[This digest is the copyright of the Move "Useless Information" Mailing List. Re-publication or re-distribution of "Useless Information" content, in any form whatsoever, is expressly prohibited without prior written consent.] USELESS INFORMATION The Move Mailing List Digest Issue #361 June 5, 2002 In this issue: * "Move" - in living colour! (cont.) * Cropredy 1995 (cont.) * Rob Caiger answers "viewer mail" * The Move box * Time Capsule: THE MOVE (Part 2) * Tell us the news about yourself... (cont.) ============================================================== To POST TO THE LIST: Send an e-mail to: move-list@eskimo.com Useful Web addresses: TheMoveOnline: http://www.themoveonline.com Official Roy Wood site: http://www.roywood.co.uk Face The Music Online: http://www.ftmusic.com Join the ELO List: http://www.eskimo.com/~noanswer/showdown.html Move List Info & Archives: http://www.eskimo.com/~noanswer/movelist.html TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send an e-mail to move-digest-request@eskimo.com with the word "unsubscribe" (no quotes) in the subject line ============================================================== Subject: Re: "Move" - in living colour Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 17:24:28 -0700 From: Richard Kenworthy Lynn Hoskins wrote: > Thanks to Greg Weatherby for sending me the pieces, and for helping > with "colour direction." I hope I did this beautiful artwork > justice. I'm sure I'm not the only one on this list who is seeing > the original "Move" front and back cover for the very first time. > > http://www.eskimo.com/~noanswer/move_archives/move_cover.html Hey this is great! Thanks Lynn !!! Perhaps some of the folks on the ELO list might also want to see this. How come though, that this colour version of the sleeve hasn't seen the light of day more recently on reissues. When I bought both Move and Shazam released on vinyl Cube as TOOFA 5 (probably back in the 1975's while I was awaiting the release of Mustard) the back cover of both LPs were in BLACK AND WHITE ONLY. SO I've been in ignorance for some 27 years...... More recently I got a boxed CD copy of MOVE on Disky dated 1994, but the back of the sleeve on the box was still in back and white, obviously copying the Cube artwork. (having said that I still haven't removed the shrink wrap yet and so maybe inside it is...) Did the Repertoire re-releases have this sleeve in colour ? The Westside boxed set Movements released in '97 didn't use the original artwork, but did come up with some other pictures which were new to me. NOW you've got me wondering..... Should the back cover of Shazam also be in colour ???? ********** Subject: Re: Cropredy 1995 Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 09:08:08 -0700 From: Dale G. Leopold Richard Messum vicariously reminisced: >Fairport hosts the annual Cropredy Festival, at which the Roy Wood >Big Band were, for a while, regular performers. The box set includes >a Cropredy souvenir programme, and i wish i'd been there in 1995, >because (i quote from the programme) "that's when both Roy Wood & >Richard Thompson joined Fairport on stage and ran through their most >famous songs in turn, with Roy Wood adding a distinctive sound to >"Tear Stained Letter" before Richard added a jaw-dropping guitar solo >to "I Can Hear the Grass Grow." The set finished with Roy Wood >coming onto the stage dressed as Santa Claus, singing "I Wish it >Could be Christmas Every Day" on a warm August night. Bizarre. Way cool! I was unaware of this when I wrote my "fantasy cover" of Richard Thompson singing I Can Hear the Grass Grow--it just seemed to me that this would be a song that Richard would a) remember b) by heart c) love, and d)do a kick-butt version of. Adding his guitar to Roy's version would have been even better. I'll have to check with my Fairport buddies to see if there are magnetic memories of this pairing. Of course, RT & Woody & Big Band & Fairport can be heard on Fairport's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" CD, covering "Heard It Through the Grapevine" with Richard on vocals. A fun version, but sadly, no guitar interplay. Dale in Richmond ********** Subject: Re: ELO/Move/Roy Wood Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 20:44:51 -0700 From: Lynn Hoskins This was posted to the ELO-Showdown list over the weekend. I think it was intended to go to the Move list as well. ---- Subject: Re: ELO/Move/Roy Wood Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 13:17:19 -0700 From: Face The Music An email I received from Philip Cohen that deserves a reply on the lists. > After two years of postponements and difficulties,does it look like > EMI/UK's expanded/remastered ELO/Move/Roy Wood CD titles will actually > be issued ths summer? Is it for real this time? The lack of any news > update on your website,as we get closer to EMI's proposed July release > date is ominous,making it likely that EMI will again leave us > empty-handed....again! Well, I don't think the remastered edition of the Electric Light Orchestra debut counts as "empty-handed". Though we have every intention of meeting the dates we schedule, quality is our key word and if I feel there are exceptional circumstances to cause a small delay to a release (as there was for Electric Light Orchestra) then I'll put the release back. A few weeks ago, I recovered a multitrack session tape which contained the missing sessions for California Man and Do Ya. Awesome stuff. We have a "BBC session" version on the remastered Message From The Country CD at the moment, which in reality was a mix the band prepared from the multitrack for the BBC to play as a session. The quality of the BBC tape isn't great and is on mono. Using that band mix as I guide, we took the multitrack into Abbey Road and did a new mix, pushing up some of the more "hidden things" going on in the session. Mixing from the original multitrack, we are getting the sound as they would have heard it in the studio - and it sounds very, very powerful. I've sent the mixes over to Jeff for his approval / tweaking, as I've done throughout the whole project, and as soon as I've got his feedback, I can schedule a new release date. Realistically, it should be no later than September. Ditto for ELO 2. We took the Carl Wayne and ELO tracks into the studio for cleaning up and discovered another track of harmony vocals which has transformed one of the songs. Again, the mixes are on their way to Jeff for his approval. The Mark Bolan session is all approved and mixed and the three Carl tracks and Bev's Trousers No.7 with alternate and additional lyrics are awaiting approval. The whole package looks and sounds great, but it has to be perfect, so that's where the delay is. > On another unrelated topic,why is it that "Xanadu" soundtrack CD's > never include the two non-L.P. B-sides(one of them by ELO),even > though those selections are actually heard in the film? Contractual. MCA own the rights and Sony are not permitted to put out anything that differs from the original LP release (no, I don't know why MCA didn't put the b-sides out on their pressings of the soundtrack). I'll be sorting that one out probably towards the end of 2003 but the Sony UK remaster we did a couple of years ago sounds great and for the time being, I'd recommend that out of all the different pressings and expensive imports. > I've noted that Sony/UK's CD of "The Night The Light Went On in > Long Beach" is the 1980's EPIC/UK remix,rather than the Warner > Bros./Germany 1970's mix. The Warner Bros mix should never have come out. On the original tape box is a big notice - "ROUGH MIX - DO NOT USE". So of course it got pressed up and released. The Epic LP is the mix and edits that should have come out originally and it is from that master tape that we prepared the UK CD remaster. > Too bad we couldn't have a definitive version....the complete show,and > with the fidelity of the EPIC version(or even better yet,digitally > remixed from the original multtracks). I've done a mix from the 16-track original multitrack of the whole show and it sounds incredible. You're missing some inspired and funny between song banter from Jeff and Ma-Ma-Ma Belle and On The Third Day suite, plus the edited tracks are complete. Again, I could see this one for late 2003 but in the meantime, the UK CD has a great sound and is a good package. > As for Westside's 3-CD set "The Move-Movements",I'm still doubtful > about whether all of it is from original master tapes. Some were from original masters and multitracks, but in a lot of cases, the tapes were not where they should have been - which is where I usually come in, but Westside did this themselves, without the band.... > Westside's engineer may indeed have done a stereo remix of "Cherry > Blossom Clinic",but unfortunately,a mastering fault causes that new > remix to be rendered in mono sound on CD.No one has been able to > successfully communicate that to Westside. Yes we have, which is why they no longer have the license to produce any further Move product. All mixes, unless involving the band, are treated by myself and the members of The Move as unauthorised and illegal. Funny enough, there is a clause in their original contracts which states that all unreleased material has to be approved by the band, otherwise it can't be released. That was