Thank you for this. So, are the two releases different takes? That's more what I'm wondering. Is one a rehearsal, whereas the other is a more full/final take?
I mean there's no way of telling which was an intended take for the album Long After Dark or not, or if the version that made it onto Playback was recorded on the same day as the different rehearsal takes found in Runnin Down a Dream, Heartbreakers Beach Party, and the Houba Houba TV show. But the one that made it on Playback sounds more finished and polished, and less like a rehearsal than the one on the documentary's soundtrack.
Thank you. I have Playback, but not the liner notes, so I wasn't sure if anything was mentioned there.
All I know is the soundtrack version is one of my favorite Petty tracks and I play it all the time. The Playback version never did anything for me.
I skipped Live Anthology completely for the same reason....sick of constant repetition of songs through live archival releases (from artists in general, not just Tom) and knew after the first couple of weeks it would end up gathering dust on the shelves.
There's really not a whole lot to tell on the face of things. The simplest way of explaining the situation is that they are two versions of the same track, both recorded at The Record Plant in Los Angeles, California in June of 1982 (although I've seen the recording date placed earlier in the year as well). The version that appears on "Playback" is presumed to be the finished version of the song which was later sent off to Andy & David Williams whom released their version in 1987. The version on the "Runnin' Down A Dream" soundtrack is a bit more interesting in that it is sourced from footage shot by Cameron Crowe of some of The Record Plant sessions. At the time "Long After Dark" was being recorded, Crowe was granted access to the band for the purpose of filming a documentary which later was aired on MTV as "Heartbreaker's Beach Party". While the resultant documentary featured very little footage from The Record Plant sessions, the ensuing years would bear out that Crowe filmed copious amounts of footage, more than he would've ever been able to use in one hour long documentary. For example, the 1989 VHS release "A Bunch of Videos And Some Other Stuff" featured a version of "Keeping Me Alive" that is entirely different from either of the versions that feature on "Playback"/"RDAD", in that this version breakdowns mid-way through due to Stan Lynch having issues with his headphones. The Peter Bogdanovich documentary "Runnin' Down A Dream" would add further Record Plant footage of both "Straight Into Darkness" and "The Stories We Can Tell", the latter of which was also included on the soundtrack to the aforementioned documentary. Finally a few additional shots from Crowe's cache were included in the 2018 video for "Keep A Little Soul", although it does not appear that Crowe actually captured the band recording that particular track. This brings up an interesting question as to whether or not the purpose of The Record Plant session that Crowe was invited to attend was to give the band an opportunity to perform some of their new songs, live for the cameras or was Crowe actually filming a "Long After Dark" session from a fly on the wall perspective? From the resultant footage, it's truly impossible to tell either way, although a 1982 French broadcast entitled "Houba Houba" tend to tip the scales in the direction of the latter. The "Houba Houba" broadcast included the aformentioned "Keeping Me Alive" plus run-throughs of both "Finding Out" and a cover of The Troggs' "Wild Thing", and of the two it is "Finding Out" that is the most telling. Upon viewing the footage, fans will notice that the version of "Finding Out" is an embryonic version when compared to the master, which leads me to believe that Crowe captured this performance on the fly prior to Tom Petty finishing off the lyrics. It's also possible that given that Crowe's cameras were present on this occasion, that the Heartbreakers did perform at least some material (the covers for instance) with Crowe's documentary in mind, although it's ironic that the song that most fans associate with this session ("Keeping Me Alive") didn't even appear on the album which Crowe's documentary was promoting.
According to the liner notes, Stanley isn’t on the Playback version. It credits Phil Jones on bongo and George Drakoullas on percussion (the latter likely overdubbed years later). Stanley also doesn’t get a credit on the following track on Playback (Turning Point).
Thank you both!! Edit: Aren't we getting a different version than either of these in this new box set?
I knew @McCool would be able to confirm my initial thoughts. No way of telling what versions were intended for final versions, but the Playback one was does sound more polished as a result of Drakoulias' producing and has a less rehearsal-like vibe, as the other circulating versions do. Who knows if we will get an entirely new version on the American Treasure set or not! As discussed earlier in the thread, some dates and designations of types of track are wrong in the track listing (some say previously unreleased when they most likely mean alternate version, for example), so we won't really know until it gets closer to or is the set's actual release date. The version with Stan stopping mid-way through with the headphone problem made its initial appearance in Heartbreakers Beach Party, as linked above, and then, yes, was again featured in A Bunch of Home Videos. Unfortunately, the song was only played live in 1997 at their Fillmore run, and there's a pretty good recording of it out there among bootleggers. Fun tidbit of info: the Williams brother's version features Mike Campbell's lead guitar work.
I would think something similar to what the Rolling Stones does with their Vault releases would be the way to go. One show for each tour and maybe some bonus songs that weren't played all nights.
Slightly off topic but are the 6 Mudcrutch songs included on Playback pretty much all that is available for early material? I was able to score a used Playback in "good" condition off of Amazon for around $30, with Amazon points it brough the total down to $18. I cannot wait to hear this set and only hope it's in reasonable condition and all the discs play!
While there are unofficial recordings of early Mudcrutch material - live and demos - out there, which can easily be found by Googling, Playback is the only place that the official, highest quality versions of all early Mudcrutch material can be found. Now that American Treasure is signaling the Petty camp's desire to unearth more archival material, there is now at least hope that more early material will surface in some official, high quality capacity one day.
