Showing posts with label classic albums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classic albums. Show all posts

Classic Albums: The Doors - The Doors (2008) Review

Classic Albums: The Doors - The Doors (2008)
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Classic Albums: The Doors - The Doors (2008) ReviewFor every Doors fan, this is a thrill to have the first Doors album featured on a Classic Albums dvd. I have been a Doors fan since 1967 and have enjoyed their very unique style of music for 41 years.
This dvd features 7 of their 11 debut album songs, 1.Break On Through (To The Other Side), 2.The Crystal Ship, 3.Back Door Man, 4. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar), 5.Light My Fire, 6.End Of The Night and 7.The End. It does not feature the following 4 songs: Soul Kitchen, Twentieth Century Fox, I Looked At You and Take It As It Comes. I wish they had covered all 11 songs, as it is fascinating listening to the surviving Doors Ray Manzarek (organ, piano and bass), Robby Krieger (guitar) and John Densmore (drums) telling how these songs began and how they evolved into one of the greatest albums of all time.
Jim Morrison's poetry was almost always the beginning of their great songs, but there were many other influences that Ray, Robby and John brought into their unique sound from jazz, blues, latin, flamenco and bossa nova music. They even brought in some James Brown music!
There is much bonus material that really makes this worth owning as well. Ray tells of learning to play a Marxaphone on Alabama Song that gives the song it's carnival sound. Robby tells about his slide guitar, which gave The Doors such a unique mystical sound. John tells many of his trade secrets on the drums, such as he uses size 7A drum sticks, which are very thin and break easily, but give him maximum speed.
There are also great stories about Jim Morrison from 1967 told by The Doors. Bruce Botnick, the sound recording engineer for The Doors, plays many tracks from this fantastic album by themselves, so you can hear just single tracks of Jim Morrison's voice or just single tracks of the instruments. Jim Morrison can be heard singing with no accompaniment to show that his voice alone was unbelievably incredible!
Ray was such a talent on the keyboard, that he was the bass player! They never needed a bass guitar player with the fantastic sounds Ray could make on his keyboard. They tell how Moonlight Drive never made it to this first album, because the sound was not quite right. Moonlight Drive did make it on the second album, Strange Days, when it was slowed down quite a bit and a harpsichord sound was added to it. There are also commentaries from manager Bill Siddons, Jac Holzman who signed The Doors to Elektra Records, friend and poet Michael McClure, LA DJ Jim Ladd, other musicians, a film student and a music writer.
This dvd brought back many memories from 1967, when the shortened version of Light My Fire stayed at #1 on the record charts for that summer. The magic and genius of The Doors from 1967 is still there and it comes through on this dvd. I only hope that Classic Albums will feature more of The Doors truly fantastic albums like Strange Days and Waiting For The Sun, because listening to the origins of The Doors unbelievably fantastic songs is just like listening to The Doors songs for the first time in 1967!Classic Albums: The Doors - The Doors (2008) Overview

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Frank Zappa: Apostrophe / Over-Nite Sensation Review

Frank Zappa: Apostrophe / Over-Nite Sensation
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Frank Zappa: Apostrophe / Over-Nite Sensation ReviewThis is the best Classic Albums episode - right up there with The Band episode IMO. There's lots of vintage footage included that I'd never seen (and I have a so-called comprehensive collection), and wonderful interviews with former band members like George Duke, the Underwoods, the Fowler brothers, Steve Vai, Ralph Humphrey, Dweezil and Gail, and of course the man himself Napoleon Murphy friggin Brock. IMO Ruthie steals the show but they're all good. The whole package tells an amazingly comprehensive story of the 73-74 period with lots of passion and humor.
Dweezil sits behind the board for a number of songs and lets us really dig in and hear the more tender nuances and demonstrates how the combinations of instruments and voices fit together (listen for Tina Turner - wow). I must say the Dweeze gets a little wordy, often talking over the music rather than letting it speak for itself. Small complaint though. There's also snippets of ZPZ rehearsals for the Summer 07 tour (BTW, WHY ARE YOU SKIPPING DENVER THIS YEAR?!?! ')
The highlight for me (and probably many others) are the extended video clips of the '73 ROXY shows. These concerts are considered by some as the 'holy grail' of live Zappa. We know the tapes exist, we know there's been talk of releasing them for several years now, I don't care how grainy they are or even if they're edited poorly... PLEASE OH PLEASE STOP TEASING US AND RELEASE ALL THIS IMPORTANT, PRECIOUS CONCERT FOOTAGE ASAP!!! (are you listening Zappa Family Trust?)
Lastly, the extended and deleted clips are all gems not to be missed.
There are probably other details I'm forgetting, but definitely pick this one up even if you're just a casual fan of THE MAN HIMSELF. This DVD is an education for olde tyme fans as well, so Enjoy(tm) !
Frank Zappa: Apostrophe / Over-Nite Sensation Overview"This is where you go to find every aspect of Frank's musicsqueezed into two perfectly formed records."Dweezil Zappa. This newaddition to Eagle Vision's acclaimed Classic Albums series focuses on FrankZappa's early seventies albums "Overnite Sensation" (1973) and"Apostrophe(`)" (1974). Together they encapsulate Zappa's extraordinarymusical diversity and were also the two most commercially successful albumsthat he released in his prolific career. As ever the program usesinterviews, musical demonstrations, rare archive and home movie footageplus live performances to tell the story behind the conception andrecording of these groundbreaking albums. TRACKLISTING:Features excerpts from: -Dinah-Moe Humm -I'm The Slime -Montana -StAlfonzo's Pancake Breakfast -Dirty Love -Cosmic Debris -Stink-Foot & more.