a nice welcome addition to our ongoing arguement with the catalogue owners.... > By the way,even in the absence of unreleased tracks,it would be > possible for Sony to create some more expanded ELO CD's.What about > "Out of The Blue" + "Doin' That Crazy Thing" & "Goin' Down To Rio" ? We are recovering material and discovering more as the months progress. > Please make Sony aware of those possibilities.Remember,as far as > most people are concerned,ELO and Jeff Lynne are one and the same. Sony are fully aware of their responsibilities.... > I was once told that Jet Records in the UK actually had pressed the > 2 L.P. edition of "Electric Light Orchestra-Secret Messages",and > then destroyed them. They pressed test acetates and distributed them amongst band and management. A handful of spare copies were also sold to fans (at exceptionally high four-figure prices) by certain members of staff at the then-CBS Records. > ...but one song from the double album has subsequently been released > elsewhere(on B-sides & the "Afterglow" box & the remastered "Secret > Messages" CD) Beatles Forever is still unreleased, as is a different edit of After All. The tracks which appeared on Afterglow suffered from very poor remastering and really sound like a pale imitation of what they should be. Hello My Old Friend without reverb and the rest of the rubbish they used on the original box-set mastering sounds out of this world. Al Q's reasserted Secret Messages is the definitive mix - and yes, we did fight for the complete album to be put out. So there. Hope that answers some of the questions. It's been a very hectic last few months, not helped by smashing my back up training for a triathlon (any excuse) but normal service will be resumed very shortly. The search for tapes and material continues.... Best - Rob Caiger Face The Music Online - www.ftmusic.com The official information service for ELO & all related artists ********** Subject: The Move box Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 09:22:35 -0700 From: Philip Cohen Even if Rob Caiger and/or The Move never get a chance to compile a superior box set of the Cube Records material by "The Move", we should consider ourselves lucky that we got Westside Records' "Movements" 3-CD set. We finally got a tape-derived, full-fidelity CD of "Looking On", we got to hear "Vote For Me", and some outtakes from the "Something Else" E.P., even if some of the alternate rough mono mixes of 1967-68 material weren't exactly essential. On the subject of the "Looking On" CD, all previous CD's (and probably all vinyl releases other than the earliest Regal Zonophone UK one) were taken from vinyl and/or acetate sources. Certainly, the original U.S. Capitol L.P. had all sorts of crackles that were clearly not on the vinyl, but rather, in the source material. When those songs appeared on later UK vinyl compilations (EMI/Music For Pleasure), the crackles occured in the exact same places that they had on the Capitol L.P. Ditto on Teichiku's wretched Japanese CD. I hope that the owners of the Cube catalogue are willing to open discussions with The Move & Rob Caiger. Obviously Rob knows where to find more multitracks (that might have unreleased songs, versions or the ability to remix previously mono songs for first-time stereo), but he's not going to give them to Cube unless they treat the artists reasonably. Fair enough. Until then, we've got "Movements". I play it often. ********** Subject: Re: The Move box Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:29:22 -0700 From: Joe Ramsey Philip Cohen wrote: > Certainly, the original U.S. Capitol L.P. had all sorts of crackles > that were clearly not on the vinyl, but rather, in the source material. > When those songs appeared on later UK vinyl compilations (EMI/Music For > Pleasure), the crackles occured in the exact same places that they > had on the Capitol L.P. Ditto on Teichiku's wretched Japanese CD. Is this true of the German Repertoire release, too? ********** Subject: Re: The Move box Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 13:55:15 -0700 From: John DeSilva > Is this true of the German Repertoire release, too? Joe, Philip, et al: I too had noticed the crackles on my Capitol Records copy of 'Looking On' - of course I attributed that to the fact that I had checked it out of my local library (since I was never able to find it used or new, I told the library I lost it, paid the $7 fine and kept it!). I always assumed that it was a typically overused library copy that was the reason for the scratchiness. My experience with the Repertoire release is that it is very clean - I don't hear any pops or scratches at all (I used