Buffalo Springfield debut released 50 years ago today

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by JoeRockhead, Dec 5, 2016.

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  1. fr in sc

    fr in sc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hanahan, SC
    Hear, hear! Great stuff indeed! Wish to God they'd release that stuff before it's too late for us fans.
     
  2. TheDailyBuzzherd

    TheDailyBuzzherd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northeast USA

    Well, I dunno. As you wrote, there was an audible hum throughout that show.
    It's that kind of crap that keeps the band's survivors from releasing live stuff.
    Seems there was always a technical problem. No wonder the players got fed up.

    As far as the various reunions, the '86 one caved because, as someone put it,
    "Neil forgot to show on day three." I dunno 'bout you, but that's ridiculous.
    He's having a GREAT time here, something else was up. Prior commitment?

    Then the most recent. The shows were scrapped because, according to a source
    at this here board, "I cannot elaborate but something was said and that was the
    end" and then we got the announcement from a disappointed Stills and Furay.
    This, after Bonnaroo, their biggest-ever show. Poor attendance? I dunno. Then
    Neil goes on the record as saying he didn't want to get stuck doing an oldies
    show. Again, ain't buying' that either. But really, it's none of our business …

    As far as further reunions, that ship has sailed.
     
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  3. owsley

    owsley Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston
    Very impressive debut especially the Mk.1 version with Day Tripper/Baby Don't Scold Me. They Byrds were also recording country rock for Younger Than Yesterday around the same time but the Springfield were more heavily into it with the influences of Young and Furay. The stereo mix is almost unlistenable, the mono mix is the only way to experience this lp. My favorite tracks by far are "Baby Don't Scold Me" and "Everybody's Wrong" but the lp shows diverse styles of pop, country, folk and hard rock and little raga thrown in as well.
    I'm guessing Mk.1 didn't even make the Billboard top 100. Everything exploded around March '67 when For What It's Worth climbed the charts. Actually the reissue of the lp in hindsight was a curse creatively for the group. By the time of Mk. 2 version, the Springfield had made a creative quantum leap and were recording monsters like Bluebird (the long 9:35 version which is still unreleased), Down To The Wire, Mr. Soul etc. Had the "Stampede" lp been put together and issued before Summer '68 with For What It's Worth and those other aforementioned nuggets rather than a retooled 1st lp, IMO it would have been absolutely deadly, far superior to "Again" and perhaps changed the band's chart success and fortunes
     
  4. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    This show?

    Buffalo Springfield, The Seeds, Johnny Rivers, The Supremes – KHJ...

    There's some noise, but the bigger issue is the recording simply isn't very good. The vocals are horribly distorted, and some of the guitars are buried. It's interesting as a historical document, but I can't see why it wouldn't be fit for official release.
     
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  5. Jellis77

    Jellis77 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brighton, UK
    Finding clean copies is difficult in the UK, I wish for a Buffalo Springfield vinyl box set with mono and stereo versions where appropriate cut by Chris Bellman maybe. This I would break the bank for...
     
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  6. Doug Sclar

    Doug Sclar Forum Legend

    Location:
    The OC
    I was there for that one. As I posted upthread it only cost 93 cents since it was put on by 93 KHJ.

    I remember when we were in line to get in, the Springfield arrived in a limo and they were only a few feet away from us but on the other side of a chain link fence. The thing I really remember about that was how skinny they seemed.

    Heck, I was only 14 at the time. I guess that makes sense as I'm 64 now. :yikes:
     
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  7. TheDailyBuzzherd

    TheDailyBuzzherd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northeast USA

    Yeah, a limo with nothing to eat. Good Goin', Green+Stoned.
     
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  8. fr in sc

    fr in sc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hanahan, SC
    I'd give my left huevo for that.....at my age I'm not exactly using it much anyway!
     
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  9. fr in sc

    fr in sc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hanahan, SC
    That's why I've always thought if Ahmet Ertegun had leaned on them a little to let them put out a specially-priced 2-LP set for the 2nd album it might've made all the difference. I burned a couple of CD's at home that go like this:

    Side One (call it The Soft Side, if you will):
    Pretty Girl Why
    Round And Round And Round (Neil's demo)
    Can't Keep Me Down (Richie's demo)
    We'll See (Steve & Richie's demo)
    A Child's Claim to Fame
    One More Sign (Neil's demo)
    Sad Memory

    Side Two (let's call it The Hard Side):
    Mr. Soul
    Hung Upside Down
    Rock and Roll Woman
    My Kind of Love
    We'll See (the "Stampede" version)
    Bluebird

    Side Three (the Wild Side, as it were):
    Kahuna Sunset
    Down Down Down (from the box set)
    Good Time Boy
    Everydays
    Expecting To Fly
    Broken Arrow

    Side Four (the Live Side, all from the Huntington Beach shows in 8/67):
    Nobody's Fool
    Go And Say Goodbye
    Mr. Soul
    Bluebird

    For the sake of ego massaging Steve, Neil and Richie would've each had a song starting and ending a side (although Steve would've gotten two ending tracks), and one side-starter written by Steve and Neil. I think there had only been two double LPs released in rock music by late '67, Blonde on Blonde and Freak Out!, so making it only a buck more than the regular LP price (Atco was charging $3.79 then) would've been necessary to entice buyers due to the band's lack of commercial success then. I always thought the problem with the 2nd album was it was too eclectic and didn't give buyers a handle on the group----the first LP was more cohesive in that regard.
    Now if only I had a flux capacitor and a DeLorean......
     
