"H To He Who Am The Only One" by VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR (May 2005 UK Virgin/Charisma 'Expanded Edition' CD - Peter Hammill and Kathy Bryan Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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CADENCE /CASCADE 

PROG ROCK, PSYCH, AVANT GARDE...
And Others Genres Thereabouts
Exceptional CD Remasters

Covering 1967 to 1977 - It Also Focuses On

Fusion Rock, Acid Folk, Art Rock and Underground 

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"...The Emperor In His War-Room..."

Named after the American Engineer Robert Van De Graaff's surname and his particle accelerator device for creating static electricity - Van Der Graaf Generator's second studio album for 1970 came hot on the heels of their January debut - "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other". Released December 1970 by the newly formed Charisma Records - home of Audience, Rare Bird, Everyone, Merrill Moore, Atomic Rooster, (Keith Emerson's) The Nice and that other huge British Progressive Rock band Genesis – VDGG’s second platter expanded the experimental musical horizons laid down by their acclaimed debut.

Equal to its predecessor's quirky moniker - "H To He Who Am The Only One" is reckoned by Prog Rockers and VDGG fans alike to be up there as one of the Manchester boys wildest and best outings – a boundary pusher resplendent with mad Paul Whitehead artwork (a fave of the Genesis lads too). And this rather brill little 2005 CD Remaster (complete with two lengthy bonus cuts) bears that out. Here are the Houses with No Doors...

UK released 30 May 2005 - "H To He Who Am The Only One" by VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR on Virgin/Charisma CASCDR 1027 (Barcode 724347488825) is an 'Expanded Edition' CD Reissue and Remaster with Two Bonus Tracks that plays out as follows (71:29 minutes):

1. Killer [Side 1]

2. House With No Door

3. The Emperor In His War-Room Part 1. The Emperor Part 2. The Room

4. Lost Part 1. The Dance In Sand And Sea Part 2. The Dance In Frost [Side 2]

5. Pioneers Over C

Tracks 1 to 5 are their second studio album "H To He Who Am The Only One" - released January 1970 in the UK on Charisma Records CAS 1027 and March 1971 in the USA on Dunhill/ABC Records DS 50097.  Produced by JOHN ANTHONY - Track 1 was written by Peter Hammill, Hugh Banton and Stratton Smith, Tracks 2, 3 and 4 written by Peter Hammill with Track 5 written by Peter Hammill and David Jackson.

BONUS TRACKS:

6. Squid 1/Squid 2/Octopus [15:24 minutes]

7. The Emperor In His War-Room (First Version) [8:50 minutes]

VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR was:

PETER HAMMILL - Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar and Piano on "House With No Door"

HUGH BANTON - Vocals, Hammond and Farfisa Organs, Piano, Oscillator and Bass on "House With No Door" and "Killer"

DAVID JACKSON - Vocals, Alto, Tenor and Baritone Saxophones and Flute

GUY EVANS - Drums, Tympani and Percussion

Guests:

NIC POTTER (of The Misunderstood) - Bass on "Killer", "The Emperor In His War Room” and "Lost"

ROBERT FRIPP (of King Crimson) - Guitar on "The Emperor In His War-Room"

The 20-page booklet is a pleasingly thorough affair with new liner notes from MARK POWELL - soon to be head honcho at Esoteric Recordings over at Cherry Red UK - home to all things Avant Garde, Left Of Field and Proggy. There are period photos of the four-piece hairy men live, loitering in parks and outside French cafes, lyrics, the inner gatefold of the original release repro'd on the centre pages, trade adverts and their 9-album strong catalogue of Virgin/Charisma Remasters listed on the last page next to the extensive re-issue credits. It's all very tastefully done.

All four members of the band had a hand in Remastering consultation (including principal songwriter PETER HAMMILL) with the tape transfers done by KATHY BRYAN at Abbey Road Studios. I had this album on one of those early 'Pink Scroll' Label Charisma pressings with Audio that was always good but never great. Here the instruments have real power and even the two Bonus Cuts sound like they could have made the grade. Let's dance in the Static Sea...to the music...

We're informed by the opener "Killer" that someone who lives at the bottom of the sea is lonely – a solitary predator made manifest by earnest men with saxophones and doom-laden churchy organs. The 8-minutes of Side 1's "Killer" is in fact more Atomic Rooster than VDGG in my books. Things become very melodic on "House With No Door". That hissy beginning is still there, but there's warmth and clarity in the bass now and the piano feels less muddled than it did on the LP. It's a dark song actually - a home with no roof that lets in the rain and cold at night - Hammill's hurting vocals at times sounding like a melancholic David Bowie circa "The Man Who Sold The World".