to hear it especially at the beginning of the song "Looking On"). So if they did remaster it from an acetate, the source tape of the acetate was clean. JD San Jose, CA ********** Subject: Time Capsule: THE MOVE (Part 2) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 12:03:20 -0700 From: Lynn Hoskins From the "Split Ends" liner notes (red paper sleeve) -- Time Capsule: THE MOVE (Part 2) Written by Ben Edmonds Creeme Magazine December, 1972 Edited by Martin R. Cerf One of the rarest Move treats never to have been released on these shores (and which has become something of a collectors' item even in England) was Something Else, an EP of five live songs released in late 1968. It was recorded at the Marquee - which made it a homecoming of sorts - and featured songs like "So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star" and Arthur Lee's "Stephanie Knows Who." The music wasn't necessarily spectacular, but it's nice to see that the Move were a better-than-competent live band, for in the last few years they've seldom graced the concert stage at all. Though the Move appeared to be occupying a comfortable niche as steady hit-makers, the situation behind closed doors was not nearly as smooth. Ace Kefford - dubbed the "Singing Skull" because of his sunken facial features and emotional bizarritude - succumbed to the pressures of touring and his self-generated instability. He left to form a group called the Ace Kefford Stand, which he proceeded to sabotage in the same manner. When he failed a lead vocalist tryout with Jeff Beck, he wisely chose not to press the point any further. About this time, a problem of public image presented itself. Because they were so consistently in the Top 10 and always in the midst of whatever the most current trend happened to be, their reputation with the hip intellegensia was only slightly better than bubblegum. It was a ludicrous assessment, of course; the Move simply know how to make singles better than most everybody else. But it stuck. The structural brilliance of many of Roy Wood's compositions, the excellence of the band, the fact that they'd even vocally backed-up no less a heavy than Jimi Hendrix (on "You Got Me Floatin'" from Axis: Bold as Love): none of it made very much difference. They were typecast, and though their record sales evidence a substantially large following, theirs was a truly silent majority. The Move reacted to the pressure with some unjustified arrogance of their own. Early in 1969, they stated publicly that they would disband if their next single didn't become a hit. The record - "Blackberry Way," an excellent single though the most outrightly pop thing they'd ever released - went immediately to the top of the charts, but its success spelled trouble for the Move in ways the band couldn't have anticipated. Trevor Burton, not feeling much of an affinity for the directions implied by "Blackberry Way," was replaced by Rick Price, a Birmingham bassist pried away from a group called Sight and Sound. Since leaving the Move, Burton has been relatively active. He joined a group called the Uglys (which also included a Richard Tandy, who will re-appear later in the story), and then moved on to the much-publicized Balls with Denny Laine. He's now reported to be under contract to Epic Records as a solo artist, but the only product released thusfar - a single - is apparently old Balls material (to which Epic also holds the American rights). Carl Wayne, however, found the success of "Blackberry Way" enthralling. Apparently convinced by hangers-on that he could beat Engelbert Humperdinck at his own game, Carl used the hit as leverage to get the band on the lounge and cabaret circuit. Though this little venture lasted no longer than two weeks (at which time Roy and the others set things straight), it only served to solidify the bubblegum image attached to the Move; and, more importantly, it set the boundaries of an artistic division between Wayne and the rest of the band which was not to be resolved until his departure a year or so later. Wayne was still around when the Move got down to recording their second album, Shazam, which may stand not only as the band's finest work, but also as one of the very best records to have been released by ANYBODY in the latter half of the 1960's. Those who'd attempted to slap a label on the Move found Shazam perplexing: there were only six cuts on the album, and each was stylistically quite unlike the other five. It ranged from loud and lustful rock ("Hello Susie") through airy folk-rock ("Last Thing On My Mind"), with tasteful flourishes of pop and even a raga passage thrown in. Roy Wood produced it, and the superb