The Who - My Generation Japanese CD box set *

Here, let me translate:

"Through our development of space-age technology, scientists at the JVC labs discovered something wonderful, something transcendent, something that will totally change the universe as we know it...but, UNTIL WE FIGURE OUT HOW, it'll do great as a gimmick that will justify our charging insane prices on stuff most people already have! Too ta roo ta roo!"

 

Today I'm asking myself how many more versions of this CD/LP do I NEED?

How many more times I'm I really gonna play and listen to a re-issue?

 

I think the correct answer Mr. Rock is 'until they get it right.'

With the supposed Jon Astley 'remastering,' it's a safe bet this won't be it.

I was really hoping we'd get some of those many, many more outtakes and alternates that were on the 3 disc advance of the Shel Talmy deluxe double (see White Fang's site for details).

I'll buy this, but grudgingly. It's WAY overpriced. But remember that all the single disc recent Japanese Who remasters doubled in price in no time via ebay, etc. Buy it, keep it a year, make your money back. If that's your choice.

And just remember: it's Japan's revenge for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

The Japanese pay through the nose for CDs too, you know.

 

Amen to that. Although there's a weird corollary to that: while the Japanese pay out of the nose for new CDs, lots of discs by Japanese acts tend to go on firesale *really* quickly. I've learned that if I wait one or two months after something I enjoy hits the stores, someone's got it up on eBay for $10 within that timeframe.

 

Heh. Hi Brian...I just came across this.

To clarify, Shel didn't specifically tell me that overdubs were done to mono, just that nothing was further down than second generation (which I'm not quite sure is true). I pointed out that more multitracks must have existed at one point; Shel just said whatever he had is now in MCA's hands.

While I can't *prove* that multitracks with overdubs had to have existed for all songs, I can pretty much do that for Daddy Rolling Stone. To wit:

- the mono 45 mix contains backing vocals and tambourine
- the stereo Two's Missing mix contains the same backing vocals and tambourine, but with a bit less reverb on the vocals (indicating the mono couldn't have been a fold-down)
- the stereo Deluxe Edition mix contains different backing vocals and no tambourine
- according to Fang and his copy of the tapes, only one take with backing vocals exists on the existent multitracks.

As such, another multitrack *had* to have existed at one point with final backing vocals and tambourine, from which the mono and stereo mixes were made.

There's a lot more to it, but that's a good overview...

 

FYI, just got an email from cdjapan - the set's been postponed to 7/30.

 

Yep, I got that e-mail, too.

 

I was looking forward to this next month.

 

It seems the track lists for these discs have changed quite a bit from the initial announcement. Here's the current line-up, according to Universal Japan:

My Generation Collector's Box (UICY-93533/4, ¥10,000)

Disc One (mono; also available separately)

01. Out in the Street
02. I Don't Mind
03. The Good's Gone
04. La-La-La-Lies
05. Much Too Much
06. My Generation
07. The Kids Are Alright
08. Please Please Please
09. It's Not True
10. I'm a Man**
11. A Legal Matter
12. The Ox
13. I Can't Explain
14. Bald Headed Woman
15. Anyway Anyhow Anywhere
16. Daddy Rolling Stone**
17. Anytime You Want Me
18. Shout and Shimmy
19. Circles
20. Leaving Here*
21. Lubie (Come Back Home)*
22. Heat Wave*
23. Motoring*
24. Circles (alternate mix)*

* First time in mono
** First time on CD in mono


Disc Two (stereo)

01. Out in the Street
02. I Don't Mind (full-length version)
03. The Good's Gone (full-length version)
04. La-La-La-Lies
05. Much Too Much
06. My Generation
07. The Kids Are Alright
08. Please Please Please
09. It's Not True
10. I'm a Man
11. A Legal Matter
12. The Ox
13. I Can't Explain
14. Bald Headed Woman
15. Anyway Anyhow Anywhere (alternate version)
16. Daddy Rolling Stone
17. Anytime You Want Me
18. Shout and Shimmy
19. Circles
20. Instant Party Mixture
21. Leaving Here (alternate version)
22. Lubie (Come Back Home)
23. Heat Wave
24. Motoring

The budget-priced single-disc mono release (UICY-6988, ¥1,980) now duplicates the contents of Disc One above. There now seems to be no reason at all to buy the complete box unless you want the replica sleeves and other packaging, but the mono disc is looking even more interesting than before. Everything's scheduled for release on 6 August.

