the last whole set was issued in 2012.

That last series was based upon the digital re-masters that were issued with much fanfare on September 9th 2009 where the overall sound was shaped, clicks and the like removed and on the cd and usb stick versions a "small" amount of limiting applied.

When the record counterparts were announced audiophiles were not too happy that what was used to make the cds was going to play a big part of them rather than cutting and mastering from tape.

The ensuing row lead to the mono records being cut from tape.

Back in 2012 I was torn around this vinyl as I had by that point good sounding British stereo records collected over time from the 70's and 80's and apart from the Past Masters compilation of singles, an extended play record and two german language singles what could it offer me?

I bought the Magical Mystery Tour album as the 1976 UK edition had its issues like three songs in fake stereo which was pretty decent but three others did put me off.

Revolver and the White Album were altered on the cds, revolver losing some high notes not least on She Said She said and both to my ears seemed to have excessive bass and that carried over the record edition.

In some respects the oddest was Abbey Road where while many contend it was tinkered with a very clear cd seemed to loose a bagful of detail and top on the European Pressing.

I did accidentally get a US pressed version which sounded much better despite the odd minor pressing defect.

"What gives? " was very much my thought which brings up something which is a person can cut a lacquer but the plating can affect the sound too and with last example something went badly wrong on the German pressed editions.

A thought lingering for many years as I put any notion of buying any others on hold was could it be the others *might* of been capable of more than I heard because of this.

Because what you have may be good doesn't mean it is perfect and that is quite true of their first album, Please Please Me  which had the first single Love Me Do and it's b side in fake stereo which does not sound good at all while the 2009 cd series restored the album on cd to stereo but had those two tracks in mono.

Recently I did get a copy of the 2012 lp and on balance feel being a bit more dynamic, having a bit more bass and putting those two track in their original mono makes for better listen.

Another I tried was part of short lived magazine with a record series devoted to the beatles from around 2017 where the album was recut at Abbey Road studios by Sean Magee but plated and pressed by MPO in France.

It comes with all the extras, a booklet with the original 1987 notes on the album and cut outs.

The only minor irritant is the Italian SAIE tax sticker on the bottom right of the rear jacket.

This cut is a bit louder, using more of the vinyl area than the ones used in 2012 being a complete recut and it does miss off the 15khz dog whistle and jibberish on side two's end like North American originals like my Canadian Capitol did unlike British copies.

It does sound really good, smoother with deeper bass and even a bit more detail at the start of A Day In The Life compared to my mid 70's UK copy.

For just £24 delivered it's a great bargain.

How do I conclude this?

The 2009 cd series were a mixed bag, better booklets, sometimes bloated bass and questionable choices all impacted to varying degrees by that decision to apply limiting that in the case of the cd of Sgt Pepper does take away the power of the crescendo and coda decaying.

The best discs of that series such as Beatles For Sale, Please Please Me and With The Beatles in the remastered lp series transferred to great sounding lps that are rewarding.

Sgt Pepper which on cd sounded smoother gained from losing all the limiting making for a fantastic new lp that had extras no original did.

I would not recommend White Album  A Hard Day's Night and Revolver as the base mastering on the cd is flawed and Help and Rubber Soul use remixes that are too modern and obvious with their echo.

There are people who did like the MPO 2017 Abbey Road and that may be worth exploring but certainly using digital mastering doesn't mean a lp has to be bad and some of these are among my most impressive buys.

The Guess Who again

In June we talked about a bunch of Super Audio cds that had come out  including a couple by the Canadian blues rock band, the Guess Who.

 They were not the only releases in this format issued by Vocalian Dutton of Watford, England for they had issued the eighth and ninth albums by the group released in 1973 and 4 respectively on stereo and quadraphonic lp and tape.
They feature Clap For The Wolfman from 1974 and 1973's Glamour Boy singles.
This last week in a bunch of releases it was announced another pair of albums were to be issued.

Issued in 1970, the third and forth albums, American Woman and Share The Land were the most popular by the group containing both hit singles of the same titles amongst others and are musically their strongest release full of invention.
Originally these two albums whilst issued in stereo were only issued on quadraphonic tape with its technical restrictions so this issue marks the first time the quad version comes out in full quality apart from all four albums quad digital debuts some fourty odd years after being last issued.

