The CD A Week Project: #2

Posted on June 8, 2011 by postpunkmonk

REVO | CD-R | 2011 | PM002

Various: REVO Premaster 2 CD-R [2011]

  1. Sandii – Hey Rock A La La
  2. M.A.O. – Friend For A Day
  3. Shock: R.E.R.B.
  4. Airport + Dean: Blond Darlings
  5. Die Fehlfarben: Militurk
  6. Sapho: Respect
  7. Logic System: Talk Back
  8. Katmandu: I Can Make The Future
  9. Thomas Dolby: Urges
  10. Naked Lunch: Horror Shock Horror
  11. Gina X. Performance: No G.D.M.
  12. Classix Noveaux: The Robots Dance
  13. Hilary: Kinetic
  14. Hilary: Drop Your Pants
  15. Hilary: I Live
  16. Hilary: Goose Step Two Step
  17. David Bowie: Beauty + The Beast [ext. ver.]
  18. Haysi Fantayzee: John Wayne Is Big Leggy
  19. DEVO: Snowball [remix 7″]

This week’s CD in the CD A Week Project is a comp of the previously reviewed Terpsichore album and Hilary EP along with some extra tracks. I was drawn to the Terpsichore album since the first Premaster disc had a comp of tracks by Shock. My actual 7″ of “Angel Face” b/w “R.E.R.B.” is fairly trashed, causing me to source the cuts from the Blitz and Terpsichore albums instead. As I caught a bit of the cuts surrounding “R.E.R.B.,” I thought that I should waste no time in finally hearing that compilation; only 30 years late. The selection of the Hilary EP came about because I have lots of four and five trackers from the New Wave era that feature material that never made it to CD.

This left about twelve minutes to fill out the disc. My first choice was the hyper-rare “Beauty + The Beast” extended US Promo 12″ single from Herr Bowie.

RCA | US Promo | 12" | 1977 | JD-11204

David Bowie: Beauty + The Beast USP 12 [1977]

  1. Beauty + The Beast [ext. ver.]
  2. Fame

I spend way too much time thinking about how lucky I was to have found this record. I first read about this track in the godlike “David Bowie: An Illustrated Record” book by Charles Shaar-Murray and Roy Carr back in 1981 when it was released to a waiting world. It remains the best Bowie book I have had the pleasure of reading, even after 30 years. Among it’s many revelations [at the time] was that US RCA released a promo-only 12″ single of my favorite Bowie track of all time that was extended from 3:35 to 5:18. Keep in mind that this was 1977; this is no radical re-imagining of the cut [thank goodness]. This is the perfect album track extended via editing and the repeat of a verse or chorus to make a good thing longer; thus extending the pleazzzure.

This record was on my radar for decades and I was pleasantly shocked when I happened across it in Almost Blue, the late, lamented record store in my then new hometown back in 2002. It was a scant $10 and in VG+ condition, so purchase was immediate and gratifying. Of course, I did manage to play it once earlier before committing it to hard drive last week for the purposes of this compilation. My next choice for this Premaster disc was both radical and thematically connected.

Regard Records | UK | 7" |1982 | RG 100

Haysi Fantayzee: John Wayne Is Big Leggy UK 7 [1982]

  1. John Wayne Is Big Leggy
  2. Sabres Of Paradise
This third-rate Maclolm McLaren rip-off band is perversely fascinating in a car-wreck sort of way. Somebody obviously heard Duck Rock and thought “I can do that!” Perhaps, but they didn’t have Trevor Horn producing, did they? You’d be hard-pressed to listen to more than one of their songs at a time but the jaw-dropping “John Wayne Is Big Leggy” is the rare example of a song so bad, its good! Though I’d rather have a gun in my mouth than hear the extended version of this song ever again in my life, the short version is perversely compelling listening. Once heard, it will never be forgotten, I assure you. It just doesn’t sound like anything a sane person would imagine existing. The vocals by Jeremiah Healey and Kate Garner are the worst singing I’ve ever heard. Period. I’ll admit, I own the 7″ single of it. I paid too much for my M- 7″ copy, but having heard the album once before, I would never buy it at any price. It was far better to pay possibly more for just this freakish number. The B-side, “Sabres Of Paradise” was too long to fit on the disc space remaining, but since I remembered it as a typical dismal HF track, interminable in its 6:30-ish length, its omission here is no loss. So, musically, this couldn’t be a bigger about face from the splendor of Bowie, and yet the song is connected in that Tony Visconti produced both tracks!

