Paul McCartney Archive Collection - 'Forthcoming Releases' [2019+]

All this waiting has warped mine.

 

Well that is not very twee of you!

 

I’m telling you guys, Off The Ground is next with an early year release similar to Flowers.

 

Wouldn't it be just grand to see Macca add a download of "Getting Closer (early mix)" to his website...? Just saying.

 

From 2016, while promoting Pure McCartney:

Q: Was there anything when you went through the stuff that surprised you at what you did?

A: There's some songs that I just hadn't heard literally since I recorded them. One was called Arrow Through Me. That is a kind of funky little thing. Interesting harmonies, interesting brass riff. As I say, something I recorded and then not listened to again.

Q: Was that from Back To The Egg?

A: You tell me! I am my worst analyst. I have no idea. I am terrible you know. I just recorded them and sort of move on.​

 

Seems to be just another " we'd get the ukuleles out" kind of thing. Its a routine he trots out

 

Yep. And the original lawsuit may have been from John Bonham.

Bill Harry has an article on the palaver in which McCartney explicates as follows:

“I asked the fellow who was going to do the film if he could film it like they film wild life.
You know, they sit back off wild life and just observe it and they just let it go on with its own thing and when you try and film our session it’s a bit like the same sort of thing.
If everyone notices the cameras and lights, they all freeze up and won’t talk naturally and they all get embarrassed.
So they put all the cameras behind a big wall and no one could see the cameras and a lot of them didn’t even know it was being filmed.”
Then he joked, “John Bonham had no idea it was filmed – in fact he is suing us!”

 

Yeah, if no one knows it’s being filmed and then it’s being released, and you don’t bother telling people who are you invited that you had secret cameras, that’s an issue.

 

Ah, thanks. Maybe that’s it

 

Lennon had accused McCartney of setting filming up on 'Let It Be' to focus on himself.
The 'Rockestra' shoot, being exactly that does lend itself to that kind of accusation of underhandedness.

A 15 minute work-in-progress edit was shown at the BTTE launch party and, to be fair, that was obviously to let the featured know what had occurred.
That it didn't proceed further to release means that McCartney was either asking for an OK and didn't get it or, possibly more likely, revealed his underhandedness and was walloped for it.

But surely it's OK now?
hmmmmmm
we shall see

or possibly not see

 

If Bonham really was that unhappy, it could explain Plant's apprehension to a reissue. Sticking up for a dead bandmate and all.

 

Here's the Rockestra film if anyone hasn't seen it:


Of course, footage from the Rockestra film was officially released, when some of it comprised the promo film for "Rockestra Theme" in 2001: Paul McCartney & Wings- Rockestra Theme

 

Interesting. This an official promo?
What was the occasion for issue of the 2001 promo? Wingspan?


Quality does look up from the boot but not nearly enough to suggest it's from the negative (which makes me suspect it might have been destroyed).

Hmm....the plot thickens

 

Can you fill in on the Plant apprehension?
I haven't heard about this.

 

Yeah, Wingspan.

In the mid-2000s (like 03 or 04) there was some kind of project to do with Kampuchea. (I don't know if it was gonna be a straight re-issue or something bigger.) Plant's name kept coming up as a hold-out, while Brian May, Costello, and the members of Rockpile all were in support. My limited channels of information didn't let me know if McCartney was in support, but I figure he must've been. Obviously it fizzled out, but Plant stuck to his guns when a reissue of Rockpile's Seconds of Pleasure was moving forward, forcing "Little Sister" to be left off and only "Crawling From The Wreckage" to be added (along with two of Rockpile's tracks from the BBC).

 

Very interesting info, thank you.
I suspect issues around Kampuchea are myriad...the original gig, album and movie, being for a charitable cause so long ago would have involved rights releases which were conditional on it being for charity. Reissues would not be for that charity.
So the releases would have to be remade.

Plant's concern might be around his performance (or haircut) but could be around that. Why should an item he gave away to charity end up being sold as part of an album for which it was never intended?
Etc etc.

There's quite possibly the McCartney issue too.
Much of the press around the time had it as a McCartney-enhancing project with Queen saying something about that in an interview (no way I can reference it but I definitely recall Mercury making one of his mild put-downs to that effect)
That may account for its low-showing in charts at the time, despite being proto-Live Aid and ostensibly irresistible.

All of which leads me to a thought I had about BTTE period Paul being a repeat of Let It Be era Paul.
He did, both times, get the tribute 'that bastard McCartney', a phrase I've seen many times in print from music-biz types.

 

Considering he did a video for it, I think he’s having selective amnesia.

 

And released it as a single and did it live. Seems like it'd be hard to forget, with all of those in play.

 

I think he might have been keen to dodge the next question
'When's that being reissued?' for reasons that may include the speculated legals which might have been delaying the Archive edition for, hmmmm...could be decades!

Also, does anybody remember him diggin' a little blast of it from The Roots on one of those talk shows?

 

Fun fact: it’s also one of the many tracks on the album where they used the Eventide H910 Harmonizer to manipulate the sound of various instruments. Where it was used to a ridiculous degree was on the guitar solo in To You, which was altered so much that it ceased to sound like a guitar and was transformed into sounding like an instrument from outer space!

Anyway, the fun fact is that the Eventide Harmonizer was numbered 910 because it is “the one after 909.” Not joking!

 

Probably already mentioned but The McCartney Years DVD (the DVD set of promo videos) has some Rockestra footage as, iirc, background video to the menus.

 

I don't see the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea as a part of the archive collection. Then I can understand why there isn't a reissue of the album + video. And Robert Plant has the right to give his authorization.

The reissue of Back to the Egg is a different story. Paul owns the rights of the music and film. Robert Plant did not participate on the project.

If the idea is to offer something similar to the Big Barn Box, then the Glasgow concert is the best option. In fact there are some tracks available since 2010 with an excellent quality.

 

Given his hint on the recent Rolling Stone interview, Back To The Egg is next.
And maybe London Town too.

 

There’s Every Night from the 1979 tour on McCartney II boxset, is that from the concert for Kampuchea gig?

 

What’s your source?