Also, I've finally managed to find a copy of the Canadian 'All Right Now' DJ Radio Edit (from 4.14 to 3.09). So, here it is directly from the vinyl for your.... enjoyment? Actually it's okay, if a bit brutal on first listen, and if it got the single played on the radio, bought in the shops and then into the charts, well, I guess it did it's job.
The Free Story [Hi-Res 2CD (MQA x UHQCD)]
[Limited Release] [Cardboard Sleeve (Mini LP)]
Japan UICY-40307/8
The disc can also be played on regular CD players in UHQCD 44.1kHz/16bit resolution. However, MQA-enabled hardware/software is necessary to harness the full potential of this Hi-Res CD.
Disc One: I'm a Mover / I'll Be Creepin' / Mourning Sad Morning / All Right Now / Heavy Load / Fire and Water / Be My Friend / The Stealer / Soon I Will Be Gone / Mr. Big
Disc Two: The Hunter / Get Where I Belong / Travelling Man / Just for the Box / Lady / My Brother Jake / Little Bit of Love / Sail On / Heartbreaker / Come Together in the Morning.
After being delayed a couple of times this has finally come out, and VERY nice it is too. I have been trying to get someone at Universal/Island to get this out as the complete set (2CD and new 180g 2LP) for YEARS!! I'm constantly bringing the idea up, but no one has bitten - so the Japanese have done it instead and it comes on the new MQA CD format, so mastered at 352.8kHz / 24bit but playable as a regular 44.1kHz /16bit on any CD player.
Beautifully packed with the original booklet in the gatefold
mini LP sleeve (individually numbered originally and also for this MQA CD set)
complete with replicas of the inner bags. It's all there. This also has a
English/Japanese lyric booklet and yes, it has errors, don't they all! The
original analogue tapes have apparently been sourced for this, and a flat
transfer was done by Richard Whittaker at FX mastering before the files were
edited for DSD by Manabu Matsumura in Tokyo. All transfers were done in 2020.
Finally then, it's REALLY nice to have this in it's complete
form and newly polished with really lovely sound quality. I truly was smiling
ear to ear on the first play through this. The audio is outstanding, and just
to pick one track, 'Be My Friend' sounds incredible!
So, do you need this? Well I guess that depends on the thickness of your wallet. This is going to cost you about £33 if you shop around for the best price, and I would actually recommend the seller 'neco_kick' on Ebay as your source. I seen it for £40+ elsewhere, but his prices always seem to be good and I've never had a problem with anything I've ordered from him in the past. It does float about a bit price wise day to day, but that's the exchange rate with Japan changing, not him fiddling with the price!
As a Japanese 'limited edition' we all know that means nothing, and the chances are this will be issued again and again with a different obi strip. Still, if you want the first issue then this is it, get a move on. Personally I'd recommend this over the 'Fire And Water' MQA CD every time. I was somewhat unimpressed with that. The sound wasn't particularly improved to my ears and the packaging, other than that weird outer plastic wallet, wasn't very good either. Here they've upped their game considerably and I'd have to say that this is simply spot on. I can't think of any way they could have improved it - so full marks. Myself, I think this is a good buy, but remember I do have the advantage of the ability to play it in at least part of it's higher resolution. Your situation may be different, but even so, the complete package here is so nice and well done, with all the attention to detail lavished on it you could possibly want, I can only say that in my opinion this is brilliant and I absolutely LOVE it !!
No, I'm not endorsed to be nice about ANY product and I don't get any back-handers from 'neco_kick' either!
Richard Digby Smith
Book Guild Publishing Ltd.
ISBN 9781912881208
www.bookguild.co.uk
Richard Digby Smith had a dream as a kid of working in a recording studio, and having attempted first build one at home, the time eventually came for him to see if it was possible to make a living working like that for real. That's basically the premise of this book, a look in the life of a jobbing engineer and producer from year one; making the tea.
Obviously from our standpoint as FREE fans we know Digby was heavily involved with 'KKTR', 'Free At Least' and 'Heartbreaker'. From that point the book includes those periods (albeit briefly) but also things you may not know about, like the sessions for 'Stairway To Heaven' with Led Zeppelin and also working with people like Bob Marley and The Wailers, Stephen Stills, Traffic, Cat Stevens, Sparks and many more who shuffled through the Basing Street studio where Digby resided for many years - almost living there in fact, due to the crazy hours an engineer in demand keeps.
I was less familiar with his work in LA, the touring with Head, Hands & Feet as a live engineer, or that he worked on Sammy Hager's excellent 'All Night Long' live album (issued in the UK as 'Loud & Clear' with an extra track!). Interesting. Nor did I know he had two different No.1 albums in different countries at the same time. How cool is that! I guess few people knew he crawled through studio air conditioning ducting to stare at Frank Sinatra's shiny shoes while he recorded a session until now either!
The book guides us through the days at Island, going freelance and moving to LA, then finally returning home, which was when I first met Digby. It's equally funny and sad, and doesn't hold back too many punches when it deals with the perils of living in LA and the blight of drug addiction, drinking too much and generally 'living the lifestyle'. Also, happily, how to break the habit and move on from it.
