this one goes out...

Today we were contacted by the IFPI to discuss removal of the Cassette Set from Mediafire.

From: IFPI <notices@ifpi.org>

Date: June 8, 2012 9:34:42 AM PDT

To: xxxx
Subject: Removal of Mediafire link
Reply-To: notices@ifpi.org

To: Webmaster

               

From:

IFPI

notices@ifpi.org

               

Message:

Dear Sir,

               

Can you contact me via notices@ifpi.org to discuss how the mediafire link containing REM recordings was removed.

Regards,

Reply sent.  Will update with responses as needed.  Interesting to see if this was not initiated by Universal, but clearly feathers have been ruffled because I don't see the IFPI following up on random run-of-the-mill DMCA takedowns with personal emails to the alleged offenders.

country feedback

(crossposted with REMcycle)

Lots of press on the last post (on REMcycle, here).

First was Rolling Stone, I was starting to see pings on the blog at approximately 10am (EDT) from them.

Rolling Stone: R.E.M. Archive Blog Preemptively Shut Down by Universal
Label disputes post featuring the band's earliest demo cassette

Then they started coming in droves, mostly rehashes of the RS article but a few with original content (prefix, aux.tv, exclaim.ca...).

CNN: R.E.M. archive blog preemptively shut down by Universal (RS article feed)

prefixmag: R.E.M. Restoration Blog Pressured To Shut Down By Universal Over Material That The Label May Not Actually Own

aux.tv (Canada): Universal issues copyright takedown notice for songs it doesn’t own on R.E.M. archivist’s blog

exclaim.ca (Canada): R.E.M. Blog Shut Down After Questionable Copyright Claim from Universal

The best one though, as they actually did original research (err, they talked to us) was from Spin - which also presented the most balanced piece:

Spin: Fan's Digital R.E.M. Archive Nixed by Universal Music

Takedown notice thwarts latest project by audiophiles behind Joy Division/New Order blogs

And lastly, my favorite:

soundabble: R.E.M. Archive Blog Preemptively Shut Down by Universal

Here's the entirety of the Soundabble article, preserved just in case the editors realize the writer was beaming in from Mars (or felt that repeating the RS article was much more exciting if run through a loop of Google re-translations first):

The digital archivist who easy a singles catalogs of a Smiths, Joy Division and New Order in a array of blog projects is being strongly disheartened from starting a identical plan collecting R.E.M.’s beginning work. In a blog post on a nascent R.E.M.cycle site, a blogger famous as Analog Loyalist explained that Universal, a record association that owns a band’s IRS Records catalog, expelled a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice for an R.E.M. post on a writer’s sister site The Power of Independent Trucking featuring a easy chronicle of a band’s initial cassette demo, with early renditions of “Radio Free Europe,” “Sitting Still” and “White Tornado.”


“Tell me, what purpose does a IFPI (of that Universal is apparently a member) have to do with unreleased element available when a rope had no record contract?,” Analog Loyalist writes, referring to a International Federation of a Phonographic Industry. “These were demos openly given divided by a band. On low-fi C45 cassettes. And a IFPI thinks it’s their business how?”


The blogger is now reconsidering a knowledge of posterior a project. “So we can see since I’m really wavering to pierce brazen with this blog, usually since we don’t wish to see my efforts as a writer/archivist/engineer wasted,” he writes.


The site would in fact be a really labor-intensive process. As explained in a sidebar for a R.E.M., Smiths and Joy Division/New Order sites, a marks used are “taken from a best/earliest probable sources to equivocate complicated mastering techniques that vanquish a dynamics,” and a design is “scanned during a top probable fortitude and a form was reset when probable regulating a strange fonts.” All works featured in these projects are from out-of-print sources, and some marks have never been commercially expelled or reissued.

A rope has no record contract, indeed.

DMCA: The file "REM_CassetteSet_ALmaster.zip" has been suspended

Posted without (much) comment from yours truly. 

Please discuss the ironies of the IFPI (the British RIAA, for us Americans) filing a DMCA takedown notice on materials recorded when the band was under contract to nobody, for materials the band gave away for free, when nobody but a few journalists and partygoers in Georgia knew who they were...