clarity of sound was instrumental in holding the album together. His guitar work (often triple or quadruple tracked) was excellent throughout, and the tension between Wood's rocking roughness and the suave Mr. Wayne was played to perfection. Roy Wood has often been called one of the foremost minds in British rock and roll, and Shazam made such claims exceptionally hard to refute. Shazam was released in this country by A&M (who'd previously issued a few Move singles without much success), and the album received an enthusiastic welcome from the critical press. It got featured treatment in Creem and Rolling Stone, and everything seemed to indicate a pending upswing of the Move's status in America. The only problem was that Shazam didn't sell. Some months prior to its release, the band had crossed the Atlantic for the first time to do a tour financed by Jimi Hendrix. The "tour" turned out to be a cross-country trip in a rented bus to tie together three scattered appearances. And the American public, it seems, was not willing to buy a British band (regardless of the brilliance of Shazam) that it couldn't see. (To be continued...) ********** Subject: Re: Tell us the news about yourself... Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 20:03:00 -0700 From: David Fatta I am enjoying the Move List immensely. Lynn is doing a great job moderating it, so that a splendid time is guaranteed for all. My answers to the pertinent questions: >Your name, age, location, occupation. David Fatta, 49, Syracuse, NY, Director of Information Technology, Syracuse University, College of Visual & Performing Arts >How long have you been a Move and/or Roy Wood fan? Since 1972 >What was your first Move related experience? I heard the Shazam album at a friends house in 1972. I immediately ran out and bought the British import double set re-issue of the first two albums. This began a binge that was soon followed by a British import of "Message From the Country", a US cutout of "Looking On", a normal US copy of ELO "No Answer", and a British collection of the singles called "Fire Brigade". (Surprisingly, I never heard "Do Ya" until very late.) During this period I was a roadie for a local band that covered "Hello Susie". I avidly followed Woody's career for the next several years (with the help of Melody Maker) and I bought all of the Roy Wood and Wizzard albums and singles as British imports as they came out, but the last one I remember was "Mustard". I lost track after that until very recently. >Tell us about your top 5 favorite Move related tracks. The best album side ever recorded: "Hello, Susie", "Beautiful Daughter", "Cherry Blossom Clinic, Revisited" Do Ya Message from the Country >What's your favorite Move related album, and why? Shazam! It was my first love, and it strikes the perfect balance. It is polished but still fun. >What topics would you like to see discussed on this list? Current gigs (especially in New York), current projects. >If you've seen the Move or any member of the Move in concert, tell us >about that show. Sorry, I have never had the pleasure. >Tell us about an amusing or interesting situation that has happened >as a result of you being a Move/Roy Wood fan. I had not thought much about the Move in years until early this spring. I was at a small winery near Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes of New York State, called Rasta Ranch Vinyards. It is in a barn, and run by hippies, and they have decorated with a great collection of concert posters from the sixties and seventies. I became transfixed on a poster for an all-night New Year's Eve show at the Marquee in the late sixties, featuring The Who, Pink Floyd, and The Move. My friends kept trying to get me to leave but I was hypnotized by that poster, and the idea of what it would have been like to have been there. This has rekindled some of my former fascination with The Move and Roy Wood, and I have since begun to re-acquire CDs to replace my long departed vinyl collection. >Who are some of your other favorite artists/bands? Todd Rundgren, Mott the Hoople >Which Move related song do you wish one of your favorite bands >would cover? ????? >What is the one burning question that you have never had answered >in relation to Move/Roy Wood history or music? How has Woody been able to keep his immeasurable talent a secret from so many for so long? >Are you having trouble finding any Move related music on CD? No. I recommend The Bop Shop in Rochester, NY. End of Useless Information #361 ******************************* [This digest is the copyright of the Move "Useless Information" Mailing List. 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