Friends of the program have ripped another copy of the recent 2xLP bootleg featuring the now-famed studio outtakes and premix/unmixed recordings... and it's full glorious stereo.
Watch the other blog for possible cleanup postings, and with this new transfer, upcoming posts here may reflect/include some of these new findings.
One thing I'm now deeply considering is updating the RTT136-A fileset with this new transfer of the Tate "Reel Around The Fountain" final mix. It clearly supersedes our previous source and despite other speculation to the contrary (I still refuse to accept that, given the confirmed existence of RT-pressed test pressings featuring the Peel version of the track as the A-side, RT would pay the Beeb licensing fees for a still-minor band's 2nd single without an LP out as well), I remain convinced the final in-the-shops version of the withdrawn RATF single would have been Tate's recording.
Will it bee the same rip as the one at Smithstorrents?
ReplyDeleteI don't reeely want to download it again, but if I has to..
Ignore that last post, I'll be downloading anyway..
ReplyDeleteWe have three possible contenders for a Reel A side - the new version (which sounds a lot like the Tate1 version), Tate2 as originally posted for RTT136-A, and the Peel version (of which I'm not aware of an existing remastered version - hint hint). Why not include all three then all bases will be covered!
ReplyDeleteAnalog Loyalist, this is DavidA. I run smithstorrents. I have some info that might be helpful to you but your clandestine persona means I don't have a working e-mail address for you. Could you drop me a note when you have a minute? david dot amor at gmail dot com.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Bauhaus use a Peel session song on their first album? This might be completely besides the point (album not single), but it gives me an excuse to thank you once again for all the work you put in this (these) project(s).
ReplyDeleteAnd Happy New Year.
Now this is going to be Chistmas all over again!
ReplyDeleteCan anyone point me in the direction of some discussion on how this may force the hand of WBR or M & M? Has there been any discussion at all?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about any thoughts people may have on how this bootleg affects any ongoing reissues.
Not aware of any ongoing interweb discussion about this and Warners/Smithdom future plans, but my opinion?
ReplyDeleteWon't do squat.
I was involved to a fair degree with another unnamed band's reissue/remastering campaign and everything was done on a "will it move product" basis, for the most part. And this is with a band that the label had far more of a laissez faire attitude towards, but it came down to the quarterly profit and loss statements for the label.
Overwhelmingly, the industry sees toss-off demos, unfinished monitor mixes, and the like as - mostly - dead ends. The market's in the remastering of the catalog - get the punters to by the same record 18 times - and live tracks usually pull in the waverers. Your Manhattan attorney who listened to the Smiths in college really won't care about the alternate "Paint A Vulgar Picture", but he will remember that gig in 1985 and it'll be the memories of that, stirred up by a live set on the new project, that will encourage the purchase. This is the same stumbling block we ran into with the major label on that unnamed band's campaign I was involved with.
With that unnamed band, there were oodles of demos and unreleased material that the major label had actual possession of. Some of it was in the hands of an outside caretaker who had a far better idea of the material and the immense value to the fans it had, and was willing to hand anything/everything over for the project, but the label never wanted any of it. And furthermore the label never considered any of the presumably awesome stuff they had on their own desks. It came down to profit/loss sheets.
R.E.M. is an arguably more famous band that has had perhaps the leakiest of the leaky sieves regarding demos, at least in their first 12 years as a band. Most of these demos circulated in fair to middling quality amongst the fans and on bootleg vinyl/CDs, and every opportunity is/was there for the band/label to blow thousands of collectors away with upgraded sets at any time. They don't. The only set officially released to date was the 2nd disc on the recent Fables (1985 LP) reissue last summer, and admittedly none of that material had ever circulated at *all* outside the band and their tight inner circle for 25 years.
I have no idea what M/M think. /M I bet is getting a chuckle over everything (hey, everyone finally hears some of the abandoned Porter work!), while M/ is complaining in his kitchen about the poor vocals on a lot of these (poor in the sense that he's not *RIGHT* on in the phrasing on a lot of them).
