He's telling porkies, Paul: nothing was rejected after he allegedly approached BMG to try & block the live disc in November: the trackslisting & fundamental design were approved & signed off by the other three members in September. Nonetheless, a very strange, unsettling and disdainful conversation. He's increasingly demonstrating signs of issues.....
My reading of that recent DS post was simply that there were some tracks/versions etc that were originally shelved for good reasons and that he wasn't involved in this new QL edition. He didn't go much further than that and it didn't strike me as overly condemning or critical. It was just matter of fact.
That isn't how all others have interpreted the recent Twitter warblings, but, maybe, who knows what is going on in his head and some of his statements have been misleading in the past? The end result was that, even though he wanted to wade in and change things, he was too late and was played with a straight bat.
Here's a copy/paste of his two replies to questions about the new QL: "i don't listen to past recordings, period. i've no feelings re a reissue of preexisting material. opted out of involvement in this collection. unvetted 'extras' were shelved with good reason." and in response to someone suggesting DS wasn't keen or there was animosity: "I've complete clarity re the history of the band. it doesn't play into my considerations regarding a reissue. There's been a wealth of misinfo spread about the inner workings of the band that it'd take a small volume to counter. i don't wish to be put on the defensive." I have noted a lot of speculation about him and about his motivations/intentions among fans in ways I don't see about other artists. re: Quiet Life: I can't wait! I love that record and I'm psyched to see how everything looks and sounds in this edition.
If anyone cares about my opinion, the new remaster of the main album is top-notch. Heard the vinyl some time ago but my views are mainly based on the digital version which uses the same master. It's not compressed (DR between 9 and 13, with the majority above 10) but has power and richness; there's lots of detail which is important for such complex, layered tracks. "Despair" sounds sublime, best I've ever heard that track, and the rest isn't far behind. The vinyl sounds midway between the original UK and Japanese vinyl, both of which were superb pressings. If you are only interested in the main album, buy with confidence. I wouldn't usually write like this in advance but this is worth it.
Amazon Italy have the box up for pre order at €36.99, pretty good saving considering it's £50 on Amazon UK.
An audience recording?!? Was going to get this for the live disc, but probably not now. I'm so disappointed...
I'm mostly getting this for the extras, but if the main album itself also sounds better, that's a welcome bonus.
9 versions of Life in Tokyo and do we know if the live Japan cd is audience or soundboard ? Count me out if its audience, too much filler with this release !
Whilst some audience recordings can sound pretty good, it's disappointing that this fact isn't mentioned in any of the publicity. Not that I've seen anyway. I'm sure a lot of people will be expecting a proper soundboard recording. I certainly was.
My old UK “Fame” budget vinyl reissue in a non-gatefold sleeve sounded really great, FWIW IIRC etc etc, and probably costs peanuts if anyone wants to save some money.
It It was on the press release the day before the launch, not sure if that bit got taken out at the last minute or if it’s just been ignored in pieces to date.
Not sure if it was mentioned in any early publicity Paul, but I’ve been avidly following the progress of this set and I don’t remember seeing anything about the source of the full Budokan gig till I read it in here. To most punters it’s certainly not obvious that this is a cleaned up audience tape. The super deluxe edition website says this... “This same disc also includes the four-track EP Live in Japan (taken from the March 1980 Budokan show) which had a limited vinyl release in Europe in July of that same year. The third CD in the box set is that same Budokan gig, in full.” No mention of audience tapes. And the implication is clearly that the third cd is simply the full show that was previously cut down for the EP. So it’s reasonable to assume it’d be in the same quality. The Burning Shed site contains a similar blurb which implies that the EP tracks on disc two are like a taster for the full gig on disc three. Like I said, I’ve heard plenty of decent audience tapes, but I can’t help feeling a bit short changed here. And I’m sure plenty of folks won’t realise this is basically a bootleg that’s been given a bit of tlc until they actually play the disc. Bit late by then...
I forget exactly which rabbit hole I went down when looking for information about this, but my understanding is that a this was an FM broadcast from within the audience (said to have been the norm at the time?), as opposed to some guy in the audience taping the show.
My Fame issue has the same matrices(matrixes? Matrix numbers?) as my first-week-of-purchase original pressing but sounds better, quite a lot better which probably only serves to demonstrate that you should never trust 14/14 year olds with first pressings!
Oh, great! It's being repeated elsewhere that it's a cleaned up boot, which is probably stopping some from getting an order in. I wanted to correct that notion but don't have concrete info myself, so thank you.
Quiet Life is a fine album. I have a near mint Fame/ Ariola Eurodisc Ltd. LP that sounds great as well as the 12" All Tomorrows Parties '83 remix/ Deviation (live)/ Obscure Alternatives (live) EP, so not likely to purchase the re-issue, but glad to hear they did it.
On the Fame reissue (I posted this a few years back, but as the album has its own thread now...) something has recently intrigued me. I noticed in the deadwax - after the STRAWBERRY stamp - it looks like the initials "CB" - in a very similar style to the way Chris Bellman writes his. (it's on both sides of the wax) It's been missed on Discogs too. Possible? (I remember buying this in Woolworths for about £3 back in the day!)
Kind of an odd discussion about the source of the live tape. An FM broadcast tapes from the audience? The key thing is, are the vocals and instruments sourced from the soundboard or being picked up by someone with a mic in the crowd? Whether it was ever broadcast is immaterial, it seems to me.
Unless I missed the point of an unboxing video (an official one at that) it shows nothing about the box really. Unless I am to determine that the contents are just randomly thrown into the box loose. Maybe if I watched the video backwards it would make more sense.