"The long-unavailable mono master of My Generation reappeared in 2002, when Shel Talmy did his stereo remix of the album. After Talmy completed the stereo master for the My Generation Deluxe Edition, all of the tapes he possessed at that time were handed over to Universal in L.A. Those tapes contained the same mono mixes released on LP in 1965, together with the additional bonus tracks we've included here. (All of these were 1965 mixdowns from the same three-track half-inch masters used for the stereo remixes.) In L.A., Barney Grandman [?? 'Baanii Gurandoman'] carefully transferred them to 24bit/96kHz files, using Ampex 350 tube electronics equipment with a full-track mono head. I imported those tracks to a SADiE 5 system, and with just a tiny bit of Weiss EQ, I performed the remastering."

— Jon Astley

 

Uh-oh, what happened to the "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" mono EP version?

 

"Barney Grandman [?? 'Baanii Gurandoman']"??

Great transliteration of Bernie Grundman!

 

Still looking forward to it!

 

Vanished into the mists. At least there are several new mono mixes to replace it.

D'oh!

 

Or not, since the existing 3-track tapes aren't complete. Unless they plan on using a mono mix of My Generation without lead guitar, or a mono mix of the alternate Daddy Rolling Stone!

 

I think that parenthesis was just meant as an assurance that "Leaving Here," "Lubie," and the rest of the bonus tracks are 1960s-vintage mono mixes. We'd better not be getting underdubs of the other stuff ....

 

It's so fun putting this stuff through the Babelfish translator

I hope John Asutori and Bani Gurandoman did a good job on the My Jienereishiyon limastaring!

 

Pretty glad I picked up Who's Missing and Two's Missing for those vintage stereo mixes

(even though Who's Missing STILL hasn't arrived from Amazon.ca after almost 2 months! I can't complain to them yet because the Delivery estimate is Sep 4th )

I'm really interested to hear the vintage mono mixes of "Motoring" and the others!

 

I'd still like to know if more tracks were mixed to stereo at the time. The 6 that got out (Leaving Here, Motoring, Daddy Rolling Stone, Lubie, Heatwave, I'm A Man) were all likey slated to be on the original iteration of The Who's first LP. What about the rest of the tracks? What was unique about those 6?

One thing I just noticed for the first time - those are all covers. It's too bad Out In The Street wasn't one that made it...

 

Way too many Who multitracks are missing. It kills me that we only have some of the My Generation, AQO and Who's Next multitracks. They need to do a through search for those and do some proper 2 CD reissues along the line of the recent Monkees and Bee Gees reissues.

 

I haven't looked over the session details for a while, but the first session for the album that The Who did with Talmy (April 12-14, 1965) was mostly covers with very few overdubs:

- Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
- Out In The Street
- I Don't Mind
- Please, Please, Please
- I'm a Man
- Daddy Rolling Stone
- Leaving Here
- Lubie (Come Back Home)
- Shout and Shimmy
- Heatwave
- Motoring
- Anytime You Want Me

12 tracks seems enough for an early version of the album.

I'm guessing because of the less complicated nature of the songs (no double tracked vocals etc..) a stereo mix was possible for all of the songs so they were mixed to stereo and mono for an LP release, which was eventually canned because they wanted more original songs on the album. This is all speculation of course...

 

Wasn't Baby Don't You Do It part of the lineup for the first version of the LP?

 

Not too sure. Was it mentioned in the "Beat Instrumental" article from '65 (by John Emery) that complained about the lack of original songs on the slated album?

Does anyone have a copy of the article?

I'm curious about those 2 Odds & Sods acetate songs too, if they were Shel Talmy productions then why didn't he keep the tapes?

 

Just doing a bit of research, the guy from "Beat Instrumental" was played a 9-song acetate by Shel Talmy and 8 of the songs were:

- I'm a Man
- Heatwave
- I Don't Mind
- Lubie (Come Back Home)
- Out In The Street
- Please, Please, Please
- Leaving Here
- Motoring

I'm guessing the other song was "Shout and Shimmy", seeing as the other 2 songs from the April 12-14 session were already released as B-sides to "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" in Europe and the US.

 

We already know Daddy Rolling Stone and Leaving Here have overdubs. DRS on the DE has different backing vocals and no tambourine, and Leaving Here has a different lead vocal. So these were clearly not simply live 3-track recordings.

I'm trying to think - does Anyway Anyhow Anywhere have double-tracked vocals?