Joe Walsh - So What coming from Audio Fidelity

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by DPM, May 16, 2015.

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  1. jsayers

    jsayers Just Drifting....

    Location:
    Horse Shoe, NC
    I know it's OOP but the MFSL silver disc for Barnstorm is going to be pretty hard to top.
     
    chaz and pool_of_tears like this.
  2. Very true. If I recall correctly the album was mixed for Quad as well so it would fit in nice with AF's silver SACD releases.
     
    Say It Right likes this.
  3. Perhaps they couldn't find the mix.
    About two, three years ago.
     
    rstamberg likes this.
  4. Say It Right

    Say It Right Not for the Hearing Impaired

    Location:
    Niagara Falls
    Interesting coincidence happened yesterday. "Time Out" came on Classic Vinyl in the car, on the same day that the SACD arrived. Proof positive that this was meant to be!
     
  5. Heavy Music

    Heavy Music Forum Resident

    Germany?
     
    rstamberg likes this.
  6. noname74

    noname74 Allegedly Canadian

    Location:
    .
    buying everything else regardless of what it is?
     
  7. pool_of_tears

    pool_of_tears Searching For Simplicity

    Location:
    Midwest
    MFSL cd is great.
     
    rstamberg likes this.
  8. jsayers

    jsayers Just Drifting....

    Location:
    Horse Shoe, NC
    "It's a long way back to Germany......"
     
    rstamberg likes this.
  9. slipkid

    slipkid Senior Member

    Listening to mine now. Love it. Hearing things (organ/kbds, backing vocals, guitar layers, guitar tone) that my ears never even noticed before on either the LP or other CD version. So wonderful to hear stuff like this that I know like the back of my hand but with more detail.

    And put me in the camp that much prefers this version of Turn to Stone over the Barnstorm original. I wonder what the story was with Joe redoing it? They are almost like 2 different songs, they sound so different.
     
    Bananas&blow and jsayers like this.
  10. I think he was probably short on material (one of the complaints that Joe made about being a solo artist is the pressure put on them to turn out album/tour cycle. Why do a cover when you can remain a song that was virtually ignored on his first album? Also, I suspect, he liked the new arrangement he came up with while touring. It's certainly more commercial.

    I like both but for different reasons. I compared this to my Japanese version and I love the stronger bottom end--that bass kicks butt and the scoring n "Emma" sounds so much richer here with nuances lost on the Japanese version.

    Nice write up on Joe and the album.

    http://www.rhino.com/article/bob-lefsetz-welcome-to-my-world-so-what

    Comment from Joe on Song for Emma

    "It affected my life perspective in that probably the worst thing that can happen to someone is losing a child. That happened to me, so I know. That was a long time ago, and I'm at peace with it now. I wrote a song for her on my album So What. It's called "Song for Emma," and it was a kind of goodbye to her. That song was good because it gave me closure on it, and I could move on. I think of her often, and she was a good little kid. Having had that experience, sometimes I am in a position to be able to comfort people. I'm in a position to put an arm around them and tell them they are not alone. I've talked to several parents whose sons were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they know about my daughter. Sometimes they'll contact me to let me know their kids were killed in the war and that they were fans, or that my music really helped them deal with their grief. That's a good thing that came out of it."

    Good comment here too, unrelated to everything facing musicians and radio today:

    "Digital technology also ate intellectual property. Royalties are non-existent now and that is an obstacle to up & coming bands. And to some degree digital technology has eaten classic radio as we know it. Independent stations with disc jockeys who chose their own music have all gone now; it’s these huge parent companies that own a hundred stations and then decide what we should hear. That’s an obstacle to up & coming musicians. The musicians have got to manoeuvre through this and figure it out – and so do I, we all do – but somebody’s gonna come outta this and start something that catches. Music will be back. We may not understand it but it’ll be the foundation again with another huge creative period again like England in the 60s or rock & roll in the 50s or something like that. We’re in between now and everybody’s kinda scratching their heads because it don’t make sense right now. I think that’s an observation and not a judgement and I think that’s where we’re at."

    This might answer the question indirectly about the remake:

    " I left the James Gang to pursue a solo career. I had three albums that did pretty good. When you are achieving any amount of success in the music business, there is a lot of non-musical stuff that comes along with it. I had “Rocky Mt. Way” and later I had “Life’s Been Good” but I ended up the leader with all of the decisions that had to be made. I was doing all of the hiring and firing and I had more and more pressure to write something that would top what I had just written. I got a little bit stagnant in my writing because there was nobody to really write with. It all got going a little too fast and I always had to write something as I was up against a deadline. I wanted to become part of a band again."
     
  11. rstamberg

    rstamberg Senior Member

    Location:
    Riverside, CT
    Wow, what'd I do to deserve such snark? (It's a rhetorical question. No need for you to respond. Actually, please don't respond.)
     
  12. rstamberg

    rstamberg Senior Member

    Location:
    Riverside, CT
    I'm really enjoying listening to the SACD of Joe's SO WHAT album. Well done!
     