Wish you were here

It sometimes is the case on this blog as is on the other one you get a follow up post sometime afterward and this weeks is no different in that we last touched on it in March 2018.
I've like the Pink Floyd for a very long time, long enough to have had recordings on various formats by them but while some artists recording frequently emerge on newer formats, theirs seldom do.
I mentioned last time the albatross around the neck which is Dark Side of the Moon that did originally come out on Super Audio cd in 2003 but in 2011 it and the follow up were issued very briefly on Super Audio cd in the form of a 'digipak' more like a small hardback book actually.
Recently December 30th last year to be exact, both got re-issued in this form by Analogue Productions of Kansas, U.S.A. which having missed out on Wish You Were Here which is a personal favourite I was keen on getting on sacd as my cd goes back to 1985!

This is the front of Digipak which is neither the UK or North American front cover  which is pretty understated.

 When you go to turn it over, on the inside left pocket you have a full set of postcards originally issued with the lp scaled down included which played on the title "Wish you were here" from the days people would send a postcard home with that phrase on it

 At the rear we have song writing and publishing credits and on the right a tray where the disc normally fits and which thankfully the teeth are tight so it doesn't fall out.

 Here is the actual disc itself made in Germany and one change that has happened since 2011 is the ownership of their recordings has moved from EMI Records to their own lable Pink Floyd Records that are distributed in the UK and Europe by the Parlophone division of Warner Bros and the US by Sony/Columbia.

 This is the rear of the digipak which indicates it has both a regular cd layer for normal cd playing equipment and the higher definition Super Audio layer.
That layer houses both the regular stereo mix and a 5.1 multichannel mix  where the lp and tape had a quadraphonic mix originally issued in limited numbers.
Much of this album thematically looks at the life of a rock group part influenced by the damage to band originator Syd Barratt, also at the corporate music business on how it stifles and controls art mocking record company executives in Have a Cigar who say how great they are but ask "And which one's Pink?" showing their ignorance that there's no performer called Pink in this band before trying to get them to change material to the latest fashion so they can sell more even if it's not what the band was formed for. 
Really all that matters to them is the profit not the idea of artistic and musical integrity and maximizing that is really what meeting the band was about.
Personally I feel this new version on the stereo Super Audio cd layer remastered by James Guthrie has more depth and springs forth from ones loudspeakers  more than any other version and so while it was expensive is nontheless worth getting.

Previous Pink Floyd on sacd entry:
The Dark Side of the Moon 

The return of The Hollies on vinyl

This week we're going back to a series of posts from 2011/2 while I'm recovering from this darn heat.
That series of post explored the sixties and early 70's output of The Hollies from a compact disc angle but one problem is a number of Hollies compact discs remain in grey sounding highly compressed issues from the late 1990's and to which using records is presently the only sure fire way to get past that fork in the road. 
 In 1967 as I remarked in an earlier post the group and specifically Graham Nash were moving in a more experimental direction that resulted in two albums and a Graham leaving the band.
They issued at the same time as Sgt Pepper, their own pop psychedelia album, Evolution with trippy original sleeve but this album hard to find in original stereo form was re-issued in 1972  as "The Hollies" which was kinda silly "Stop Right There!" would of worked better  with a new sleeve and liner notes.

Interestingly, it used the very same stampers to make it as the first issue of Evolution and so it was for a mere £2.99 and a clean I replaced a so-so mono re-issue with something that sounds better.

 By years end the "Oh wow" factor was raised considerably after the "King Midas in Reverse" 45 showing on this album that includes the U.S. single Dear Eloise but as much as some of this love this album it bombed saleswise at the time making it hard to find in its original mono and stereo forms.
Thankfully Parlophone released in September 2016 a twin mono and stereo remastered lp that sounds better than the EMI cd or critically the 2011 Spanish Guersson mono lp re-issue that used it as a source.
This apart from not having Dear Eloise with a chopped off intro sounds noticeably clearer with fine high frequency detail although it is not clear if used a digital source or not.
It is in any event much better sounding.

The Dark Side Of The Moon

For some of us the Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon was one of those pivotal albums that as we went beyond more simplistic pop tunes usually in the form of 45's (aka "Singles") we explored usually with some support by older siblings to more deeper lyrical concerns and musicianship not that I didn't love (and still love) my Mud and Bay City Rollers 45's.

Sooner or later you move from hearing it a few times back then from tape to buying yourself the whole package and this album was such a thing being in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics, two posters and stickers.
The album explores the nature of the human condition specifically loneliness and mental illness using what were start of the art tape and electronic instrument techniques of the early 1970's.
My copy was a Canadian Capitol pressed edition with different posters I learnt several years back that Brits had in their own which to limit wear I taped to cassette for portable use and open reel tape for home use. You're welcome to try lugging such a machine and changing 7" tape reels on the move!

