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Post by ClamsCasino on Aug 3, 2023 20:42:15 GMT -5
From Bob Mehr: "FYI, the Tim box offers best of all worlds presenting the most accurate sounding version of the orig. '85 Ramone mix too. Most fans been listening to a hollow digital master from '87 or the ‘08 remaster which boosted bass but lost all dynamics. New OG Tim remaster remedies that." I wonder if he's saying the original record was digital? Or just the CD release? Because I still have all my original vinyl records, and I hated the 2008 remasters when they came out. Huge difference. It'll be interesting to compare the original Tim vinyl to the new remastered CD. EDIT: Nevermind, I see the original vinyl release was all analog and he was just talking about CDs and the crap remasters. Still it'll be interesting to compare.
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Post by curmudgeonman on Aug 4, 2023 13:30:51 GMT -5
^^^^^^^^^ Tim was recorded at Nicollet Studios, part of the Twin Tone offices, and I remember reading a Husker Du article that it was a 16 track tape set-up at the time; digital studios were still a relatively new idea at the time, and very expensive compared to 16 and 24 track tape machines. For me, the new remaster of Erdelyi's mix is not a big deal for me, most CD remasters I have purchased through the years have never been huge revelations at all. But various re-mixes, notably Gile Martin's work on The Beatles albums, can be huge improvements. Maybe Stasium added “more piano” to “Regular.” Maybe Paul did. The song already had a piano part, my assumption is that Erdelyi muted most of it and brought it up mid-song. And I'm also assuming that Stasium is bringing up more of the recorded piano part in his mix. In regards to Stasium, in Mehr's Trouble Boys book, Westerberg and Stinson were unhappy with the sound of the album in progress, remarking "After about a week, Tommy and I sort of talked to each other on the side and said 'Well, I guess it was Ed Stasium that we really wanted'". So I guess Westerberg and Stinson finally get their wish.
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Jer
Beagle Scout
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Post by Jer on Aug 4, 2023 13:37:30 GMT -5
I don't really remember the `08 Tim remaster, though I have it. I just almost never play CDs anymore. I do remember that I really liked the Let it Be remaster from that time. I remember Twin/Tine did some colored vinyl pressings in the early 90s? that sounded terrible.
I think it's really important that they keep the original mixes in print, but not sure how often I'll go back to them. I always equate it to the original Star Wars trilogy. Lucas added added a bunch of shit to the films, which is fine if that was his vision, but I hated how the original theatrical releases were wiped from the planet. Seems like a moment in time was unnecessarily and unfairly lost. Not apples-to-apples with a remix, he added things after the fact, and to me almost none of it was an improvement. I haven't listened to the original mix of KISS - Destroyer since the Resurrected mix was released, and I haven't gone back to Don't Tell a Soul since DMP came out, but the original mixes are still available.
Remasters can be so hit and miss. Tom Waits released a bunch of remasters maybe 10 years back +/- and I bought and then sold them all. The original pressings, even on crappy 70s vinyl, sound better to me. The Exile on Main Street remaster with the box set was pretty amazing I thought, though some preferred the muddiness of the original, mostly for nostalgia I guess. The Cheap Trick box set remasters beat the hell out of the original pressings.
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Post by con on Aug 4, 2023 18:38:38 GMT -5
In regards to Stasium, in Mehr's Trouble Boys book, Westerberg and Stinson were unhappy with the sound of the album in progress, remarking "After about a week, Tommy and I sort of talked to each other on the side and said 'Well, I guess it was Ed Stasium that we really wanted'". So I guess Westerberg and Stinson finally get their wish. Ah! That clears it up. Did Sire object? I should reread Trouble Boys…
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Post by ClamsCasino on Aug 5, 2023 20:21:13 GMT -5
Remasters can be so hit and miss. Tom Waits released a bunch of remasters maybe 10 years back +/- and I bought and then sold them all. I still have my original Swordfishtrombone and Rain Dogs records and they sound phenomenal. Super quiet vinyl on both. Everyone hated those 2014 remasters so much that they’re doing it all over again, this time with a digital step for some reason.
