Stealers Wheel audiophile LPs coming out!

I have many different LP's and CD's with the tracks that I love from "Look Sharp!" ("Is She Really", "One More Time" and "Sunday Papers") and I have never been happy with the sound of those songs, no matter if analog or digital. The highs always attack my ears and I'd love to hear some bottom end, as I've yet to hear barely any bottom end on any of those songs. If ever a reason to remix an album, "Look Sharp" could be one of my high priorities. I recently caught Joe on his latest tour, with the great Graham Maby back on bass and Joe's live sound kicks the original recordings butts every time!

For some reason I've never had the "I'm A Man" album in my collection, for no know reason, so I can't speak for that one, but if it sounds anything like "Look Sharp!" has always sounded in the past, then I'm glad that I awaited your upcoming reissue. I won't lie, but being a fan of 45's, I have passed the opportunity many times of buying that old 45 rpm box of the "I'm The Man" album, which featured the entire album on a bunch of 45's.

As for "Night And Day", I still can remember it as if it were yesterday, me sitting in my bean bag in my old bedroom at my parents house, with the headphones on and listening to that album for the first time from beginning to end. All these years later, I may have had that same wonderful listening experience with only twenty or thirty other albums ever since and I have a fairly huge music collection, so that is saying something! I have many pressings of that album on LP and CD as well, including an early promo A&M LP, the West German CD, the Japan red printing CD and the MFSL Gold Disc. "Night And Day" has always sounding pretty darn great to my ears, but it could use some help in certain frequencies, in my opinion. It will be interesting to hear just what Kevin has done with it. I will be 100% honest and say that I sometimes wish that Kevin would turn a few knobs a little further to the right, rather than to the left, as I have found a few of his recent Audio Fidelity Gold CD's lacking the "fullness" that I'm often searching for and they end up sounding a little too "flat" for my tastes.

I'm a pretty big fan of the late Gerry Rafferty, especially his United Artists/Liberty years, so I should probably invest in those Stealer's Wheel albums, as I'm sure that they will be very well done. I also love me some "Stuck In The Middle With You" and "Star" …

"So they made you a star, now your heads in a cloud" …

"Ahh, tell me" …, indeed!

 

Thank you for doing these. Love these albums. I hope you do very very well with them. Nice to see an audiophile reissue that isn't the same thing for the 15th time.

 

Hi Shane, Is there any possibility to have the Joe Jackson albums you are reissuing on SACD too?

 

Well, Night and Day is being done for the umpteenth, but I stand by the statement that ours is the definitive version!

 

I don't see it. Stealers Wheel is unique in that those titles aren't even available on CD currently, but Joe Jackson and Everclear have been done in deluxe editions. I'll never say never, but it looks a lot riskier to me. Plus, vinyl sounds better!

 

as an audiophile who has chased the definitive versions of many titles I thank you for making definitive versions of anything. Now....can we talk you into doing some classical vinyl? I have a nice list of reissues and never before on vinyl recordings for you Oh and a pipe dream for what would be the most amazing classical piano record of all time. Yes I am

 

I am open to this, and there are actually some off-the-beaten-path things I'm looking at. There are other labels doing such great work with classical and jazz (The Living Stereo Series Chad is doing at Acoustic Sounds is THE BOMB!), it has to be something that's out of the wheel house of the other labels doing that stuff. Private message me or email me at [email protected] and make suggestions if you care to. ya never know!

 

The Stealers Wheel album is a complete knockout! This music deserved the royal treatment, indeed. The song "Jose" for example is unique, unpredictable and extremely amusing. It rather had that Fagan/Becker kind of opaqueness to it but in a more loose and laid back way....We all had smiles on our faces and played it twice (What in world? That intro into the verse!) ......Looking forward to Ferguslie Park in 2016 but I'm not done spinning the debut by a long shot.

So, "off the beaten path things" ...hmmmm... such as Broken Barricades by Procol Harum? I have a couple of A&M copies of this actually already....the both sound so great (the drums in particular - Chris Thomas's production really stands all round though) and I can't imagine that any reissue has been as effective (there are a lot of them out there and no one seems to be jumping for joy). Another A&M lp that I used to love as a kid was Frampton's Camel (Eddie Kramer did this one).....it had a very nice quick warm sound to it as I remember. A&M really was a wonderful boutique label; I'm thrilled that you're getting these done again in such a pristine fashion, Shane. Will be also looking forward to Joe Jackson's Look Sharp....Just the cover will be worth the price of admission with those white shoes jumpin' out! Thank you!