In the ever so fantastic plastic 1970's it wasn't enough to be thinking about sound from two speakers but four so a special four channel "Quadraphonic" mix was made and by some quirky math based science you could get four channels into the two channels of a stereo lp and (paws crossed) get four channels back out to impress the neighbours by surrounding them in  sound! 
They called it SQ standing for Stereo/Quadraphonic.
That lp jacket is of the UK Quad edition Q4 SHVL 804.

Quad had to everywhere like in our car so we had a Q8 eight track four channel tape player that was pretty swell and special four channel tapes were issued that offer better separation between the four channels than the fancy four into two and back as four electronics could manage from lp record and radio.
This is the UK tape, Q8 SHVL 804 that used the actual four channel mix direct as Capitol in making theirs took that funny 4 to 2 processed version for the SQ lp and decoded it before putting that on their tape which was silly as the actual four channel master existed and technically poorer but hey it's Capitol Record USA and they do stupid stuff at times.

Roll on March 31, 2003 and it's the thirtieth birthday of Dark Side of the Moon in an era that has seen the establishment of the compact disc as the pre-eminent sound carrier and the start of attempts to improvement on the sound it's had since the early 1980's.
It was decided to issue it in the Super Audio CD format that I mentioned on "the other blog tm" in the form of one disc with a regular stereo cd layer and a Super Audio cd (sacd) layer for both stereo and an improved form of surround sound called 5.1 often used for movies with a special remix being done for that version.

At the time only a few people had sacd players and because of this few heard that layer of the disc so when so-called audiophiles started debating all the 5 cm disc versions of this album all they heard the slightly compressed when it comes to the loudest and softest sound regular layer which has become a common trend since the mid 1990's and dismissed it.
I bought this sacd at the time and was very much encouraged to ditch it for a much older version by a certain forum but that ignored one thing. The regular cd layer and the super audio cd stereo versions were done separately and actually the stereo sacd layer sounds better than any of the cd only issues when played back on a machine like mine.
That ironically is why a decade on I ended up rebuying this disc and believe me its fantastic with clearer instrument sounds and effects like the heartbeat and chimes in "Time".
One moral of this story is don't let others tell you what to like and buy as they may be wrong.

Classical update II

Today's entry may be the last of this series this side of the new year where I look at old but new to me additions to my classical music collection

Bach was mentioned in late September 2008 on That Boarding School Girl during the period I established a modest selection of his more important compositions and replacing one cd whose conducting lead the playing  seeming more suited to F1 than sedate chamber music!
I am very fond of the Cello as an instrument and so had been looking at getting a recording of his Six Cello Suites when I spotted this which originally came out as three lps and cds in 1985 and to which this is the latest edition with two very well filled cds taking in all three discs worth which came out in 2015.
Maisky's performances have real character holding your attention.
It is interesting to note that would set you back around GBP £40 new in 1985/6 and I managed to get this two cd edition for exactly GBP £4.16 new including delivery!

There was a point in the late 1980's when I had on lp Rachmaninov's most popular Third Piano Concerto but in the intervening period that had left my collection so I had been thinking about picking up a set of his symphonies and piano concertos when I spotted this 'like new'  for GBP £9.99 which works out £1.99 per disc which takes Lorin Maazel's well regarded and performed 1980's account of the symphonies and the 70's Thomas Vásáry's account of piano concertos recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra  conducted by Yuri Ahronovitch across five discs.
He was the last leading Romantic classical composer of the Twentieth century, born in Russia of a military family moving after the October Revolution of 1917 to Switzerland and by W.W.2 to the U.S.A.
Like most two cd versions one of symphonies is split between the discs - here it is symphony No. 1 but the piano concertos are not.
For me this is ideal as a starter set as all the recording have been freshly mastered for the best possible sound and comes with background notes all in a small box.

Past links:
Bach

Musical gifts

I don't usually make do two consecutive editions on this blog anymore but the timing would be off if I left this until next Saturday so here goes.
I had a birthday recently which was marked on two sites by birthday wishes by friends and did have a few presents that included two cds.

This is a five cd set in the low rent card sleeve in box sort that is very common now in the UK and Europe that has the first five albums this pioneering Sheffield, England "New Romantic" band issued where the card sleeve is an exact replica of the original lp sleeve right down to marking side one and two!
Unlike the remastered editions of the first three from 2006, these discs are just the original lp program with no bonus tracks and having listened to them they have preserved much of the original dynamics in the mastering which is something I was concerned about  ever since my copy of Pleasure One developed 'sticky top' and my copies of the others were downloads of so-so quality.