Warner Bros. Records | US | 7" | 1980 | WBS 49621

DEVO: Freedom Of Choice/Snowball US 7 [1980]

  1. Freedom Of Choice
  2. Snowball [remix]

This single was the excellent, though less successful, follow-up to their smash “Whip It,” and Warner Bros. gave this a nice PS and allowed buyers to pick which song was the A/B side in accordance with the whole freedom of choice concept.  Even better, the track “Snowball” was included as a nice remix by Ian Taylor of the Roy Thomas Baker Organization. Maybe it was here that the seed of RTB producing DEVO, as he did two albums later, first sprouted? I can understand that thinking because the results at the hands of Taylor certainly take an album track and make it more powerful, focused and single worthy.

– 30 –

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8 Responses to The CD A Week Project: #2

  1. Tim's avatar Tim says:
    June 9, 2011 at 6:24 am

    Old Dolby….the Urges/Liepzig single does not a lot for me but I love a lot of his earlier stuff, especially the b-sides.
    The Jungle Line/Urban Tribal, Therapy Growth & The Wreck of the Fairchild. Good stuff indeed. But Urges? I just don’t get that one at all and he was re-re-re-re-issuing it on cd-singles into the ‘Astronauts & Heretics’ days.

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    • postpunkmonk's avatar postpunkmonk says:
      June 9, 2011 at 8:24 am

      Tim – I hear where you’re coming from. “Urges” b/w “Leipzig” is certainly weaker sauce compared to the tracks you named. I certainly agree, but think of it this way; it was his first single. Your firstborn is always precious! Besides, there would be major licensing issues to reissue the Low Noise single; it was a one-off for an obscure label [Happy Birthday] and a cover tune besides! Have you ever heard Dave Stewart + Barbara Gaskin’s sumptuous cover of “Leipzig?” It’s the definitive take, in my opinion.

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  2. Tim's avatar Tim says:
    June 10, 2011 at 5:57 am

    I had the old Happy Birthday 12” & sold it a couple years back. I’ve been a big eBay person but boy was the couple that I sold it to ever happy! I made an extended mix of ”The Jungle Line” and both tracks are on my own OCD – driven re-imagining of TDMR’s first album. ”Urban Tribal” is probably hands down my favorite Dolby track and the version on the remaster of TGoW that came out a couple years back just sounds too busy to my ears after listening to my vinyl rip for all these years.

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    • postpunkmonk's avatar postpunkmonk says:
      June 10, 2011 at 11:40 am

      Tim – I bought the “Jungle Line” 12″ when I was compiling loose ends for my 2xCD of non-LP tracks back in ’04. My collection is not complete, but has everything from the first two album periods up to the “Aliens Ate My Buick” period, more or less. I haven’t bought records on e-bay for about five years. They killed e-bay when they pushed stores. I can get store goods anywhere. I still need the dlx “wireless” RM. I had not heard that it was brickwalled. Is it that bad? I know how they ruin things these days. I bought a Retro: Active volume to get the Associates “Take Me To The Girl” 12″ version in digital, and when I listened with headphones it was so harsh, I had to remaster from my vinyl anyway! What is EMI up to these days? The New Order debacle was matched by the Duran and Spandau horrors. About the only recent RMs that I can remember as sounding great were the Eurythmics ones.