The file "REM_CassetteSet_ALmaster.zip" has been suspended 

Dear MediaFire User:

MediaFire has received notification under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") that your usage of a file is allegedly infringing on the file creator's copyright protection.

The file named REM_CassetteSet_ALmaster.zip is identified by the key (14zk3yvi31mj3g5).

As a result of this notice, pursuant to Section 512(c)(1)(C) of the DMCA, we have suspended access to the file.

The reason for suspension was:

Under penalty of perjury, we submit that we are authorized to act on behalf of the IFPI Represented Companies in matters involving the infringement of their sound recordings, including enforcing their copyrights and common law rights on the Internet.

Information about the party that filed the report:

Company Name: IFPI
Contact Address: 10 Piccadilly London W1J 0DD United Kingdom
Contact Name:
Contact Phone:
Contact Email: notices@ifpi.org

Copyright infringement violates MediaFire's Terms of Service. MediaFire accounts that experience multiple incidents of alleged copyright infringement without viable counterclaims may be terminated.

If you feel this suspension was in error, please submit a counterclaim by following the process below.

details: My Bloody Valentine Loveless 2012 remasters - manufacturing errors

Now that I'm home and at my PC I can elaborate on my last posting.

To summarize, briefly...

About 10 years ago it was rumored that Kevin Shields was working on remasters/reissues of the legendary My Bloody Valentine Creation-issued EPs and LPs ("You Made Me Realise" / "Feed Me With Your Kiss" / Glider EP / Tremolo EP / Isn't Anything / Loveless).  Hopes would rise and fall, announcements made with release details, then suddenly yanked, etc.

This is funny - and it's only the past couple years!

In 2008 review copies were sent out, and some made it "into the wild" so to speak.  These leaked copies were long questioned as to their veracity, until Kevin helpfully cleared it up in a wide-ranging interview with Pitchfork a week ago.  They were indeed legit.  Which was good, because it gave us a nice baseline (along with the original 1991 Creation CD which I have) to use in comparing today's release (finally!) on Sony.

The Loveless reissue consists of two CDs, the inlay details it quite nicely:

"Original tape" is the '91 DAT master.  "Original 1/2 inch analogue tapes" is exactly what it says.  The '91 release - and all pressings since, until now - were sourced from the digital "original tape" master.

Kevin helpfully detailed what he did in the remastering in the interview with Pitchfork:

So, of the two Loveless CDs that are coming out, one of them is exactly the same as the original, but everything's brought up to zero without crushing it with digital limiting, which essentially takes all the information and chops off the spiky bits-- transients-- that you don't hear as much as you perceive subconsciously. Those are the things that make you feel connected to the music. So something can be 10 dBs louder, but it somehow sounds slightly less involving. Each of those chopped-off peaks puts a little piece of distortion there instead, so the overall sound gets this hard, unpleasant kind of sheen, and you can't hear it as well. There is a tiny bit of digital limiting on one song on the Loveless reissue, but I'm not gonna say which one because it was a sacrificial lamb to get the rest of the album up a bit. And since the sound is brought back to zero, it means your CD player will be able to process it a bit better, so that it kind of sounds... "better" isn't the right word, it just feels different.

The original Loveless was from a digital master because it was much closer to the picture I wanted, and, at the time, the analog one was slightly twisted-- the process of putting it onto tape widened the stereo image and made the top and bottom ends too loud, so the guitar placement wasn't correct. I wasn't happy with that and I didn't use the original half-inch analog tapes. But, this time around, I had the time to take the original analog tapes and fix all the things I didn't like, so all I left was essentially the benefits of the analog with none of the disadvantages. 

When people hear the two new remasters, some can't hear the difference. But, for anyone who's slightly into it, I can promise that if you listen to the record from beginning to end, you're gonna have a completely different feeling with one version compared to the other. They're both good for different reasons; the digital one is slightly more like an inner head trip and the analog one is more physical, like you're conscious that some people did this. 

All of which greatly helps us sort out which CD in the package is which, because, the package has been horribly mispressed.

