Re: Pissing contests!

[thewho rocks <leb905@yahoo.com>]

> Why? Pete doesn't *deserve* our money if he puts out releases like 
> this. Why should he get any money for a POS? If a bootleg sounds 
> better than the official release, why should anyone buy the official 
> release?

Because The Who is the originator of the material and they deserve the
money for their work.  Because Pete has devoted his whole life to
making Who music for you when he didn't have to, and likely didn't
enjoy a big part of it.  Given a choice, he'd likely have gone a
different musical route entirely.

Recall that Pete has made a lot of money from his website in the last
year, without selling a whole lot of Who material.  Given a direct
route to the audience and a little media boost, his own work is selling
pretty well.  He really didn't have to screw around with this at all.

 
> >I actually thought that Pete was pretty honest and straight
> >forward in his latest post.
> 
> Not in the slightest. Saying the bootleggers have more money and 
> resources than him is absurd. Not only does he have more money than 
> the bootleggers, he's got the multitrack master tapes.

Pete was certainly honest and straight-forward about his feelings in
the matter.  

You've overlooked the fact that Pete mentioned royalties and overhead. 
When he says "financial resources available" for the project, he means
he's not going to get as much back from MCA as the bootlegger will get
from his release.  Remember that artists always get a sucky deal from
their record labels.  Royalites from the recording will be divided
between the interested parties, and MCA will get the lion's share. 
Therefore, Pete is limited in what he can spend on production without
going into the red.  You don't expect him to take a loss on the deal,
do you? 

 
> Also, he said that this was "the best he could do." Again, another 
> lie. It's clear that both the bootleg and 1995 CD sound better.

But they are both different sources from Pete's TOMMY tapes.  You're
assuming he has some advantage in the source tapes, but you don't know
what condition they're in or what problems he's encountered.      

 
> >I don't necessarily agree with all
> >of his reasoning, but I appreciated (and was surprised) by
> >his admission that the new LAL wouldn't exist if not for the
> >LAL Complete bootleg.
> 
> Which is why it's *absurd* that Pete said he had never listened to 
> the bootleg. If true, it would mean he didn't even bother to listen 
> to the artifact that caused the DE to come out in the first place. If
> false, it means he was lying to us outright.

Are you saying that The Who should try to imitate their bootleg sound? 
Talk about losing it!  

Why should Pete buy bootlegs?  Or why should he sit around listening to
bootlegs of his Seventies work?  Studying it, so he can exactly
replicate the sound in official releases?  The Who is The Who, and they
don't imitate anything--much less themselves on some illigitimate
recording.  It would be suicide.

Yes, I know some artists say they collect boots of their own work, but
The Who is notoriously uninterested in their own past work--they've
always been musicians in the present, and always on the cutting edge of
new sound.  They don't do this by imitating anybody else's
work--especially that of bootleggers.

All this is without listening to the album, BTW.  I don't have it yet,
so I can't comment on the actual quality of the result.  It's a matter
of PRINCIPAL that fans should buy official releases over bootlegs,
regardless of how they sound--because the band gets money from the
official releases and NOT from bootlegs.  This is obvious.  The fact
that you guys (Luke and Fang) are bad-mouthing the album to the point
of recommending that fans NOT buy it indicates you've got some issues
beyond just the sound.  

Is this some kind of power struggle where you think you can force Pete
to do it the way you want?  OR ELSE you're going to put out a recording
in competition just to show him you can do it better?  

Have you been sending him emails offering your own work instead and
he's ignored you?  Is that the issue?  Come on, guys, let's hear the
truth!  


LB       

=====
Don't meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.