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Classic Albums: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band (2008) Review

Classic Albums: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band (2008)
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Classic Albums: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band (2008) ReviewThe 'Classic Albums' series document the making of seminal pop albums
(Paul Simon's 'Graceland', Bob Marley's 'Catch a Fire', Fleetwood
Mac's 'Rumours', to name but a few of the previous releases) through
interviews with participants and associates and the playing of master
tapes (more on that later). This new 52' feature documents the making
of John Lennon's first 'proper' (i.e. accessible to the public at
large) studio album, 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band', recorded in the
fall of 1970 and released in December of that year.
Although light on the rare video side of things - there appears to be
no available footage of the sessions, so the producers have collected
little-seen (but previously circulating) clips of John attending the
Alexandra Palace psychedelic event in London (29 April 1967) and
sequences from the BBC '24 Hour' documentary (shown on 15 December
1969) -, the real treat for Beatles videos collectors are
previously-unseen excerpts of John and Yoko's appearance on
'Parkinson' (17 July 1971) which, to my knowledge, haven't been seen
since the original transmission. Other clips from that show have been
included in various programmes over the years, notably 'Imagine'
(1972) and 'Imagine, John Lennon' (1988) but the ones on this DVD are
different.
We also get new interviews with people involved in the making of the
album (Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, Klaus Vormann, engineers Phil McDonald
and John Leckie), music critics (Jann Wenner, who interviewed Lennon
at length in December 1970 for 'Rolling Stone,' and Richard Williams),
the man responsible for inspiring the album (Dr. Arthur Janov,
proponent of the primal scream theory, whose seminar John and Yoko had
attended in the summer of 1970), Beatle historian Mark Lewisohn
(author of the superb 'The Beatles' Recording Sessions' and 'The
Complete Beatles Chronicles'), as well as Elliot Mintz, who was not
involved with the album at all. My impression is that the latter's
inclusion is due to the fact that he appears to be groomed, as Yoko's
PR man, to take over as guardian of John's legacy the day she passes
away. Here's someone else who'll be ready on day one...
But the main drawing point of this DVD, and what makes it in my
opinion an essential addition to any Lennon fan's collection, is the
playing of the original multitrack tapes at Abbey Road by the
engineers who worked on the album. As they isolate various tracks, we
get to hear John's spine-chilling voice on its own or the various
instruments on the - very spare - backing tracks (which usually
consisted simply of John on guitar or piano, Ringo on drums and Klaus
on bass).
We also get shots of various EMI Tape boxes, indicating the precise
recording dates of various songs on the album. Up until now, the only
known session date for a particular song was 9 October 1970, John's
30th birthday, when he recorded 'Remember'. Here are the dates we now
have:
26 Sep 1970: 'Mother' (take 61 -- possibly an in-joke, as this was the
first day of recording), 'Working Class Hero' (takes 1-9)
27 Sep 1970: 'God' (takes 1-2 of an alternate, acoustic guitar-based
version), 'Well Well Well' (takes 3-4)
30 Sep 1970: 'Hold On' (takes 1-6)
7 Oct 1970: 'Look at Me' (take 1), 'God' (takes 1-8 of a remake, still
guitar-based)
9 Oct 1970: 'Remember' (takes 1-4)
17 Oct 1970: 'Mother' (possibly a vocal overdub session)
24 Oct 1970: 'Mother' (another possible vocal overdub session)
There is another session sheet, but the date is cropped out in the
documentary. On that unspecified date (probably late September), they
recorded 'Isolation' (takes 24-29) and 'Well Well Well' (takes 5-6 of
a remake).
In addition to the 52' documentary, there's 35' of bonus
footage. On many DVDs, this is filled with boring stuff
considered not good enough to be included in the main feature. Here,
though, it's simply more great isolation mixes, two clips from John's
1972 concert at Madison Square Garden ('Well Well Well' and 'Mother'),
and the 'holding up signs' version of 'Instant Karma!' (broadcast on
'Top of the Pops' on 19 February 1970) in pristine quality.
* Spoiler alert! Don't read any further if you want to be
surprised by the musical contents of this DVD! *
The multitracks played are:
- a mostly complete 'Remember' (with some stop-and-starts and a recent
clip of Klaus playing the bass line at home) and an earlier (fun,
faster) take, which was partially released on 'John Lennon Anthology'
in 1998. This multitrack mixdown starts earlier, though.
- isolated tracks of 'Well Well Well', 'Working Class Hero', 'God'
(the released version and an alternate, acoustic guitar-based take),
'Mother', 'Isolation', 'Love.'
Bamiyan
Beatles on DVDClassic Albums: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band (2008) Overview

