ICE article

[John Johanneson <JOHANNESON@macc.wisc.edu>]

Hi all,

Here's a piece of an article which appears in this month's ICE newsletter
that I thought would be of interest. I just joined this listserver
yesterday, so if this info has already been posted, sorry!

-John

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Though negotiations and complete details are not fully completed, plans are 
also well underway for a complete overhaul of the Who's catalog. As much as any 
other major rock artist, the Who's early albums are much maligned by fans for 
their shoddy sound quality, skimpy CD booklets and generic graphics. They're 
true relics of the earliest CD age. The program calls for every album in the 
band's catalog (except Tommy and Quadrophenia) to be dramatically improved, 
most likely beginning with an expanded Live At Leeds sometime next year. Along 
with the upgrades, the overhaul will also see the end of the numerous best-of 
compilations all over the world in favor of a single, definitive greatest-hits 
package. "We've already begun deleting titles from the catalog in an effort to 
clean this up," MCA Executive Vice President Randy Miller tells ICE. "We're 
eliminating all of the various greatest-hits titles. We're also deleting some 
of the older titles, so that we can re-introduce the newly remastered versions. 
We will be going to a more elaborate package on basically all of the titles." 
Chris Charlesworth, who compiled and co-produced the group's 30 Years Of 
Maximum R&B box set, will play a major role in the upgrade campaign. "The Who 
are committed, I'm committed, their manager Bill Curbishley is committed, and 
their record companies appear to be committed," Charlesworth tells ICE, 
referring to MCA in America and Polydor overseas. "This will involve 
remastering and remixing every goddamn track they've ever done, if necessary, 
hopefully including the [Shel] Talmy stuff, because
we'll try to negotiate with him yet again." Talmy was the band's first 
producer, and still holds the masters to some key, early material. 
Charlesworth's plans call for expanding all of the Who's albums up to 70 
minutes in length, using bonus tracks. "What this music consists of is yet to 
be firmly decided," he says, "but it will consist of rare tracks and B-sides, 
the sort of stuff that's appeared on Who's Missing and Two's Missing. And, if I 
can find it and it's appropriate, other
wholly unreleased items like 'Jaguar' and 'Fortune Teller' and stuff that I put 
on the box set that no one had ever heard before except on bootlegs. So you'll 
get the original album, then there will be a decent gap, then you'll start with 
your bonus tracks, a la the Elvis Costello reissues." Charlesworth also tells 
ICE that bastardized American album variations, such as Magic Bus: The Who On 
Tour, will be eliminated in favor of
the original British LP line-ups, much like the Beatles catalog, which has been 
streamlined worldwide. Booklets will also be improved with
original artwork restored, additional photos expanded notes and newly written 
historical essays discussing The Who's affairs around the time of that album.

Live At Leeds is scheduled to be upgraded first because it's one of the band's 
biggest catalog sellers, and the master tape of the entire performance is 
readily available. "We can easily do another half hour from the same night," 
says Charlesworth. "They did the whole of Tommy that night, which is where we 
got 'See Me, Feel Me' for the box set. There's a knockout 'Pinball Wizard,' and 
there's never been a live version of that released with [drummer Keith Moon, so 
l want that on there. Maybe part of 'Sparks'/ 'Underture,' though a bit of 
that's in the long 'My Generation.' I'd like to have 'Acid Queen'and the 
'Overture' as well. So I might do a half hour of Tommy. I've actually got some 
photos taken that night by a student, so we could do something quite nice with 
that." "Who's Next will end up sounding more like the original Lifehouse 
project that Pete wrote," Charlesworth continues. "It'll include other songs 
which I know were recorded around the same time, some of which turned up on 
singles and Odds And Sods, which will probably be deleted. But the stuff on it 
will turn up elsewhere, and Who's Missing and Two's Missing will probably be 
deleted, too, as they won't be needed anymore." Another plan calls for Face 
Dances and It's Hard to be combined onto one CD.

Charlesworth hopes to close the campaign with a two-CD live anthology recorded 
between 1965-1975. The goal is to effectively create "an entire Who concert," 
he says, "beginning with 'I Can't Explain' and closing with something like
'Naked Eye' or 'My Generation Blues.' There's enough stuff to do it and include 
45 minutes of Tommy. It's just a matter of listening to it. It's a big job, but 
I want to have one gigantic retrospective live album which shows them at their 
best." MCA's Miller suggests the upgrade program should take about two years to 
complete.



PS- Sorry about the formatting