Spectropop - Digest Number 1851

• From: Spectropop Group
• Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005

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               SPECTROPOP - Spectacular! Retro! Pop!
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There are 9 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

      1. Beach Boys Fan Convention - July 2005
           From: Susan 
      2. Re: Bass-less
           From: Gary Myers 
      3. More on The Sound Judgment - Happy Without You
           From: Lyn Nuttall 
      4. Re-branding
           From: Stephen C. Propes 
      5. Re: Compatible Stereo
           From: Joe Nelson 
      6. Low Grades - Uncredited?
           From: Richard 
      7. Bubblegum Reunion
           From: Boomer 
      8. 8-track cartridges
           From: Various 
      9. Blossoms' Stoney End!!
           From: Tony Leong 


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Message: 1
   Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:59:59 EST
   From: Susan 
Subject: Beach Boys Fan Convention - July 2005


Hello. I will be hosting a convention for Beach Boys fans this coming 
July. The date is Saturday, 16 July. It will take place at the Hilton 
Southbury, Southbury CT. I will NOT be posting regular updates on this 
list, so if you would like to receive updates, please email me off-list 
with CONVENTION MAILING LIST in the subject header, and I'll see to it 
that you're added to the list.

I hope some of you can make it to Connecticut in July!

Susan





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Message: 2         
   Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 18:06:38 -0800
   From: Gary Myers 
Subject: Re: Bass-less


Einar:
> I believe that the Santo & Johnny's 1959  hit "Sleepwalk" was
> recorded with out a bass.

Country Paul:
> It's mixed down, but it's there

Yes, I remember figuring out the song to get a few details and 
discovering what's really going on at the end of bridge, where the 
steel plays G-Bb-G. (gtr is just playing the G7, while the bass 
plays the root & 5th of the G7, so the bass is actually playing D 
where the steel plays the Bb triad. Adding it all together, it 
really comes out to G7#9).

> ...I believe the same is true for "To Know Him Is To Love Him," 
> - something's playing that low D.

I never checked that one, but I mentioned it because I once heard 
someone (who was involved with the song) say that in a radio 
interview.

gem





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Message: 3         
   Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 04:50:33 -0000
   From: Lyn Nuttall 
Subject: More on The Sound Judgment - Happy Without You


First, Margaret has kindly sent me a label shot of the 45, and the
band name is 'The Sound Judgment', i.e. with the definite article.

Second, going by the release date of The Strangers' Australian version
(apparently November 1968) and the Kapp serial number of The Sound
Judgment's single (#914), it appears that the US release came first.

I know I should allow myself a cooling-off period and save it all up
for one final message, but sometimes the thrill of the chase overcomes 
me.

Lyn








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Message: 4         
   Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 02:00:07 -0000
   From: Stephen C. Propes 
Subject: Re-branding


Country Paul:
> ... re-branding. Strange when it happens on the same label - my 
> quest for information about "When The World Changes," recorded in 
> Nashville and issued first by The Younger Generation and then re-
> issued by The Velvet Hammer, both on Epic. (I'd still like to find 
> out more about who they were; in the future, as soon as I can 
> digitize, I'll play it to musica.)

Here's another couple of examples of re-grouping/rebranding on 
Columbia/Epic...

Phil Stewart of the Rip Chords insists that the first few copies of 
the act's first 45, "Here I Stand" were issued as the Opposites, and 
only then were put out under the Rip Chords name.  Has anyone seen 
an Opposites release on Columbia?  Ernie Bringas thinks that it 
didn't happen that way.

One other example was "You Are My Girl," at first credited to the 3 
Stooges (really a Mac Rebanneck alter-ego) on Spinit in 1960, 
reissued on Epic, then suddenly renamed the 3 Scrooges (with a hand 
stamp, no less) on early promo copies.  Think the 3 Stooges 
threatened legal action...you think?  Think that it killed an 
otherwise good record...you think?

Steve








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Message: 5         
   Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 23:57:51 -0500
   From: Joe Nelson 
Subject: Re: Compatible Stereo


Previously:
> Some, but not all. A handful of labels, such as Atlantic and A&M. 
> preferred the Haeco C(ompatable)S(tereo)G(enerator) system.

> That was a specific brand name of a company that made equipment. 
> But they all accomplished it the same way. 