There are a lot of little details to the '91 master that carry over exactly to the digital (original) remaster - a bit of hiss before "Only Shallow" kicks in, an abrupt ending to the long "Soon" fadeout, and especially this:  there is no EQ difference *at all* between the '91 Creation CD, and the "original tape" remaster.  Except for a volume boost (as Kevin himself says), the versions are essentially identical.

The interesting - and to my ears, special - differences are with the 1/2 inch analogue tape version.  There are a lot of differences here: the stereo field is wider; the digital "shrillness" is tamed, there's a bit more presence at the bottom end, and the EQ is noticeably different.  The image below shows what one has to do to the "original tape" (meaning the '91 release, and the "original tape" remaster) to match the EQ to the new version of "Only Shallow":

There is a distinct difference in feel, presence and just general "analog-ness" for want of a better term.  It's just plain nicer to listen to, and much more revealing to me.  Granted, this isn't a *huge* difference in EQ, but it is enough.

The leaked version in 2008 matched the packaging: CD1 was the "original tape" remaster, and CD2 was the "1/2 inch analogue tape" remaster.

The 2012 release has the CDs backwards, though the cover art still indicates above.

Another critical error is in the "1/2 inch analogue tape" remaster:  there is an ugly digital transfer glitch approximately 2:46 into "What You Want", during the "I do, I do..." bit.  It's prominent and ugly, audible (yuck! through headphones) and visible in a spectral view.  This error was also present in the 2008 leak of the analogue tape variant, so Kevin/Sony has had (at least) 4 years to fix this.

These are critical errors.  The packaging/labeling error will confuse any and all buyers, and reviewers won't be reviewing the proper discs.  The glitching in "What You Want" needs to be corrected immediately.  It mars an otherwise fantastic release; in my opinion the analogue tape mastering is the definitive mastering of this essential LP.

Kevin and Sony, if you are reading this, do the right thing and recall/correct the problem.  You owe it to the fans who shelled out their hard-earned dosh for this, and if after all these years it can't be issued properly, there's no excuse for the error.

My Bloody Valentine 2012 Loveless remaster - errors?

[posting from my iPhone]

The legendary 2xCD of the legendary shoegaze masterpiece Loveless came out today and has also been available elsewhere for a few days.

One disc is remastered from the original DAT digital master - that used for the 1991 original release - and the other disc is mastered from the original half-inch analog tape master. Arcane, yes, but to me the differences are significant and wonderful (the new analog version is definitive).

 I will post the proof when I get to my machine, but Sony took 4 years to fuck this up. The new release has the discs swapped: disc one is supposed to be the digital remaster, and disc two from analog. They are labeled as so too. Except, a blatant manufacturing error - on all copies I've been made aware of - has the wrong labels on the discs. The new release has #1 labeled digital but with the analog master. #2 is labeled analog but has the digital master.

 How could they fuck this up??

 Details, and more proof than anyone will need, later when I get home.

update: New post with details, and pictures too!

Guided By Voices classic live: Crying Your Knife Away (analogloyalist remaster)

Some time back we were running through a compendium of sorts of key Guided By Voices tracks from the band's "classic years", roughly from 1990 - 1996.  The series petered out after Vampire On Titus, mainly because I realized what a fool's errand it was trying to pick a limited subset of tracks from the three following LPs (Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes and Under The Bushes Under The Stars) and (seemingly) hundreds of singles/EPs/errata that the band released.  For the most part, except for the non-LP sets *all* the LP material is essential.  The non-LP sets had many key moments, but my enthusiasm for picking through those releases faded as well.  Ah well, such is the life of the blog-as-diversion, not blogger-for-life.

And then I had the thought:  Y'know, this has already been done (mostly).  Back in the dark, dusty ages of 1995 I purchased this amazing 2xLP live set called Crying Your Knife Away, from the late, lamented Record Swap in Naperville, Illinois.  Barring less-critical thoughts about sound quality, and excusing the absence of some utter classics ("Echos Myron" / "A Salty Salute" / etc), this pseudo-bootleg had it all.  A virtual travelogue of the band's "greatest hits" up through the then-newly-recorded-but-unreleased LP Scalping The Guru (which was retitled and resequenced to become Alien Lanes), and a few classics from Propeller and Vampire On Titus.

