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Shelter

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Posts posted by Shelter

  4. Posted · Report reply

    Well, sure. But first of all, differences between versions can be heard, that hint towards what's been done (even if the full effect cant be heard until you hear a full res version). Second, the fact that these songs are marked as "2018 Remaster", is interesting to me in the light of what is waiting... 

    That said, "initials thoughts" are merely me trying to see if I can hear anything special, in terms of differences, no final judgement.

    Also. To my mind. And ears: While preferring vinyl and full res files, I do think some digitally streamed versions of some albums today do sound a lot better than the 90s CD artefacts of the same albums, that most people like to have as reference. (Again, hear Echo for reference.) But that may be just me. 

    Either way, I'm interested in what they've done, is all.

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Today a few songs off of the upcoming An American Treasure premiered on streaming services, supposedly. Judging from Spotify, it's the double disc issue only that will be available for streaming. Apart from the previously released songs Keep a Little Soul and You & Me (Clubhouse), it's just four already relased titles that can be heard at this point. (For some reason not Rockin Around With You, though?! -- How come all five album tracks, supposedly included on the 2CD version, are not made available, is a bit of a mystery...)

    So, four old songs. Not that exciting, that is? But what is interesting though, is that all these five previously released titles are now presented as "2018 Remastered". 

    I'm not sure if any further remastering have been done compared to the Complete Albums vinyl boxes? Not sure how, if, what and why has been done to the songs specifically for this upcoming release, that is. (Why anything, really, since the "team" went through them kinda recently anyway, but who knows, right. You can always remaster the remaster apparently, and then remaster the re-re-master too, and so on, eternally. That's what many old acts' engineers spend all their awake time doing these days.) But, anyway. Since since I DID notice some remarkable differences on a recent Echo remaster (in the latest available digital versions, compared to the old original, like we've discussed elsewhere) -- and since it happens that a remaster occasionally have almost remix like qualities -- I gave these newly available four "2018 remasters" a quick listen. Through speakers that win no audiophilia price at that, mind you - but here's the initial thoughts:

    Crawling Back To You - Sounds good, but I can't tell any real big difference. Neither from the complete vinyl albums box set edition that I haven't heard, nor from the original CD.

    Accused of Love - Sounds great. Can't tell if there is much difference from the otherwise available version (again, Echo has been remastered to great improvement in recent years), but it sure seem a lot crisper than the original, and rather compressed edition.

    Something Good Coming - Sounds fantastic. Something seems a bit extra intense and bare here... perhaps... not sure what. Will have to compare with headphones.

    Have Love Will Travel - Again, something seems a bit extra close-up and crisp. I think I hear some new details in the guitars and harmonies.. not sure..  Perhaps I haven't heard this song enough in recent months, but wow.. this is a beauty. Old favorite resurfaces. 

     

    Again, not sure what set these versions aside, from the complete album box set remasters and recent digital updates made. Either way, now the box is prepared and ready to stream, it seems. All the titles are there, if not activated yet, and it's cool to see it officially listed. Will be awesome to hear the rest of it! Brand new old TP songs. My favorite treat!

     

    MuddyandMagnolia, livin´thing68 and franferparraga reacted to this

  12. Posted · Report reply

    BTW. For those of you interested and who wasn't around in 2015, there are some speculations about the main 92-93 sessions, the aborted album as well as the Gr Hits sessions, in this thread: 

     

     

    Water under the bridges and I think perhaps some additional facts has surfaced since. I will have to try to track down whatever session journals I've been keeping and get back here if I find anything useful, to put this Mindbender into proper context, if anyone is interested. The bending is good in its own right, as it were! 🧘‍♂️ 

     

  14. Posted · Report reply

    ^ Yes way! :) Can't find it, right now, but there is this really cool picture somewhere, of the guys posing outside of city hall, or something, in small university town of Lund, southern Sweden in may 77. Then they were fresh off their first local claim to fame back home (playing recidencies of sorts at the Whisky in LA and Keystone in Berkley) and a rather extensive career breaking tour of the UK, called Terminal Romance. About half a year after the release of their first album. I guess you could say that the press coverage - always hungry for hip new american bands - the specially issued vinyl releases and the radio play of the first singles, kick started their career over here. Just a small show, by a then small and unknown band on their first stop-by, but the wheels were turning and Sweden had a comparatively big TP fanbase ever since, given we're a rather small country with less people than the county of Los Angeles. 