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  3. Tim's avatar Tim says:
    June 10, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    I mis-typed before, I really should do what some other folks do and type in Open Office first and edit and then cut and paste before posting comments. I meant to say I am “not” a big eBay person! Several years ago my girlfriend, now wife, moved into my house and I started to feel a space pinch. I spent ages with no mentor trying to copy vinyl to mp3 and finally had the eureka moment where it all clicked and I started converting a ton of vinyl to mp3. At which point I said to myself, this stuff is just sitting around and all I really care about is that I can listen to it at will now more easily without setting up the turn table and having any of the three cats attacking it out of feline curiosity. I figured that there are folks out there who have to have the vinyl, it makes that much of a difference to them so I started selling things on eBay. I hate selling on eBay…the fees, listing, people who don’t read your ad no matter how thorough you describe things, the fees…..so I sold a bunch of stuff and made a bunch of people happy and a lot of the money was funneled into our wedding plans at the time. The couple that bought ‘Jungle Line’ were over the moon, they wrote to thank me because I lowballed the quality of the vinyl and sleeve in the description and they were thrilled it was in better shape than I described it.

    Back to the TMDR remasters, you know, the ones I bought (MP3 digital d/l from Amazon) are not really all that bad (IMO). I really didn’t need everything but I bought it to support Dolby and the reissues and there were a few tracks I was missing. My 12” rip of “Urban Tribal” was very minimal sounding, very quiet and the version on the remaster is very bright and I swear to my ears the mix is busier than what I have from vinyl. Who knows, maybe my rip is cruddy and I don’t know it but it’s what I listened to since buying that single in a used record store 20 years ago for $2 and it’s what my ears know! I do like the remasters of ‘Therapy/Growth’ and ‘The Wreck of the Fairchild’ on it, I’ve bought various singles over the years trying to garner a good copy of ”Therapy/Growth’ and this is about as good as it will ever be for me.

    I never did go for the New Order remasters so I cannot compare. Same for DD….after 40 years of buying music I stopped and started making my own deluxe editions of things….I’ve got more music now than I can listen to for the rest of my life, so I’m just enjoying what I have and, like you, putting my own stamp on it.

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    • postpunkmonk's avatar postpunkmonk says:
      June 10, 2011 at 9:00 pm

      Tim – I probably have enough to not buy any more music too, but the thought makes me dizzy. Ideally, I should be able to throttle back my purchasing and just listen to the damned vinyl I’ve been compulsively buying for the last 20 years and that should last quite a while with 5-600 7″ers and about 1500 12″ discs. These quick and dirty “Premasters” I’m blogging about are a huge step in the right direction for me. It was hard approaching the recording of vinyl for just “listening to” – that’s to say, no tedious, manual noise reduction to remove the noise with as minimal a touch on the music as possible. I’m fairly good at it with the limited tools at my budget level, but it can be insanely time consuming. One track might be 15 minutes from “record” to final mastering with just a dozen edits to show for it. A fact of life is that 90% of all vinyl I’ve bought is second hand. It’s just as common to have a track with 1200 edits in it that took four hours of time to chew through. Four hours is a lot of leisure time in my lifestyle! I only get about 1-2 hours a day, and it’s in small chunks not conducive to audio recording and editing.

      One nice fact about the new “Wireless” RM CD is that it restores the segues on the original UK LP! I bought a copy of that to get “Fairchild” and was pleasantly surprised when I played the tracks and they flowed together. I was planning to remaster the “Wireless” album to correct this wrong, but the new CD thankfully, saves me the 20-30 hours of time to invest, thankfully! I just previewed “Urban Tribal” at iTunes and it sounds like the mix I’ve known since getting the Low Noise 12″. Do you EQ your vinyl when recording? That would make a difference. My audio interface runs straight off of the turntable, so the recordings are always flat EQ and accurate to the pressing.

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  4. Tim's avatar Tim says:
    June 13, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    I hear you on the time consumption end of this sort of work. My wife and I had a baby in January and my leisure time for this has been cut by about 95%.

    Speaking of the baby, time to run, just as i sat down to type. I did want to mention an improved segue for ”Fairchild” that I use on my OCD version of TGAOW is Airwaves mix into Fairchild mix into One of our Subs….much better little arrangement/suite.

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