1968 Yardbirds sessions to see release?!

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by YardByrd, Jul 21, 2016.

  1. kelhard

    kelhard Forum Resident

    The "Studio Sketches" were previously issued in rough mix form on Cumular Limit. Bob Irwin found the multitrack masters in the early 90's and made some cassette mixes. These cassettes were used on Cumular Limit. Seems Pagey took some liberties in the remixing of the studio stuff. Especially Keith's vocal for "Knowing I'm Losing You"
     
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  2. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    I'm not sure about the legality of the previous Cumular Limit CD release, which contained a good amount of the bonus (studio sketches) material. Theoretically, that stuff might have been open to a copyright loss. If it was legit, though, then it would not be subject to the 50-year copyright law. Still, I don't think that those few songs really have any value beyond the Yardbird fans who are purchasing this set.
     
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  3. John Rhett Thomas

    John Rhett Thomas Forum Resident

    Location:
    Macon, GA, USA
    You're probably right. Can you tell I'm looking for any shred of hope that Page will open up the Zeppelin archives wide in the coming years? :p
     
  4. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    I wouldn't recommend holding your breath... ;)

    This Yardbirds release (particularly, the Live at the Anderson Theater CD) is/was a unique case, with a long convoluted history. I just think that the 3 remaining participants decided that this would be an opportune time to finally release it as an historical artifact, in order to set the record straight. If they waited another 10 years, there would be exponentially less people caring about it. Still, even if it sells 10,000 copies, we are not talking huge sums of money for Dreja and McCarty. (I don't think $$$ entered in the equation for Jimmy, at least for this release....) But they should be proud about how good they sound, both on the live stuff and the studio sketches.
     
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  5. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    I would be very surprised if there were not some kind of new Led Zeppelin release in 2018, for two reasons:
    1. It's the 50th anniversary of the formation of the band; and
    2. John Davis posted on social media a few weeks ago that on that day he was "mastering Led Zeppelin."
    Given the above two data points, it also makes sense to me that the Yardbirds '68 release came out now, on the 49-2/3 year anniversary rather than the 50th, because Page wants the new-release and promotional landscape to be free and clear in 2018 for one or more 50th anniversary Zeppelin releases. As to what he will put out, there are endless debates on that elsewhere here and on other forums. I'll only note the obvious, which is that aside from perhaps a one-off Record Store Day single, there's nothing left in the studio vaults to put out. So whatever comes out in 2018 almost certainly will be live, either a reissue/remaster, or something totally new, or a series of releases that are a combination of remasters and new stuff.
     
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  6. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world Thread Starter

    Location:
    Europe
    Related 50th anniversary: McCarty says he, Page and Dreja are mulling colored vinyl release to celebrate 50th anniversary of Anderson gig
     
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  7. TheDailyBuzzherd

    TheDailyBuzzherd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Color you one up:

    Beck is lassoed into a one-off show at The Royal Albert Hall.
    It is recorded for a DVD release for Xmas 2018.

    Ha!
     
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  8. Oliver

    Oliver Bourbon Infused

    What I find interesting on this release that I've never really thought of before is just how much to me Jimmy sounds like Jeff Beck on this show. Like Page is still in studio sessionman role to continue the Yardbirds sound like Jeff Beck. Lots of really wide vibrato, fuzztone, little things/tricks that might not be quite Beck but in the same vein (flash guitar?). Really raw and energetic like early Beck. There's stuff I don't remember Page ever really playing later in Zeppelin or at least not in the same way.

    Edit-just an example in "I'm a Man" there's a lot of Beck like stuff to me including what almost songs like some "Jeffs Boogie" riffage at about the 3:55 mark
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2017
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  9. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world Thread Starter

    Location:
    Europe
    just spoke with Chris for a bit, but his voice was giving out due to a touch of a cold... will resume interview later this week... didn't get a chance to ask any forum-derived questions...
     
  10. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    So regarding the edits in the tunes, did they shorten the tunes, or did they paste in corresponding passages to fix mistakes?
     
  11. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world Thread Starter

    Location:
    Europe
    one of the tidbits I can share, though, is very specifically technical and won't be of any interest except to gear nerds like yours truly... I had asked Samwell-Smith in the past what type of strings he used... in one picture I can see a single tapewound with three flats... Samwell-Smith couldn't remember what he used... EVER... (he didn't even remember playing on Paul Jones' "The Dog Presides" with Beck on guitar and McCartney on drums until I sent him a copy of the song; he still insisted at first it wasn't him until he listened to it a couple times and I pointed out his pick style and note choice were totally him and he finally agreed)

    anyway, when Chris took over on bass he used both flats and roundwounds, depending on what was available... not really a preference, more what was in stock!
     