    But yeah.. even touring the US, they did so most years and as we all know that is one big country, this meant they were truly a traveling band even without having to cross borders very often. At least once the 1992 tour was over and done with and league A+ legend status was in their hands. Had they wanted to, they could easily have traveled the big citys of america every other year, but at least they (their bookers) tried to vary and expand the route to some extent and some tours saw some different areas and citys. I guess one really could travel a whole life without ever leaving US, if one wanted to. Big country, big band, great symbiosis. (Another, long gone and obsolete discussion now, but this distance, traveled miles issue and so on, is also why I always found the old argument daft, that us Europeans were sometimes met with, that they stopped touring Europe after 1992 because they didn't care for traveling too much, wanted to be closer to their familes and such... To me it seemed that they did travel as much anyway, rushing around US each and every year, and if anything, the travel between venues would have been s-h-o-r-t-e-r in Europe, a lot of the times. Actually easier, especially in the days they traveled by bus. A UK tour would be logistically easier than a California tour, in terms of distance. Still, I suppose, they were closer to their CA families in Chicago, Boston or New York than they would have been in Paris or London. I just never understood what that type of closeness amounted to, really... Anyway, none of this matters anymore, just interesting to ponder, and it did mean a lot to a lot of people once. 2012 was a great come-back of sorts. But by then I already lived many years of life in CA, among other things to be able to see TPATH play live.)   

    ABBA.. hm.. who is ABBA? Just kidding. Let me write something about ABBA. (Something I don't do every day, let me tell you.. haha) Australia probably was and is their biggest and bravest fanbase, for sure. But they were hardly first, considering that ABBA was actually singing in Swedish at first, having several huge hits back home early on, not to mention the lot of them had separate solo careers and other groups, going back all the way to the 60s. That the Aussies "discovered" them early on, though is true and something probably connected to the fact that Australia also have this queer love the quite dorky European Song Contest  mega spectacle, that ABBA actually won in 1974, which may be said to costitute their big break. (These days Australia is even in the ESC at times, so I hear. European geography is apparantly not what it used to be, hu?!) Me, I'm still trying to figure out who is Bjorn and who is Benny...

     

  15. Posted · Report reply

    Well, Robert.. I may call you Robert? I am obviously very impressed by the, shall we say channel you tapped into here. For persona in the interview, for art and to some extent for tracklist. Great job in the fan fiction vein, or rather music journalism fiction. That far you handle the wheel with more skill and swagger than most rock writers this side of Lester Bangs. It's the seed of a fan fiction Don Delillo kinda work. 

    Ok. Well.

    As for your album. I can't answer all your questions, surely. Or perhaps I can. But not with any total accuracy and not without checking my "notes". I would offer the initiated guess, that you're not totally off the map. Although, I'd suggest that the derailed 92-93 sessions that was aimed at a ITGWO follow-up did just produce very little in term of original tunes. Georgia, sure. Lost, sure. Neither quite nailed. You Get Me High. Yeah..uh.. fun song, in that great but wise-comic type vein they sometimes blew off steam with, but never exactly built there albums around, or even allowed on said album (see Heartbreakers Beach Party, Girl on LSD... Moon Pie.. and so on, for reference).

    So, between the old Indiana Girl and all the rest (sic!) .. Some very promising demos by 1993, I'm sure, perhaps a few decent takes (who knows),  but as far as productive record sessions go, I suppose things came to a halt for a reason there.

    Then for the Gr Hits Session. Several known songs. Can't recall the exact number (I'm on a bus right now - true story) but almost all of that was covers, in part done for fun, in part to fill the disc with something "new" ( in order to lure in the old fans to buy the old songs yet again). Also covers in that situation is a safe method compared to adding a new original to an album thusly titled GH, I speculate. So, mostly covers. Blue Moon of Kentucky? Kinda a list of stuff meant to do what Something In The Air did.

    Then they struck gold with Mary Jane. Fluke? Hardly. But great timing  that. I'd say its their greatest timing ever! Masterpiece, obviously a Greatest Hit even before anyone heard it, so of all the covers cut, only one survived to release. (Howie' s only shared lead and an absolute killer of a song and version, SITA is one of their most underrated recordings in my view.)

    Anyway, as sessions from which to cull stuff to a studio album proper, preferably stuffed with TP originals at that, I wouldn't find the Gr Hits sessions too suitable. Again, Mary Jane would've been the obvious pick, but, also again, that song is really older, and then it could have... Yeah.. Well..  

    As fantasies go, I love yours. But unless we can imagine sessions that never happened, that took perfect care of all the best original loose ends that TP had in his work book by 1993 (Some of which we don't know of, and others I think you may have omitted), I think the Mindbender will be just that, a bending of the mind; I don't think there is enough recorded, at least not anywhere nearly finished recordings or outtakes (even if you date back to 1990-91 sessions leftovers, to arrange an album out of it.) On the other hand, if you go by titles and songs they could've - theoretically - have finished in such imaginable sessions, there's no need to bring covers into the equation at all. 

    So, basically, it's a fun scenario you created. Thanks! Artwork is great too! But this album that never was could and would have been somewhat better if it would've been. Even, no matter original material preference, strength or weakness, the fact that you put so much covers on there is what, more than any other reality checks that can be done, breaks the spell for me. Tom would never have done that. It's not his move. And if he would've done it, at that time, chanses are that the press and fans would have started to speculate if he was done.. at the very least it would've opened the Pandora's box on the rest of their career. Also, it could've meant Stan staying.

