I'll not be dealing with Midheaven again either. After they sent me the cd (3 weeks after the release) instead of the vinyl that I ordered (it even said vinyl on the invoice they included in the package). I emailed them explaing what had happened and I still haven't heard back.

some good news! I posted a comment on Midheaven's facebook page explaining how I was very unhappy with their service and about getting the cd instead of the lp that I paid for and someone just replied saying they will send out an lp to me in priority mail today.

I finally picked up the double vinyl, just listening now...probably shouldn't be distracting myself typing about it! But, some quick thoughts I apparently couldn't wait to share...I'm going to blow a well-executed illusion regarding either the sound or the artwork, so don't read if you'd prefer the illusion!

- I finally understand why I couldn't identify what song they're playing on the cover...it's a composite of 2 different photos! S/L/K in one and T in the other. S/L/K probably playing "Nature Scene", T probably playing "I Love Her..". I only noticed because I spotted the tuning written on the back of the guitar next to Kim's leg (GADDCC?? wtf is that?), then saw the exact same guitar next to Thurston. They even edited out the "SONIK LOVE" in tape on the front of the amp (compare on either side of Kim). It looks quite good, but I still had to blow the illusion to justify my confusion. :) This thread already established photo editing!

- I think it's cool they used pics from 08/27/85 as well, and would love to see even more! The audio of that show is amazing (w/ Lee singing Kat n Hat!).

- I also understand why I was confused about the source of this show - the alternate source mentioned in Aaron's notes is the one I was thinking of, so it would seem the 4-track source has never circulated(?), which is very cool.

- "I Love Her All The Time" extra vocal...huh. It just makes me curious to find out if any other manipulation (audio or visual!) was done on this release. Not for any nefarious purpose, just because I'm a big fucking nerd.

a few additional thoughts:

- I love all of the different tours in '85 and this was the first US tour w/ Steve and almost every show I've heard is awesome in its own way. This one is no different! Sure wish Lee sang "Kat n Hat", though...

- I'm embarrassed to discover I've mistitled "Anarchy on St Mary's Place" as "Anarchy at St Mary's Place" for approximately 15 years. (Then again, the bootleggers got the fucking title wrong in the first place!) I still remember a long-gone local shop that rented CDs in the mid 90s, and "Anarchy.." was mixed in among the handful of official SY releases they offered, for whatever reason. It was probably the earliest SY boot I heard, so it's very interesting to hear that show as an official release now.

- coolest download card ever!

i'm facinated by this. at first i thought it may be a backing tape they'd used in the show, but then people said that the original boot didn't have the 2 vocal tracks. then i thought it may be Lee, but it's definitely Thurston. wierd.

i wonder if all the songs were actually recorded at ther Smart Bar or if they've done some jiggery-pokery and cut out a bad performance from here and dropepd in a killer performance from another gig?!?

great info Chris!!

the cover photoshop thing is really interesting. Nerd. :)



I thought of this too... I was wondering if the 2nd vocal is actually from ANOTHER 85 show that they recorded multi-tracked -- and then just threw that vocal on top of this one? Would make more sense archival wise than recording a new vocal a hundred years later wouldn't it?

I initially wondered if they'd taken the 2nd verse vocal from the multitrack and mixed it in with the 1st (so both verses would have the same 2 vocals), but they'd have to do a lot of time stretching since the 2nd verse is much slower. It could be from another show, but Aaron's liners suggest that this was the earliest multitrack they had (maybe it's mixed in from a '91 show :p).

I think the easiest solution is that it was a recent overdub done in the past few years as this release has been prepared...the fact that they actually played the song last year makes this seem more likely, because otherwise I'd say "why fuck with a 25-year-old recording?". Did the original vocal track sound that bad?

Also, I think if they were gonna transplant songs from other shows, they would've done something about that "Nature Scene" performance. ;)

Maybe Thurston overdubbed the second vocal (presumptively the in-tune one) back in the eighties, depending on how many tracks were used on the four track master. However, I'm guessing they used all four tracks, which would make overdubbing impossible unless it was bounced to a second four track or something. Right?

Chris, you are probably the only guy in the universe capable of detecting that photo edit based on guitar tunings. Awesome.

everyone puts in overdubs for live albums. everyone.

some overdub badly played solos, others dub in crowd noise, a la Kiss on ALIVE.

i'd hope it's all untouched
being the 4 track is 2 room mics and 2 from the board
but i never woulda thought of it
i haven't even used my download code yet. guess i should tonight

so being i haven't heard it since last friday night
i would guess that wouldn't re-creating new sounds into an old recording be noticable? like, sure. take the 4 track and dump it into an 8 track, and then you got room to work with. but it just seems like it'd be too much work to do. and why bother?

Is that not what Lee "Scratch" Perry used to do?

nope... just remembered. He would record two tracks, and move them to one track of a 4-track. then he would do so again, and again, and again, sometimes manually creating 16 tracks on a 4 track recorder in his studio.

a man with a musical mission has gotta do what he gots to do.

Chris... don't you know someone who could tell us what we want to know about the overdub haha?

then what would we talk about? :)

i don't know if i should be ashamed or proud or indifferent, but my eyes went straight to that tuning when i finally sat down to look at the LP cover. some things never change!

these pictures really are great - aside from those awesome 11/08/85 brighton pix that jeff stonehouse took, there are barely any circulating clear live images of the band from..hell, most of the 80s! the clarity of the photos in the smart bar release is stunning, i've already picked out a few other things...

you'd think they'd put a picture of the cassette in there as well
just cause, ya know

good point! :D

I was just listening to the album and checking out the photos, and I noticed something else about them. Lee and Kim are wearing the same clothes (and bracelets in Kim's case) in both the Smart Bar and Continental Club photos.

