ah thanks; I used to check out SHF daily but work has gotten busy this time of year so it's been less frequent. Congrats on your score!
I don't remember where I saw it, it's been awhile. I had no interest personally in that edition, so didn't retain it. I'm getting this for the blu-ray 24 bit & the unreleased bbc stuff; especially the cool Gillespie take on Andy Warhol which I do have on boot. I hope this is an upgrade, I'll need to burn to disc to find out for sure. The boots were pretty good. There is a solo piano version of Bombers that I don't believe I had before.
HDT is back up. Neither them nor PSM is offering this in 24 bit this week. See what Qobuz shows tomorrow...........
Just going through some of these demos on Apple Music. I’m not sure what has happened to Changes and Bombers. While clearly taken from an acetate, the crackles and clicks sound like they have been subject to some attempt at fixing but it’s left some weird artefacts that have done nothing to actually remove them instead leaving a rather swishy noise accompanying them! The clarity is better than the existing bootlegged versions though. Not sure the same can be said for Amsterdam and Kooks, I think they sounded better on previous boots. Still overall this doesn’t diminish how good the 1st disc is! Some revelations here. Right On Mother sounds particularly good (if in mono, there is a stereo version out there but suffers from lower fidelity and tape wobble).
The price on Amazon UK has dropped by over £10. I contacted customer support to try and get that discount from my pre-order, but I was told to simply return the item and re-order it if I want the saving. That seems to go against Amazon's pre-order price policy, but I don't think they'll give me the discount.
Listening to the demos on Spotify now - great stuff. Box set is really a bit too pricey for me, will look out for a price drop next year - but content to stream the goodies in the meantime
With regard to the contents of the box, I have only listened to the first three discs (on streaming). Disc 1 is very strong. How Lucky You Are, Looking For A Friend (mistakenly put up as Waiting For The Man on Tidal), King Of The City, and Song For Bob Dylan (demos) are some of my favourites. There is noise on most of the demos, but I don't think the problem is as bad as people are saying (it's not a big problem to me, but it may be to others). The acetates have a lot of noise, but I didn't really expect better, and it is nice that they're included regardless (that performance of Changes is great). Disc 2: Hearing Queen Bitch makes me wonder why it wasn't put on Bowie At The Beeb. The Supermen, Song For Bob Dylan is great, as is Andy Warhol. Whilst previously released, I can't stand Geoff MacCormack on It Ain't Easy, but I'm sure that's just me. The stereo mixes do wonders for the instrumentation, in my opinion, but the backing vocals seem to dominate the main vocals, which makes the mono tracks preferable. Disc 3: Every track from the first part of the disc is great. They are great performances in good quality, and thus I don't have anything to say. Aylesbury, on the other hand, is rather disappointing. I don't know exactly what the issue is, but some songs seem to flitter between a high-quality tape and a low-quality one. I don't know if this is just damage to the tape over time, but it is rather noticeable during many of the tracks. The worst song, for me, was the one I was looking forward to the most, Looking For A Friend, which sounded very bad compared to most of the other tracks. On the upside, Buzz The Fuzz is excellent.
I have seen other people on this forum experience this with Amazon in the past. I am not sure the exact policy but it seems to be one of the following: - if your order has dispatched then you cannot claim a subsequent cheaper price - on the day of release your ability to claim a cheaper subsequent price stops. Either way it is very frustrating!
The book talks about the sound quality of the recording: "Recorded over 50 years ago, the 1/4" tape of this live concert in the Bowie Archive is regrettably in a less than perfect condition and has many inherent problems. Although recorded from a sound desk feed, the mono mix isn't well balanced (the electric guitar and bass are only heard via the vocal and acoustic mics), there is a distortion in the louder tracks and the tape suffers from multiple signal dropouts, shedding, mangling and clunky edits. And the first half of 'Changes' is missing. BUT, rather like a restored-from-fragments museum artefact, this unique recording has been painstakingly and lovingly reconstructed. As respect for the integrity of the songs and performance was of paramount importance, it was necessary that a lesser quality source material was utilised on occasion. Please do bear this in mind when you listen." Bearing this in mind, I think it sounds great and very happy to have it in the set.
Is Shadow Man the 'early version' that was released on streaming for the Toy b-side, earlier this year?
Would not have known this only for this post. Thanks. Will be cancelling myself and being cautious of preorders from now on if this is the way they want to be. Edit: Same. I just cancelled and I'm going to sit on this a while longer for it to come down a bit.
The "Shadow Man" demo on the new set has a credit for Ian Ellis on bass guitar and Harry Hughes on drums, as do a few other tracks on CD1. Previously the digital "Shadow Man (Unplugged and Somewhat Slightly Electric)" single was missing these credits but it has the same demo performance included as a B-side. Parlophone have also quietly reissued the single on streaming, changing the B-side's title from "Shadow Man (Early Version)" to "Shadow Man (Demo)" but that seems to be the only difference