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Post by con on Aug 5, 2023 20:41:02 GMT -5
Shame about those Tom Waits remasters. (Shout-out, at any rate, to the inimitable Alice.) I think the ‘Mats and Rhino are smart in offering these remixed/reimagined records. Like the Giles Martin remixes of The Beatles records, they’re simultaneously an opportunity to blow the minds of new fans and tickle the old ones. Architectural masterpieces get renovated from time to time—not just a new coat of paint but substantial changes. Why shouldn’t the great LPs? All that to say, is it September 22nd yet?
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Post by ClamsCasino on Aug 10, 2023 16:33:39 GMT -5
Looks like Rhino is up to their weird shipping nonsense still. I got a shipping notice for my Tim order yesterday, but the tracking number isn’t real. It’s not even the correct amount of digits. Not to mention that there’s no way these should be shipping yet.
Rhino recently came under fire for their lousy shipping and customer service when they gained a bunch of new customers from the audiophile crowd with their Cars release. I’ve seen multiple audiophile YouTubers claim that Rhino has stated they’ve promised to address all their problems, so this Tim release will definitely test that claim.
And if you haven’t ordered direct from Rhino, just look at the past Mats box set threads and see how each one of them devolved into a list of all the ways Rhino screwed up the shipping.
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Post by FreeRider on Aug 10, 2023 18:15:35 GMT -5
Looks like Rhino is up to their weird shipping nonsense still. .. that's crazy; they've had all this time to work out distribution stuff. I wonder if they're short on employees? I've been lucky not to have ordered directly from them.
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Post by curmudgeonman on Aug 11, 2023 7:16:24 GMT -5
And if you haven’t ordered direct from Rhino, just look at the past Mats box set threads and see how each one of them devolved into a list of all the ways Rhino screwed up the shipping. For Dead Man's Pop and the PTMM box, I ordered directly from Rhino both times and everything was perfectly fine. I ordered Tim in the same manner, hopefully their shipping hasn't devolved into crap.
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Post by ClamsCasino on Aug 11, 2023 15:00:13 GMT -5
And if you haven’t ordered direct from Rhino, just look at the past Mats box set threads and see how each one of them devolved into a list of all the ways Rhino screwed up the shipping. For Dead Man's Pop and the PTMM box, I ordered directly from Rhino both times and everything was perfectly fine. I ordered Tim in the same manner, hopefully their shipping hasn't devolved into crap. It’s always been bad, but they’ve promised an improvement this time. I’ve been lucky too, but just look at those threads. Everything from missing contents to never receiving anything at all. Once I realized that they might never ship my DTAS box, I just cancelled and ordered from Amazon. The primary complaint from the audiophile crowd on that Cars release was damaged sleeves. Rhino claims they’re upgrading their packaging, so we’ll see what they get sent in this time.
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Post by ClamsCasino on Aug 14, 2023 19:58:56 GMT -5
Rhino shipping update: An audiophile YouTuber suggested ordering a merch item along with your record in order to force Rhino to put the record in something other than their terrible record mailers.
I just discovered this doesn’t work, because I just received my merch add-on for the Tim box set. Lol. At least it qualified me for free shipping. So the box is still going to ship in whatever they’re shipping records in at this point. And they’ll probably break down all the bundles and ship all that stuff (shirts, hats, mugs, etc.) separately. In fact, I don’t think the merch extras are even coming from Rhino, because the return address on mine is in San Diego and the company name is “The Replacements”
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funker
Dances With Posts
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Post by funker on Aug 16, 2023 11:59:10 GMT -5
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Post by con on Aug 25, 2023 11:08:06 GMT -5
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Post by ClamsCasino on Aug 29, 2023 2:41:30 GMT -5
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Post by con on Aug 29, 2023 14:43:43 GMT -5
Ever grateful these masters didn’t end up in the Mississippi.