Somewhere in the sands of time my 2xLP set disappeared.  I don't remember if I sold it, lost it, or what.  It's just gone, but for the magic of the internets it's not gone forever!  Also helpful was the 1998 reissue of this set on CD, packaging it all up oh-so-conveniently in a modern, portable, perfect-sound-forever medium.

The CD's sound quality was meh, however.  While obviously soundboard, and from a master, the "mastering" - or what passes for it - is shit.  It's been so long - 17 years? - since I've heard the original LP pressing that I have not a clue if the CD is faithful or not.  Regardless, the CD mastering needs a fair bit of help.

As a result, this thing shines - warts (beer too) and all.  One minor issue is that the sheets of feedback embedded in quite a few of the songs - audible on the original CD, but subsumed under the din - are brought almost too far forward in my version.  It's not something I've been able to solve, but then again, it was presumably present at the gig, too.

So here we go.  I love this record, and now you shall too.  Enjoy hearing the band, over the course of an hour, get progressively drunk(er) and as a consequence the endearing looseness it maintains.  Send in striped white pants!

GUIDED BY VOICES
Crying Your Knife Away
(analogloyalist April 2012 remaster)

Bass - Greg Demos
Drums - Kevin Fennel
Guitar - Robert Pollard (track 21)
Striped white pants - Greg Demos
Vocals - Robert Pollard
Vocals, Guitar - Mitch Mitchell , Tobin Sprout

Recorded live at Bela Koe-Krompecher's 26th birthday party in Columbus, Ohio on June 18th 1994.
Music interspersed with jokes and quips of Robert Pollard.
CD re-release of limited edition LP originally released in 1994.

01 [intro]
02 Postal Blowfish
03 The Closer You Are The Quicker It Hits You
04 My Valuable Hunting Knife
05 Gold Star For Robot Boy
06 Lethargy
07 Striped White Jets
08 Non-Absorbing
09 The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
10 Shocker In Gloomtown
11 Motor Away
12 Awful Bliss
13 Tractor Rape Chain
14 Blimps Go 90
15 Exit Flagger
16 I Am A Scientist
17 Quality Of Armor
18 Cruise
19 Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy
20 Some Drilling Implied
21 If We Wait
22 Weed King
23 Pimple Zoo
24 Break Even
25 Ester's Day

Bela Koe-Krompecher's 26th birthday party at Stache's in Columbus, Ohio, June 18, 1994. The party actually started at 3:00 PM in Bela's backyard. Kegs were flowing, and Pete Jamison manned the grill, while Bela's grandmother, (beer in hand), presided over the whole affair from a lazy boy in the middle of the yard. Records were traded, lies were told, and perception was severely impaired. Around 10:00 PM the party went mobile, stumbling a few blocks away to Stache's. The drink of choice was Rolling Rock, and before GBV took the stage, at least one band member caught a nap.

Grab it here, lossless FLAC as usual.

Anybody have, or can make, a high-res (600dpi would be nice) scan of the original LP cover?  The original is full color while the CD reissue is greyscale.  I've not been able to source quality versions of either on the webz.

TAR is back! At least one gig confirmed.

For at least one gig, that is - the PRF BBQ 2012 open-to-the-public event in Chicago with about a bajillion bands playing, all friends of Electrical Audio to a degree (Steve Albini's studio) and members of the PRF.

Details here.

The details were slowly developing on the band's Facebook page (sudden meetups for practices, etc) and now it's official.

Oh to be in Chicago for this...!  I've seen Tar at least twice and twice wasn't nearly enough.  Fantastic live band and they're back!

Goers, report back.

Tangentially related to this month's theme - Tar's first full-length LP was recorded by none other than Iain Burgess.

Homestead vinyl sucks.

In auditioning material to clean up for my Iain Burgess series, I've had the opportunity to inspect a lot of assorted vinyl transfers from vintage mid-80s punk vinyl.

