Ok, here's the "remaster plan"

[chiliD]

Just as a "given" and since we DON'T know what's actually IN the vaults...***"add bonus tracks" is applicable to all albums where no specific tracks are named AND even if specific songs are named, if there's something else that CAN be added to those, by all means include it.


Then Play On-add "World In Harmony", "Green Manalishi", "Man Of The World" and the entire 1970 Jeremy Spencer companion album as bonus tracks (go to a second disc if necessary)

Kiln House--add "Dragonfly & "Purple Dancer" as bonus tracks

Future Games--add "Trinity" & the alternate version of "Lay It All Down" as bonus tracks

Bare Trees--***

OR release "Future Games" & "Bare Trees" as a "two-fer" disc

Penguin---***
Mystery To Me--reinstate "Good Things Come To Those Who Wait" and other bonus tracks

OR, release "Penguin" & "Mystery To Me" as a "two fer"

Heroes Are Hard To Find---***

Fleetwood Mac (aka “the white album”)--add the 45 mixes of "Over My Head", "Say You Love Me" & "Rhiannon" as bonus tracks...AND release as a 2-disc set, the 2nd disc...the Buckingham Nicks album...including the 45 "electric" mix of "Crying In The Night"

Rumours---make a stereo CD version of the DVD-Audio

Tusk---reinstate the LP mixes of "Sara" & "I Know I'm Not Wrong" in place of those now on the CD.

Live (1980)---make into a 3-disc set...discs 1 & 2 the album as is, disc 3 of more live material from the tour, ie "Angel", "What Makes You Think You're The One", "Think About Me", "You Make Loving Fun", "Sisters Of The Moon", "The Chain". #(or include the extra disc's tunes on Disc 3 down below)

Mirage---add "Cool Water", "Goodbye Angel", "Teen Beat" as bonus tracks

Tango In The Night---release as 2 disc set, disc 1 album as is; disc 2, the 12" extended dance remixes of "Big Love", "Seven Wonders", "Little Lies", "Everywhere", "Family Man" AND the 45 B-Sides "Down Endless Street", "You & I, Part 1", "Ricky", "Book Of Miracles".

(Delete the 1988 "Greatest Hits" disc from the catalogue)

Behind The Mask---add "Lizard People", "No Questions Asked", "As Long As You Follow"

add "Paper Doll", "Heart Of Stone", "Love Shines" & "Make Me A Mask" in their appropriate (or closest) album chronology (“Behind The Mask”??) as bonus tracks

Time--add “Soccer Rocks The Globe” version of “Blow By Blow”

The Dance---make into a two disc set including the tunes originally left off the CD...reinstate to actual set configuration.

Release a new 4-disc live box:
Disc 1: Live material from 1971-1974
Disc 2: Live material from 1975-1978
Disc 3: Live material from 1980#-1982
Disc 4: Live material from 1987, 1990, & 1994/95

[becca]

I like the sounds of the first three, but prefered with the Spencer disc seperate. Maybe they could find some way to add a couple Buckingham Nicks pre-FM tracks to the white album like the one that got them in, Frozen Love at least, and I think Christine had a solo version of either Over My Head or Say You Love Me which was pretty different yet interesting; I used to hear it on the radio sometimes. Rumours could have a number of extras and alternate cuts, least of all Silver Springs. I'm not sure I would want to have every album remastered with extra tracks.

Tusk had Sara cut down because of the limit of getting four lp sides on one compact disc I believe. I don't think they can get anymore scrunched in really there are limits. You can get 30 tracks of say Everley Brothers or ventures on a single CD but then they are 2:30 songs or even less usually. I can't get into the EPs from Tango but B sides would be good.

[chiliD]

When they originally released "Tusk", the industry standard as to how much time they could use per disc was significantly lower than today's standard...the full-length "Sara" could be reinstated AND include the edited "Sara", as well, without even coming CLOSE to the current standard.

I've taken the idea you had regarding the white album and edited my list. Thanks for that idea!

[wondergirl9847]

...sounds good to me!! I also would rather have Danny Kirwan's solo stuff than Jeremy Spencer...hehe...a newbie fan of Danny's here. More on THAT on the Pre-Rumours thread coming soon...

