Filling in the Collection

[Deleted member 133]

It started in earnest back around Bats' GTG. Awaiting me at his place were two CD box sets that I'd ordered from Amazon.com: "original album series" sets for America and Seals & Crofts. Spent the better part of a couple of hours in the Batcave grooving (along with a few other members) on those magical tunes.

My music collection, while vast, is also pretty shallow in many places. For many artists and bands I had but a few (or less) of their albums (many on vinyl and cassette!) and a greatest hit CD. Like America and Seals & Crofts.

So I started to change that by sourcing artists' entire discographies, wherever possible. The effort has picked up steam over the last month in particular and I have been very busy ripping and curating all the new acquisitions. I wanted to finish the huge bulk of the collecting by the end of this year and I'm happy to say I'm there.

Today I got around to adding Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, April Wine, Joan Armatrading, The Animals, and others. I'm not talking an album here and there: I really mean pretty much their entire discographies. I did skip many of the "live" recordings - unless there were significant unique tracks that were not to be found on their studio works. The whole process meant digging through Wiki links like crazy to see what the releases were, what tracks they contained, what formats they are available in, "remastered" and "reissued" albums, etc. Of course doing that leads to all sorts of neat and wonderful discoveries - when you trace band members, before and after they are with a particular group.

For example, take The Guess Who. From that I now have two great albums by Brave Belt (predecessor of Bachman-Turner Overdrive - which I also completed), the entire Guess Who catalogue, everything Randy Bachman's done, solo and together with others, and all of Burton Cummings stuff. Dozens and dozens of great albums.

Being retired and having the ability to make time for this endeavor certainly helped!

While I did a lot of sampling of tracks and albums during the process, I'm now set to make 2017 the year that I spend a lot of time listening to music. Since it's all ripped to 320kbps MP3 I can do it just about anywhere and any time.

Jeff

 

[CMonster]

So if you know an album sucks, like it contains one halfway decent song and the rest is garbage (think newer R.E.M.), would you still acquire it solely to complete a set?

 

[Randy]

My answer to Chucks question is no.

I am not a big Seals and Crofts fan, but I gotta tell you some of those tunes coming through those wonderful Dynaudios were absolutely magical.

 

[Deleted member 133]

So if you know an album sucks, like it contains one halfway decent song and the rest is garbage (think newer R.E.M.), would you still acquire it solely to complete a set?

Yes and no. It depends.

I had to make that decision many times. However in the majority of cases I simply did not know enough about a given album to say that it either sucked, or not. A lot of the time I knew nothing about it. In such a case my OCD would kick in and I'd opt to fill a void in the collection. In many such cases I have been pleasantly surprised.

It is such a good question though that perhaps I can explain myself better by example. Switching to the movie / film world, you must all know that I am a huge Humphrey Bogart fan. (My choices for Film Noir Friday at Bats' GTGs kinda proves that out.) Bogart acted in 42 movies BEFORE he did The Maltese Falcon. Some were small bits but you'd be hard-pressed to cite any of them and say that Bogart was not, well, Bogart, in them. He still cut a presence; he still shone like the star he would become. If you only ever watched his stuff from Falcon on (and there's lots of great stuff there to watch!) you'd be missing out on a ton of enjoyment.

Likewise with a lot of musicians / bands. Many of their early works went unnoticed. A lot of it forgotten. Yes some of it stunk; some had pretty poor production values. But a lot of it has genuine appeal - showing the talent that would eventually become a success.

Another example: but for the Academy Award winning documentary Searching For Sugar Man, would anyone other than South Africans really know and appreciate Rodriguez and his two fantastic '70s albums? I know that if I had not been convalescing on a couch two years ago with a torn Achilles tendon, flipping through Netflix offerings, I never would have. They were obviously thought to "suck" when they were first released (given that none were sold in North America), but now?

As for R.E.M? I had long ago collected everything by them!

Jeff

ps. Back to Chuck's question: I do think that, on the whole, a band / performer's later (and much later) works tend to suck more than their early stuff. I think Elton John is a good example and there's an example where I'm missing multiple titles and will never fill them in. But his first 8-10 albums? Indispensable! Perhaps not a good an example: David Bowie. While very different from start to finish, with, yes, some titles stronger than others, I think he was, on average, but for the '90s, consistently great throughout his career. (He was off his game throughout the '90s - and it is from that era that I am missing titles which I likely won't ever fill. However he certainly picked it up in the end with Blackstar!)

ps. Of course this is all very (very) subjective and listener dependent.

 

[PaulyT]

Jeff, I agree with you that I generally tend to like a band's earlier works more, when they're putting in all their effort and not just coasting on reputation. Or driven by the label, or whatever. Obviously that's a big generalization and there are exceptions.

Speaking of collecting, I just ordered a box set of all of Led Zepplin's studio albums (remastered with Jimmy Page's involvement). I think this is a band I need to explore more, I only know their biggest hits; I think I had "III" in high school (the one with Stairway to Heaven), but that's the only one.