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Rush: Classic Albums: 2112 & Moving Pictures (2010) Review

Rush: Classic Albums: 2112 and Moving Pictures (2010)
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Rush: Classic Albums: 2112 & Moving Pictures (2010) ReviewThis Blu-Ray is essentially the documentary that aired on the Classic Albums TV series. There have been a number of releases for Rush lately from concert footage to documentaries. For a band who is as prolific and influential as they are I say it's high time more stuff has been put out there. While the recently released documentary, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, gives a lot of details spanning their entire career this disk delves into great detail Rush's two most important albums. While the band has released more than 20 albums these two bookend the five albums that defined them as the ultimate power trio and masters of the progressive/art rock genre.
2112 was Rush's fourth (third with drummer Neil Peart) album and it was created out of a mixture of defiance, anger, and pure sense of uncompromising. Their album Fly by Night made critics take notice and Caress of Steel made them disregard the band out of hand. 2112 not only make them take notice again, but it caused a frenzy from just word of mouth. This documentary goes into the thought process behind this. Not only the "we are gonna do this album our way" and "if we are going out we are going on our terms" kind of thinking, but also the music theory behind the songs written and the long play format of the titular 2112 suite (consisting of an entire side of a vinyl album.
So you have that breakaway album, and then Rush makes a couple more critically acclaimed concept albums, then two albums that take the band to a more radio-friendly arena. This is where Moving Pictures comes in. As the last of the albums of this genre it marks the band's complete departure from the art-rock/long form suites (The album Permanent Waves still had the multi-themed Natural Science) to single concept, self contained songs ready for airplay. This album also marks Rush's greatest hit single to date with Tom Sawyer.
Again this doc goes into not only the thinking of where they were going with Moving Pictures as a band, but also the musicality of the various songs (and studio theories and techniques). It's a good message Rush says when the changes they went through on each of these albums were something they did all for themselves and for the love of music. This documentary really shows how a band can change their (for lack of a better word) shtick and still be true to who they are.
You get some great early footage from studio to concerts and more as well as current interviews with each band member. You get to see the breakdown of many of the songs of each album and how they were put together both instrumentally and post production. You also get interviews with Terry Brown, Rush's studio producer and engineer from both albums and each one in between. All in all this is a great resource for anybody who loves these two albums.
This Blu-Ray has some solid video comprised of the newer interviews and footage done in high definition and older concert footage getting some decent touch up (not as good as the high def stuff, but it's as good as you can get). The video I believe is in 1080i, and while that's not quite full 1080p I think it's probably a better idea so there isn't too much of a difference seen between the older PAL footage. The audio is in Linear PCM Stereo. That may sound like a limiting factor, but you don't really need surround for interviews and the music was recorded in two channel stereo. BTW that music footage sounds awesome on this disk so forget the need for 5.1 anything.
What's cool is the extras, which is about an hour of additional interviews and concert footage not shown in the original airing on Classic Albums. That's like getting twice the show in one disk. If you are a fan of the classic Rush this disk is worth going for. If you are a serious music fan and enjoyed the song Tom Sawyer I think this will be a very informative and enjoyable disk to have in your collection as well. If you have been collecting all of the other Rush videos believe me; there is still stuff in here you don't have.Rush: Classic Albums: 2112 & Moving Pictures (2010) Overview

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