A worse fate came to my original 1991 copy of this album by the Scottish Band, Big Country, where the disc itself had started to go rusty due to so-called CD Rot and nearly every copy had it!
This edition is the 2016 Deluxe one where you have the whole album plus bonus tracks across two discs and that'll be replacing it.

Bowie-2015 remastered cds part II

I did pick up the issues of David Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory and Pin Ups off which were actually remastered this year by Ray Staff.

As with all the post 1990 issues they keep the original lp sleeves rather than 1972's RCA era re-issue sleeves that used Ziggy era pictures to resell these to the 'glam rock' audience which to me always was a misleading as these albums are more hippy folk/rock albums.
Having listened to them all I can say they sound better than the West German RCA using better tapes and having good tone balance decisions when it comes to equalizing to make the most of the tapes with wide dynamic ranges.
If you have the RCA's you may be satisfied with them but there's no need for younger fans to go hunting for expensive very long out print cds for these four titles.

Diamond Dogs Redux

My main copy on cd of this dystopian musical creation based on George Orwell's 1984 is the West German RCA cd from around 1984/5 and is the home of such 45's as Rebel Rebel, 1984 and Diamond Dogs. It also was the first album without the Spiders from Mars.
The description of how this cd sounds on music forums is 'dark', I'd say it was the sound of significantly high frequency loss with some alignment errors leaving it sounding 'lumpy'.
There isn't a universally approved later edition although the Japanese for US cd is much brighter although the other big difference is the West German breaks the songs into the groupings of the original UK lp and the Japanese cd all all others makes every song and intro a separate 'track'.
The Hifi people like the Japanese RCA but then at over £30 per copy as and when you see one, it's quite expensive.
It's been several years-make that over a decade-since I heard the 1990 remaster in it's UK form, a good number of which are equalized different compared to the Ryko versions and picked up a mint copy to demo.

This copy has much better high frequencies and is clear is from a much better tape and while being a bid midrange centred does have reasonable bass that those with tone controls can add  by a slight boost if you find yourself wanting deeper bass.
It certainly is more musically involving to listen to and will be my main listening copy until the next phase of the Bowie remastered campaign is released.

Hermans Hermits are back

I'm not feeling to great at the moment due to a particularly severe Migraine  which has left  it hard for me to pull things together but recently I ordered a couple of double cds one of which has already arrived and another is due very soon here
Hermans Hermits  tend to be seen as also runs after the Beatles, Stones and the Who, not really troubling the world with their perfect boy next door delivered Pop such as A Must To Avoid but for a period were up with the Beatles in the States when it came to sales and personal following.
In 2014 BGO issued four UK albums freshly remastered by Andrew Thompson who did the Hollies twofers a few years back I liked.
While the first was a more a setlist cut in a few days, the others cover such songs My Reservation's Been Confirmed, Rattler and It's Nice To be Out In The Morning and for a period I had the third album There's A  Kind Of Hush loving the songs on the original UK Columbia lp.

The forth was soundtrack repeating two previous hits but has some excellent songs some of which are in stereo.

Earlier this year the Bear Family in Germany in association with Warners who have the right to parts of the EMI catalogue put out a two disc compilation that has a lot of previously un issued in stereo versions of songs carefully remixed by Ron Furmanack as much of their recordings were only mixed to mono back in the 60's.
Each disc is over 80 minutes and while I can't see it supplanting both volumes of the now deleted Best of EMI years cds from 1991/2 which remain the last word as compilations go for material and sound quality, it is a welcome set.

From Japan and back

It was what some may say an important day in the year last week and I had some interesting cds which I'll spend a few worms on discussing.

In the weird corporate World of Japan few things are more revered than the super limited edition gone to it's gone and put back out in slightly different form product and somebody at Apple and Universal Japan decided it was those Moptops time for this treatment on December 14, 2014 when all the UK stereo studio album titles and the 2010 versions of the evergreen RED and BLUE compilations got issued in the latest wonder cd material SHM.
It's meant to produce less errors and so sound better.
Cue a howl from zeroes and ones are same regardless from digital theory purists and "Oh yes it does" from others on certain sites.

But anyway, I much much prefer the Mini lp style packaging these cds come in anyway replicating far better the feel of the parent lp records than the 2009 tri-fold digipak remasters we had and they match my much my much loved cd The Beatles in Mono box with its 11 mini lp mono cds
The covers are much nicer, a booklet with a potted history of the album in English are tuck in the rea of the acid free plastic wallet the cover is in and there's another booklet in Japanese with English lyrics to every song so we can song along to Polythene Pam

Plus the Let It Be, the album recorded before Abbey Road as both albums were the only Beatles studio albums mixed and mastered only to stereo and generally speaking I prefer the others in their  mono mixes.
Having played them through my all Rotel system they do sound a bit more open and less edgy compared to my European 2009 copies.
Meanwhile in Cat in the Hat land...