Things get deathly heavy with "The Emperor In His War-Room" - a tin-pot dictator cradling his gun in his chamber of ghosts (dig those cascading flutes and chunky organ stabs) - Robert Fripp's very King Crimson guitar notes sailing into "The Room" just when the piece needs some Prog uplift. Speaking of KC - the 11-minutes of "Lost" is probably the most Crimson-sounding piece on the album - ideas and had-all-my-chances lyrics falling over each other as instrument piles on instrument. Album No. 2 ends with nearly fourteen minutes of "Pioneers Over C" - VDGG stretching out everywhere and thinking intergalactic travel will be commonplace in 1983 and they have the Bass Lines. Sexy Saxophones and Fiery Keyboard sounds to prove it.

In truth VDGG were never nearly as commercial or frankly as good as Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Co over in Genesis – but there is a lot to like in this adventurous and challenging album.

"...One last brief whisper in our loved one's ears..." – Hammill sang on tone of the lovelier passages in "Pioneers Over C" - David Jackson's saxophone slipping in soft at first and then going solo mad after that. Mad after that – a bit like VDGG and their music really...

"Small Change" by TOM WAITS (March 2018 Anti Records CD Reissue - Waits/Brennan/Derfler/Lyman Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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1960s and 1970s MUSIC ON CD - Volume 3 of 3

- Exceptional CD Remasters

As well as 1960s and 1970s Rock and Pop - It Also Focuses On

Blues Rock, Prog Rock, Psych, Avant Garde, Underground

Folk-Rock, Singer-Songwriter, Country Rock and more

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"...Drive It Away Today...Step Right Up!..."

As I said in my review of the 2018 CD reissue for "The Heart Of Saturday Night" - DAMN and DOUBLE DRAT! What you get here folks is fantastic audio (really, really great) for the albums but bare bones anything else – and all of it housed in very lacklustre even (in some cases) sloppy packaging.

Like so many lifetime fans I've been waiting just that for decent affordable Remasters of Tom Waits stunning Asylum Years catalogue stretching from 1973 to 1980. And here they are in March 2018 on Anti Records CDs, DLs and LPs – his musical home since "Mule Variations" won awards galore in 1999. But even though the CDs are priced at just under a tenner in the UK (and the corresponding dollar rate in the USA) – knowing what Anti could have been given us and outside of the sound – they’re hugely disappointing on almost every other front.

Each reissue is housed in a faded card digipak, has a picture CD of sorts, a booklet and new Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan/Karl Derfler supervised tape transfers – mastered in turn by Peter Lyman at his Infrasonic Mastering Studios in California (a renowned studio with Grammy award-winners on their resume). The 20-page booklet provides lyrics and album credits but bugger all else. In a booklet with only lyrics on offer - instead of actually giving you the myriad words to the witty "Step Right Up" – we get the original album credit that asks you to send off an SAE and get the lyrics by return from a Young Tom Waits! You open the digipak to "Small Change" and you're confronted with nothing - no photo on the left and nothing beneath the tray on the right. As with the booklet for "The Heart Of Saturday Night" – there are no new liner notes, no history (not even a catalogue number for the original release) and worse not a single extra track when these reissues have been screaming out for deluxe editions for years. It's hugely disappointing. But at least the first four Remastered titles are also to be released on 180-GRAM VINYL with a download code built in (see list below). So what do you get from your CD...what has the piano been drinking (and not me)...

UK and EUROPE released Friday, 9 March 2018 - "Small Change" by TOM WAITS on Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756821) is a straightforward CD Reissue and Remaster of the 11-Track 1976 album originally on Asylum Records USA (1977 UK release) and plays out as follows (49:57 minutes):

1. Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen) [Side 1]

2. Step Right Up

3. Jitterbug Boy (Sharing a Curbstone with Chuck E. Weiss, Robert Marchese, Paul Body and the Mug and Artie)

4. I Wish I Was In New Orleans (In The Ninth Ward)

5. The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)

6. Invitation To The Blues [Side 2]

7. Pasties And A G-String (At The Two O'Clock Club)

8. Bad Liver And A Broken Heart (In Lowell)

9. The One That Got Away

10. Small Change (Got Rained On With His Own .38)

11. I Can't Wait To Get Off Work (And See My Baby On Montgomery Avenue)

Tracks 1 to 11 are his fourth album "Small Change" - released October 1976 in the USA on Asylum Records 7E-1078 and May 1977 (belatedly) in the UK on Asylum K 53050. Produced by BONES HOWE with all songs written by Tom Waits - it peaked at No. 89 on the US LP charts (didn't chart in the UK).

