| Comments: | The 1st cd & the 1st 2 tracks from cd #2 are live. It
claims to be the set from Fillmore West April 29 1970. The
track listing is the same as the "Live In Winterland" ROIO
for the live stuff. I'm assuming this is the same recording
w/ the same sound quality as "Live In Winterland". The
sound wasn't that great but with a big ugly EQ, I got it to
sound o.k.
I got cause I had never hear this particular set before & it
was pretty cool. The review for "...Winterland" is right on
the money so I won't repeat it here.... :-) On the back of
the cd it claims that the live set is "...Much longer then
previously released" I dunno if this is true or not...
There is a hiss that is only on the first disk and it's only
on the right channel (apparently the recording is in mono so
it is possible to forego the hiss by splitting the left
channel and taping it that way). The live tracks on the
second disk (StCftHotS, ASoS) do not contain the annoying
hiss.
Track 3: Now.. this sounds like it could be a forgery. All
this seems to be are the words "One of these days I'm going
to cut you into little pieces." repeated over and over again
over a tape of a guy talking about apparently a whole lot of
nothing. The original bass line is present, cymbals crashing
here and there and the semi-familiar synthesizer, and some
sound effects. The door knocking sound makes it's appearance
about 3:30 into the track.
Track 4: This is more like it. I can believe that this is a
true outtake.. seems to be a ROUGH but listenable working
version. Starts off with the wind blowing and the line "One
of these days..". Unlike the album cut, this one has that
line repeated deep in the mix throughout almost the entire
track. A little tape warble at about the 4:00 mark. Strange
noise comes in at the 5:00 mark and subsides quickly. Ends
with the line repeated several times accompanied by some
wierd quitar screech sounds.
Track 5: Hmm.. sounds like a different mix. Nothing really
DIFFERENT about it.. seems to be a little fast but
intentionally so. It is a bit short, only runs 20:02..
fades out after the last verse. Nothing really special
here..
Track 6: Apparently the "Hey-guys-I'm-tired-of-playing-in-the-
studio-let's-go-try-it-in-the-large-empty-echoey-bathroom"
version. Sounds like a run down of the parts that contain
lyrics and omitted just about everything else. Again, I
don't know if I can completely believe that this is a true
outtake, but I'm leaning toward the "yes it is" on this
one..
Track 7: HAHAHAH !! I love this one.. a snippet of Rick and
Nick working on a Christmas tune.. breaks down a couple
times but it's really a neat song. Definately Floydian
material !! (The liner note says "Nick Mason Christmas
Single 1974")
The integrity of the outtakes is definately debatable but I
would tend to believe that they are real. The sound quality
is pretty damned good.. the live stuff isn't too bad,
listenable if you drop the right channel of the first disc. -ANON
If these are the same ones that circulates among collectors,
then:
Track 5. Echoes is a fake. It's the Meddel version but a bit faster.
Track 6. Shine on You Crazy Diamond is a fake. For better
quality try the CD 'A Collection Of Great Dance Songs' :)
Track 7. Here Comes Santa. I belive the name is 'Merry
Christmas Song' but I could be wrong. It is probably from
late 1969, maybe from Rome during the ZP sessions? -TOR
I think this it the Live at Winterland cd, but with the
studio outtakes. The first 'One Of These Day's' take is Nick
saying that line over a tape of a dj - we can all guess who
it is! The 2nd is more like the album version, but a lot
rougher sounding. The version of 'Echoes' is very similar to
the 'Meddle' version, but perhaps a liitle bit faster. And
'WYWH' is the band running through the vocal sections of the
song, without the Sax, or fancy effects. And The Christmas
Song is Nick's attempt at a seasonal number, but it tends to
break down several times into laughter! Overall, a good cd.
The sound quality is ok, but be warned, some of 'STCFTHOTS'
& 'ASOS' have been cut. -ANON
The Fillmore material seems to be the same as on the "Live
At Winterland" CD, but times out about 2mins. shorter. This
is probably a result of the faster tape speed employed for
"Black Glass" (comparing the pitch of Roger's voice during
his intro. to AHM on both issues). My copy of "Black Glass"
has hiss on both channels of both discs; "Winterland" has
much less hiss. In addition, the STCFTHOTS excerpt here suffers
several unpleasant channel dropouts which are not present on
the "Winterland" discs. Bottom line: If you're looking for the
better version of the Fillmore material, stick with "Live At
Winterland." - THE HEDONIST
Decent sound quality. Very good performance on the live
stuff. Don't buy this title for the outtakes. Musically,
Echoes is the same as the official (I did not compare the
vocals). One of These Days (2 versions) is somewhat
interesting and sounds like true outtakes. Even so, the song
quickly gets repetitive and is not a song I would choose to
have an outtake of. Shine On sounds like what the group used
to lay the vocal tracks for the 2 sections. The vocals sound
like the official version. In short, the supposed outtakes
are very disappointing, and not worth the price of the second
disc. As a result, this title has questionable value as a
double cd. I picked it up for $28 (it was mismarked). I
don't think I would want to pay $40 - $50 for it. The cd
packaging is excellent. The picture of the band playing
behind and above the ballet troupe is great. The shot of the
band outside the trailer is an appropriate time period
picture (no pig on Dave's shirt!). -Scott
In the booklet, Rick Wright is credited with keyboards only,
though I believe he does sing on this album. The man pictured
on the discs is meant to be the Invisible Man, I think :-)
The Fillmore material on this disc matches the description of
TSP's "Live at Winterland" (sic) quite accurately. Not having
heard that disc I can't vouch for whether Eclipse/NK merely
copied it, or got their own source (though they both apparently
misspell "Grantchester Meadows"). However, the material suffers
from quality and pitch problems that aren't typical of Swingin'
Pig, so I doubt they copied LaW directly (digitally). On the
other hand, the date and venue on this disc are correct, whereas
Live at Winterland was, obviously, mislabelled.