[wetcamelfood]

I was thinking, if we're including MOTW as a bonus track on TPO, should SGGTHKIT be included as well?

In addition, I don't know if Rhino will have access to the "Buckingham Nicks" masters or not (as Polydor had dibbs on those originally and though (I think) I heard somewhere that SN & LB themselves have the masters on the BN album now, I somehow doubt that they will render them to Rhino for such a repackage but we can sure inquire at Rhino about this closer the time (if this "time" ever comes). Once again though, we can't assume Rhino will use anything outside of the WB vaults for now (if anything at all).

Also, regarding the "Jeremy Spencer" album, should this also include "Teenage darling" (the B-side to the "Linda" single)? Maybe that should be a seperate disc but I'll go with whatever.

In addition to the "rule" we have of it being a "given" that we first and foremost include any previously unreleased stuff as the bonus tracks, should we have a second "rule" be that we only do the 2 on 1 CD's if there is no vault material available for the relevant session (or close to the session) in question? (FG & BT, P & MTM, etc.)

I will copy and paste over what I posted on my "experience" with Rhino in the post Rumours TPO thread and how I (and ChiliD) think this should be "handled" by all of us in agreement about this in the coming months over here in this thread tomorrow.

John

[Vianna]

I love your ideas here-I just want all those versions of Gypsy =:-) and let's see, I have a great version of Storms that should be included, and aren't there at least a couple of versions of SOTM? I have two I think-I don't have that piano demo of SOTM referred to here in another thread..and the long Sara demo so as to get all the lyrics.

There are other versions of Gold Dust Woman, too, and there's a longer Songbird.

You don't know how I wish they would do this-release all this stuff I have in bits and pieces on tapes as one huge collection on cd's..

[becca]

Am curious about Fireflies now too, don't forget that.

[wetcamelfood]

As for the demos, like with the DVD petition thing, we first must go under the assumption that Rhino would first and foremost only have access to the WB vault (though maybe DOWN THE LINE we can see if they will license stuff from other labels, sources etc.)and I supposse it's possible but I don't think Stevie's demos are in there but by all means, if it comes to the time when Rhino says "OK, we'll do it", we would hope then to get involved in whatever way is possible to determine what IS in the vault and then go and add the stuff THEN.

Same could be said for the 4 CD Live box set ChiliD proposed. I would only say we should leave that off the INITIAL list to them and then if we find that there is live material in the WB vaults (and Rhino is happy with the sales of the back catalog albums THEN, we could go back to them and say, "now that you've released the albums, how about a box set of live stuff (etc.)". I know other labels such as Capitol have been releasing all previously unreleased CD's of live material of acts such as Grand Funk Railroad along with remastering their back catalog at the same time but we MUST go at the pace that Rhino wants otherwise we won't get anything. Capitol obviously feels different to Rhino on this so we must accept that (unfortunately). Releasing the back catalog is the only area that Rhino MAY be willing to do if and when the new FM album in the spring comes out ON A DIFFERENT LABEL TO ANY LABEL ASSOCIATED WITH WB/Reprise and that's it, all we can do is try to get them to fill up the discs with unreleased stuff rather than leave them blank. We have HEARD that there are many hours of live recordings in the WB vaults from the 1980 live album stuff BUT we don't know specifically what yet so we should concentrate on what we KNOW they have FIRST (B-sides, GTCTTWW, etc.) and then in the letter we send them with the list we explain something to them to the effect that "we would ask for some leeway and assistance with when (and/or if) the discs are compiled as we simply don’t have access to the WB vault list documents as they are in your files and we may require some technical assistance from someone that can show us how to decifer what is there (as going from the pages that Ken faxed Marty, it was very hard to tell just from looking at it (and not having inside knowledge of...) how the recording industry logs such recordings)". In any event, they first must agree to do it before we can decide what additionally goes on to the discs which we would hope to find out about at the time of actually compiling them but at least if we list the B-sides (or tracks like GTCTTWW which we KNOW FOR A FACT WITHOUT SEEING THE VAULT LIST is there then it can be added here). Otherwise, speculation of existing material in the vault is not relevant at this time.