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  10. fr in sc

    fr in sc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hanahan, SC
    Especially when Neil stuck us with the "Hollywood Palace" version of FWIW/Mr. Soul on Journey Through The Past----that wasn't exactly hi-fi!
     
  11. TheDailyBuzzherd

    TheDailyBuzzherd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northeast USA

    Answering my own question, I found this quote at Rolling Stone
    from within the past year:

    "(Young) finally agreed to a Buffalo Springfield reunion tour in 2011,
    but canceled it after seven shows because he was disappointed
    with their playing, according to a representative for Young."

    Really? Please, that's just BS. I know Stills has trouble singing,
    but nowadays Clancy can't even sing either. Y'know? WTF!
    The playing at those shows was FINE.
     
    fr in sc likes this.
  12. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Such a summery album, full of optimism( even though it came our dec 1966 :)). Definitely a turntable favorite this time of year.

    [​IMG]
     
    Hamhead likes this.
  13. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Interesting question.
     
  14. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Vinyl box would be welcome why has this not happened yet ?
     
    fr in sc likes this.
  15. TheDailyBuzzherd

    TheDailyBuzzherd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northeast USA

    Three. Didn't discover FM proper 'til high school and by then it was all over.
    Had an older sister who joined the Columbia Records Club and got a number
    of early '70s LPs this way. Had Bowie's "Space Oddity" single among others.
    Oddly, no Beatles LPs.
     
  16. crustycurmudgeon

    crustycurmudgeon We've all got our faults, mine's the Calaveras

    Location:
    Hollister, CA
    There are 6 faces on the front cover. Is that another picture of Dewey at bottom left, behind the Atco logo?
     
  17. Matthew Tate

    Matthew Tate Forum Resident

    Location:
    Richmond, Virginia

    appears to be
     
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  18. crustycurmudgeon

    crustycurmudgeon We've all got our faults, mine's the Calaveras

    Location:
    Hollister, CA
    I guess I always entertained the possibility that someone behind the scenes managed to slip his own picture in, hiding behind the logo. I always thought it kind of odd that of all the members to repeat on the cover they chose Dewey. Probably imho the most expendable member of the group, despite (or maybe BECAUSE of) his professional background.
     
  19. Hamhead

    Hamhead The Bear From Delaware

    Somewhere it was mentioned that Greene and Stone didn't like Neil's voice and when he was going to do the vocal for "Flying On The Ground Is Wrong," and
    they gave the vocal to Richie instead. Everything I read about Greene and Stone paints them out to be more like hucksters than producers, what they did to The Cake is a travesty. And like I mentioned in a earlier post "they tried to sue Tom Dowd for doing the stereo mix of FWIW when the first album was reissued and he didn't want to use a rechanneled stereo mix for the album when the 8-track was at hand (I love what Dowd did with the Otis Redding material). G&S had a clause in the contract that "nobody is to change mixes or alter them" and Dowd broke it. It's too bad Dowd didn't flip them the proverbial finger and remix all the early Sonny & Cher material along with the first Buffalo Springfield LP behind their backs.
     
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  20. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    What did Dowd do with the Otis Redding material?

    As noted, I'd be surprised if a remix of the first album sounded much different, considering the mono and stereo mixes mostly have the same problems.
     
  21. Hamhead

    Hamhead The Bear From Delaware

    Instead of using fake stereo mixes, Down took the vocal channel off the split and dubbed a whole new musical backing with the same players who played on the original.
    He was telling me when they were recording the stereo track for "I Was Loving You Too Long," everyone was playing with tears running down their faces.
     
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  22. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    That was only the case for a few tracks on Otis Blue, after Dowd convinced Stax to get a stereo machine. And there was no dubbing; the stereo versions were completely new recordings. Material at Stax would be recorded that way (direct to mono and twin-track) for a while until Stax upgraded to 4-track.
     
  23. Hamhead

    Hamhead The Bear From Delaware

    Actually the stereo tracks were done for a posthumous comp, it was quite touching how Tom told it.

    Tom also mentioned to me about trying to get Stax to get better equipment,
    "here they are distributed by Atlantic and they're using a 6 input Ampex mixer into a mono machine."

    It's a shame that the original Stax/Satellite building was knocked down, that should have been preserved as a landmark.
     
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  24. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    I'm not sure what tracks you're talking about, but the stereo I've Been Loving You Too Long was cut and released in 1965 on Otis Blue.

    At the time they were using 2 Ampex 3761 4-channel mixers. 7 channels were used for mics in the studio and 1 was used for the echo return. Each of the mixers fed a stereo track; for mono the two mixers were bridged together. At some point in 1966 a new desk and 4-track machine arrived.
     
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  25. ssmith3046

    ssmith3046 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona desert
    Almost 51 years. I'm listening to my mono ATCO copy this morning. 33-200-A but I also have a 33-200 but I like For What It's Worth. What a great album and the mono version sounds so good. If you ever have a chance to pick up a clean copy don't hesitate.
     
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