King Biscuit

        Odd that John Swenson dosn't mention The Who, considering what a 
     Who fan he is and writing a book about them and all.
     
                                        Brian
     
      Feature-King Biscuit records looks at rock history
         By John Swenson
         NEW YORK (Reuter) - For radio listeners who grew up with the
     rock music of the 1970s and 1980s, the King Biscuit Flower Hour
     was the next-best thing to being there.
         Rock fans looked forward to the weekly live broadcasts,
     syndicated on over 300 radio stations, by some of the biggest
     names on the concert circuit from John Lennon to Blondie. From
     1973 to 1985 The King Biscuit Flower Hour documented touring
     rockers, providing a profile of rock history.
        Bootleg recordings of many King Biscuit shows have been
     circulating for years. But now the concerts are being prepared
     for mass distribution on the King Biscuit Flower Hour record
     label.
         "I would read collector's magazines and see that the
     bootlegged shows were selling for $50 to $1,000 per show," said
     Steve Ship, the record company's owner. "Bootleg companies were
     taking the shows off the radio and selling them. We're ...
     stamping that out," he said.
         He added, "The original shows were an hour minus commercial
     time, but all of the recordings are at least an hour long, so
     the records include material not included in the broadcasts.
         "The Greg Lake show with Gary Moore on guitar was heavily
     bootlegged, but remixing it and putting out the entire show
     effectively stamps the bootleg out of existence."
         The Lake set was part of the Biscuit's first release, a
     batch of 12 titles including concerts by Rick Wakeman, Robin
     Trower, Canned Heat, Deep Purple, Steve Forbert, Kingfish,
     Humble Pie, 10CC, The Fixx, America and Triumph.
         "We did a lot of listening to determine what shows would
     be in our first release," said the Canadian-born Shipp, 34,
     who attended a number of King Biscuit live recordings
     conducted at the Montreal Spectrum while growing up.
         Ship has three people on his staff going over the
     archives to decide which shows to release. "We have more than
     16,000 physical tapes altogther," he said.
         "There is no comparable archive in rock history. It's
     the largest archive of live rock 'n' roll in the world. The
     only conceivable comparison would be the BBC, but they
     destroyed their multi-tracks and kept recording on the same
     tape. Our multi-tracks are still there, which enables us to
     go back and digitally remaster the shows."
         One of the hurdles Ship must overcome is getting each
     group to agree to release the tapes.
         "In every case we've gone back to the artists," he said.
     "Our releases are dictated on what we have cleared. Some
     artists are excited about it. A small percentage may never
     approve the release."
         So far the artist response has been positive.
         "When we did that King Biscuit show, we felt like we
     were The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show," said Cy Curnin,
     lead singer of The Fixx, whose concert was included in the
     original group of releases. "All we knew was that we were
     going to be heard all over America, which was this huge
     country of 240 million people. It was incredible for a young
     band cutting its teeth."
         Greg Lake, of Emerson, Lake and Palmer fame, was
     particularly happy to see a professional-quality release
     replace the bootleg copy of his solo band's show.
         "What makes this King Biscuit recording so special,"
     said Lake, "is that it is the only professional live
     recording made of this version of the band. We didn't stay
     together all the long, but we made some great music."
         Ship is readying a second release which will include
     performances by Billy Squire, John Sebastian, Robert Gordon,
     David Crosby and Greg Kihn.
         "King Biscuit always used state-of-the-art recording
     trucks," said Shipp. "Each recording was an actual date in
     the tour. They would record the whole concert, including the
     opening act.
         "There are tons of moments that have never been heard
     before. Quite often there were multiple nights recorded.
     Every day we're discovering a new disc that nobody's ever
     heard yet. We found an early ACDC performance with the
     original singer that was never aired because it was
     onsidered too heavy at the time."
         Although Ship won't reveal his wish list of shows, the
     ACDC performance is obviously one he's eager to release. The
     details haven't been worked out, but Ship said he has all
     the time he needs.
         "Our schedule is to put out 24 releases a year," he said.
     "With 750 concerts we could be doing this for many years, and I
     expect to be doing this for many years."