Are you sure? Previous reads indicate the Columbia system was groove
based. Yet the mono master for CSNY's "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" was
created using the Haeco system. What use of the system described
(monaralizing the lower frequencies) would produce a straighht mono
master?

Joe Nelson





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Message: 6         
   Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 06:50:32 -0000
   From: Richard 
Subject: Low Grades - Uncredited?


Hello Everyone from Richard,
Just wondering if anyone else wonders whether the featured tune "Low 
Grades" by an uncredited demo group on the current set of tunes 
available for listening is perhaps the Orlons? That bass singer sure 
sounds like Stephen Caldwell who was the single male member of the 
group. 





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Message: 7         
   Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 12:01:24 -0000
   From: Boomer 
Subject: Bubblegum Reunion


I am hoping to create a "reunion" of about 4 or 5 former Bubblegum 
Music performing artists who might be interested in performing 
together...am looking for any former members of bubblegum groups 
such as The Ohio Express, The 1910 Fruitgum Company, my former band--
-Central Park West ("Sweets For My Sweet") which was managed by 
Julie Rifkind (does anyone know how I can get in touch with Julie?), 
the Cowsills, the McCoys, the De Franco Family, the Raspberries, 
etc...please contact me if you are interested and/or if you can help 
me make contact with former Bubblegummers..thanks.





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Message: 8         
   Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 11:53:25 -0000
   From: Various 
Subject: 8-track cartridges


Several messages on one theme:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Mulvy:
> I remember when groups with long songs, on 8 track cartridges, had 
> their songs faded down at the end of the track, then the track 
> clicked and then they faded back up. Who was the genius who thought 
> of this? It would have been a lot better if they just let it go to 
> the end and put up with the momentary click. 

Duplication issues made this impossible. Prerecorded tapes are made
using equipment quite different from home recorders. The album is
remastered to reel to reel (I believe 1/16" per track bandwidth which
would involve the use of 1/2" tape for eight tracks, higher speed than
the finished product (7 1/2 IPS if not 15 - anyone who's actually used
these things feel free to correct the specifics), but otherwise laid
out exactly as the finished product would be. A tone is placed at the
end of the tape to note the termination point, the tape is looped and
loaded as the source tape into a duplicator, which plays this loop at
high speed over and over as bulk tape (as used in the finished
product: 1/4" lubricated tape for eight track) rolls as the "product"
tape. Once the bulk reel is full, it is loaded into tape shells, cut
and sliced at the termination tones (often the tones aren't cut out -
that's the pulsing noise you often hear on prerecorded tapes at the
begining and/or end of the tape) and the shells closed. Since all
eight tracks are recorded to the bulk tape sinultaneously, it's
impossible to tell exactly when the splice would occur. Without the
fade-out/in, you'd either repeat a brief snippet of the tune or worse,
cut it out completely which trust me would be even more annoying than
the fade. Thus in the remastering phase the track needing fading is
brought down at a point noted by the programer to be the end of the
program, the master tape is stopped, the "product master" is spooled
back to the start and work begins on the next program, which starts
with the sound of that master being faded back in from the pause
point.

Because of the design of eight tracks - four parallel programs of
equal length - it was generally necessary to resequence the album to
fit. The total playing time of the tracks was calculated, then divided
by the number of programs involved. Then the programer would play with
the timings, looking to see which which songs could be coupled
together to play closest to the division time. If you had a twelve
song album you could usual make it work, but as often as not
(especially if there were ten or fourteen songs on the album) it
didn't come together so perfectly and there was some fading involved.
In the early days of prerecorded reel-to-reels and later cassettes
most manufacturers also resequenced, but since there was more time to
work with it was easier to make it all fit and fades were rare.
(Prerecorded cassettes with faded tracks that come to mind include
Kraftwerk's Autobahn and Lynyrd Skynyrd's first album, with the title
track and "Free Bird" respectively faded to fit.) As the seventies
progressed labels began to develop the attitude that since cassettes
could be fast forwarded and rewound it wasn't necessary to resequence
and the album could be left intact if it sounded better. (Some eight
track programers opted to work silent gaps into programs and increase
the divide time as an alternative to fading for the same reason.) A
few labels such as RCA and MCA resequenced cassettes into the
eighties, but by the end of the decade the practice was pretty much
dropped.

