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TKAA Rehearsal tapes



I got my "sample" TKAA rehearsal tape last night.  Here's my review:

These tapes are supposedly NOT from Glens Falls, but rather from a London
soundstage where they rehearsed without the stage, lights, etc.  No sort of
background noise to indicate where they really were recorded.

About 60 mins of the approx 90 mins are "Overture/It's A Boy."  John gets
very bored early on, and starts doing some AMAZING shit to keep himself
interested, for which he gets STRONGLY chastised by Pete each time he strays
from the charts.  I think the exact quote is "Play the fucking song, John!"
 Pete and John BOTH criticize Bolton often, and at some point someone (a
backing singer?) says into an open mike "Chill out you asshole," presumably
to Pete.  The "fast strumming" that Pete played going into "It's A Boy"
during the tour is not present--in fact you barely hear the acoustic guitar
at all.  He does "extemporize" the lyrics to It's A Boy on one take: "Been
seen kissing a number of men/don't expect he'll (laughter)".

The other 30 minutes are "1921," the lyrics to which Roger seems
pathologically unable to remember.  Pete keeps saying "look down, Roger,"
presumably referring to the monitors they used on the tour.  About fifty
seconds into the first take both Pete and John burst out laughing and stop
playing.  Roger doesn't get the joke and asks them "what's so funny?"  Pete
says "He's doing that Floyd Cramer thing again" to which Rabbit responds
"Shore enough am" in an exaggerated drawl and then plays about thirty seconds
of a Floyd Cramer-ish piece.  That's the highlight of the tape.

OVERALL, the tape's quality is flawless.  My copy is DAT, and I'm fairly
certain the master (which appears to have come from the board) is as well.
 Only about 1/2 of the 90 mins is actually music--the rest is chatter and
instructions.  Lots of "No, hit it HERE."  This is clearly early early
rehearsals.  

Despite the tape's quality, I don't see a need to own 18 hours of this crap.
 It's fun to hear everybody call each other an asshole ONCE, but there's a
ton of it going on.  The majority of time is Pete giving instructions to the
"orchestra," and John and Roger making fun of Pete.  It's the kind of thing
you'll listen to once, and then put away.  I think I'm gonna take a pass on
it ($350 is mighty steep for something you'll only listen to once), but if
anyone else is interested I'll pass your names on to the guy who offered them
to me.  FAIR WARNING:  This guy is a crook, and he's ripped me off before.
 He also said that he was going to charge $400 for them--that $350 was a
special deal for me to make up for the "bad blood" between us.

There's a rockin' little number I want my jockey to play. . .
AThosWhite