I find the concert material listenable but, for the most part,
not especially enjoyable, notching about a VG. The performance
is competent but not terribly exciting (with certain exceptions,
mentioned below), though the band seems in a very good mood.
Many of the songs have an "echo" effect on the vocals, and on GM
and GITC it's kind of annoying. Several songs (Cymbaline and
STCFTHOTS especially) have up to 2 full minutes of tuning,
equipment adjustments and the like, which though they may add to
authenticity, could easily have been cut or re-indexed. In
regard to sound quality, I prefer nearly any track on "Total
Eclipse" (for example, compare the tracks from Pepperland);
there's just about no audience noise, save between songs, and
the instruments and vocals are always quite audible, but there's
a sizeable amount of hiss, some distortion, and the sound is
somewhat "compressed", muffled and murky, though it is stereo.
It almost sounds as if someone made a really great soundboard
recording (I hear just about no audience noise on this set), and
then high-speed-dubbed a fourth- or fifth-generation copy.
Also, a little more than half of the material is too fast
(though it isn't really objectionable): Grantchester Meadows,
Astronomy Domine, and GITC/CWTAE are all 1/2 step sharp,
Cymbaline and Embryo are about 1/4 step sharp, and AHM, STC and
ASOS are fine. As to edits and cuts, GM is faded in just after
the beginning of the song (but before the verse), as is Embryo.
Frustratingly, the two most interesting tracks are also the most
chopped: STC is faded in about halfway through the song, and
ASOS is faded out only seconds into Syncopated Pandemonium. STC
also suffers some strange "shifts" in sound, as if one stereo
channel had dropped out and the other one had been panned center
(i.e. the sound jumps into mono); this happens very briefly at
1:07 and 1:12, and for a longer period at 1:19-1:41. Despite
their problems, though, for me these tracks are the high points
of the concert; the quiet, "free" section after the climax of
STC is wonderful, and what we have of ASOS is fairly impressive
-- less formulaic than in many other performances, with Gilmour
in particular expanding the introduction to much longer than
usual. It's the sort of thing I could listen to for hours,
especially if the sound quality were better. Embryo is also
somewhat interesting, despite shifting recording levels near the
beginning, with a strange middle section that is fairly
different from the studio or the Sept. 16, 1970 versions; and
CWTAE (which has more severe problems with the levels,
especially right before 8:00 and 11:15) has some wild vocals
(more so than usual!) before the screaming starts. On the
other hand, Gilmour buggers GITC up fairly royally; he switches
the 2nd and 3rd verses and misses the beginning of the 3rd
verse, and his voice cracks several times on high notes (though
right after that, he sings as high as I've ever heard him sing
on his guitar solo, so go figure). GM is disappointing, AD is
hampered by low levels, and Cymbaline is a standard rendition
with a noticeably short footsteps sequence and *loud*
(occasional distortion) vocals. By the way, at the beginning of
AHM, while Roger's talking, Rick Wright makes some sort of
musical joke to the audience, but I don't get it -- anyone know
what the reference is?
Now on to the studio material. First we have two alternate
versions of "One of these Days", ostensibly out-takes from the
Meddle album. Both are of VG/VG+ sound quality, a shade better
than the concert material but not enough to matter, and neither
has any speed problems. I'm not going to get mixed up in the
debate over whether these are genuine -- I believe them to be
fakes -- but musically, they're completely uninteresting and not
worth your time.
Now we're offered a supposed out-take for Echoes. Well, I
listened to this one fairly carefully, and as far as I can tell,
it is literally nothing more than a direct copy of the album
version, without even a *hint* of alteration save that the
beginning is buggered up and the ending is faded out, but with
the same thin, hissy sound as the rest of these tracks -- and,
to top it all off, it's too fast, clocking in at a half-step
sharp. A fake, and a dumb one at that.
SOYCD is also a fraud, but at least it's a little trickier. The
sound is better on this one, maybe scraping an Ex-, and it's a
little bit slow, perhaps a quarter-step. It fades in at the
beginning of Part 2 and back out early in Part 8 (I believe).
Its claim to fame is that the two halves of the song are edited
together, with all the verses appearing sequentially, bridged by
the same guitar line that originally precedes one of them.
Otherwise the track is identical to the WYWH version. Now, I
don't own A Collection of Great Dance Songs, but SOYCD is on
that album as a single track, the two halves having been joined
on that album as well; I'm inclined to guess that this is
nothing more than a copy of that cut. Even if it's not lifted
from ACOGDS, any idiot with decent digital audio software on his
computer could easily have pulled those edits off. Either way,
it's lame.
Finally, Here Comes Santa. Back to VG/VG+ sound, and it *might*
be a touch fast (though I have nothing to which to refer to
verify that save traditional concert tuning). It seems
authentic (who would fake something like this?), and it's funny
the first time you hear it -- but you've got to be pretty
die-hard to want to pay RoIO prices for this sort of thing.
Black Glass sits squarely on the line that divides RoIOs of
historical/completist value from RoIOs you actually listen to
more than once. The concert material is quite interesting at
its best, but the mediocre sound, speed problems and annoying
edits keep it from being more than an occasional listen; the
studio material, however, is mostly fake or dubious, and though
it was a laudable decision to increase the running time of the
set by 40 minutes over the TSP release, the fraudulent nature of
this "filler" material really drags down the overall impression
of this RoIO -- and if comments above are correct and Winterland
has better sound for the Fillmore gig, then it's just a $45
turkey. Buy it if you feel adventurous or can't get LaW, but
otherwise save your money. - MT
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