Sometimes producers and artists considered 8T resequencing in the way
the actual LP's were sequenced. The Moody Blues generally set their
Threshold catalog up so the eight tracks could follow the LP's, and I
remember the Steve Miller Band's Book Of Dreams survived the
transition without ressequencing although "Swingtown" got faded. One
of my favorite examples was ELO's Out Of The Blue. Jeff Lynne went out
of his way to make the concept side ("Concerto For A Rainy Day", side
three of the album) approxipmately one quarter of the album's total
playing time so it'd make the eight track unmolested. Unfortunately
the remaining tracks didn't divide into even thirds and both programs
1 and 2 faded out, but it put the third side at the end of the album
where that long coda at the end of "Mr. Blue Sky" acted as a cooldown
to conclude the "concert" with a smooth landing. The first time I
heard the disc was when a local radio station played it, pre-release,
in it's entirety. I rolled tape on it and as the top of the hour
approached, the DJ announced that the third side was a concept side
and going right to it would interfere with station ID, so they were
playing side four first. As a result, my cassette ended up with that
long coda finishing out the album. I got used to hearing it that way
and when I bought the LP I was reminded that the sides were reversed.
The "real" last song, "Wild West Hero", ends fairly apruptly and the
whole disc crash-landed at that point. I never did get used to hearing
the album that way. To this day, I'd like to ask Lynne why he didn't
put the concept side on side four.

Joe Nelson 
----------------------------------------------------------------
My guess is that 8 tracks had all 8 tracks recorded to the tape at once, 
and had to allow for slight variations in individual tape lengths - 
minor sins that could be managed by those periods of silence. Have any 
of you ever taken apart and repaired a broken 8 track? Having done so, 
I can say I'd rather attempt brain surgery on an unsedated beast. 

On another topic, can someone tell me what other recording sounds so 
much like that early Jeff Lynne "Dog" song? Was it by the Shadows of 
Knight? 

Tom Taber
---------------------------------------------------------------- 
Well, those tapes were only so long, and I imagine that, for better or, 
as the case actually was, worse, it was either that or resequence, 
which isn't easy to do, and does violence to the aesthetic integrity or
whatever of at least your better records. The worst case that I recall, 
was The Beatles' "White Album" ...

Dave Monroe
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Bill: When the powers who thought this up were trying to fit all the 
songs from a particlar album onto an 8 track cassette, they had two 
options...as you suggested...let the song run to the end..there would
be a negative in that on the other three recorded pairs tracks, you 
would have very long blank periods after that segment ended (in order 
to satisfy the extension you just suggested). Trying to balance the
"work load" of fitting all the music onto the cartridge means that you 
either juggle the sequence of the tunes in order to get four similar 
length segments (which in many cases would aggrevate the performers
who set the sequence for reasons we do not know), or use alot of blank 
tape in the process, which increases the cost of each cartridge sold. 
I agree that having that interruption is annoying, but that was the 
physical restraint of the cartridge design... and when the songs were 
recorded in the studio, etc...there was no forethought given to 
subject length which usually was for disc or two track reel to reel 
releasing. Regular audio cassettes were not in the picture when the 
cart system was invented. When you total the number of carts made for 
any given album, you find that you have spent alot of money on blank 
tape, thereby decreasing your profit...and we know how greedy the 
music people were, and still are...you're still paying royalties to 
them on every "music" blank cd you buy..when you could just as well 
use data cd's, which the smart people buy in order to make music cd's. 
In my estimation, it's crazy to pay royalties to someone when they 
have no relationship to the music you might have put on the disc 
(assuming it's your own group or original music). But that how greedy 
industry people set themselves up (with the help of Congress)for 
picking everyone pocket...all the time.

Regards, George Schowerer
----------------------------------------------------------------





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Message: 9         
   Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 17:09:20 -0000
   From: Tony Leong 
Subject: Blossoms' Stoney End!!


Hello Group:  

I think it was recently in this site (forgive me if I am mistaken and 
being redundant) that there was a mystery as to which Blossom 
(Darlene or Jeannie) sang lead on "Stoney End".  I just found an old 
cassette with the song and Darlene is definitely the leader on the 
song.  But, Jeannie does do the high verse "Mama cradle meeeee....." 
as she was the top voice in that group.  Fanita is somewhere in the 
mix too!!!!!

Tony 








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