  13. Jim T

    Jim T Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mars
    ------------------
    Glad he has some fans , but personally I can't stand his singing.
     
  14. Bob Womack

    Bob Womack Forum Resident

    I've been giving this some more listens and have had the opportunity to look at it on the DK Audio Analysis Meter at the studio and think I've got a little more insight into the left-right balance issue. As I recall, towards the end of the project Szymczyk had some sort of scheduling issue and the recording duties and the mix were taken over by the late John Stronach. As I mentioned before, John had different ideas concerning the soundstage, for instance drummer's perspective on the kit rather than audience perspective. But he also seemed to want the high end and high-mid activity on the right as well.

    When I put up the disk on the system at work and viewed it on the DK Meter I saw the the vocals were pretty much centered but there was a bunch of upper-midrange activity was slightly right-dominant. I think that is what is steering me to the right. That would be a mix rather than mastering issue.

    Bob
     
    wayneklein likes this.
  15. IndyLions

    IndyLions Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis, IN
    What a great album! My exposure to Joe Walsh as a kid was pretty much just what they played on the radio. So my main impression was formed by Life's Been Good & Life in the Fast Lane - both great songs - but not indicative of his work as a whole.

    Now 35 years older, I'm listening to his early 70's solo work "straight through" for the first time and really enjoying it. You get a totally different feel listening to the complete albums. It's like I've discovered a new artist.
     
    Billy_Sunday, RubenH and slipkid like this.
  16. slipkid

    slipkid Senior Member

    Cool, I envy you your Joe discovery!

    Me, I got into Joe back in the Rocky Mt. days with Smoker You Play etc, then went backwards into James Gang (great stuff!), then every album since Smoker as they have come out.

    Despite releasing some absolutely awful albums in a row after 1985's Confessor - sorry Joe but that is my honest opinion and I happen to be a big fan - Got Any Gum (1987), Ordinary Average Guy (1991), and Songs for a Dying Planet (1992) are all terrible - he came back strong with his last album, Analog Man in 2012. If you are exploring his solo catalog straight through in order don't be too discouraged by those bad albums in a row, stick with him through Analog Man, which has a couple great songs on it. YMMV of course.
     
  17. Bob Womack

    Bob Womack Forum Resident

    You probably know this but Joe was completely underwater in drugs and alcohol during the dark period and got clean and sober in '94 in order to join the Eagles Hell Freezes Over tour at the request of Glenn and Don H. What you may not know is that Joe signed to a "rehab label" to release those albums you mentioned. If you had a stinker, the big album companies would dump you. To get re-signed, someone had to take a chance on your name recognition and put out an album on you hoping for big sales. These rehab labels showed up as small divisions of distribution groups or larger labels. They'd assemble the album on a budget with an in-house studio, soup to nuts, and then use the distribution network to put out the album as if it was a major release but on spec, without the big cost. Joe got a hit with the song, "Ordinary Average Guy" (#1 single on the Rock Radio charts and #3 on the Billboard Rock Tracks chart) and he was off to the races again.

    An acquaintance owned the small "destination studio" where Joe recorded one of those albums. They also did the Allman Brothers' "Reach for the Sky" rehab album for Arista Records after Capricorn filed for bankruptcy, as well as several others.
     
  18. therockman

    therockman Senior Member In Memoriam

    Thanks guys. I have been listening to this disc and enjoying it, but I have really learned a lot on this thread. I didn't know anything about Emma. Thanks again.
     
  19. slipkid

    slipkid Senior Member

    Cool info thanks.

    I'm glad to hear Joe got a hit with OAG but I friggin' HATE that song :oops: Didn't know it got "hit" status. Guess that is why he has had it in his setlist last couple times I saw him.
     
  20. driverdrummer

    driverdrummer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Irmo, SC
    I never knew about a "rehab label" in the music industry. I do know some junky albums were made on the CMC International label.
     
  21. I don't know why Audio Fidelity wouldn't want to do this as an SACD. It hasn't been done and the Mofi was twenty years ago.

    I think thst they probably could top it with a quad mix and it Ucd be different enough to attract new buyers.
     
  22. all ears

    all ears Forum Resident

    Location:
    Santa Rosa, CA
    Great sounding disc! Next up, " Riding With the (BB) King ", and then onto Jeff Beck. Doesn't get much better than this for me.
     
  23. bare trees

    bare trees Senior Member

    I ordered mine on July 24 and it hasn't arrived yet.
     
  24. CybrKhatru

    CybrKhatru Music is life.

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Just got mine this week. Can't wait to listen!!
     
  25. Thesmellofvinyl

    Thesmellofvinyl Senior Member

    Location:
    Cohoes, NY USA
    I thought the same thing about the CD years ago after having lived with the cassette since I was a kid (I think I found the tape for a quarter in a Woolworth's cut-out bin). In 2000 I found a mint condition copy of the LP that sounded better to me than the CD and put that on CDR, which sounded better than the MCA disc. Now I guess I'll be getting this new AF edition. Didn't know about it until I saw one sell in the classifieds here a short time ago.
     
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