I got finally the 2013 two cd deluxe re-issues of the first three albums by England's great Jazz/funkers, Jamiroquai that mixes the original albums with a second disc of single 'b' sides and unreleased material.

I only had these albums on that Japanese centric MiniDisc format as I was in loved with it in the 90's and the older commerical downloads I heard sounded well, rough compared to them even though the discs didn't use  the later better sounding version of that formats encoding.
Thankfully these cds are  part of a rare breed of cd remasters that really do sound better than the originals and I was able to get them for a great price, cheaper actually than 'lossy' commercial downloads of them. 

This excellent album shows the packaging well with the tri-fold and disc holders and my home made copies for my Fiio X3 digital audio player sound superb outperforming my MiniDisc originals.
I'd strongly recommend these re-issues to an Jamiroquai fans for the extra material and sound quality.

Wall Street shuffle

"The online Miss with masters degree in punnery" is the tag line at my account at a certain social network which as those unfortunate enough to encounter me know is true enough so why would it surprise anyone that among many music acts I liked 10cc, a Manchester based on would be one?
Simply apart from their excellent musicianship each being multi-talented coming on as a budgie on supercharge Trill, the bands lyricists shared the same love of punnery as I do as well as sending whole genres of music with style.
Recently I got this Dutch 3 cd compilation:

This is a distillation over three cds and 51 tracks of the total output of the group from 1970 as Hotlegs through the peaks of tracks like 1975's Life's a Minestrone with epic punnery and great use of nonsense chanting of minestrone in syllables to their last album from 1983 plus for good measure some 80's gems by Godley and Creme such as Cry and Under Your Thumb that are in the same style.Tracks like I'm Mandy, Fly Me, Good Morning Judge, One Night in Paris (a mini opera of Parisienne fun set in Stockport of all places) are all desert island stuff for me. Did UK pop in the 70's get anymore intelligent without getting all po-faced?
Including tracks by Wax, the band formed by Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold, might of appealed to completists but I feel regardless of merit, they would just jar next to the 10cc material and in any event are included on the Music Club Deluxe Andrew Gold double compilation issued a few years back that I'd recommended to Andrew Gold fans.
The mastering for those are concerned as much as I am about the trend in the last 15 years toward louder more bloated sounding cds is pretty good if not quite up to the dynamic contrasts of the original  mid 80's Mercury era 10cc albums issued in Europe or the original Greatest Hits cd issued in the 80's.
For the modest price this set cost's it's worth owning either on it's own or in conjuction with a collection of original studio albums.
1997's remasters done by Roger Wake which remain the only in print regular editions are frankly crap -a word I'd seldom use on this blog ever - lacking detail, distorted complete with obvious tape drag. People, don't waste your money on them as even the original artwork included in say the 80's cd of  How Dare You has gone AWL for the remastered edition replaced by an essay of sorts.

Rod The Mod

If you were around in the 70's you could not of escaped Rod Stewart, the UK singer-songwriter responsible for many of decades top selling records but where do you start if you're not a rabid fan of his given many compilations have been issued in the passing decades most of which had cd re-issues?
I did have the 2004 Changing Faces set but it was mastered rather loud and my copy wasn't playing to well for some reason so a while back I did some investigations on what to replace it with.
At the risk of sounding like a boring old fart, I feel his best solo material was recorded for Mercury between 1969 and 1974 taking in such gems as You Wear it Well, Gasoline Alley, Reason To Believe and unforgettably, Maggie Mae.
While some of these albums have been re-issued by specialty labels such as Audio Fidelity and Mobile Fidelity, these discs will be dear to track down regardless of sonic merit  so I'd suggest most would be better of getting new a 3 cd set called "Reason To Believe -The complete Mercury studio recordings " having all the albums and some bonus tracks in a single inexpensive set.

For an overview of his career from the mid 60's to 1990 I feel there's one which is a complete no-brainer  and that's "Storyteller" as it does just that telling the story of Rod's music career over 4 cds that originally came out in 1990 costing a small fortune.
It was recently repackaged but keeping the notes and can be got from Amazon UK for £7.99 shipped. Although a few tracks from the mid 60's were sourced from records, most of this set sounds really good.
I would put this now above "The Story So Far - the best of" a 2 cd set issued by Warners in the UK in 2003 as Storyteller has more 'classic' Rod while all The Story So Far adds is some remakes and less essential tracks he did with Helicopter Girl even though I bought "Story So Far" on release.