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Post by RockNRollGhost on Aug 29, 2023 16:25:40 GMT -5
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Post by curmudgeonman on Aug 30, 2023 14:20:01 GMT -5
^^^^^^^^^
Thanks for posting, good interview.
Towards the end of the interview, Mehr does confirm that Westerberg has "slowed down" and "is basically retired", not going into any detail.
Some interesting tidbits: there are buried chunks of Bob's guitar leads and fills that will resurface on the new re-mix. The re-mix sessions were filmed/recorded on video for a mini-documentary and is being edited for some sort of release at the same time as the box set. And that the guys in Pavement were fans of the band and were influenced by them as well, something I never really knew.
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Post by FreeRider on Sept 3, 2023 8:02:28 GMT -5
indeed, thanks for the post of the podcast...
well, hearing Mehr talk about Paul being retired and pursuing other interests , like painting, kind of confirms what we've felt or thought. So it's over...but I'm still hoping that he gets the itch at some point and decides to go out with a bang in one last hurrah. But if they've got more stuff to release and compile, and Warner Bros is staying out of their way, I guess there will be enough income stream for him to live on in the coming years. But yet, I went back and listened to "Message to the Boys" and I thought, man, even though he had that song in his back pocket for awhile, that he and Tommy could record it and make it sound fresh? they still got it, they could give us some new material.
It was also great to hear that despite the health issues, Slim is doing well and has great support from his family and friends. So hopefully, the income stream from whatever stuff they release will also help Slim out financially
What's also interesting is Mehr talking about the Spotify discovery of the Mats. That surprises me because I've always wondered if they would get discovered by a younger generation and maybe get a renaissance. I don't really listen to college radio or any indie radio stuff anymore but a friend of mine listens to KALX a lot , the Berkeley campus radio station, and he only hears the Mats once in awhile and it's definitely older material if the dj is following a theme in a block of songs, not like the newer releases from Maxwell or Dead Man's Pop stuff. I figured the Spotify royalty rate is so shitty, they won't make much money from streaming, but if Mehr is right about a new generation discovering them, who knows?
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Jer
Beagle Scout
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Post by Jer on Sept 3, 2023 10:36:15 GMT -5
What's also interesting is Mehr talking about the Spotify discovery of the Mats......I figured the Spotify royalty rate is so shitty, they won't make much money from streaming, but if Mehr is right about a new generation discovering them, who knows?
The Spotify payout is about $.003-$.004 per stream. They will make pennies, sorry to say. Unless you're Taylor Swift, it's pretty much a criminal enterprise as far as artist payouts are concerned, especially if your demographic is primarily older. It's a very broken system that is getting more broken, not better, over time.
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Post by curmudgeonman on Sept 3, 2023 14:57:46 GMT -5
The Spotify payout is about $.003-$.004 per stream. They will make pennies, sorry to say. Unless you're Taylor Swift, it's pretty much a criminal enterprise as far as artist payouts are concerned, especially if your demographic is primarily older. It's a very broken system that is getting more broken, not better, over time.
And some make less, depending on their contracts with their record labels at the time, which controls the streaming royalties to artists. I remember a thread from the Hoffman Forum a few years back about a songwriter who wrote a very popular song that generated close to 200 million streams on a platform, might have been Spotify, but only earned less than $6000 in royalties. And another popular legacy rock artist, might have been David Crosby, reportedly only earned less than $10,000 from Spotify streaming one year. This is why legacy artists sold off their song catalogs because during, and after Covid, road revenue disappeared. No money was coming in because royalties were almost non- existent. Artists do not make money sitting at home waiting for the mailman to arrive with a check, they have to hit the road. Or sell their songs (hopefully recorded by them) to films, TV shows or commercials for a one-time price.
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