TOM WAITS - Vocals and Piano on all Tracks

LEW TABACKIN - Tenor Saxophone

JIM HUGHART - Upright Bass

SHELLY MANNE – Drums

JERRY YESTER - String Section Arrangements and Conducting of Violins, Violas and Cellos

The digipaks are pretty - each coming with a generic 'Newly Remastered with Waits/Brennan' sticker (Kathleen Brennan is his wife). But when you open this digipak to be confronted by a smoking-cigarette picture disc with nothing else on the flap or beneath the see-through tray - it all feels staggeringly lazy. Worse - instead of being a celebration of this American songwriter's magnificent catalogue – it comes across the same way the Neil Young reissues did – what could be gotten away with instead of giving fans something to get their teeth into. The inevitable ‘unreleased stuff’ Box Set will follow on Anti no doubt - thereby costing fans more dosh and yet another purchase. But let's concentrate on what is awesome - the amazing Audio...

Weighing in at just under 50-minutes, "Small Change" was always a sonically compromised beast on original vinyl – no such problem here. This CD is incredible sounding – Mastering Engineer PETER LYMAN having brought out every nuance of the original quality Production job done by Bones Howe back in July 1976 when the album was recorded at Wally Heider Studios in California. Every song feels new and up for grabs.

The two points of CD Remaster reference for this 1976 material are Lee Herschberg and his work on the 1986 truncated CD reissue of the 1984 double-album "Asylum Years" - and then later by Elektra/Rhino's Dan Hersch and Bill Inglot on the fabulous "Used Songs 1973-1980" CD compilation from 2001 (see separate review for that release). But here the audio is so much more – amazing clarity and not uber-trebled for the sake of it. Even more prominent than the fretwork he showed on 1974’s "The Heart Of Saturday Night" - the sliding upright double-bass notes of James Hughart leap off almost every song like a dancing dervish. When you then take the near 15-piece mini-orchestra Waits used on emotional ballads like the Waltzing Mathilda song "Tom Traubert’s Blues", the whiskey-drinking pool-playing friends singing When The Saints Go Marching In during "I Wish I Was In New Orleans..." or the World War II jitterbug rhythms and sales patter in the mighty "Step Right Up" – the effect is powerful to say the least. One minute he’s ripping your broken-soldier heart out – the next making you howl with laughter at that slipper at large behind the chase lounge for months.

But what gets me about "Small Change" the album is that not only is his cigarette-ash crumpled-suit Bukowski-persona in full throttle and with devastating wit and pathos taboot – the whole record is good – Waits’ ability to move both your head and heart is on fire - like a Bursen Burner aimed at your vital areas and it ain’t gonna miss. Songs like "Jitterbug Boy" feature him growling on a piano as he sings about Mulligans, Rocky Marciano and Minnesota Fats, Fast Women and even Faster Horses and Unreliable Sources – but amidst all this gigglesome mirth is a low-life, a bum just hoping for a break and somehow Waits make you empathise with him and his huge dreams. Again in "The Piano Has Been Drinking" he manages to make his plinking notes seem Jack Daniels legless – with the balcony on the make and the carpet needs a haircut and the tuner’s got a hearing aid and the owner is a mental midget with the IQ of a fencepost...

Other mini operas include the greasy spoon images of "Invitation To The Blues" where the waitress stands by the register with an apron and a spatula and used dockets from bachelors who battle with the booze. Waits scats "Pasties & A G-String" as he eulogises Chesty Morgan and Watermelon Rose in their fishnet-stockings and spiked high-heels hustling the early-bird suckers at the burlesque show. It isn’t long before he’s melancholy again – a gargles-gravel-for-breakfast voice tells us he hasn’t got a drinking problem unless he can’t get a drink in "Bad Liver And A Broken Heart" – sat precariously on a barstool looking for quarters to call his baby – but is unable to get away from the bottom of a bottle of bargain scotch. He goes full-on easy-street sleaze with the brilliant "The One That Got Away" where shroud tailors and tired ambulance drivers and stage door johnnies and whiskey spilling Andre are singing songs and talking about the...you guessed it! The lyrics in "Small Change (Got Rained On With His Own .38)" may one day end up in textbooks as far as I’m concerned - topics include fire hydrants that plead the Fifth Amendment, furniture bargains, drugstore prophylactics and a lunatic Newsboy with questionable stains on his pants – all while a lonesome saxophone accompanies Tom and his Lucky Strike warbling. Busting your chops baby...