Man, Homestead used some really cheap vinyl and from my investigation had a lot of really poor pressings.

Breaking Circus is a perfect case.  In auditioning the EP The Very Long Fuse, I've heard three different FLAC transfers, from presumably three separate copies of the record, on three different setups (turntables, cartridges, etc) - and they all suck.  Not the fault of the rippers, I think, it's just that all the copies used are presumably beat to hell, and are poor pressings to begin with.  Same goes for the Smokers' Paradise EP.  Oddly, the one Breaking Circus that's giving me the least issues is the only full-length album The Ice Machine - which is odd in that it has the least bit of inner groove distortion on the side-ending tracks, yet the sides themselves are longer than either EP sides.  I know that one of the rippers provided his rips of Fuse and one of his rips of Ice Machine, and his Fuse is craptastic while his Ice Machine is really nice - which rules out his setup being the problem.

So again I place the call:  Does anyone have *nice* transfers, in FLAC, of either Breaking Circus EP?  Someone somewhere has to read this blog, have a near-mint copy of the record(s), and has the ability and capacity to transfer them to FLAC on nice equipment.  If I had the records I would, but my setup is less than ideal for good-quality playings off vinyl.

This is why if I had a million dollars I would somehow gather up the rights for all the non-rereleased Homestead releases, start up a reissue label, and get these classic records back in print and up to speed in the digital era.  There's no reason why half the Homestead catalog - if not more - languishes in out-of-print obscurity, and more often than not never made available on CD from the start.  I'd also pay royalties, both earned from my stewardship, and unpaid from Homestead's tenure.

Iain Burgess: BLOODSPORT I Am The Game (1985)

Iain Burgess Month: BLOODSPORT



In 1985 the Chicago punk scene was fairly disjointed, having split into factions with only Naked Raygun uniting the scene.  The Effigies had devolved into sub-pop (not Sub Pop), and among the early scene players only Raygun was moving forward with any momentum (or even still really a band).

Some members kept the torch alive, though, and joined up to form the largely underrated Bloodsport.  As the two main bits online about this band both mention, the band was really more famous for who the musicians played in prior to, and then after, Bloodsport (Effigies, Pegboy, Trial by Fire, Strike Under...).  The history - while important - is not really relevant to the fact that their one and only record, the 7-song I Am The Game released on Homestead in 1985, is spectacular.  It's as forward-looking as any Chicago punk record ever was, and it's a shame the band didn't carry on because it's blatantly obvious that there would have been even greater things to come based on these 7 tracks alone.  The last track even features acoustic guitar!

So enjoy this FLAC set, from a (surprisingly) not-poor transfer from original Homestead vinyl.

BLOODSPORT
I Am The Game
Recorded by Iain Burgess at CRC, Chicago
1985 Homestead Records

01 Better and Best
02 Hangman's Dance
03 Rhymes of Reason
04 Ghosts of Scrooge
05 Sixes and Sevens
06 Mettle of Man
07 Killing Floor

Grab it here.

Enjoy!

RIP: Engineer Iain Burgess month on the PoIT

It was two years ago last month that one of your humble blogger's greatest musical heroes - in a technical sense, not specifically songwriting or performance sense - passed away.

There's not a 48-hour period that goes by that I don't listen to at least one track engineered by Iain Burgess.  In fact, I continue to investigate, learn and enjoy "new" records engineered by this Giant among men, just because Iain's one of those people who just had "it".  "It" being taste; "it" being sensibility; "it" being genius.  It's not hyperbole in the slightest to say that musically, I would not be what I am today if not for entire swaths of records engineered by Iain.

To celebrate this man's contribution to our collective musical heritage, this month I will only be posting records engineered by Iain.  By nature of the man's location during his heyday (Chicago, 1980s), this series will necessarily focus on the Midwest punk axis, and by this I mean Chicago and Minneapolis.  I, as has been the case lately, will focus on otherwise out-of-print records, because any band that manages to keep its Iain-produced records in print today needs massive piles of cash flung its way.

*I* know what records I have in my pipeline for this series; if you have suggestions please leave a comment!  It's entirely possible your suggestion will trump something on my list.