Finally, Rod was an essential part of the Faces who emerged from the Small Faces and you simply have to have a selection of their rootsy bar music that included tracks like Stay With Me and Cindy Incidentally. Although there's a new double cd set due out in October which I hope to get, One that can be got cheaply and is very good is The Best of the Faces (Good boys ...while they're asleep).

Currently available on Rhino and priced at £2.99 on Amazon UK you really cannot go wrong with this single cd retrospective..

Turn, turn, turn

Anyone who knows anything at all about me knows I've always loved the Byrds one of the most important American rock groups of the 60's and beyond not just for the individual talents within  the group in its differing lineups but the fact they got to what was new and hip before anyone else did, pioneering whole new musical genres such as Country-Rock that lead us to The Eagles and Poco.

 
I grew up on the UK import History of the Byrds double compilation lp which for its time give a well rounded assessment of their abilities and not a few hard to find vital 45's such as Lady Friend although in time I bought a number of studio albums plus the good if slightly flawed Original singles masters lps issued in the UK in 1980 and 1982 respectively supply all the singles with matching b sides.

People remarked on the music I played at high school during that period as it was so different than anything they were familiar with.

Anyway in 1990 I was based in Surrey, just outside of London, when the news broke that a new box set of their work freshly remastered and even remixed in parts was coming out October 19th on CBS over here (the US edition was on Columbia)  which appealed not least because some of the  early Byrds cds although having the original mixes didn't sound so hot in this new format.

The set also content 6 new recordings made that year showcasing their talent even now.

I remember saving up for it, intending to buy it in a store in Kingston Upon Thames only to find some so and so had stolen all my money so as I was short on funds for meeting my other obligations, I never got around to getting it.

 
I bought all the remastered individual cds from 1996 and 1997 that were issued  featuring many bonus tracks but still hankered for this attractively packaged set

Each disc is titled with its own cover art and there remains a good number of alternate mixes and material not carried over to the "There Is a Season" box set of a few years ago.

 
Fortunately I was able to track down an as new US copy used for a cheap price from a Amazon vendor which should be here in a minute.
I'm really looking forward to finally getting it.
Tracklist:

We Have Ignition 1. Mr Tambourine Man 2. I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better 3. Chimes Of Freedom 4. She Has A Way 5. All I Really Want To Do 6. Spanish Harlem Incident 7. The Bells Of Rhymney 8. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue 9. She Don't Care About Time 10. Turn Turn Turn 11. It Won't Be Wrong 12. Lay Down Your Weary Tune 13. He Was A Friend Of Mine 14. The World Turns All Around Her 15. The Day Walk (Never Before) 16. The Times They Are A-Changin' 17. 5D (Fifth Dimension) 18. I Know My Rider 19. Eight Miles High 20. Why 21. Psychodrama city 22. I See You 23. Hey Joe Cruising Altitude 24. Mr Spaceman 25. John Riley 26. Roll Over Beethoven 27. So You Want To Be A Rock 'N' Roll Star 28. Have You Seen Her Face 29. My Back Pages 30 Tim Between 31. It Happens Each Day 32. Renaissance Fair 33. Everybody's Been Burned 34. The Girl With No Name 35. Triad 36. Lady Friend 37. Old John Robertson 38. Goin' Back 39. Draft Morning 40. Wasn't Born To Follow 41. Dolphin's Smile 42. Reputation 43. You Ain't Going Nowhere 44. The Christian Life 45. I Am A Pilgrim 46. Pretty Boy Floyd 47. You Don't Miss Your Water Full Throttle: 48. Hickory Wind 49. Nothing Was Delivered 50. One Hundred Years From Now 51. Pretty Polly 52. Lazy Days 53. This Wheels On Fire 54. Nashville West 55. Old Blue 56. Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man 57. Bad Night At The Whiskey 58. Lay Lady Lay 59. Mae Jean Goes To Hollywood 60. Ballad Of Easy Rider 61. Oil In My Lamp 62. Jesus Is Just Alright 63. Way Beyond The Sun 64. Tulsa County 65. Deportee 66. Lover Of The Bayou 67. Willin' 68. Black Mountain Rag 69. Positively 4th Street Final Approach: 70. Chestnut Mare 71. Just A Season 72. Kathleen's Song 73. Truck Stop Girl 74. Just Like A Woman 75. Stanley's Song 76. Glory Glory 77. I Trust 78. I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician 79. Green Apple Quick Step 80. Tiffany Queen 81. Bugler 82. Lazy Waters 83. Farther Along 84. White's Lightning From The 1990 Roy Orbison Tribute: 85. Turn Turn Turn 86. Mr Tambourine Man The Nashville Session: New 1990 Recordings: 87. He Was A Friend Of Mine 88. Paths Of Victory 89. From A Distance 90. Love That Never Dies A link is on the Favourites tab for Tom's Gene Clark blog (The Clarkophile) that I feel is one of the best music blogs out there.

