Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2020 1:14:08 GMT
STeVe (Sept 22, 2003):
2141 (June 25, 2020):
STeVe: (June 25, 2020):
I felt in the mood to listen to this for the first time since I skimmed it in 2001 and it's great.
This is the current version in the slip case that was compiled by SH Forum member Andrew Sandoval and Bill Inglot in 2001. Yes, I'm just getting around to listening to it now! Catalog number R2 76717
This is such a great album, and I've loved it since I first heard it on a four-track tape cartridge in an older friend's car back in 1969. Funny, the tape cart started with side two so I always expect the album to start there as well....
Interesting liner notes on this CD version. My friend, photographer Robert Leslie Dean, who is a great Arthur Lee and Love expert always talks about how Lee had this "death obsession" when he was younger; like he didn't expect to live past 23 or something. This is also mentioned in the great booklet notes as well. Knowing this and then listening to the lyrics really changes their meaning around for me.
I have the old dreadful CD (with the oscillator tone running through it) and of course the original Elektra LP, but this sounds the most life like of anything to me. I actually heard a dreadful "Ledo" cutting master of this album once that really sounded dead, but it's obvious that the master mix is much more dynamic. In fact, the dynamics surprised me.
Bruce Botnick told me a few years back that he thought that the top end had fallen off of the master tape or something when he revisited it because he didn't remember it sounding the way it does. Well, he indeed mixed it like this because the tape hiss has top end, even if some of the songs don't, heh. Possibly those Altec 604's that he mixed on threw him off (ya think?) I think this was one of Botnick's first eight-track to two-track mixes and it must have been quite complicated to do. The late Paul Rothschild told me that a few of the songs (like "A House Is Not A Motel") started life as four-tracks that were done at United/Western and then bounced to eight-track at Sunset Sound when the project moved forward. He also told me that jazz trumpet great Jack Sheldon is playing the lead horn on "Alone Again Or". Cool. I'm glad they didn't remix this baby because the original mix is so dark that it really adds to the mystery of this album. A remix would just sound wrong....
The bonus tracks are really neat. I helped furnish some of the outtakes and alternate mixes that Paul Rothschild was working on back in the 1970's or 80's and Dan Hersch & Bill Inglot did a nice job integrating them into the CD. In fact, I had forgotten that I made them those copies from my really old cassette because they sounded so much better on the CD than I remembered, unless they got better copies from someone else which is very possible I guess...
All in all, this is a great way to revisit this classic album from 1967. If you've never heard it before, you are in for a treat; this record was so ahead of its time it is not funny. Go play it or go buy it!
This is the current version in the slip case that was compiled by SH Forum member Andrew Sandoval and Bill Inglot in 2001. Yes, I'm just getting around to listening to it now! Catalog number R2 76717
This is such a great album, and I've loved it since I first heard it on a four-track tape cartridge in an older friend's car back in 1969. Funny, the tape cart started with side two so I always expect the album to start there as well....
Interesting liner notes on this CD version. My friend, photographer Robert Leslie Dean, who is a great Arthur Lee and Love expert always talks about how Lee had this "death obsession" when he was younger; like he didn't expect to live past 23 or something. This is also mentioned in the great booklet notes as well. Knowing this and then listening to the lyrics really changes their meaning around for me.
I have the old dreadful CD (with the oscillator tone running through it) and of course the original Elektra LP, but this sounds the most life like of anything to me. I actually heard a dreadful "Ledo" cutting master of this album once that really sounded dead, but it's obvious that the master mix is much more dynamic. In fact, the dynamics surprised me.
Bruce Botnick told me a few years back that he thought that the top end had fallen off of the master tape or something when he revisited it because he didn't remember it sounding the way it does. Well, he indeed mixed it like this because the tape hiss has top end, even if some of the songs don't, heh. Possibly those Altec 604's that he mixed on threw him off (ya think?) I think this was one of Botnick's first eight-track to two-track mixes and it must have been quite complicated to do. The late Paul Rothschild told me that a few of the songs (like "A House Is Not A Motel") started life as four-tracks that were done at United/Western and then bounced to eight-track at Sunset Sound when the project moved forward. He also told me that jazz trumpet great Jack Sheldon is playing the lead horn on "Alone Again Or". Cool. I'm glad they didn't remix this baby because the original mix is so dark that it really adds to the mystery of this album. A remix would just sound wrong....
The bonus tracks are really neat. I helped furnish some of the outtakes and alternate mixes that Paul Rothschild was working on back in the 1970's or 80's and Dan Hersch & Bill Inglot did a nice job integrating them into the CD. In fact, I had forgotten that I made them those copies from my really old cassette because they sounded so much better on the CD than I remembered, unless they got better copies from someone else which is very possible I guess...
All in all, this is a great way to revisit this classic album from 1967. If you've never heard it before, you are in for a treat; this record was so ahead of its time it is not funny. Go play it or go buy it!
2141 (June 25, 2020):
Steve, I believe you worked with Bruce Botnick, probably quite extensively during the remastering process. Did you ever meet or work with Paul Rothchild?
STeVe: (June 25, 2020):
Already dead. It would have been a pleasure and an honor though..