I'm sorry Adam, but there's no way we will all agree on this 100% as much as I'm sure we would all like to so with this ultimately being the case, we must go with a majority here and I have a feeling the majority vote would be to have bonus tracks as oppossed to having the discs be straight reissues I fear you may be outnumbered. By all means though, you should post a poll in the "Rumours" forum listing Option A & B as to whether FM fans would rather CD's with or without bonus tracks and see what happens.

John

[wetcamelfood]

Last night I said I would paste over the relevant parts from my post on this subject from what I had posted about it in the '"pre Rumours" forum "TPO Revisted" thread but I'm going to be pretty busy today and I wanted to get this across here and since I just spoke of many (but not all) things about this in my above post and I don't have time to go and weed through it all now, I've simply copy & pasted it over here. Please do read through it and you will see many points to think over in regards to what Rhino wants vs. ours etc. and what must be taken in to account before we polish up our letters and send them over to them. IF the new FM is NOT on WB/Reprise (or any associated label) we should send seperate letters to them and I will provide contact details closer the time IF the album is NOT on the above mentioned labels. As the "form" letter in 1992 to WB was not what everyone agreed with and didn't seem to have much effect anyways, I would proposed that we all write seperate letters to them BUT get the same points across so it would look more genuine that this is something that would be of interest to their organization to think about. We will never all agree on the same thing but if the "nuts & bolts" of it are the same and covering all of the bases so we don't get generic replies and nothing gained, then this may be more effective. Now, I've said to them the usual "this would sell you millions" type speaches but they just come across coy and say "Cost & profits are not the main issues" (even though we know damn well they are), let them act that way about it if they want to. The main point they ARE SAYING is that they can't do it until FM is on a different label so once the new album physically hits the streets in the spring ON an differnt label THAT is when letters should be sent to them and not before so THEN it could be said to them at THAT time "NOW that FM IS on a different label, put these out (etc.)". So then that way they have no excuse you know what I mean? In the meantime please have a look at my post from last night:

Yup, ChiliD is right, I got the runaround at Rhino. In a nutshell they DO say that they will be the first one to remaster the FM back catalog on CD ONCE FM is no longer with WB/Reprise. They say they can't touch the WB stuff until such time and we DON'T want WB to do it themselves as they have remastered such artists back catalog as Van Halen, Dire Straits etc. with NO bonus tracks.

I found Ken Caillat's Penguin Q & A most helpful in learning about how things work and compromises that can be made to apice the labels and get what we want at the same time. In this learning process, I've learned that as much as we would ALL like there to be CD's released including "entirely previously unreleased material", he did point out (rightly so) that we would be more likely to get unreleased stuff out on CD by way of bonus tracks on already released CD titles (as opossed to a whole CD devoted to unreleased stuff for fear of it "not selling" (in the way the labels think about it) in a "remastered" form and as labels can't "weasel out of" the fact that they know the back catalog sells to the public as that's why they've "allowed" that to be out there (it may not sell to the figures they would like but enough so that it is acceptable to them to be on the market).

In addition, as the Mac CD's have yet to be remastered, we need to "beat them to it" as if they remastered them with no bonus tracks, if we go to them THEN and say "please remaster the FM CD's" they will pawn us off by saying something to us like "we've already done it and we're not going to go and do it again if we've just done it". Us saying we want bonus tracks on there gives them "no excuse" as these are discs they would have on the market anyways, we would just be filling up the blank space on them and as most of the older albums are about half the length of time a CD can hold, we could possibly get out much material on them.

Someone in another thread posed the question as to why this GH thing is coming out at the end of the year to be followed shortly by the new album in the spring as it does seem strange that Reprise would want to "cut in to their own sales" of the GH thing IF both discs are on Reprise and I have heard some rumors floating around that FM may be with/looking for another label now so, with this in mind, it would seem logical that the GH could be on Reprise to finish off their contract there and then the new album would be with another label (as naturally another label would LOVE to cut into sales of a competitor with FM stuff).