Neil Young box set

Around the same point as the album I was talking about  last week came out another man was making waves less for his sense of showmanship rather his lyricism and yes he was a Canadian.

Well he was a big influence on my tastes around the 70's, spending time with those with copies of his albums although what I could buy was kinda limited cos I was skint .

For a very long time as Neil himself complained bitterly his albums on cd sounded 'weedy' and in 2009 his first four which I consider essential listening, were remastered carefully using the enhanced cd sound system know as HDCD.

These four albums I feel set his reputation covering such gems  as The Emperor of Wyoming, Cinnamon Girl, Cowgirl In The Sand, After The Gold Rush, Southern Man ( a song that really got under the skin of Southerners!), Cripple Creek Ferry, Heart Of Gold, The Needle and the Damage Done (recalling the loss in the late 60's, early 70's of so many promising young artistic talents to drug and alcohol abuse) and  many more.

Recently Reprise/WME reissued the set on cd with bare bone covers in jewelcases  over a slip case for a really low price - around £10.99 so if you were curious about these albums  or maybe want to replace your old cds it's not gonna break the bank no more.

In other news this week I'm watching the animes Narutu Shippuden volume 9 and Stigma of the Wind (streamed for a site a friend of mine sent me a link to).

Ziggy Stardust

A few weeks and forty odd years ago an album was issued that became in many respects bigger than the artists own profile dominating the popular music scene for 1972/3.
It's an album almost  every student of any generation feels they have to heard never mind own regardless of what format may be prevailent at the time and it was a major musical and social influence either on me at that time.
Ziggy Stardust is a character - a singer in a rock band - and through him we see his raise to fame and tellingly his burn out that mirrors all too sadly what actually happens in real life. Everybody wants a piece of his pie from the management team, record label  even ultimately, the fans themselves and the artist struggles to "Hang on to yourself" to quote the title of one of the songs featured.
If the Monkees were a made for TV fabrication of a rock group based upon the Beatles, here was in many ways a more credible fabrication for the modern era -  a complete fabrication from individuals persona onward.
If one goes down Heddon Street, London the buildings in the cover shot can be seen although the trash can and K West sign are long gone.
The first single off the album was Starman and I recall the first time I heard that on the radio well being aware from the billboards and older friends of this Bowie character. What got to me about was -and still is - is the sense of detachment, alienation even of the lead character in the lyrics and the unamerican style of singing.
I first had the album on RCA 8 track tape although my brother had the lp and have been through cassette and cd versions.
This album has been re-issued numerous times and unfortunately like most of David Bowie's back catalogue their is no such thing as a really good cd version although on the advice of a friend of mine, Keith H in Ohio, I got the original RCA cds from the mid 1980's which were more listenable than either the thin sounding EMI (US: Ryko) titles from 1990/91 with bonus tracks or Peter Mew's bloated and highly compressed versions from 1999 on EMI (US: Virgin).
In 1990 a boxed edition was issued by EMI with a  72 page booklet with the regular cd
recognizing it's iconic status and this June  two new editions came out.
The cd version is just a straight re-issue of the 11 track album in a card digpack cover which I can't say I really like as packaging preferring Mini Lp style i we're having paper based.
While there is a little compression on it compared to the 1984 RCA, the tonality is spot on and let's be honest here the analogue to digital conversion technology has come an awful lot in 28 years (I can hear the convertors' sound on many older cds) so for the first time ever there is a pretty acceptable in print cd even though I won't be tossing out the RCA.
Secondly and even better news is that there was a new lp lovingly mastered by Ray Staff who used to work at Porky's mastering that many of us feel surpasses the original UK orange RCA lp when it comes to sound quality and dead quiet surfaces. It comes with a audio dvd that will play on a computer or Blue-ray player capable of 96khz/24Bit resolution (most do) offering  both stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes with bonus tracks which will sound smoother than the regular cd.
Recommended.

Classical music update

Recently I've gotten some more classical music cds that I've been slowly working my way through and I hope to complete this entry about them in a few days time.
First off, I kind of got off on a lopsided approach to Beethoven, missing out on his Violin and Piano Sonatas completely plowing through the Symphonies and then  Piano Concertos  2 and 5.
In the early 1960's DG had a stereophonic remake of Wilhelm Kempff's series of the complete piano concertos made again featuring the Belin Philharmonic Orchestra but this time featuring Ferdinand Leitner conducting.
They had been issued  previously on cd in the DG Galleria series in 1987/8 but were remastered to good effect a few years back and issued in 2 cd sets.