 

Yes, the reissue has that kind of heft! Very happy.

 

Glorious Analog - Couldn't have said it better.

 

The original US had some bass, but nothing like ours. And let me tell you, there were mastering notes in the boxes that we believe belong to George Peckham pertaining to the original UK "Porky/Pecko" cut. These notes show the bass was cut a lot and the treble pushed , which makes it sound very splashy at first listen. I suspect this was done to keep the "needles" in the groove back on the mass-market turntables of yesteryear. We left much of that bass intact, and didn't push anywhere at all. I really think that in addition to hearing more of that amazing bass they put on the tape that a lot more texture and detail is revealed in the midrange and treble. The famed Rafferty/Egan vocal harmonies are especially lush to the point that you can see how A&M thought they had the UK's answer to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young!

 

This album was such a head scratcher for me. When I first bought it years ago I just assumed that it was one hit with a lot of second rate fat. Why else would this not be a well known and acclaimed LP? I remember my first listen thinking every track was very much in the same class as "stuck in the middle with you." It was such a wonderful surprise. and of course the SQ was outstanding. Still leaves me scratching my head. This should be a very very popular album.

 

That's what I keep thinking!! Especially with Rafferty going on to such widespread success with City to City. I think the Stealers Greatest Hits did ok, it's been in print a long time and jeez, the band only had three albums so that thing must be loaded! Ferguslie Park doesn't have the monster hit, but I honestly think it's a stronger record from start to finish, song to song. And let me add too that I'm being told that I"ll have Ferguslie pressed and packaged by mid-January. Let's cross our fingers!

 

I listened to the whole thing (Ferguslie Park) on YouTube and from what from I can tell it is indeed is more developed, has more compositional polish if you will.... the debut left room for them to grow apparently...
"Everything Will Turn Out Fine" has a slamming sound - stunning drums bass and keys.... The musicians from The Herd and Quartermass were def great picks.... and the lp has more scope as well...
Some interesting things w harp and vibes..... Yes, can't wait, can't wait.

 

Looking forward to getting the first s/t album. Ordered from JPC.de here in Germany. Wasn't cheap at 44 €uros on sale, biut at least it's with free delivery.

 

However tempting Shane makes it sound, this is still way overpriced.
No way am I buying at £52 (what's that - about USD$ 78 ??). Needs to drop to at least half this !

 

Diverse Vinyl have it for £36 - ignore that UK Amazon price - someone's pulling a fast one.

I've reserved my copy with Diverse and I think it's just arrived there.

 

Postage with Diverse Vinyl seems to be £3. So that's virtually £40 in all. Sorry, and I appreciate your trying to help, but it's still way too much.

 

Shane - after listening to the Stealers Wheel last night, I'll be purchasing many more LPs from the label. Wow. I have a German version of this that I thought sounded pretty good, but your re-issue betters it in every performance category. Keep up the excellent work!

 

Hopefully there will be a way for Canadians to pick these up at a reasonable shopping cost.

 

Its $140 on amazon.ca wtf.
Aaron

 

Try elusive disc.

 

Enjoyed the album last night. Agree with all the other folks who raved about the sonic upgrade--lots of nice bass, and the vocals have lots of presence.

Lovely cover art restoration too, printed on thick cardboard with high gloss.

One thing, though--the final song, "You Put Something Better Inside Me" (1973 mix) has borderline siblance issues on the lead vocal, on my rig at least. None of the other songs have that issue. I'm guessing that comes from markedly different EQ choices on the source tape during the mixing stage.

 

Yes please! Elusive Disc or Acoustic Sounds is the best way to go.

I will add that Stealers 1 is on Amazon US for the correct $35 US retail. I can't help the exchange rates. I stand by the fact that I've spared no expense in producing these LPs and if you love the music you will not be disappointed! Mo-Fi recently raised their single 33 prices to $35 too. It is not cheap to do things the right way unfortunately.

 

Aside from looking pretty, the film lamination will also keep those jackets looking that way for decades. Much more than a pretty facade!

Yes, you are correct. The tape box legend indicated that the alternate "You Put Something Better Inside Me" was spliced onto the original tape in Feb of 1973. The original version came out in the UK in late 1972 I believe. It sounds way different! It also sounds to my ears like they might have bounced tape to blend the strings and other new elements in. It has a harsher feel to it for sure. We couldn't tame that without doing harm to the rest of it.