Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - where we're at currently (Part 2)...

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by hodgo, Aug 29, 2014.

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  1. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    Pink '73 right here by my side.
     
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  2. asdf35

    asdf35 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin TX
    After opening the box, my plan was to burn a disc of the NEW tracks,
    which in itself should be a great sampler.

    Then I realized that the overall sonics could be so improved in this set
    that the old tracks could sound new to me...

    Let's hope that is the case! Highly likely, considring the balanced/easy sound of "I'm Not There"
    on the soundtrack.

    I was just doing the A/B/C comparison of "I'm Not There" for myself from different sources,
    and this bodes well for the treatment of the old tapes....I hope...
     
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  3. Pawnmower

    Pawnmower Senior Member

    Location:
    Dearborn, MI
    OK Amazon, let's play with this price a little bit...
     
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  4. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
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  5. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    The entire box will be new remixes of all the tracks (with the possible exception of Minstrel Boy, from BS Vol. 10) so they should all have that "brand new car smell" to them.

    I'm Not There from the film soundtrack was actually copied from the 2nd generation "Safety" tape, but the new box will have a mix from the original session reel, if I'm not mistaken, so it may sound even better.
     
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  6. Moth

    Moth fluttering by

    Location:
    UCI
    Where was "I Shall Be Released" and "Santa Fe" from BS 1-3 sourced from?
    It seems like it would be hard to not improve upon those.
     
  7. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    Those were from the Robertson-Fraboni "dubs" in 1975. They're 2nd generation, folded into mono.
     
  8. smoke

    smoke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    Snippet though it may be, I've always loved Santa Fe - looking forward to improved sound on that and about 137 other tracks!!
     
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  9. Summer of Malcontent

    Summer of Malcontent Forum Resident

    Part of the fun of getting such a big archive of tracks like this in one fell swoop is processing it into a slew of idiosyncratic compilations. Recreating the acetate; compiling all the new-to-you stuff; doing best-ofs for the covers and the originals; creating thematic 'albums'; then trying to come up with the ultimate single-disc distillation of the whole experience.
     
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  10. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    You got it...so many possibilities. But if you want to recreate the original acetate, don't forget to use the mono switch!
     
  11. And considering that "I'm Not There" itself was actually taken from a 2nd generation source (albeit the "Basement Safety" - the best one out there) we might even expect a bit of an upgrade with that going from the original reels...
     
  12. AGimS

    AGimS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oslo, Norway
    Minstrel Boy didn't have too good sound, did it?
     
  13. Steve E.

    Steve E. Doc Wurly and Chief Lathe Troll

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    A maybe-a-correction:

    On my "Tree With Roots", the version labelled "Take 2" is the version used on the official album. That's the version with the less syncopated chorus.
     
  14. voles

    voles Forum Lurker

    Location:
    UK
    Hopefully some of those 'weird snippets' will turn out to be part of the new songs!
     
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  15. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    We'll take that under advisement. Thanks for checking it out so carefully.
     
  16. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    THE KING OF FRANCE
    I looked all over the web, and couldn't find any lyrics to one of the Basement Tapes songs -- The King of France. The circulating recording features Dylan, way off-mike, singing fairly loudly while playing an electric keyboard of some type; after a verse or two, what sounds like an electric bass and/or guitar wander into the mix. Parts of the tune remind me of I Ain't Got No Home from the Guthrie benefit, but done a lot funkier.

    So I spent a bit of time listening, and pausing the track, over and over, and transcribed as much of the song as I could, through the "dummy lyrics" and gibberish. Corrections and alternate versions are welcome -- anyone else want to give it a shot?

    (the song started before the tape was switched on.)

    1.
    (cutting in)...TO BACK...ALL DOWN THROUGH HISTORY
    BUT WHENEVER HE'D WAIT ON THE BACK ROOM WALLS
    HE'D COME ABOUT HIS MONEY TO GO
    BUT IF HE KNOWS NO PLACE WHAT HE CAN BREAK DOWN
    AND HE KNOWS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

    2.
    WELL THEN THE KING OF FRANCE HE WORE OLD PANTS
    CAME TO THE U.S.A.
    IT WAS ALL AGREED IT WAS NOBODY WHEN
    WHAT HE HAD WHEN HE HAD SOMETHING TO SAY
    NOW HE WALKED BY A TENT BY WHEN HE WENT
    AND HE KNOWS WHAT HE MEANT TO SHOUT
    YOU BETTER STOP RUNNING 'WAY FROM LAZY LAND
    THEN YOU'LL KNOW WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

    3.
    LET ME TELL YOU A STORY 'BOUT THE KING OF FRANCE
    WHEN HE COME TO THE U.S.A.
    THERE WAS A HUNDRED WORKIN' AND WAITIN' FOR HIM
    SAYIN' HE HAD SOMETHING TO SAY
    WELL HE OPENED HIS MOUTH AND HE LOOKED DOWN
    WHEN A HUNDRED PEOPLE DID SHOUT
    AND HE'S THE KING OF FRANCE, WHAT HAPPENED TO FRANCE
    NOW I GUESS HE DO, HE KNEW WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT

    4.
    NOW HE'S OVER KILLIN' TOTAL TIME, ONE TAIL BOB
    WHY EVER WOULD I TELL YOU SO
    THE MOUNTAINS OF VIRGINIA WHERE A MILE A MISSION
    (words garbled as electric instruments surge)
    NOW LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING I WANNA DO
    WHILE YOU THOUSAND ARE HERE TO SHOUT
    WELL THEY'LL TURN YOU 'WAY GOT A ROYAL TO PAY
    AND THEY KNOW WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

    5.
    NOW I GO TO A DINNER BUT IT'S MY FAULT
    BETTER SET BEFORE WHAT YOU KNOW
    THE KING OF FRANCE LOVES 'EM MOST OF ALL
    AND I'D TELL YA 'CAUSE YOU'D THINK IT BARED MY SOUL
    NOW SHE WAS QUEEN OF EYGPT WHEN THERE WAS NOBODY TO KICK OUT
    NOW ANCIENT TIMES ARE ONLY THEIR CRIMES
    AND THEY KNOW WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT


     
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  17. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    No, not the best. Similar to Tiny Montgomery on the '75 set.
     