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  12. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world Thread Starter

    Location:
    Europe
    An interview with Jim & Chris that I did in 2001, specifically about the 1966-68 era


    HAPPENINGS TEN YEARS TIME AGO
    (The Yardbirds majestic final flight from '66-'68)

    "Yardbirds I know so well it just plays in my head." - Iggy Pop, on being asked by the author whether he's been listening to enough Yardbirds.

    Question: You ready?

    Jim McCarty: Yeah. I got your e-mail a few days ago. I thought it was funny, that quote with Iggy Pop.

    Q: I thought you would enjoy it. Let's dive right in. Which albums by other groups were favorites among The Yardbirds during the '66-'68 period? Which psychedelic albums in particular?

    JM: We'd take a sort of mobile record player around with us and play things, Keith and I. A couple of the things were The Mothers of Invention's first two albums, FREAK OUT and WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY. We used to like those because they were sort of silly. REVOLVER was another one. Also Keith and I quite liked that EAST-WEST by Paul Butterfield. Another thing was that Steve Miller thing, "Songs For Our Ancestors." You know, with all the tugboats on it. That was a good track. And then there was some of that psychedelic classical music like John Cage. Really weird stuff. Maybe Stockhausen.

    CD: We were listening to The Beatles for sure. We were still listening to the blues, Paul Butterfield and people like that. We were listening to what other British bands of the day were up to. You know, any of our contemporaries- The Beach Boys, Beatles again. As a band, we were listening to these other groups, but we working so much that we were introverted into our own world. Hendrix of course came roaring into the scene around then. He was very exciting and guitar-oriented like we were. He gave us impetus to continue down the road we had already been following. By that time we had Jimmy so it was getting a lot more strange from what we had been doing a few years earlier. We were aware of the music around us, but as I said we were very self-contained. We had our heads down, on our own trail.

    Q: Of course you have thirty years hindsight, but at the time were you really aware that things began to change musically? Meaning, it had been more beat oriented or R & B . . .

    JM: Definitely. I think we always wanted to get out of that heavy 12 bar format. Make it different while keeping the basis of that blues feel, but make it more interesting. That's why we did the sort of things we did. Try to build up some excitement. When Jeff came into the band he was a lot more the way we wanted to go. Eric was very blues purist. At the time anyway. Jeff wasn't like that. He had more variety about him. He played all sorts of weird sounds, electronic sounds that seemed to fit in. The first time we went to L.A. there were all these weird hippies appearing at our gigs. They thought we were all tripping on acid. But it was just our music. We hadn't done drugs yet. We were really straight still.

    Q: The States really took to you. Of course, when you started off in Britain, you had a rabid fan base when you were playing at the Crawdaddy and the Marquee. But later on it seems like the English kind of ignored you, whereas you went over really well in America.

    JM: That's true. It's a bit strange. The British market seemed to revolve around the hit single. It was very frustrating. You had to be thinking of the next single all the time. It was like being in a small box. The things we liked to do, playing live, the Americans really appreciated, especially the innovative things we did on stage.

    CD: In retrospect, it's a bit odd. I suppose it's very much of an English thing. The English kind of love you before you've broken, as it were. I think the thing in America was we got put on some very long tours. The scope was greater. The kids were much more into the type of music we were making, the embryo garage thing. The English tend to forget you if you leave the shore for too long.

    Q: Which British groups from that era, particularly '66, were good live acts? And did any of them influence you?

    JM: The Animals and The Who, I thought, were very good live. We played with The Beatles a few times. They were okay live, but they basically just played their songs and ran off stage. You couldn't hear them at all because of the screaming.

    Q: How about American groups?

    JM: The Lovin' Spoonful were very good live. And so was The Butterfield Blues Band. I saw them with Mike Bloomfield in '66, around the EAST-WEST album. They were different than us, a little more blues purist, although the song "East-West" was similar to our psychedelic approach. They were very good live. We saw them down in one of the Sunset Strip clubs. Maybe The Trip. I saw them later when I was with Renaissance. They had a huge horn section and the feel was quite different. They were a very good band with Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, though.

    Q: What do you think were some of the major differences between the British and American bands?

    JM: The British bands had a lot more stage presence. The American bands always seemed to be a bit more shy. We seemed to be a bit more sincere somehow. Not every band, of course. I didn't see every band. But the American bands seemed to be a bit more lame. I don't want to tread on your toes here (laughs).

    Q: Don't worry. I prefer British rock n roll.