 

[Batman]

^ that's awesome! IV has Stairway to Heaven. I actually like III better.

 

[heeman]

Paul, I think that you will find Zepplin's writing ability and musicianship outstanding................

 

[Randy]

OMG, their first five albums, I am not sure I could pick a favorite. I, II, III, IV, and Physical Graffiti are all amazing albums. I bought Mothership and I absolutely love it.

 

[PaulyT]

^ that's awesome! IV has Stairway to Heaven. I actually like III better.

Whoops yeah, well shows how well I know them...

 

[Deleted member 133]

Well since it is now 2017 I started filling my resolution of listening to more music, so I started digging into but a tiny bit of what I recently added / curated. From time-to-time I'll post about a "gem" that I've added.

Somewhere in a drawer of cassettes, almost all containing albums dubbed from vinyl during the '70s, there is one simply labeled "Vehicle." At least I think it's there because it was entered many years ago into my Excel music database as both the band and album name. With some Google searching I turned up an album so named, but by a group called The Ides of March. I then acquired the 2004 remastered version of the CD and today gave it a spin. Love it!

Great funky jazzy rock. Wonderful horn section. I remembered (barely) the title track. But all of the other tracks are really good. But the winner is one that I did not remember from the cassette: a nearly 10 minute long take on The Beatles' Eleanor Rigby called "Symphony For Eleanor (Eleanor Rigby)." It's worth the price of admission on its own.

If you can find a copy go for it. (Unfortunately the CD is pretty pricy - best price right now is $23.43 on Amazon.com - but you can also stream it.)

Here's a video of "Vehicle" that I found on YouTube:

Jeff

 

[Botch]

...there is one simply labeled "Vehicle." At least I think it's there because it was entered many years ago into my Excel music database as both the band and album name. With some Google searching I turned up an album so named, but by a group called The Ides of March. I then acquired the 2004 remastered version of the CD and today gave it a spin. Love it!

Jeff

As soon as I read the above statement I knew "Ides of March"!! For decades I thought this was a Blood Sweat & Tears track, and the lead singer sounded very much like David Clayton-Thomas. Learned otherwise about ten years ago.
I've not seen that video before, so now I must ask Jeff, what's the name of the lead singer? He looks exactly like (and now I realize he sounds just like) a lead singer for the band Chase, right before most of them were killed in a plane crash. Let me know, thanks!

 

[Deleted member 133]

As soon as I read the above statement I knew "Ides of March"!! For decades I thought this was a Blood Sweat & Tears track, and the lead singer sounded very much like David Clayton-Thomas. Learned otherwise about ten years ago.
I've not seen that video before, so now I must ask Jeff, what's the name of the lead singer? He looks exactly like (and now I realize he sounds just like) a lead singer for the band Chase, right before most of them were killed in a plane crash. Let me know, thanks!

It's Jim Peterik and he's still alive.

As well as Chase and Blood Sweat & Tears, the band that comes to mind is Canada's Lighthouse, which was in its prime at the same time as The Ides of March. Here's their big hit, "Sunny Days."

Lighthouse happens to be one group that was part of this filling in process. I had an album (vinyl) of theirs and a greatest hits CD, but nothing else. I've now got their full discography and will listen to it all sometime soon.

Jeff

 

[Deleted member 133]

Typically, the decision to fill in a particular artist / band's collection / discography started with the discovery of a single vinyl album or dubbed cassette hidden deep within the overall collection. In many cases I could never know why it was originally acquired. I know that sometimes it might have been because of an album review in the local paper or in a magazine. (The Dudes - We're No Angels (1975) was one of those.) But I do know why I have a vinyl copy of Average White Band's Warmer Communications (1978): the cover!



Anyhow...

I now have all of their studio albums. And yes while their brand of funky soul / R&B (and disco at times) is good fun to listen to, the really interesting thing was discovering a band called Forever More that did two albums (Yours - Forever More (1970) and Words on Black Plastic (1971)) before two of its members left to found Average White Band. Forever More was a prog rock band and their stuff is pretty good. I find their first album to be more entertaining with some neat little ditties like "It's Home" which reminded me quite a bit of Queen's "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy."

Jeff

 

[Botch]

Did you know AWB are from Scotland?

 

[Deleted member 133]

Did you know AWB are from Scotland?

Yes. Amazingly so!

 

[Deleted member 133]

With the filling in of both Rod Stewart and Genesis' discographies came the opportunity today to listen to two albums and an EP that I only have had on vinyl.

About the albums... I've always liked Rod Stewart's voice and have found him to be a great guy in person. (Read my book's story London Pub Crawl to see why!) While I have yet to get into his American Songbook albums, I'm looking forward to that in the coming weeks. What I really always liked were two of his earlier albums: Gasoline Alley and Every Picture Tells a Story. To my ear there's not a bad track on either album; and the songs "Gasoline Alley" and "Maggie May" are superb. They've been spinning most of the day while I puttered around the house.