    That's my thoughts after visiting your parallel universe. I feel bent.

     

    PS. Mystic Eyes is an abomination, if you ask me. As is Gloria. The very thought of them including any of the two on any if there studio albums give me the heebiejeebies. And I say that as a big Them fan, of course. TP just picked Them's (Their's?) worst moments to obsess over. 

  16. Posted · Report reply

    Well.. the clues to your dreams start to add up.

     

    Another thing: Your profile pic does come off positively 3D in miniature on my phone screen. Is that by design or by accident? I know the glitch art method, there.. But see.. there's a southern accident where I come from. (Glitch writing, that.) 

  19. Posted · Report reply

    Heyhey... I guess you all are familiar with all our little favorite serial "TP coverer" out there, Jake Thistle! (Apprently the co-captain knows about him..) He's been doing pretty much all TP songs there is, in his own way, from his own basement and from various locations and with various results (IMO), considering his very young age he kept rather busy at being a rather active Petty head. And I guess he plays other music too. Now, I suppose that his talent and his diligence have earned him some reputation at this point.. because look at this (below!)... Awesome, right? What a great, great thing to do by John Hiatt! Fantastic! (When I was a kid I thougth he was John High-Hat, but then again... I used to dream that I'd play guitar with Tom Petty too.. and look where that took me...   ) 

     

    Have a little faith people...!

    Mr Timba reacted to this

  24. Posted · Report reply

    1 hour ago, Mr Timba said:

    I think Bob Dylan's "Together Through Life" should be mentioned in this thread. Mike plays guitar in all the tracks. For those who have not listened this album, Mike not plays with his trademark sound. An underestimaded album by many people, not a masterpiece, but in my humble opinion is a really consistent album. And Mike is there.

    Good points. Certainly a key album. However much I love most things Dylan, I do think that album has some production/mix problems. Some that even concern Mike, at that. There´re certainly some great stuff done by MC on there, some riffs and sounds perhaps not totally strange to Mojo listeners, even. I must admit that I neither know the details of the TTL recording sessions, nor find all of the material on the album to be among Bob´s sharpest, but I do have a hunch that the album wasn´t his most focused work, so to speak (wasn´t it originally meant to be a soundtrack, btw?) and that even with Bob´s sometimes "random" approach to making album, this one is a bit.. shall we say.. forced.. or sudden. Plenty of great playing on there, two or three really classic songs, but several of the tracks seems a bit "glued together" to me. It really seems like a few of the instruments have been over dubbed and put on as an afterthought. To me some of the MC work is part of that problem to me. It sounds a bit as if a riff or guitar piece have been cut - instead of longer dynamic, more soulful segmenst of typical MC taste and touch, not to mention any live playing, together with the band - then looped in small cuts over the basic tracks. At least on one or two occasions these little "riffs" are also put up too high in the sound mix? Is it just me hearing this? Thinking it a bit of a shame to treat some fine MC playing that way? The end result is a somewhat uneven album that in spots sounds like brainwash to me - Like "Di-di-di-di-di-deee-deee" x 48, right in your face. 

     

    1 hour ago, Mr Timba said:

    "In the real world" (a beatiful song in my opinion, in which you can hear Tom sing uhhh, uhhh...) is also written by Will Jennings. 

    Good call!

  25. Posted · Report reply

    44 minutes ago, Mr Timba said:

    Bruce Springsteen solds out his shows in a few hours... and Tom was like an unknown guy here because....

    ..there was no shows to sell out? Right, and that was part of my point. Given perhaps different levels of popularity to begin with, their no-show in Europe in the mid 90s (when they were BIG) and the 00s (when they still had a considerably passionate and big fan base), obviously didn't help their over all "fame" over here. In the same era, other artists figured that live shows and swag was a must to keep in the game, comercially, since singles (and records sales in general, radio impact and so on) was dwindling. And TPATH then, quite rightfully, calculated they could keep busy and well paid enough to stay on the US circuit all those years. The home market was big enough, so to speak, and as such it was growing even bigger (comparatively) for each tour... a self fulfilling profecy, that way. 

    But even in this light, even without much radio play, around here TPAH stayed quite popular, kept selling records in numbers and so on. A comparative stronghold. (I also lived many years in CA, and frankly TPATH wasn't THAT much more "known" there.. haha.. oh, well.) Not that the 2012 tour was that key to keeping things this way, but I still feel sorry for you guys in Spain who missed the fun in 2012. As I am even more sorry for the Aussies, who never got a TPATH show since Bob took the guys with him there some 32 years ago - A life time, or even more, in rock'n'roll.

    Big Blue Sky reacted to this
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