    JM: You know like Paul Revere & The Raiders and those kinds of bands. Of course, we had some lightweight stuff like Freddie & The Dreamers and some of that Merseybeat stuff. There just didn't seem to be any kind of meaty American band at that time, except for Butterfield. And there were all those bands like The Electric Prunes and The Chain Reaction, who seemed to be doing what we were doing. When I hear these accounts of when we first came over with Beck and we were playing these gigs, people expected some kind of pop band and we were playing this freaky off-the-wall stuff that apparently blew people's minds. It seems that we inspired a lot of people to try and play in our style.

    Q: Do you think any of the live recordings with Beck, like the BBC stuff and a few bootlegs, are actually representative of that line-up's live sound?

    JM: The BBC took all the excitement out of it. That's what they were famous for, really. There's probably no live recordings with Jeff that come close. I think the singles we recorded in the States with Jeff, like "Mister, You're A Better Man Than I," "Shapes Of Things" and "Train Kept A-Rolling," were closer to our potential. We never got a live recording as such. It was funny with Jeff. It was either hit or miss. If it was a good night, it would be great. But that might be only one out of five gigs. It wasn't really uniform.

    Q: What live show stands out in retrospect? What did you think about playing with Beck and Page together?

    JM: There were a few shows that stood out as being really good. In the Beck-era we did a small residency on Sunset strip in Hollywood, a club called the Hullabaloo I believe. I remember a great atmosphere and playing really well! Another show that stands out was with Jeff and Jimmy at Cardiff on The Stones tour when the crowd just wouldn't stop screaming for an encore right before The Stones were due on! A show that happened like this was pretty rare with that line-up!

    Q: Do you remember hearing The Beatles song "Tomorrow Never Knows"?

    JM: Yeah, yeah. It was great. I remember hearing it in L.A. We did a gig over in Catalina Island. All these freaks came along and we played that album. We were at somebody's house and we played that album. I thought it was great.

    Q: Were you experimenting with illicit substances at this point?

    JM: Yeah, it came in a little bit slowly. We probably had a smoke for that particular song! It would have fit, wouldn't it? (laughs) It was a great track. It was a great album actually.

    Q: Did any of you play while tripping on acid?

    JM: I believe I did, but not very often! At the Fillmore we met up with Dr. Owsley who would give you handfuls of strange tablets that he had manufactured in his laboratory!

    Q: When was your first acid trip? Care to share the experience?

    JM: I'm afraid acid didn't do me much good. I had to duck out of a few gigs while suffering from the after-effects.

    Q: Chris, were you clean?

    CD: As far as I know, Jimmy Page and I were completely clean at the time. I hadn't even drunk if I remember correctly. I didn't drink, smoke or take drugs.

    Q: Did it bother you that Jim and Keith were doing drugs?

    CD: What can I say? Everybody around us was doing drugs. It was almost expected. I felt for Keith. He was never a healthy person. With the traveling and playing it affected one's health, especially mental health. So I felt concern as a friend. And I suppose you can say it was another reason why the band was no longer cohesive. I think they were kind of under the illusion that drugs can give you. Not necessarily the reality. I can't speak for Jimmy, but I seem to remember that he and I were straight and the other two weren't.

    Q: Now, Keith and Jim spent a lot of time together. Were you hanging out with Jimmy or were you doing your own thing like taking photos?

    CD: I suppose I did retreat into that a great deal actually, well spotted. I hung out with Jimmy to a degree traveling. I was always close to Jim. And at times I was close to Keith. But there was some diametrically opposed things going on. If you're not doing drugs, it's hard to hang out with people who are doing drugs. It's not that you don't want to be with them, but people who do drugs want to be with people who do drugs as well. I had my photography and other creative pursuits. And yes, I did immerse myself in that.

    Q: Where and/or when did The Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting For The Man" enter your set list?

    JM: We did a few gigs with them in Detroit. We played a big festival in Detroit for a few days and they played it, too. We heard it and thought, "This is quite a good song, isn't it?" We probably did it because we were low on ideas and were looking around for material. We played it with the Jimmy line-up, but I think Jeff was still in the band when we played with The Velvet Underground (ed. note: Beck had already left the band). At some point we got their album.

    CD: I think that was in Detroit. We played with them there. I don't think we did it with Jeff in the band, though. Why we did it? We did that very occasionally, when odd bits of material by other artists showed up in our set. That actually might have been Jimmy who wanted to do it. Good call on his part.

    Q: Are these apocryphal stories as recounted in the book UPTIGHT about Jeff Beck intimidating The Velvets with a pistol true? And about him shooting up Sun Studios?

    JM: Never heard that. Don't know if Jeff had a pistol . . . I don't know maybe he did! (laughs) And the Sun Studios story isn't true. Going back to The Underground, though, I remember coming out of the hotel one day and there was Andy Warhol in the limo. And the guy who was sort of his tour manager said "do you want to come along with Andy to the gig?" So we sat there and Andy didn't speak. "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" had just been released. And the guy says, "Andy likes your new single." (laughs) It was weird! Andy was sitting right there and this guy was speaking for him, which was really strange.