IF this IS the case then I would propose that once the new FM album hits the streets in Spring 2003 (or whenever it is) IF it's on a different label to any label associated with the WB/Reprise family, that we inundate Rhino with our UNITED feelings on the subject. It IS VERY IMPORTANT that we do all say the same things in our letters to them and at the same time. Otherwise, we will not get what we want if anything at all. They may not put bonus tracks on them at all if they even bother to remaster them but at least if we ask for it UNANIMOUSLY then at least we can say that we tried and not see the years go by thinking "if only we tried (this)". However, we must wait to see what label the new album is on, for DEFINATE. We must wait until the new album is litterally released BEFORE we do this. We can't go by people saying "I heard from a close source that they changed lables" . That's not good enough, If we've waited this long for the new album surely we can wait a few months before sending in our letters. Besides, if they do agree, it will take them a while to get them together so we would have to wait anyways and we can use these few months to come to the most unanimous decision we can on this.

I will reiterate this in ChiliD's new post when he lists what we have discussed in great detail as to how we think the FM CD's SHOULD be remastered as with which bonus tracks THAT WE KNOW OF THAT EXSIST. Of course we could do our best persuasions to Rhino nearer the time that ANY other material in the vaults yet to be released from the relevant albums should go on the appropriate disc regardless of what titles bootleggers have given the taped that have "leaked out" as that will only confuse the issue in hand at this juncture. I have made the point of "if it's in the vaults, we want it" most clear to Mr. David McLees, Vice President of A & R at Rhino which is who would be dealing with this. You can all think it over and join us on ChiliD's thread in a few days or whenever it is up in this forum.

John

[wetcamelfood]

Becca made some interesting points last night about how there have been Doors CD's released that are "strictly unreleased" stuff and why wouldn't this work for the Mac, and that FM rareties should go on the appropriate CD's etc. to which I posted this:

I know what you mean and "I" would get a "rarities only" as would MANY others on the ledge but the LABEL doesn't see it this way and as you say BN only fans are only going to want outtakes from that era so I think this is why they would prefer to put "Rumours" outtakes on the proposed "Rumours" remastered CD (and so on) and for fans of the Peter Green era, they would put "Then Play on" outtakes on the proposed "Then play on" remastered CD.

We may be able to approach them if AFTER they remaster all of the CD's with bonus tracks there are still some rarities left, THEN they might be willing to do a "rarities only" CD but UNTIL then this is the way Rhino would do it (if at all) going by my discussions with Mr. McLees.

Maybe because the Doors stuff is under the Elektra division of WEA that they may feel differently about being more willing to do such a compilation of this sort "upfront" but the WB/Reprise division we are dealing with at Rhino unfortunately does not see it that way and the "putting the rarities on the end of the albums" is our way of "compromising", there way (as we see it) would be for them to fill up the rest of those discs with rarities.

This would seem a fair "trade" to us as, OK, we don't want to have to rebuy the albums but there is a lot of empty space on the discs we have currently and we could fill those up with all the B-sides and unreleased stuff they've got and at least we know Rhino does a good job at remastering albums so discs that need a SERIOUIS overhaul ("Mirage", etc.) could be MUCH improved upon which is a plus for us but we make it out to them like it's something we are "giving in to".

I hope this made some sense.

John

[chiliD]

By going from what Rhino did with the Elvis Costello catalogue, they put 10-15 BONUS tracks per album...almost a full album's worth of bonus tracks each. They're doing the same with another artist whose name escapes me at the moment.
And, when they remastered Brian Wilson's first solo album, they added ELEVEN bonus tracks.


The possibility of each Fleetwood Mac album having 10-15 bonus tracks (and tracks of songs we never knew existed) is definitely exciting.

OK, we don't want to have to rebuy the albums

Hell, if they did the full remaster job with adding almost a full album's worth of bonus tracks per album, I'll buy 'em again.