About the EP... Back in 1977 Genesis released Spot The Pigeon - but only in the UK and Canada. I plopped down likely a very hard-earned $5 for it, took it home, opened it up and... was royally pissed! EPs had not taken off in the US (which is why it was never released there) and they probably did only marginally better in Canada. I certainly did not know what they were; I thought I was buying an album. But this thing called an EP only had three measly short songs! (This being prog rock, I figured they were three really long songs when I looked at the back of the album. There's no times printed for the songs or the EP on the Canadian release.) Now they were pretty good songs, and because it was played at 45rpm it sounded better than a standard 331/3, but for $5 I felt taken. I figured (quite incorrectly) that the title of the "EP" was meant to reflect on me, as in I was the pigeon in this EP con game. To be honest, it was only when I was completing the Genesis discography that I looked it up and got the true story on how it came to be. Anyhow I've listened to it a couple of times today and the longest track "Inside and Out" is pretty darn good Genesis (and the last of Steve Hackett with the band.)

Jeff

 

[Botch]

While on the subject of EPs, the greatest one ever recorded is called "Twistin' by the Pool", by Dire Straits. Get it if you don't have it.
From 1981 or so until about 1991, I played in a bunch of country bands, but was always able to convince them to learn/play the title track, and country audiences always LOVED it. Cool shit!

 

[Deleted member 133]

While on the subject of EPs, the greatest one ever recorded is called "Twistin' by the Pool", by Dire Straits. Get it if you don't have it.
From 1981 or so until about 1991, I played in a bunch of country bands, but was always able to convince them to learn/play the title track, and country audiences always LOVED it. Cool shit!

The content provider blocked the posted video from airing in Canada, however I do have the EP in my collection. The EP is called ExtendedancEPlay and "Twistin' By The Pool" is the lead track. (How old is your copy Botch? I just looked it up on Wiki and apparently only the original cassette had the EP's title as Twistin' By The Pool.

In any case I agree that it is really cool!

Jeff

 

[Deleted member 133]

The Nylons were a long-lived (and multi-member) Canadian A cappella group that I had the extreme pleasure of seeing live, in it's original incarnation, at Canada's National Arts Centre. I've long had all of their early albums on vinyl but only a greatest hits CD besides that. So I tried backfilling the collection. I say "tried" because they are one of the only artists / groups on my list that I'm still in the process of doing - with a couple of albums still to come.

In any case, while I was searching to make sure I had a comprehensive list of their titles I came across a real gem: a fantastic 2001 collection of a Cappella Beatles' tunes done by a variety of artists called (you guessed it) Come Together - An A Cappella Tribute to The Beatles.

The Nylons do "Let It Be" - the last song out of a 14 track collection. And while they are their usual great selves, the preceding 13 tracks are all a heck of a good listen. To be honest I'm not heard of any but one or two of the other artists. Which has now given me more "to do" items.

Here's a great summary / review that I found.

AllMusic Review by Steve Leggett

If you were thinking this was an album of barbershop quartets breezing through a set of Beatles standards, guess again. Using studio trickery to make voices approximate instruments, percussion, and other psychedelic sounds, the vocal groups here bring a wonderful and fresh approach to these great songs, expanding the rhythmic possibilities inherent in each melody, creating a stunning new alternate Beatles universe. The opening track, "Twist and Shout," covered by the Knudsen Brothers, simply rocks, without a kick drum in sight. Cadence's version of "Drive My Car" brings a kind of eerie, jazzy ambience to the song, giving it a spooky edge the original lacked. Even the more adventuresome tunes in the Beatles' catalog work here. Both "Tomorrow Never Knows" by Five O'Clock Shadow and "I Am the Walrus" by the Tufts Beelzebubs are reborn and transfigured with striking vocal touches, while retaining a tone every bit as odd and psychedelic as the groundbreaking original versions. Toss this on at a party and watch jaws drop.​

Here's my now-favourite track.

Jeff

 

[Deleted member 133]

In an amazing clash of coincidence, I have discovered a heretofore unknown (to me) '60s psychedelic rock group on the same day that I watched a current episode ("Canticle") of British police drama Endeavour wherein psychedelic rock (and LSD etc.) play a large part in the plot.

Among the numerous prog rock / rock groups that Canada has produced, Chilliwack has long been one of my favourites. But up until recently all I had in my collection was a single greatest hits album (both vinyl and CD) of theirs. That changed with the addition of a dozen albums - all studio recordings except for one live one. As I expected there is a ton of great music on those albums. But that's not what this post is about.

In researching the band's discography I discovered that there was a psychedelic rock precursor band called The Collectors. They released two albums: "The Collectors" (1967) and "Grass and Wild Strawberries" (1968). I've been in a non-drug-induced trance for well over an hour listening to both of these albums. They are great examples of the genre. From the former album the song Lydia Purple (apparently a minor hit in its day) really stands out for me. It's now part of my very small collection of personal "hits" that I keep on my playlist.

And as luck would have it, someone has posted a copy on YouTube! Not the greatest sound quality but good enough, I hope, to allow you to appreciate this new-found gem.