Alexander

I prefer to see Purple Chick as the Robin Hood of Beatles remasters... These are discs that CANNOT be purchased legally. I do see a difference between this and downloading something that you COULD buy at Best Buy or Walmart, but you just won't.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. The PC "Sgt. Pepper" is five CDs and the White Album is TWELVE!

Waitaminute...are you calling me a "cock-tease"?

Purple Chick has a HUGE "Let It Be" set taken from the COMPLETE Naga tapes. It runs to about 83 CDs!

Technically, yes. They are unauthorized. However, before you get your panties in a bunch, I should point out that these are being GIVEN away, not sold. Anyone who is selling these things is a crook. Secondly, it's not like Purple Chick (whoever he/she/they is/are) just ripped their Beatles CDs and put them on the net. They did serious work here (these were all remastered from audiophile quality vinyl and they sound amazing). It also obviously took some work in rounding up the session material that hasn't already appeared on the "Anthology" sets. Third, I own EVERY SINGLE authorized Beatles CD. I have the entire 1987 catalogue (including the black and white "Past Masters" discs), plus the three "Anthology" sets, the live at the BBC set, the "Yellow Submarine Songtrack," the "1" greatest hits, "Let It Be...Naked", the recent "LOVE" CD and the two Capitol albums box sets. In addition, I have the entire American catlogue on vinyl (with both mono and stereo versions of the American "Revolver" album. One is on Capitol, the other is on the Apple label) AND the "Red" and "Blue" collections. EMI had gotten every possible penny from me when it comes to the Beatles. There is literally NOTHING they can sell me at this point until they start reissuing the catalogue with better sound. And rest assured, when the come out, I WILL BUY THEM (I'm not sure at this point whether or not I will keep the 1987 versions when this happens). And all these different mixes are fascinating! It also clears up some questions I have about the "official" 1987 CD releases (my mono LP has a different mix of "Got to Get You Into My Life" than is on the CD, which is supposedly the "original mono mix." Yet the mono version on the Purple Chick set conforms to my mono LP, which means that EMI used the stereo mix on the CD). And yes, I didn't link to any of the sites that carry these downloads because I know how you feel about bootlegs, Jim. I'm just giving my opinion of something cool I heard.

Having just read about these (techincally bootleg) remasterings of the Beatles catalogue in Rolling Stone last week, I decided to check them out. I decided to get my all time favorite Beatles album and go from there, so I downloaded "Revolver." Check this out: First of all, it's free. Second, it sounds amazing. Third, you get three CDs worth of material. Here's what's on the Purple Chick version of "Revolver": DISC ONE: Stereo single 1: Paperback Writer 2: Rain Revolver 3: Taxman 4: Eleanor Rigby 5: I’m Only Sleeping 6: Love You To 7: Here, There and Everywhere 8: Yellow Submarine 9: She Said, She Said 10: Good Day Sunshine 11: And Your Bird Can Sing 12: For No One 13: Dr. Robert 14: I Want To Tell You 15: Got To Get You Into My Life 16: Tomorrow Never Knows alternate stereo mixes 17: I’m Only Sleeping (US mix) 18: And Your Bird Can Sing (US mix) 19: Dr. Robert (US mix) 20: Paperback Writer (Anthology video) 21: Rain (Anthology video) 22: Eleanor Rigby (Y.S. Songtrack) 23: Love You To (Y.S. Songtrack) 24: Yellow Submarine (Y.S. Songtrack) 25: For No One (Anthology DVD) 26: Paperback Writer (Anthology DVD) 27: Rain (Anthology DVD) DISC TWO: Mono single 1: Paperback Writer 2: Rain Revolver 3: Taxman 4: Eleanor Rigby 5: I’m Only Sleeping 6: Love You To 7: Here, There and Everywhere 8: Yellow Submarine 9: She Said, She Said 10: Good Day Sunshine 11: And Your Bird Can Sing 12: For No One 13: Dr. Robert 14: I Want To Tell You 15: Got To Get You Into My Life 16: Tomorrow Never Knows (mono matrix ii) alternate mono mixes 17: I’m Only Sleeping (US mix) 18: Dr. Robert (US mix) 19: Tomorrow Never Knows (Mono Matrix I) 20: Yellow Submarine (unreleased) 21: Yellow Submarine (film mix) Disc Three: Outtakes 1: Mark I (Tomorrow Never Knows) - take 1 (Anthology 2) 2: Got To Get You Into My Life - take 5 (Anthology 2 + Anthology DVD + Anthology video) 3: Paperback Writer - take 1 (Studio Sessions) 4: Paperback Writer - take 2 (Studio Sessions + URT1) 5: And Your Bird Can Sing - take 2 (stereo remix from Anthology DVD surround channels, with loop removed) 6: And Your Bird Can Sing - take 2 + overdubs (stereo remix from Anthology DVD surround channels, with loop removed) 7: Taxman - take 11 (Anthology 2) 8: Eleanor Rigby - take 14 (Anthology 2) 9: I’m Only Sleeping - rehearsal (Anthology 2) 10: I’m Only Sleeping - remake take 1 (Anthology 2) 11: For No One - rehearsal (CRMM) 12: For No One - take 1 (CRMM) 13: For No One - take 2 (CRMM) 14: For No One - a (CCRMM) 15: For No One - b (CCRMM) 16: For No One - c (CCRMM) 17: For No One - take 10 (composite from CRMM) 18: For No One - take 14 (composite from CRMM) 19: Yellow Submarine - take 5 (Real Love single) 20: Here, There and Everywhere - take 7(+14) (Real Love single) 21: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14 (composite from CRMM) alternate mixes 22: Got To Get You Into My Life - take 5 (Anthology 2) 23: And Your Bird Can Sing - take 2 (Anthology 2 OOPSed) 24: And Your Bird Can Sing - take 2+overdubs (Anthology 2) monitor mixes 25: Mark I (Tomorrow Never Knows) - take 1 (Anthology DVD) 26: Tomorrow Never Knows - take 3 (Anthology DVD) 27: For No One - take 10a (CCRMM + CRMM) 28: For No One - take 10b (CRMM) 29: For No One - take 10c (CRMM + CCRMM + CRMM) 30: For No One - take 14 (CRMM + CCRMM) 31: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14a (CCRMM + CRMM) 32: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14b (CRMM) 33: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14c (CRMM) 34: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14d (CRMM) So far, this is the only one I've heard. I have downloaded the version of "Rubber Soul" and part of "Help!". Anyone else into these? They take a while to download, but they are totally worth it!!!