    CD: I find that so bizarre. I don't know where that comes from. Jeff with a firearm, that's so ridiculous. He's never been into guns. He's into cars! That's rubbish. As for Sun Studios, we were all over-powered with the legend of rock n roll. The idea of Jeff shooting up Sam Phillips' studio is absolute nonsense. The Yardbirds weren't a violent band in any shape or form. In fact, we avoided conflict most of the time. We got through nearly all of our gigs unscathed, even in the Deep South. We weren't crazy looking if you look at photos from that time. But we must have been strange looking to America in the '60s, especially in the South. Even in our own country, where there's some pretty tough areas, I think there was only one time that we needed to get the local authorities to help assist us from a venue because of some aggravation. But we never really ran into much trouble. I remember one story about The Animals when they played in Montgomery, Alabama or someplace like that. They had a black road manager. They put him in a cupboard in a Holiday Inn, not even a proper suite. After the concert, everybody was hot and they went for a swim, including this guy. The next day they fumigated the pool, drained it and everything. But the only sort of controversy I can remember us experiencing is being refused entrance to Disney Land because our hair was too long!
     
  13. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    • Restored previously cut 1st verse in Dazed, but cut previously included 3rd verse
    • Cut about 1.5 minutes of Relf-McCarty drum and scatting from I'm a Man
    • Cut one of the two measures of Over Under Sideways down Page plays during the solo in I'm a Man
    • Cut the very brief Over Under Sideways Down reprise after the end of I'm a Man (though it's not clear if Page really played that, or if the original mastering engineer cut it in from another part of the show)
    • Cut part of White Summer or else (the current theory goes) substituted in the version from the other show the played that evening
     
  14. yarbles

    yarbles Too sick to pray

    idk whether this has already been noticed & mentioned, but I think the 'studio' version of Drinking Muddy Water is in fact another live version, trimmed to sound like a studio track. The sonic characteristics are extremely similar to the version on the live album, and dissimilar to the other 'studio' tracks. So it looks like we have both sets' versions of DMW and WS.
     
  15. yarbles

    yarbles Too sick to pray

    OUSD was reprised in at least one other 67 or 68 show, so the original version was probably legit
     
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  16. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world Thread Starter

    Location:
    Europe
    it's definitely part of the arrangement... I have two other shows where they reprise the OUSD riff at the end... and it's cool as hell... no idea why he cut it out of the rave-up section either...
     
  17. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world Thread Starter

    Location:
    Europe
    there IS a palpable difference in energy level and rudeness/agression as far as the sonics go, but the call/response section features Page with a slide you don't hear on any live version... and the bass is mic'd too well compared to the live material... I think it's studio still... and good lord, would I love if all their stuff sounded like that in the studio!
     
  18. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    Had the same thought this morning!

    A one-off reform of the 60s Yardbirds for a Royal Albert Hall show - live album/DVD.

    The guitarists can take turns and all jam at the end and play in various combinations. Claptone, Beck, Page. The show would sell out in less than an hour even without Clapton.

    Guest singers - Robert Plant (For Your Love, Dazed & Confused), Steve Tyler, etc. etc.
     
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  19. John Fell

    John Fell Forum Survivor

    Location:
    Undisclosed
    And invite Top Topham if he is able to play.
     
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  20. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    Page definitely cut his live teeth playing the Jeff Beck role in the 'Birds and more. He had to learn to play the lead and rhythm parts, as well as the basslines! Everything.

    But he did do some expansion in in the live arena in '68, it just didn't pan out in the studio much while with the 'Birds after Beck.

    'Stroll On' And 'Happenings' are top notch, though.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2017
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  21. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    Too bad Bowie isn't around. Rod might be available...
     
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  22. Overthehillsandfaraway

    Overthehillsandfaraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Great interview. Intriguing that Page was clean at that point. It chimes with something I remember Henry "the horse" Smith said about early Zeppelin that there was a lot less drugs then than later because for the kind of aggressive sets they were playing, you had to be really sharp. Later (post -72) it was imo not as sharp.

    I think JP was vegetarian in late-Yardbirds / early Zep, which can't have been that common back then
     
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  23. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world Thread Starter

    Location:
    Europe
    there's more to the interview, but I can't find the word doc at moment... it's only a hard copy and I don't feel like transcribing the rest by hand...
     
  24. Mark Wilson

    Mark Wilson Forum Resident

    Great interview! Thanks.
     
  25. Overthehillsandfaraway

    Overthehillsandfaraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Well he's done it before...

     
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