Well, I said I needed to actually listen to all of the vinyl that I buy and normally hoard until such time as I deign to play it for the long-planned remastering. I’m sick and tired of wanting records for decades and then waiting decades to play them.  I blogged recently of wanting to just get the vinyl burned to CD with a minimum of fuss until such time as the traditionally painstaking Monk’s Touch [ugh! that sounds illegal] can be applied to the soundfiles. With that goal in mind, I have decided that little pockets of free time in my day should allow me enough time to record at least 80 minutes of music from vinyl per week. That’s surely no more than two hours in total. Then, on the weekend, I’ll cherry pick the raw files and burn a disc’s worth of them.

The end result will have none of the elaborately designed packaging that gives me such pleasure, but more importantly, I’ll be able to throw it in my car CD player [where 90% of my listening takes place during my 52 mile daily commute] and actually hear what I strove so long to find and buy. Okay, so I couldn’t pass up at least a tray insert and one-sided font jewel box panel! Sue me! But the end result is absolutely generic, so making this takes only about 10 minutes of typing. The end result is like a white label for my little “vanity label.” Volume one of the REVO Premaster series is done and shown below!

REVO | CD-R | 2011 | PM001

Various: REVO Premaster 1 CD-R

1. Shock: Angel Face 7″
2. Shock: R.E.R.B. 7″
3. Shock: Dynamo Beat 7″
4. Shock: Dream Games 7″
5. Shock: Angel Face 12″
6. Shock: R.E.R.B. 12″
7. Shock: Dynamo Beat 12″
8. Shock: Dream Games 12″
9. The Hawks: Words Of Hope
10. The Hawks: Sense Of Ending
11. Stephen Duffy: Baby Impossible 7″
12. Stephen Duffy: Broken Home
13. Stephen Duffy: Baby impossible [olympic mix]
14. OMD: Telegraph US Promo 12″
15. Wall Of Voodoo: Ring Of Fire 12″ remix
16. Philip Jap: Save Us
17. Philip Jap: Oui/Ja
18. Phil Lynott: Yellow Pearl 12″
19. Matt Bianco: Sneaking Out The Back Door 12″

I’ve written about Shock before and it was gratifying to finally hear the long-awaited second single, “Dynamo Beat” after owning it for nine years! I’ve already written about The Hawks, Philip Jap, and Stephen Duffy singles. One curiosity is the OMD single. Since their new album came out last year, I’ve spent time at the official site forum and was intrigued to see that there was a unique US mix of their wonderful “Telegraph” single on promo 12″! The album/7″ version was 2:57 and the UK 12″ was listed as 5:35. I have the UK 12″ but always passed on the US Virgin/Epic promo 12″ featuring two versions of “Telegraph” and the magnificent “Radio Waves.” I’d assumed that it was the UK 7″/12″ versions plus the LP cut for US radio, but I was wrong. Apparently, the US promo 12″ was a 4:42 mix of the cut! But wait, here’s where things get even blurrier. There are apparently two UK 12″ pressings which differ in length and matrix numbers only! One at 4:42 [presumably the US 12″ track] and one at 5:35. The second pressing lists the running time as 5:35 but actually contains the 4:42 version. Making this all even more confusing is the UK version of the 1988 “Best of OMD” album. It has a 3:43 edit of at least one of these mixes! I need to listen carefully to my UK 12″ and report back!

The Wall Off Voodoo 12″ remix of “Ring Of Fire” takes a fiery 4:59 version and trims it to a brutal 3:06 by excising most of that made the original long version from their 1980 Index Records EP so memorable. Gone are the sprechtgesang portion of Stan Ridgeway’s vocals and the berserk guitar solo is cut off in mid-wail. Having lived with the full length version of this song for 31 years, this remix [dated 1982] remains a non-essential curio. As a side note, the vinyl on this copy is seriously noisy in ways that even my careful ministrations can do naught about. This track will live and die in the premaster stage for good. There are a few other tracks I haven’t written about previously, but those are topics for another day. I’m eager to see this 150th post uploaded before lunch hour is over!

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