[Street Angel]

What a great thread! Along with the bonus tracks already mentioned, here are some more that came to my mind for certain albums:

Rumours: The original vinyl mix of "Gold Dust Woman" (which I only found on the "Isn´t It Midnight" CD-single so far back in 1988) and "Think About It"

Tusk: The 7" (or promo?) mix of "Sisters Of The Moon"

Live: The 7" mix of "Fireflies"

Mirage: The original vinyl mix of "Straight Back" plus "Smile At You" and "If You Were My Love"

Tango In The Night: "Joan Of Arc", "What Has Rock'n'Roll Ever Done For You?" (if there is an FM-recorded version) and the complete alternate version of "Isn´t It Midnight" (parts of it were used for the edit/"mix" version on "25 Years - The Chain")

Behind The Mask: The FM version of Rick´s "Intuition"

I noticed that´s a lot of Stevie bonus material, but that just came to my mind. Will try to think of more later... well, she has been prolific, hasn´t she?

[David]

Originally posted by wetcamelfood
We have HEARD that there are many hours of live recordings in the WB vaults from the 1980 live album stuff BUT we don't know specifically what yet

It's a matter of induction for us. Unless the master copies of the soundboards were literally stolen, they'd be in whatever "vault" was accessed before & during the compilation of the box set in 1993. That audio material includes:

Oklahoma City 5-18-77
Nashville 5-20-77
Little Rock 5-21-77
Baton Rouge 8-30-78
St. Louis 11-6-79
Yokohama 2-13-80
Melbourne 3-11-80
Sydney 3-15-80
Atlanta 8-8-80
Birmingham 8-12-80
Los Angeles 8-31-80
Los Angeles 9-1-80
San Bernardino 9-5-82
East Rutherford 9-14-82
Memphis 10-12-82
Denver 10-15-82
Oakland 10-20-82
Gothenburg 5-28-88
Salt Lake City June 1990

We could also include the various shows that have been broadcast on the radio (for example, Fresno 12-10-87) as well as all the shows from which tracks were included on the "Live" album (Cleveland 5-20/21-80, Tokyo 12-5-77, Oklahoma City 8-22-80, etc.) plus the various rehearsal recordings that were obviously mixing board-derived (Rumours, Tusk, Mirage, Behind the Mask).

If you look at the soundboards, you see some interesting patterns emerge. Ken C. told us that a continuous series of dates was generally recorded from each tour, & that is indeed what you see. We've got three leaked soundboards from the third week of May 1977, so we can possibly assume there are more from that time -- maybe Ft. Worth 5-15-77 or Tulsa 5-19-77 or Columbia 5-24-77. Or check other groupings -- the series of shows from August 1980 in the U.S. or February/March 1980 in Japan/Australia or October 1982 in the U.S. These could very well be from the various series of shows Ken referred to in his Q&A.

Again, the soundboards managed to survive somewhere all those years without leaking; the leak happened to coincide with the work completed for the box set, so unless those tapes were pilfered (rather than just copied), they'd still be in whatever repository has been holding them all this time. Of course, people who work at record labels are not terribly bright & generally not Good Samaritans, so just because something might be lodged in some vault somewhere does not mean that Person X at Warner Bros. would be able -- or willing -- to locate it. I also have trouble believing that these companies have any sort of decent archiving system; those lists we've seen look to have been generated by some poor slob of a clerk, who might have riddled the job with errors.

[wetcamelfood]

Originally posted by David

people who work at record labels are not terribly bright & generally not Good Samaritans, so just because something might be lodged in some vault somewhere does not mean that Person X at Warner Bros. would be able -- or willing -- to locate it. I also have trouble believing that these companies have any sort of decent archiving system; those lists we've seen look to have been generated by some poor slob of a clerk, who might have riddled the job with errors.

I agree, this is why it's important that come the time when we have the documentation in front of us, we can spell it out for them so there is no misunderstandings as to what we want on the discs hence the reason I clearly stated to them that we would require "technical assistance" in going through the lists/tapes that ARE there, if they won't appoint us a body, we will get someone who CAN help us weed through it, even if it means every log is useless and going through the tapes manually. I don't know HOW involved Rhino would let us get but IF they do let us get involved then if they are too lazy/stupid/whatever to figure out what's on the lists/tapes then we'll find it out for them. I would give Rhino more credit than that though going by the results they showed on the Brian Wilson CD, Elvis Costello stuff listed above by ChiliD that they put out among many others etc.