At over 300 pages you may think some things are 'glanced over' a bit, and there's too much about daily LA life for me personally, but overall this is a good read and there really aren't too many books like this. Glyn Johns got his book 'Sound Man' out a few years back, but there's nothing that deals with the UK scene from this prospective - and certainly nothing like this about Island Records. Hopefully a future book or two can give us more depth on particular artists and sessions. I understand that may be the plan. In the meantime this is recommended, and with Christmas coming it's a nice little stocking filler for any friend interested in how music is actually made.
As always with books and CD's, shop around for a good price, but at just over £10 a pop there's really nothing here not to like. I really enjoyed it.
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Back Street Crawler -
The Atlantic Years 1975-1976
HNE Recordings (Cherry Red) QHNECD137Q
www.cherryred.co.uk
Firstly, if you have absolutely nothing by Back Street Crawler (which would be something of a surprise if you are an FAS subscriber) then this set represents a good 'instant collection' covering many of the bases. Shop around and you'll pick this up for around £21 - so being a fiver per CD I can't say it doesn't offer some value for money. What is does however is slop the two albums together with a bootleg rip of the original Repertoire 'Croydon 1975' CD - which itself is actually cut down in length a little from the original 'Street Tunes' 2LP set, and the bootleg of the Starwood show THOUGHT to come from March 3rd 1976, originally recorded by a friend of Snuffy Walden's and a few of cassette outtakes from the same bootleg. Mmmmm.
Sadly the boast of this 'Featuring plenty of rare,
contemporary memorabilia' is utter bollocks. This consists of a poorly
illustrated folded double sided sheet of glossy paper with cuttings pasted on -
some covering the text of another. The various clippings look poor too. A
little clean up would have improved things and even I can hit 'auto-adjust'
in Photoshop. No sleeve notes of any kind, so don't expect to learn anything
about the history of the band - and even though four of the players are still
around it appears none of them got to contribute anything. 'Full involvement
with front man Terry Slesser'? WHERE? And what about Rabbit, Tony Braunagel
and Terry Wilson (the American one!)
Fortunately the CD sleeves themselves look good, and have nicely
reproduced copies of the original album covers in small Japanese style card
mini LP sleeves. Two perfectly acceptable sleeves are given to the 'bootleg'
element of the set. Sadly these then come packed in a shitty thin card (thick
paper) 'box' giving the whole set the feel of 'cheap'. No one
should be proud of this, and it's NOT showing much respect to the product
really. Slap it in, throw it out - get paid.
The 'mastering' is okay. A bit 'harsh' certainly, but no
real problems. Not really any worse than the 'Wounded Bird' editions (or
is that where these come from?). Here we could have used a bit of TLC really,
at least a good re-mastering, and the debut really needs a re-mix if the best
is to be got from it these days. Fat chance here. If you really want to hear '2nd
Street' try and get the Japanese remaster, which is far superior (packaging
and sound) but of course will cost you more than this entire set, hence my
comment about value here. You get what you pay for however.
So why do I dislike this set so much? Well the lack of any care or
attention to detail is a bummer. For a start it would have been nice to have
had the Atlantic labels on the CD's of the albums - but that's a small thing.
The lack of sleeve notes at all for this set is ridiculous, but more than that
the lack of ANY research to make it complete. To the first album, how about
adding the unreleased single mixes? (One of which can be found further back on
this very blog - see March 2019). What about the tracks that weren't used on
the first record, like the version of 'Molten Gold', or 'Sidekick To
The Stars', or 'Never Take Me Alive'? There are also two un-issued
tracks from '2nd Street'. All of these would have made a huge difference
and helped round out a more complete body of work. The bootlegs don't bother
me, there inclusion is fine, but why not get the Croydon masters or try finding
a low generation copy of the Starwood show? Was an effort made..? Nah, it'll be
fine...
In the end is seems like no-one really wanted to spend any money here
or wanted to do this properly, and if that's the case, quite simply, why do it
at all? A band of great promise yet again given
the shit covered end of the stick. I'm glad my name isn't on this!
If you are a fan of Paul Kossoff, or this band, and you have all the audio contained here, then you don't need this set at all. It offers you NOTHING. I know there's the draw of the 'completist' but the disappointment here is overwhelming. If you own NONE of this, sure, give it a shot - and if you like '2nd Street' you can then always search out the Japanese HQCD. It's still out there, as are copies of the original vinyl LPs. In the end this was a really badly wasted opportunity, and unlikely to be repeated. All rather sad really.
