Scott Dolan

For $38? That's fair price.

That could very well be. Still right around 50% less than the pre-order price here. If it is a mistake, I'd be shocked if they left it up.

What the hell? So they're just looking to rip off the American buyers?!

Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch had some outstanding tunes in it. Most notably the title track and No Not Now. Probably his best album cover as well.

Yeah, by the time of Joe’s Garage it seemed like his world weary cynicism had given way to being, as you said, downright mean. You Are What You Is is somewhat humorous sociopolitical commentary on par with We’re Only In It For The Money, but not quite as...”clever”? He started wearing his sexism on his sleeve, and even the tongue-in-cheek racism of Uncle Remus morphed into something bordering on uncomfortable in the late 70’s/early 80’s material. Be that as it may, my primary draw was his wizardry on the guitar. The albums from his final and ill-fated tour in ‘88 contain some of his best playing ever. And that band...oh my! That Walt Fowler-led horn section was worth the price of admission alone. And I think 3 or 4 of my top 5 Zappa solos came from that tour.

That’s a point few seem to realize about their early material. I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Love Me Do got all the air time, but dive deeper into those albums and it becomes quite clear that I’m Down was a more common approach. Those cats kicked ass far harder than most realize. The Ringo thing is an excellent observation, as well. It wasn’t until I spent some quality time with the remastered box that I realized just what a rock solid force he was behind the kit.

I’ll have to give it another listen. My preference for the long form absurdist piece has always been The Adventures of Greggary Peccary.

Then the free version of Spotify will be perfect for you. They have an online player so you don’t have to bother downloading the app. Stunt-fuck is a great summation. I have to wonder just how much money Sonny will get out of this. More importantly, how well it will sell to begin with. I’m interested in how much iTunes will be charging for it. They rarely do “special pricing” for anything. So I assume it will be about the same price as any other “double album” they offer. Hell, this may even drive more people into the download/streaming market. Especially those that still cling to the terrible sound quality of the mp3’s of yesteryear as the reason they’ve avoided it.

No, I was completely unfamiliar with the Purple Chick material until you mentioned it some time back on the Sgt. Pepper’s thread. Haven’t taken the time to seek it out.

iTunes doesn’t have it listed for pre-sale yet, but I can tell you that on the Deluxe Edition of Sgt. Pepper’s (which is the two disc version) they do let you buy the bonus tracks from the second disc individually. So there’s hope. Most of the time they only go “album only” on tracks over 10 minutes. As for streaming, I’m sure it will be available on all of them. The free version of Spotify is a bit iffy sonically (160kbps) though still quite good, but Apple Music does have a three month free trial that you could take advantage of if you wanted it in CD quality.

Sgt. Peppers was my first album ever. Got it while I was in the third grade, and pretty much had their entire catalog by my tenth birthday. Those cats kept this 10 year old boy company while he dealt with the divorce of his parents, and moving away from his home town. So they have a very special place reserved in my heart, which is the only reason I gladly paid triple digits for a big box blowout of the very first album I ever owned.

Meh...

Alternate take LPs are one thing. You don’t have to buy the original album all over again.

No, that I can see as a point of interest. Still, it would be fleeting, for me anyway. Like the recent big box blowout of everything, and we mean it!, from the Sgt. Pepper sessions. Trying out songs before buying, chatter, changes here, chatter, more changes, sometimes unrecognizable variations on what became the final product. Fascinating stuff! But there’s a good chance I may never revisit any of it. Maybe I will once a decade, who knows? But it’s never going to be a primary, secondary, or thirdary draw for me.

I’m banking on it being available on Apple Music. But if not, oh well. To this day I can’t think of any single release where the bonus material made me really sit up and take notice. It’s all pretty much the throwaway shit that had them throwing it away in the first place.

The only thing that gets me about sets like this, or “complete” box sets, is the sequencing. I mean, Blue Train is a wonderful tune, but who the fuck needs it five times in a row?! Parker’s Complete Savoy & Dial was a huge offender in that regard. (11 Marmaduke’s on disc 7!!!) Jesus, give us the shortest false start, and then choose the best of the alternate takes by consensus, and move the fuck on!

So are you going to buy a digital version? I really enjoy this album. Hell someone here actually turned me onto it a few years ago. But, I’m kinda bonus material’d nickel’d and dime’d to exhaustion at this point. Pretty much any money I spend on music these days will be for albums I don’t already own.

Though not the most fiscally responsible/viable way, I suspect...

Missed this earlier. This brings up an interesting point that may need its own thread, but have we (the royal we) finally reached our breaking point? Years ago it seemed as though most here, myself included, were always chomping at the bit for the latest “discovery” of material that’s at least as old as most of us, if not older. We fed that aftermarket, and kinda created a monster inadvertantly. But now it seems as though they’ve run out of viable material, and we’ve run out of the will to shell out even more of our hard earned cash for yet another 80/20 split (if we’re lucky) of material we already have multiple copies of, and a little extra material that may or may not even be worth hearing. Just weird to see this becoming the dominant mindset here. Death of Jazz, and all that...

I doubt they are looking to replicate any experience. If so, they may want to try out the VR market, potentially. They’re just looking to cash in with the completists, and/or those that haven’t previously heard these versions.

Not sure how your wife would feel about you downloading a coed, but that’s for y’all to work out. My guess is that the company figures if you want a digital download, then that’s likely all you’d want. So they made it available. I doubt most, if not all, vinyl fetishists would care about being offered such tripe. Based on the current market, I can see why they made that decision. And here’s the thing: if they offered a download with the $80 vinyl set, would that be the tipping point for you to buy it?

Well, not now! But man, back in the day...

My only version is the 1997 release titled The Ultimate Blue Train, with CD-Rom material on it that stopped being readable several generations of Windows ago! I think the last version that would read that material was Windows 3.1!

I’ll have to check out Crux. Zomby Woof and Montana are pretty good, though subsequent live versions improved on them greatly, IMO. And I completely agree with you on Flo and Eddie. I cannot stomach any of their material. I thought Rykodisc made a wise decision to put out a combo Apostrophe’/Overnight Sensation CD. Combined they actually work a little better, IMO.

BTW, I checked my Way Out West (Remastered) iTunes copy and it does contain the digital booklet. So it’s a safe bet this version will as well. Just a fyi for anyone that may be interested in the digital version.