Is it a coincidence, or is Cody a digital processing wizard?

You can't fit many changes of clothes in your knapsack when you are touring in a (Econoline?) van with drums, amps, and approximately a hundred guitars.

I think there are lots of live albums that has no overdubs. I think for example Allman Brothers at Fillmore east and Deep Purple Made In Japan has no overdubs. Also it is said in the Iron Maiden Live After Death "No Overdubs".

They all say that, but it is a lie.

They didn't really take ~100 guitars in '86....did they?

Maybe. But as I earlier said, overdubs are no problem to me. If someone can put overdubs in the live album without noticing him doing that, it´s totally ok to me. Zappa is totally different case, I think the live recordings I´ve heard from him are much more studio things than live. There is very great live atmosphere in Smart bar live, I can even imagine myself being there when listening it. But it breaks in I love her all the time because that unnatural overdub. Of course it comes back in Ghost Bitch.

It is really hard to me understand why they did it. I mean SY really isn´t perfektionism band in my mind and Kim has done lots of atonal vocals. But there has been also many else things in SY I don´t understand like calling most of the Syrs E.P:s and releasing music through the small labels who do shit work.

How do you know that?

I have read and studied my music history. suggest you do too?

do you think Hendrix overdubbed any of his live guitar solos?

While I will definitely acknowledge the general statement that most/many live albums feature after-the-fact processing, there are certainly some that don't. Dare I say many, though I suppose it starts to depend on what you consider a "live album" (is "Hold That Tiger" a live album or just a bootleg?).

I'm sure other editing was done to make this show a more concise and marketable product (and thankfully they didn't opt to cut any songs!). For example, I believe the "Into the Groove" tape goes on for a good two minutes during the actual show, but unless they just left it off the vinyl (haven't heard the mp3 yet), it was trimmed down for obvious reasons.

The "Love Her" case is just odd (to me) because I can't imagine the original vocal being that bad that Thurston (or whomever) legitimately said "this can't go out like that". Perhaps it was another situation entirely.

the vocal was really out of tune even by thurston standards. i remember always noticing it on the anarchy at st marks boot.

Live recordings that are released as bootlegs are not what I referred to.

I meant "live" albums put out by record companies as official output for a band. There is always something that needs tweaking, whether thurston;s vocals, or disappearing bass lines, or sound system issues, or fucked up solos.

I never get this. All the "official bootlegs" listed on the Mustang to me are official live albums. They were put out by the band. I mean Hold That Tiger was carried in major record stores. Central Park was included in legit JPN pressings of the Eternal (box) even.

And sure stuff like Continental Club were sold via mailorder, but I mean Goofin' put out other releases not considered 'bootlegs' right? Shit, those Goofin' albums are even sold legit digitally on iTunes/eMusic/etc. So why aren't they considered official if they're officially sanctioned by the band, and being sold by the band?

Yeah, that's what I figured. In other words, you have no idea.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Magic Wheel Memory again.

woah

You make an interesting point, and one that is hard to rebut. I'm not sure what was going through my head when I was developing the Discography in 2000, but I'm sure it made sense to me at the time (and was possibly even influenced by other discographies or sources).

You've also reminded me of a thread I've been meaning to start...

I just read Peter Criss' Auto Bio (fucking great, nobody is spared in the book), where he claims that virtually everything on Alive was replaced but his drums and some of Paul's epic stage patter.

As for The Who's Live at Leed's I just hope it's 100% raw dog...It would sadden me it it wasn't.

Do you mean all Hendrix Live-records are bootlegs? There is Band Of Gypsys that was released when Hendrix was still alive. He had to do it because the lawsuit of capitol records and he don´t have any word about the cover that he hated. So I don´t think he put any overdubs in it. Even Hendrix didn´t like that record, I think it´s fabulous, one of the best live records ever made!

And I don´t also believe there is any overdubs in Live at Leeds which is also one of the best live records!

Sorry to come back to this but I was just looking at the CD booklet for the Sonic Youth reissue and had to laugh at the previous attempt to composite Thurston into a shot of the band. Smart Bar looks relatively flawless, this on the other hand... (you may need to look at a printed copy for better/worse effect)

Chris--I did the collage work in both cases--and in each case the 'photo' is made up from 4 discreet shots of the band... Back in '81 techniques were certainly cruder, mere scissors n glue! (also Cody helped tweak the Smart Bar digital collage work). Getting a good live photo that includes all band members is a rock photogs' holy grail (or should be anyway)--very hard to do,,,
-L

I now notice that your headstock is missing in the Sonic Youth pic, but it otherwise had not occurred to me that it was four separate pics pasted together - nor that it would have been done back in '81, which should have been obvious! I retract my laugh. :)

The Smart Bar cover is also four separate images?! Incredible work, if so!

Now what can you tell us about the double vocal on "i love her all the time" lee? :)

I love Band of Gypsys...there's a boot called Box of Gypsys that has all 4 shows from those fillmore dates...I pretty sure nothing was changed to the music after listening to the shows from that...also the Band of Gypsys dvd doc has one of the shows on black and white early video...pretty cool.