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'Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy : The Musical Journey of Free And
Bad Company'
David Roberts
This Day In Music Books - ISBN 978-1838078317
thisdayinmusicbooks.com
As is the nature of the book some sections read better than
others, but the fan content is interesting and it's nice to see some of Lucy
Piller's pictures so nicely reproduced. The only thing stopping this being an
essential purchase is that no one seems to have fact checked it! So while there
is a disclaimer in the back saying 'The content reflects the contributions
from fans, musicians and associates whose memory may not be 100% accurate when
recalling events and dates' some of this could easily have been resolved to
the betterment of the text (and the history). I do not intend to provide a
history lesson here, nor correct everything, but as a couple of examples, Snowy
White did not play with Free, that was Snuffy Walden ( I mean, seriously, it's
ON the album sleeve!). Rabbit wasn't at the BSC Liverpool Empire show in 1975
(that was Mike Montgomery), Mr Bundrick was with Eric Burdon at the time. 'My
Bother Jake' wasn't recorded during the 'Highway' sessions (nor were
those sessions 'recorded hurriedly in September') and Tetsu wasn't found for KKTR by 'asking if there
was any session work available' at Basing Street reception! He flew over to
work on the album at Kossoff's request after they met in Japan! There are many
others sadly, but who the hell is Leigh Webster, he apparently toured as part
of Free in the USA in 1973? News to me. That one confused both me and Rabbit -
who has never heard of him either!!
That said, and if you can take
these errors (some worse than others) with a pinch of salt, there is much here
to enjoy as the fan accounts of gigs seen and band members met, shows the love
people still have for Free and Bad Company. It would have been nice if Paul and
Simon had been more involved (it's obvious neither of them has actually read
this) but even so It's time Simon's own book came out, and Paul Rodgers started
work on one of his own. If you are feeling flush this is a nice another nice
Christmas present. The quality of the actual product is really nice however if
this is a limited publication - and
everyone who has there name in here buys a copy - actually getting a copy might be a bit time sensitive! I should
mentioned there is also a slip-cased limited edition (500) with some extra bits
and pieces priced at £75 as a pre-order for a October 29th release. You'll find
more information here;
https://thisdayinmusicbooks.com/product/rock-n-roll-fantasy/
I
couldn't let this one pass unmentioned. As someone who plays guitar a bit, and
a fan of riffs and tasty guitar playing from many players, over many decades,
Eddie Van Halen was a monster player. Really devastating and sad news today at
his death from cancer. What a loss. One of the few lyrical melodic shredders.
You can SING Eddies solo's, try that with some of the pretenders. Probably the
most influential guitarist since Hendrix. You may not have liked everything he
did, but you always knew it was him.
I
first saw Van Halen with Black Sabbath in 1978 at De Montfort Hall in Leicester
(May 31st). Fantastic show. They were on their first UK tour, about halfway
through, and they were on fire. I was there as a Sabbath fan truthfully, and Sabbath
treated them well, they had great sound and they absolutely 'went for it'.
I saw them once more after that and while I wasn't a HUGE fan later on, I
thought when David Lee Roth departed and Sammy Hager came in they got a new
lease of life. So, much as I love the debut album, 'Panama', 'Jump' and
the great DLR material, here I'd putting 'Right Now' to remind you just
how good this guy was. Great piano riff, magical guitar solo and a really
thoughtful lyric along with an equally provoking video. Everything perfectly in
it's place. Fantastic song.
I
was aware Eddie had been struck with cancer but I thought, like many it seems,
that this was sorted out. That he had actually beaten it (no pun intended),
Obviously not the case then. 'Right Now' your life is happening, and 'Right
Now' your countdown clock is also ticking. 'Right Now' I'm cranking up some Van
Halen. 'Right Now', click 'play' below...
R.I.P Eddie. 65 is far too young.
Well, blogger just HAD to do it, and in an 'upgrade' to their site, that worked perfectly previously, they have now completely f****d up and made far more difficult most of the stuff I use and do here. Wow, progress eh! If it works DON'T fix it!! It's not like I do anything technical but now it's more difficult to upload and generally get something on here. So lets see how this works out. I'll do my best!
Just thought I'd bring to your attention some more Youtube viewing to keep you amused during the current and continuing 'situation'. Hopefully everyone is keeping well out there and as I'm almost recovered from the 'Fire And Water' issues, work has started (well a little bit) on the upcoming 'Highway' extravaganza. Don't hold yer breath as magazines won't be coming for a long while yet!
In the meantime, and with next to nothing on the TV, you might like to check out the video and the links below. 'Sea Of Tranquility' (their spelling not mine!) post new Rock music musings frequently. Obviously you may not agree with all the comments, the order things come in, or the selections. That's all fine. I don't either - but that's not the point. It's always interesting to hear how other people rate their music, and what they think about artists we may, and may not, like ourselves. Often it may prompt you to play something and reconsider it. Not always a bad thing. Host Peter Pardo encourages you to leave your own favourites in the comments of the Youtube videos - so if the need to have your say takes hold, you can make your feeling known.
Check out some of the other videos too. Lots there to enjoy on the 'Sea Of Tranquility' channel.
Favourite Guitar Solos: Paul Kossoff (Above)
--------------------------
Ranking The Studio Albums: Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwOC8kW8qP8
One Album Wonders, Part 4 (Including KKTR)