Tenured, I assume. Actually, he was in grad school at the time.

"The Shaggs even showed up in a scholarly paper by Guy Capuzzo, a music theory professor at Penn State, written when he was a graduate student. He says he was drawn to the Shaggs because they remind him of what musicians sound like when they first start out. `It's kind of like a balloon that's just about to burst. There's this enormous tension. ... Two of them will be playing at one tempo, the other one is playing at another tempo. You're waiting for the whole thing to fall apart, but it doesn't,'' he said. `You start to think they're just going to train-wreck, but somehow they get it back together.'" from an essay on Shaggs.com. I know the music theory professor mentioned in that article. Very strange guy (no pun intended). I would sometimes see him at my friend Adam's apartment when I lived in Rochester. He once stripped all of his clothes off (in the presence of my wife and Adam's girlfriend) and ran around the apartment screaming at the top of his lungs. He also REALLY loved my wife's chicken encheladas...

Boggs is the shiznit. I have the Revenant set and I love it (I've been a fan since I heard him on the "Anthology"). I've been meaning to check out his 60s stuff. Clarence Ashley, too...

I remember all three songs. I have some sort of weird association with the song "'65 Love Affair". I must have had the idea that something in the song was dirty or something, because I always get that strange adolescent spine-thrill when I hear it (I also get that when I hear "Up Where We Belong," but I know where that one comes from: I used to stay up until after my parents went to bed to watch R-rated movies on HBO. Some dumb teen-sex comedy ("My Tutor" or the like) was on one night right after "An Officer and a Gentleman", so that song has become inexorably linked with my 10-year-old excitement at the thought of seeing naked female body parts...). I actually OWN a 45 of "'65 Love Affair" which has clearly been played to the point of near death (my 45 copy of "Centerfold" by the J. Giles Band is in MUCH better condition, although my copy of "867-5309 (Jenny Jenny)" is in pretty bad shape).

"Uncle Shelby has heard the children playing while he was trying to sleep and he has thought and thought and thought about them..."

His singing is certainly an acquired taste. He's like Tom Leher in that way.

Back in the early 80s, one my friends had a parent who naively bought him a couple of Shel Silverstein albums based on his reputation as a children's poet. The parent (who bought the albums at a garage sale, I think) obviously hadn't looked at the songs. It became quite "the thing" to go over to this guy's house after school and listen to those LPs. The songs I remember best were "I Saw Polly in a Porny" and "Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball." My favorite line from "Polly" was "I didn't know she was theatrically inclined..."