This one has the first four piano concertos.
The fifth known as the Emperor was issued in a second pack with the Triple Concerto performed by Wilhelm Geza Anda on piano, Wolfgang Schneiderhan on violin and Founier on the cello coupled ith a second disc with Schniederhan's masterful 1961 account of the Opus 61  Violin Concerto.

Well, I got the first two discs in series of Wilhelm Kempff's masterful Piano Sonatas cycle from the mid 1960's that as recordings weren't unfamiliar to me as I'd borrowed tapes from the public library of them before. I think there was a big box with all thirty two of them but I kinda thought it would be overkill and have picked up a 2 cd set with the late Sonatas, numbers 27 through 32.
I eventually got the cd in the same series yesterday of Menuhin and Kempff's account of the Sonatas for Piano and Violin numbers Five and Nine from 1970 that remains one of the finest ever recorded. I also picked up used the Violinist Anne Sophie-Mutter's recording with Herbert von Karajan of the Triple Concerto from 1980 which was a full price disc issued 1985 with three overtures tacked on to fill up the disc.

Dvorák: Well I always had a soft spot from his work but outside of the odd Piano Sonata plus recordings of his Cello and Violin Concertos, hadn't gone beyond his famous Ninth symphony (the New World).
I bought a re-issue of a 1991 cd set packaged in a cardboard box and card sleeves of Rafael Kubelik's complete cycle of nine symphonies recorded 1968 thru'1973 for DG, something I'd always dreamt of getting as a kid which were amongst the strongest interpretations ever and anyway I've always loved theses performances having the Ninth on lp.

Finally to Brahms. Poor thing I kinda neglected him beyond the cat gut works and a recording of his Second and Third symphonies I inexplicably picked up in the early 1990's. I've finally added his First and Fourth symphonies as performed by Herbert von Karajan (1978 and 1988 respectively).

Kansas

I've always liked Kansas but the majority of their albums I had were on tape so I was mighty glad to get this cd set recently.
Beginning in the 70s from their hometown of Topeka, Kansas, the group produced a wild mix of rock anthems, introspective ballads, and loose jams on their studio albums.
Many of you have heard of "Carry On Wayward Son" on Classic Rock radio stations throughout Canada and the rest of the World which was a smash hit for the group back in '76. Well that's from an album called Leftoverture that happens to part of this extremely cheap 5 cd set."Dust in the Wind" (off the featured '77's Point of Know Return album) is hardly indicative of the full-bodied, keyboard-and-violin-fuelled anthems that grace most of their albums.
Why not take a chance on this group with an unique sound and buy this set. The albums included are:-
Kansas (S/T)
Song For America
Masque
Leftoverture
Point of Know Return

The discs are the Sony Legacy remasters from the 2000's that happen to sound extremely good to my ears and I'm something of a fussbudget about these things.

I also got the US older mastered version of Monolith from 1979 featuring the hit People of the SouthWind and the 1996 re-master of Audio-Vision which had the hit Hold On.

I first bought this as a lp record in August 1983 and following a selling off period in the late 80's while I was trying to build up my cd collection, I have been without a copy!
This was a pity as it was a enjoyable album the Prog rockers when John Elefante joined the band taking lead vocals.
It came out briefly on cd in 1996 but is out of print commanding a very high price a bit more than I can justify but by a struck of luck 7Digital had it available as a download so having installed the download manager and read the instructions, I bought the album download.
The song Mainstream takes a pot shot at the label people who stifle artistic development and Fight Fire With fire is a up tempo rocker.
YouTube - Kansas - Fight Fire with Fire

I also got the download of Vinyl Confessions the 1982 album with the hits Play The Game Tonight and Play On as this cd is also no longer available even though it was only issued in 1996.

7Digitals downloads:
Unlike some downloads 7Digital allow you to put them on whatever you want as many times a you like without restrictions. They come in Mp3 format that plays on practically all players and pc media players. The bit rate is either 256kbps or 320kbps CBR (Constant Bit Rate to reduce the file size) The download manager is available for Mac and Windows but Linus users can use the Zip file option
I have to be honest here and say I don't particular like Mp3 as a file format as it squashes the soundstage compared to lossless formats like Flac although it is popular for portable usage because it doesn't use much memory capacity on players.
Within the file formats restrictions it sounded tidy with good detail which was aided by the bit rate.