Once again, the live stuff (soundboards) and demos most likely ARE in the vaults now BUT we MUST stick with what WE KNOW and HAVE documentation of RIGHT NOW (b-sides, etc.) and NOT assume anything because if they come to us (at that time) and say "how you do know that's in the vault?" What are we going to say, "Well, I'm sure it is in there" (shrug)? If they were/are stupid enough to ask us about GTCTTWW or the B-sides, we could then whip out the singles (or in the case of GTCTTWW the pages from FM books etc. that DOCUMENT the FACT that it exists and show it to them and say "we know because it's right here" in which case they know not to screw with us. Also, "taking it a step at a time" means starting with the WB vault as this is the one area Rhino will admit to having access to. If AT COMPILING TIME they agree to go to other sources and license stuff OUTWITH the WB vault, then great, but we must stick with what we know IS in the "WB" vault. If we just say "whatever vault it may be in", they won't go and chase it down for us, they would be doing us the favor in the first place in letting us get stuff out of the WB vault (if this even happens at all).

OK, so even if they have all of the live shows you listed in there, I, as well as most everyone here would LOVE for those to be on CD and maybe OVER TIME we can get them to do that but as we are taking this "a step at a time" and starting with what can fit on the end of each existing CD album, those will not fit on the end of the relevant albums in their entire form. So this being the case, the "not so bright" people that work at the record comapnies are going to want us to spoon feed them which songs from those shows we want on the end of the existing albums (if we were to choose those recordings as the extras) and of course we can't do that until we get a set list from those shows (and I'm sorry, it must be on paper, we can't just say "well, I saw them on this tour and they played (these tunes) (etc.)". Even if it means going through the tapes ourselves and writing down the titles (if they let us obviously as I said before). If we try and throw a job their way to find out which songs are where on a tape, they won't do it, or if they do, they will do it wrong so why take the chance? Let's make SURE this gets done right. If they won't let us go through the tapes, lists etc. and insist on doing it themselves then at least we can walk away knowing we tried, that there was a chance and if they do let us, then we should get as involved as possible otherwise they will throw out on the market some half baked thing and their excuse would be "well, we didn't know what everyone wanted on there so we just put this out and hoped it would be good enough" hence the reason we need to say the same things to them in our letters. We hope to BE HEARD loud and clear as to what we want on there so they can't say that. That is if they do it at all. The only other options are, we don't liaise with them and they do it themselves and don't do it justice or if we don't contact them and they don't do it, of course we wouldn't gain anything from that either because "nothing's happening" so we might as well give it a try. You can e mail/fax your letters but I would suggest registered snail mail so that way THEY know that YOU know that THEY have received your letter. They may not know this with a fax transmittal or a "read acknowledgement" e mail you get on thier end. As I say though, there's no point sending anything now, we must wait until the new FM album is physically released for sale in the Spring (or whenever it is released) AND if it's on a non WB (or affiliated) label.

Street Angel: Do you have something on paper that says the tracks you listed ("What has rock & roll ever done for you", "Smile at you", etc.) ARE DEFINATELY IN THE WB VAULT? If so, could you scan it here or send me and/or ChiliD a copy so we can have documentation in proving to Rhino that we KNOW these tapes are in there? Yes, I have heard those recordings and we know they exist obviously but as they have mainly shown up on bootlegs etc. we DON'T know the SOURCE they were taken from, they could've been from a personl copy of Stevie's or something for all we know, once again we can't afford to ASSUME that they "leaked from the WB vaults". Maybe they did and if they did then great, I want them to be released as much as anyone else here BUT we need to know VIA DOCUMENTATION that those are in there BEFORE we can include them on the list.

Oh, and ChiliD, I agree with you, my comment with "OK we don't want to rebuy the albums" was taken out of context. It was directed more for the people that seems to disagree with the notion of putting bonus tracks on the albums as I then went on to explain as to why it would be GOOD to get them remastered WITH bonus stuff. So, I too, would be there with ya gettin' those discs again too if we are lucky enough to get this done (and done right).

John

[wetcamelfood]

As I say though Adam, I'm not adverse to a vote so if you want to set up that poll, please do, I may be surprized by the results.

John