Re: Reissues

["Mark R. Leaman" <mleaman@sccoast.net>]

> To clarify, I was speaking mainly of Pete's solo releases, like the Avatar
> set, that sound like utter crap, although the BBC Sessions sounds like
shit

Jon:

I agree with you on the Avatar set; compared to Who Came First it's clearly
inferior (on any stereo). But BBC sounds fine to me. I haven't done a
one-to-one but Max BBC has a lot of hiss. Now generally I use a clever
little program called Dart Pro to rid myself of that, and it doesn't take
out the highs like NoNoise (however it's spelled) and I've often wondered
why it's not used professionally.
But as far as I've heard, the Who's BBC sounds no different than the
Zeppelin, Kinks (recommended!!!), Yardbirds, etc. BBC releases. It might be
the source. Sometimes it's a choice between it sounding bad in this way or
in that way.

> You, although for different reasons.  AQO because if the inferior mono
> masters--those who haven't heard this record in stereo don't know what

Once again, I agree with you.

> they're missing--and Who Are You because of sloppiness and unnecessary
> changes.

Ah, I see what you mean...I've never been happy with the horn changes in Had
Enough...but this is a mix issue, not a remastering issue. On the other side
of it, I think it sounds a lot better with Keith's drums up in the mix.

> Of course, there are many other mess ups, like the missing channel on
'Time
> is Passing'.  Thankfully, Luke P. fixed that himself for all to enjoy.

Well, this was a choice. Luke "cheated" the mix (I have a friend who does
this sort of thing with early Beach Boys material...he has many different
stereo versions of Good Vibrations) and MCA provided what they had. They
could have used delay, reverb, and various other studio tricks to create a
fake stereo but like I said it was a choice. Apparently they decided to give
you the original sans any tampering.
For me the biggest fuck up has been using the wrong version of the studio
Young Man Blues. And Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde remains unreleased in the remix
series...nor has Substutute been remixed.

> I think what I and others find irritating is that a little bit of quality
> control would go a long way.  Yes, it is great that the remasters were put
> out and are on the whole an improvement, but with a little bit of extra
> effort, it could have been a whole lot better.

You're right, of course...it's not perfect, and it could have been better.
But isn't that the definition of The Who's career? If they'd released the
original Blues/R&B album instead of scrapping it for what was released as My
Generation, they might have been as big as The Stones or Yardbirds right
away. IF they'd released Good Lovin' a year before the Young Racals (when
they recorded it for BBC), they would have had an entirely different career.
If they'd released the LP's worth of material they had in `68, as well as
the Fillmore East concert...if Live At Leeds had been a double album (it
still would have been too short)...if Lifehouse had been completed...if Quad
hadn't been trashed by the critics...if Keith hadn't been quite such a
lush...

This is what we signed on for, isn't it? It's called being a Who fan.

> the other outtakes from WBN?  How about the tracks off Who's Missing/Two's
> Missing/Rarities that haven't been reissued?  How about the lack of a
> substantial amount of live material from the Moon-era Who?

This stuff could still be released. Remember, the LAL was originally meant
to included Tommy LAL, then it was annouced there would be a multi-disc set
including TLAL, then they decided to make it a double set with TLAL, then
they decided not to release it...now we're back to reissuing LAL w/Tommy.
Anything can happen. As Johnny Angel might have said: "In Whoville it's
always Wednesday....remember the Micky Mouse club? Wednesday is
anything-can-happen day."

> Nah, I guess the reissue series is perfect, and we have all the stuff we'd
> like to hear available in perfect fidelity.  NOT!

If it was perfect it would be the first perfect thing The Who had done.
Instead, The Who are perfect in their imperfection.

> Perfection is an illusion.

Kevin:

I thought that was just a reflection in my mirror.

> I wish your store was close enough to shop at, Mark.

I'd be happy if you were close enough to visit, you and all of you here on
the list. Can you say: Big parties!

> Finally getting back to normal after relocating,job,house etc,,,,,

Derick:

You've been missed! Glad you're back!


"Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican."
     George "InterAtlantical" Bush

               Cheers                 ML