  18. streetlegal

    streetlegal Forum Resident

    Funny. I always thought it sounded pretty poor, and was disappointed in it. Sounded muffled and very quiet compared to how I remembered it from the low-vintage boots I had heard.
     
  19. streetlegal

    streetlegal Forum Resident

    So, I have been re-listening to the "original" Basement Tapes, and my understanding is that most--all?--of The Band songs were actually contemporary additions rather than originals.

    Yet, to my ears, they sound as one with the genuine recordings in terms of sound quality. I presume, then, there was a deliberate attempt to record new tunes in such a way that they sounded not only old, but, shall we say, primitively recorded . . . is this a fair assessment?
     
  20. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    To me the thing about The Basement Tapes is that they resist reduction. Every attempt to create some kind of "best of" or ultimate single-disc distillation, or make it "sound good" or to slick it up somehow, to my ears, winds up not only destroying the quirky charm but also cooking off some evanescent essence that exists in the sprawling, homemade, almost random fragmentary nature of the enterprise where. It's like taking everything out of Moby Dick that's not directly related to the chase to kill the white whale. Yeah, you might have a good, more commercial story, but you'd have lost the essential far-reaching sprawl of the original.

    I mean, that's what the original '75 album is, one person's attempt to create a certain kind of collection. It's a good album. But everyone seems dissatisfied with it; and whatever it's charms, it doesn't capture the ramshackle-ness of the original. In a way, accidental though it may be -- the whole collection of tapes never having been intended as a work of art, and perhaps even because of it's lack of that sort of intent --the whole thing is a great post-modern work of art, an accidental montage of new and old material in a form that exposes the production itself as much as the music itself that gives listeners almost a voyeuristic thrill (like looking at stolen erotic selfies of the stars).
     
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  21. lou

    lou Fast 'n Bulbous

    Location:
    Louisiana
    They will all be remastered from what we've heard on bootleg, but remixed? We'll have to wait and see and compare - will all the wide stereo tracks be narrowed? Hopefully not, and most of the tracks will be transferred as is, perhaps with some EQ adjustments to minimize popping and distortion. Hopefully no no-noise!
     
  22. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member

    Location:
    In The Felony Room
    Wow! My hat's off to you! Maybe Dylan's people should have hired YOU to oversee the new Lyrics book?
     
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  23. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    The three preview tracks all seem to have the vocal track brought in from the right a bit. If people don't like that approach, the tracks will probably be fairly easy to re-widen anyway, if you know how. I have a feeling that a few tracks will be in mono, as I don't see everything existing in 2-track. We'll see though.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2014
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  24. Wonderful post, and I largely agree, with one caveat. For the most part, we don't really know at this point how much they can "sound good". We've really heard so little of it in its natural unaltered state - other than the one exception of "I'm Not There", certainly nothing released officially to date qualifies, and are we really going to base our impressions of the sound of all the other tracks based on bootlegs derived from 2nd or 3rd- (or worse) generation copies sometimes to inferior media, made under less than ideal conditions, that may have also been further altered in many cases by those producing them? Maybe in fact the sound of the original tapes is far better than anyone realizes, but there's really not nearly enough to go on at this point.

    I keep hearing the term "remastered" being bandied about, but my sense from the samples we've heard so far is that they're for the most part "restored" rather than remastered. That is, they've made every effort to meticulously transfer them from the best possible original sources, maybe narrowed the stereo field in some cases, but otherwise largely left them alone. And are the original recordings that great that they might not in fact benefit from some tastefully and judiciously applied tone balancing at the least? I certainly got the sense from the Take 1 of "Odds and Ends" that's been made available that it could possibly be improved. After all, even the best recordings made under ideal studio conditions are rarely left completely unaltered in the mastering suite.

    One thing I will say however - given Sony's efforts on some of the other Bootleg Series efforts, as well as the (IMHO) godawful recent remastering of the official '75 LP, maybe the more hands off they are here, the better off for everyone.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2014
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  25. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Who knows what they "should" or "could" sound like or "could have" sounded like if someone had actually preserved all the tapes 20, 30, 40 years ago, other than the handful of people who heard the original tapes then and heard 'em now? It's another layer of post-modern extra-textual mystery and change that deepens the text -- like looking at an ancient archeologically unearthed text whose original language we only partially can translate. I mean, it sounds like the original reels were in pretty tough shape by the time they were sold, maybe the mid 70s transfers, second generation though they are, are "better" at this point than the original reels in degraded condition. We're talking about an amateur recording made by someone other than a recording engineer in a hideous acoustic space mostly just made for personal use by guys just screwing around and stored on tapes that were just left to flake and age under who knows what kind of atmospheric conditions for 45 years. The tapes are what they are, as I've already said I'd most like it if the release was approached from a documentarian and preservationist's perspective, with a bias towards capturing on the final release the original recorded sound warts and all vs. attempt to modernize or "improve" things too much. But one thing I'm sure of, no matter what, obsessives like us will be arguing after the official released that instead it could have or should have been done differently !
     
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