Jethro Tull – Heavy Horses: New Shoes Edition, 5-disc set (9 February 2018)

It was nice to read that Jobson's brief tenure in Tull was a very happy one.

 

The drum part in 4WD is the "Purdie Shuffle" heard in Steely Dan's "Home At Last."

 

Agreed; some great fretless work by Dave Pegg on that track.

 

And some of Eddie's best fiddle!

 

Back to Berne: what happened to the ending of No Lullaby - did I miss something? and couldn't we have finally had the explicit intro to TOTR&R given we have the swearing in the studio Quatrain?

As expected, the concert is mixed flat, with Barre buried between the keyboards in key moments such as his TAAB solo (as on the Landover show). As was said above, it seems Jakszyk has no interest what the band actually sounded like live. Listening to a few audience tapes might have helped? It's still great to have, of course, but I'll certainly be hanging on to Bursting Out for its better representation of the band's often guitar-driven sound, as well as better performances of the majority of tunes.

NB: it's still a great release, good value, the LP sounds terrific etc etc. But I'm a sucker for the live stuff so that's where my interest tends to gravitate.

 

Peter Mew's live mixes also buried Martin. Maybe there is a reason for all this? But you are absolutely right, and it sucks regardless.

 

me too. When I got this album aged 12 or 13 I hated that song and most of side two with passion for several years. But this song is a grower (as are the other songs I hated on that side of the lp).

 

I liked it instantly. When it comes to violin i only really like the European and Middle eastern style. Jobson does a great job

 

Different CD masterings of Bursting Out have insistently put the "No Lullaby" coda at the beginning of "Sweet Dream," for some reason. Even on the Slipstream video, the mimed performance of "Sweet Dream" begins with the "No Lullaby" coda.

As for "Too Old...," I think Jakko decided to just nix the intro altogether because the edit on the 1977 tape is so obvious. Yes, there's an eff word in "Quatrain," but I believe the "Too Old..." expletive starts with a "C," which some people find much more objectionable.

 

Have you actually noticed that the end of No Lullaby is missing from the Berne concert?

 

I'm sure the problem is the "c-" word and I'm not sure it's Jakko who decided that. This kind of censorship pisses me off a bit but, at the end of the day, the important thing is to have the music itself.

As for the "No Lullaby"/"Sweet Dream" transition: it's my opinion that it was played that way in Berne.

 

Quite aware, I noticed that right away when I first played the disc. And then I noticed Martin's ZOOOOP just before the first note of "Sweet Dream." I was just riffin', stream-of-consciousness-style, because the reference to the missing coda reminded me of how someone somehow got it into their head that the coda belonged at the beginning of "Sweet Dream."

I suspect that at least some of the Berne "No Lullaby" is also on Bursting Out. The spoken intro is obviously and definitely the same (you hear Claude say "Berne"), and the uptempo instrumental added on to the beginning of the song also sounds like the same performance. I'm less certain about the body of the song but it's possible. "Sweet Dream" is definitely not the Bursting Out performance, but the next spoken bit ("thank you kindly and good evening...") leading up to "Skating Away..." is also on Bursting Out. The spoken intro to "Thick as a Brick" is also the same, but then Ian almost immediately fluffs a note, so there may have been an edit there, or possibly just a repair.

 

I'd bet a small fortune it wasn't played that way, Tull's arrangements were way too rigid for that.

Maybe there was a tape problem, or Jakszyk used Bursting Out as a tracking reference but somehow forgot to add the end of NL to the start of SD.

 

Interesting. I always thought the word was "bugger" (will the forum software censor that?), it does fit as something a Brit would casually say.

--
Rob

 

It may have been that or bas---ard which I assume it was? But definitely not the 'C' word, especially in the 70's, a real no-no!

 

On the May 18th Berlin recording Ian makes a similar announcement but says this word so quickly and quietly that I'm not positive what it was. Seems to be a one syllable word starting with c though.

The only other recording I have from this tour is May 8 London where he gives this intro differently leaving out the "some other..." phrase.

 

The "Hunting Girl" intro denied rumors that John Glascock was a kinky bustard.


If you listen to the 1977 recording included on the Songs From the Wood package, during the "Too Old" intro, Ian says he was singing about "some other bugg*r." But there is an obvious edit right before "bugg*r." Which means that Ian said something worse than that, and Jakko replaced it with the less-offensive "bugg*r." For the most likely candidate for the original expletive, I tend to look seaward.

 

Was playing Benefit in the car and had to give some of the songs a bass boost. Reckon Mr Wilson could touch this one up if it’s done in book format. Alive and well doesn’t have the cleanest sounding drums either

 

As far as arrangement/setlist changes during the tour, in earlier May 78 shows they played a medley of "Cross Eyed Mary" and "Locomotive Breath." I had thought that it was through editing that the songs appeared separately on Bursting Out, but from the Berne recording it seems they played them that way at the show.

 

Listening to parts of Berne, yes, Martin Barre is a bit down in the mix compared to what I am used to from this era. But in what I guess is corresponding good news, John Evan is a bit further up in the mix.

 

I wonder if that's down to the sound of the original tapes more than the mix. I think IA commented that Benefit suffered from some sonic issues at its core, but maybe I'm flipping it with another album (not Aqualung).

 

Mr. Wilson has already made Benefit the most improved in my books...

 

Inside, Teacher, Time for everything, Witches promise are very good. Some of the other tracks are a bit quiet on the bass. Not sure why Alive and well has such an odd drum sound though compared to the others. He overdid it with the bass drum on Time for everything lol

 

It was pretty much always the same (c) word from summer 77 to the end of 78.

There were a few alterations in the setlist / arrangements throughout 78, but never the kind of spontaneous change that would have been needed for the ending of No Lullaby to have been simply missed off for one show.

 

I don't know if Jakko does online q&as. If so maybe someday he will discuss what happened there.