"(while M/ is complaining in his kitchen about the poor vocals on a lot of these (poor in the sense that he's not *RIGHT* on in the phrasing on a lot of them)."
ReplyDeleteLmfao...........
Some incoherent ramblings.
ReplyDeleteGod I hate live concerts as 2nd CD’s.
I have a NME that celebrates the 20th anniversary of TQID in a box somewhere, with Marr mentioning the ‘extended’ version of the title track. He seemed pretty upbeat at the time that it was going to see the light of day. Lived in hope for a while that there may be a ‘legacy’ edition with the extra tracks, but came to realise that this isn’t happening for a while if ever.
I’m frustrated that the studio albums have been remastered and released on LP and on MP3, leaving the CD reissues languishing (again I live in hope). I have bootleg versions of the Rhino MP3’s as well as needle drop transfers of the remasters LP’s. Surely the longer WB wait the more will be released on the ‘back channels’, the current bootleg being testament to this. Last week it was Mono, this week Stereo, and perhaps next week a lossless CD version will appear?
AL ,I too am a REM fan, Although I thought that the live versions where to cover the lack of any usable studio tracks? A much as I love ‘Cushy Tush’, I don’t really need to listen to a good quality version of it..or do I?? Although, the Fables reissue, I hope, has put a stop to the live recordings and we’ll continue to see some recent studio tracks. Again I live in hope that we’ll eventually see the early unreleased material in the REM boxset in 2030 or whenever.
But then again, pity the poor Beatles fans and the wait they had.
Interesting!
ReplyDeleteLet the conspiracy theories commence.
Is Warners bootlegging themselves?
@Peeboo:
ReplyDelete"A much as I love ‘Cushy Tush’, I don’t really need to listen to a good quality version of it..or do I??"
Well, maybe if we had a pristine set of the Mazer demos, we wouldn't be tired of that same old asswipe after all..
Just to be the exception to the rule, I am a Manhattan attorney and I listened to the smiths in college and after and still but never got around to seeing them for one reason or another and I am interested in the details and the oddball bits and pieces. So please don't tar me with a cliche. And BTW, thanks for all the hard work on this and the JD/NO project!
ReplyDeleteLet the conspiracy theories commence...
ReplyDeleteLast week when I thought the demos where in mono, I did wonder about the commercial sense release of a set of demos on mono on vinyl.
I guess it works both ways, I'm a bootlegger with a highly anticipated CD. I release it first on LP and then wait a year and release it on CD. I've doubled my market share.
But it could have been feasible that WB could have leaked the tracks in mono just to stir up the kind of discussions that are now happening, as ammunition for the release of the same tracks officially at a later date.
We now know they are is stereo, sourced I guess from the WB CD master. So I think its a matter of time before lossless versions from the master surface.
Also love the fact that the album cover was sourced from 'Peepholism'. Gives the album an official air anyways. (..or was it meant too?)
Well, I'm not jumping on the "walks like, quacks like, but isn't" bandwagon just yet, because the initial mono transfer of this bootleg was done by a guy who's confirmed the problem was with his rig, not the vinyl. Another friend of the program bought his own copy of the vinyl around the same time, transferred *his*, and due to his rig being set up correctly, it's in stereo.
ReplyDeleteRegardless the whole thing was sourced from official Warner Strategic Marketing product. How the people with access to the pressing plants got it is the $64,000 question. And with that other blog link, either Warners has disgruntled staff walking out of 3300 Warner Boulevard with product and a connection, or someone is feeding someone else material.
Wonder what band will be next? New Order? R.E.M.? The fabled Automatic For The People demos with the unreleased "The Devil Rides Backwards On A Horse Called Maybe"???
Calm down, Analog Loyalist. Let the chips fall where they may.
I sometimes click on other peoples' profiles to see what makes them tick and it's there that I found out about http://thesmithsproject.blogspot.com/.
ReplyDeleteYou should all check it out - what the singer does is incredible. Bet you all knew about it anyway - but for those who didn't, go and find out about her. I won't spoil the suprise.
Thanks Peeboo.