“Wild Eyes” has never been officially released since being the flip side of the 1975 “Depot Street” 7”, and has never seen a CD release.
I have to agree and yet at the same time disagree with mikemono regarding the extant Mudcrutch material. While it's true that there is a lot of material that was committed to tape by Mudcrutch in the early seventies, none of it is likely to see official release. The official story goes, that Mudcrutch released one widely circulated single (Depot Street/Wild Eyes) in 1974 and then broke up shortly thereafter before being able to commit a proper album to tape. That said, there is evidence to suggest that there was a proper Mudcrutch album, recorded around the same time as the single, but it was deemed to be unsatisfactory for release which is why it never reached shelves and likely never will. For his part, Tom Petty was never all that generous in terms of his feelings towards the material Mudcrutch recorded in the seventies, oftentimes describing it in the most negative of terms and personally I don't think it would've stood a chance of seeing release during Petty's lifetime. To be honest, I don't even see the material as a strong contender for posthumous issue, given how Petty felt about it, combined with the fact that while it does point towards the development of a master songwriter, the material pales in comparison to what Tom Petty would come up with for the Heartbreakers just a few short years later. I would also strongly suggest that the Mudcrutch material that was included on "Playback" inclusive of "Lost In Your Eyes" (which features on "An American Treasure") was selected rather meticulously, in that none of Tom Petty's early songwriting efforts were canonized aside from "Depot Street" which had been given release in 1974, "Don't Do Me Like That", "I Can't Fight It" and the aforementioned "Lost In Your Eyes" all of which had at the very least been deemed strong enough compositions in that they were either recorded by Tom Petty/Heartbreakers or offered to other artists long before their appearances on archive collections. To me it's abundantly clear that Tom Petty was uncomfortable if not unwilling to have his earliest songwriting efforts shared with his public and my feeling is that his wishes will continue to be honored.
That I do completely agree with, @McCool. I would say besides "On the Street," "Up in Mississippi Tonight," "I Can't Fight It" (all found on Playback), and "Lost in Your Eyes" (which will be on American Treasure), the only three songs that stick out to me from the early Mudcrutch sessions are "Wild Eyes" (a high quality version was played in the background in the beginning of the first part of the Runnin' Down a Dream documentary), "Long Way From Home" (which was later re-recorded by the Heartbreakers for You're Gonna Get it), and "Once Upon a Time (Somewhere)." Many of the other surfaced songs, I agree, are not of amazing quality. And there are definitely better Heartbreakers outtakes out there that are probably more worthy of release than early Mudcrutch material anyway (especially the 5 unreleased songs that were played live during the April 2003 run at The Vic Theatre, including the 3 which aired on Soundstage. Thankfully one song from that run, "Two Men Talking," will be on American Treasure in studio format).
Argh! Twenty one pages! Is there confirmation that this release will be available in hi-res download?
Hi everybody! We just finished all formats of An American Treasure, and I took some time to read this thread. Wow! You guys are as passionate as usual! A few bits of info: There will be a Hi-Res 24 bit 96K downloadable version. It will not be on Blu-Ray, and, sorry, there is no 5.1 this time. The Hi-Res and vinyl were mastered from the same files, which have more dynamic range than the CD and iTunes versions. In order to live in the current "CD - iTunes-play it on your phone, next to everything else that is out there" world, we made the CD-iTunes version louder than the Hi-Res (about 4db to be exact) -like we always had for these formats ever since I started with Tom, over 10 years ago. Tom was into Hi-Fi, but he also wanted to not have his stuff be radically lower in level when played against other CDs, or on a iTunes-mp3 playlist. Having said that, our CD level for this project is not as loud as some CDs, and even not as loud as a few previously released Tom Petty CDs (i.e The Last DJ). We did our best to preserve the music and still have it be "in the ballpark" level-wise for the C- iTunes world. If more dynamic range and the best possible sound is your thing (as I assume it is for you guys), then get the Hi-Res version, or the vinyl (if you like the way vinyl sounds and Chris Bellman thinks it sounds great. He just shipped the lacquers today). Also, on the 16 or so previously released tracks (of the 60 or so on this set) we went back to the original 2 track analog masters, baked them, and made new transfers, so these are good as we can get them to sound. As for the new material, whether it is an alternate take, or an unreleased song, or an alternate mix, we think there will be enough there to satisfy the hard-core fan, while at the same time telling the story about the man and his music that the family wanted everyone to know. Think of it as musical journey and tribute, curated by those closest to him, pointing out important moments in his career and visiting places where there will more exploration in the future...
What the world really needs to know is when we will get an official release of "That Date I Had with That Ugly Old Homecoming Queen". Monster riff from Mike.
I have Live Anthology, Greatest hits and Anthology through the years, if you had to pick between playback and this new set which would you go for? i quite like detailed booklets and boxsets so i am leaning towards tracking down playback at this point.
I imagine Ryan has no say in decisions like this, but it would be nice if those of us shelling out for the super deluxe CD box, currently paying around $100 for a slightly expanded book and some prints, were able to get the hirez files as a bonus download! Anyway, thanks to Ryan for chiming in with honest and comprehensive information. It's much appreciated by everyone here, I am sure, even if the news is not all good. That said, I can understand the reasoning behind the louder CD-iTunes versions.