In that particular case, I think it means you have the remastered Rolling Stones albums, "secretly" released as Hybrid-SACDs. Back when Sony was promoting SACD, they converted their Terre Haute plant to the (full time?) production of SACDs, and started working the labels to convince them to support the format. Whichever label it was that produced the Rolling Stones remasters you have (Abcko?) got behind it, but thought that labeling the discs "Hybrid SACD" might make people think these were only for audiophiles, and thus hurt sales. SACD has since (unfortunately) failed to take off, Sony no longer promotes it, and the Terre Haute plant's SACD output has been reduced to one day a week, last I heard. Those Abcko SACD remasters are OOP, getting pretty rare, and aren't ridiculously expensive on eBay yet, but getting there. I had no idea that the Stones SACDs had gone OOP. I think I have most of them...

Passover is my favorite holiday. My dad uses a "Humanist Haggadah" that stresses history and tradition over religion. Plus he's a great cook. The lamb this year was to DIE for.

I always thought it stood for "Direct Stream Digital." Edit: I just checked. Here's the definition from Wikipedia: "Direct-Stream Digital (DSD) is the trademark name used by Sony and Philips for their system of recreating audible frequencies which uses pulse-density modulation encoding, a technology to store audio signals on digital storage media which is used for the Super Audio CD (SACD). The signal is stored as delta-sigma modulated digital audio, a sequence of single bit values at a frequency sampling rate of 64 times the CD Audio sampling rates of 44.1 kHz, for a rate of 2.8224 MHz (1 bit times 64 times 44.1 kHz). Noise shaping occurs by use of the 64× oversampled signal to reduce noise/distortion caused by the inaccuracy of quantization of the audio signal to a single bit. Therefore it is a topic of discussion whether it is possible to eliminate distortion in 1-bit Sigma-Delta conversion (see Audio Engineering Society Convention Paper 5395 in the External Links section below). There has been much controversy between proponents of DSD and PCM over which encoding system is superior. Professors Stanley Lipshitz and John Vanderkooy from the University of Waterloo, in Audio Engineering Society Convention Paper 5395 (2001), stated that 1-bit converters (as employed by DSD) are unsuitable for high-end applications due to their high distortion. Even 8-bit, four-times-oversampled PCM with noise shaping, proper dithering and half data rate of DSD has better noise floor and frequency response. However, in 2002, Philips published a convention paper arguing against this in Convention Paper 5616. Lipshitz and Vanderkooy's paper has been criticized in detail by Professor James Angus at an Audio Engineering Society presentation in Convention Paper 5619. Lipshitz and Vanderkooy responded in Convention Paper 5620. Practical DSD converter implementations were pioneered by Ed Meitner, an Austrian sound engineer and owner of EMM Labs. Global DSD technology was developed by Sony and Philips, the designers of the audio CD. Philips' DSD tool division was transferred to Sonic Studio, LLC in 2005 for on-going design and development. DSD technology may also have potential for video applications. A similar structure based on pulse-width modulation, which is decoded in the same way as DSD, has been used in Laserdisc video."

I've got "Mojo Hand" on LP and the Rhino best-of on CD, and I think that both are great. Also, Hopkins' "Happy New Year Blues" is great. It's available on the great "Where Will You Be Christmas Day" compilation on D-T-D.

We don't own the house. We have talked to the landlord about finishing the basement. It would be nice. At least the basement is a dry one, for the most part (we had two small leaks over the winter, the first time we'd ever had water in that basement). At least the LPs are upstairs...

Gee, can you tell I have a kid?

And the rest...

I just put some pics of my collection on my MySpace page, and as I already posted a pic of my vinyl collection on another thread. Anyone else want to share?

I use a shelf that I bought at one of those "naked furniture" stores. My wife finished it.

Thanks for all the recs so far! I can't wait to follow up on them!

I recently downloaded a couple of collections of '60s and '70s Latin music (I know less than nothing about it, so I can't tell you exactly what genres are involved) and they are absolutely KILLER. Here's one of the collections I got: Some of the other artists involved are: Ray Barretto Eddie Palmieri Charlie Palmieri Peter Rodriguez Joe Cuba Hector Rivera Celia Cruz Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz La Lupe Joe Bataan George Guzman Joey Pastrana Ismal Rivera Mongo Santamaria Tito Rodriguez Lenni Sesar Orquesta Harlow Tito Puente (of course) Johnny Colon King Nando The Latinires If anyone has any information about other albums/compliations that might be worth checking out, please let me know. I know that a lot of this stuff comes under the "Latin Soul" or "Boogaloo" heading. Some of it might also be Salsa. If you have any other info, please let me know! This stuff is GREAT!

The only Ska I have is this box set, but it's a good 'un!