FAS MAGAZINES ARE GO!!!

Okay, finally we have some movement on the much delayed 'Highway' issues and the finishing (folding, stapling & cropping) of #155 will be done this week. This means I should have delivery of these magazines the week after, and (optimistically) should be able to get them out by the end of the month. I'll post on the blog (here) to let you know the day they go into the mail. So, check back in a week or so if you aren't 'following' the blog. The plan now (fingers crossed) is to get one magazine out each month, so the FAS will drop though your door in March, April, May and June - hopefully. Wow, not long back I was only doing two issues a year!

Don't forget it's the anniversary of Andy's passing today, so try and play a little something to remind yourself of just how good he really was. I can't believe it's six years already. The 'live' version of 'Mr Big' springs to mind of course, but the 'Andy Fraser Band' album really saw him shine as a composer, bassist and singer. Great record. And speaking of Andy...

... I should probably mention the large (but insanely priced) John Mayall boxed set 'The First Generation 1965-1974'. This £285+ set (Yup, seriously) has 35 CDs (though some are very short) and is well out of the price range of most people I would have thought. Certainly not an impulse purchase!

For me, not a huge Mayall fan, the interest is purely the two sessions for the BBC that feature Andy Fraser - 'Blues In Britian' from March 4th 1968 and 'Top Gear' from March 25th 1968. Much of the rest I would want, I already have. Seven session songs are here in total (and an interview with Mayall), running in at about 35 minutes total. These all fall onto CD 28 (Details below) and it has to be said the quality is pretty great. It does vary a bit, but it's all good for the age of it, and perfectly enjoyable. Musically it's 12-bar blues tunes of the type you would expect. They play 12-bar fast, and they play 12-bar slow. 

No surprises. Mayall did have a good band here, which of course featured Mick Taylor (who is excellent) as well as Fraser, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Keef Hartley. As we know the band in this form didn't last long, maybe only a couple of months, and these are the only known recordings. It has to be said the VERY YOUNG Fraser sounds tight and on the money, and he and Hartley make for quite a good rhythm section actually. Shame they didn't get on better at the time - or maybe not - as had Andy been retained for longer Free would have probably never existed!

Whether this box will be split up and sold as smaller sets later I can't say. Seems logical, otherwise all this stuff will be bootlegged to hell and I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll already find this set on torrent and download sites. The price alone will send many people looking on-line for uploaded files of the bits they want rather than the whole box - or even the whole box!

There is some good stuff in the hefty Mayall back catalogue, and some of it is here, but that outlay (again) is going to stop the majority of people dead in their tracks. It certainly did me, as did the cost of the current Sabbath Vol.4 5LP set. Bit of a shame really. I'd have liked both, but not at those prices... And I thought the King Crimson 1969 box was expensive! I've changed my mind! (26 disc set including HiRes blu-ray for about £140 -  and I did buy this one). No HiRes anything in the Mayall or the Sabbath (but this is beautifully remastered). For the later the lack of HiRes is a BIG oversight as far as I'm concerned, and at the price of the Sabbath CD set (4CDs £80+ - really?) it should have all been included in 96k on a Blu-ray. Oh well.

These 'new' releases didn't incur weeks or months of studio costs while they were recorded, it's all very old material, and it's recouped its outlay many, many times over the years. In countless cases this is all being bought by the same fans for the umpteenth time. Give them a bloody break. For this I find the cost of them unreasonable, and even perverse actually. It looks like a money grab, it smells like a money grab. Yup, it even tastes like a money grab. They should be half the price they are. Had they been so, I'd have bought them all. Given that, I didn't. That's my opinion. If you disagree, fair enough, get your wallet out!

Okay everyone. Keep safe and I'll let you know once the magazines are packed for mailing. From my point of view, and possibly yours, the sooner the better!!