So – storming great audio and musically the album is a stone five-star singer-songwriter winner - but naught a lot else. Fans will have to own them for sure given the sonic upgrade – but it’s just such a shame that Anti Records haven’t risen to his now legendary status and provided us with something actually worth getting giddy about - especially when it comes to an artist that so many of us have adored for so long.

Tom Waits' "Small Change" is a forgotten masterpiece for me – the kind of Seventies album they really don’t make anymore and something that needs and should be celebrated. Much like the great man himself. Buy and enjoy...

TOM WAITS - March 2018 

Reissue Series of CDs, LPs and Downloads on Anti Records

All CDs are in Card Digipaks, come with Booklets and Pic CDs but No Extras

"Closing Time" and "The Heart Of Saturday Night" released Friday, 9 March 2018 
The others all released Friday, 23 March 2018

1. "Closing Time" (1973) - Anti 7565-2 (Barcode 8714092756524) - CD/LP is Anti 7565-1 (Barcode 8714092756517)

2. "The Heart Of Saturday Night" (1974) - Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756623)/LP due May 2018

3. "Nighthawks At The Diner" (1975 Live Double onto 1CD) - Anti 7567-2 (Barcode 8714092756722)/LP due May 2018

4. "Small Change" (1976) - Anti 7568-2 (Barcode 8714092756821)/LP due May 2018

5. "Foreign Affairs" (1977) - Anti 7569-2 (Barcode 8714092756920)

6. "Blue Valentine" (1978) - Anti 7570-2 (Barcode 8714092757026)

7. "Heartattack And Vine"(1980) - Anti 7571-2 (Barcode 8714092757125)

"Used Songs 1973-1980" by TOM WAITS (November 2001 Rhino CD Compilation - Dan Hersch and Bill Inglot Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

This Review Along With 300+ Others Is Available In My

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1960s and 1970s MUSIC ON CD - Volume 1 of 3 - Exceptional CD Remasters

As well as 1960s and 1970s Rock and Pop - It Also Focuses On

Blues Rock, Prog Rock, Psych, Avant Garde and Underground 

Just Click Below To Purchase for £3.95

Thousands of E-Pages - All Details and In-Depth Reviews From Discs
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"…Strangle All The Christmas Carols…"

The Asylum label period of Tom Waits' extraordinary career began in 1973 with his debut album "Closing Time" and ended 8 albums later in 1980 with "Heartattack & Vine". He then signed to Island Records and in 1982 released "Swordfishtrombones" to howls of joy, amazement, praise and derision - all in equal measure. And most of his albums on Island ('82 - '93) and Anti ('99 to the present day) have been the same ever since - mad, bad, beautiful, discordant and utterly unique in a world of increasingly plastic pop forced down our throats by gutless radio programmers every single day of our lives. Personally I love each period, Asylum, Island and the Anti label. And although the word is often overused, Waits is a genius - and utterly unique - beloved by both his fans and the industry for being so.

His Asylum albums were - if you like - his romantic troubadour period, a drunken Street bum with the heart of a poet and the itchy feet of Bukowski. He looked and sang the part too - greasy hair, freshly lit cigarette hanging out of his gob, wrecked clothes, a chronicler of the downtrodden and lost. But this was an artist whose songs were written with charm and real feeling for those on the outskirts - often touching and beautiful to a point where he could make you laugh with one song and cry with the next. But by "Heartattack & Vine", he had taken this persona it as far as it could go - hence the complete about face with his Island debut.

A little history for potential purchasers to explain why "Used Songs" is the best of scrappy bunch; the 1st compilation covering the Asylum Label period of his career appeared in 1981 and was called "Bounced Checks" - a single vinyl album containing a spattering of tracks and an unreleased live version of "The Piano Has Been Drinking" recorded in Dublin - a gig a friend of mine was privileged to be at. It's never been made available on CD to my knowledge. The second outing is "Asylum Years", a far better and more comprehensive 2LP set released on vinyl in 1984. Unfortunately, it's CD equivalent which came out two years later is a bit of a mish-mash - a single disc that lost 9 of the original 24 tracks and added 3 new ones not on the original double! This 14-track truncated CD carried the then relatively new words "digitally remastered" on the front cover and was sought after for that reason. The sound on that CD is good - if not spectacular - and is available to this day. It’s also worth noting that there are 8 tracks on the “Asylum Years” 1986 remastered CD that aren’t on “Used Songs” – they are “Diamonds On My Windshield”, “Martha”, “The Ghosts Of Saturday Night (After Hours At Napoleone’s Pizza House)”, “Grapefruit Moon”, “Small Change (Got Rained On With His Own .38)”, “Potter’s Field”, “Somewhere” (a superb cover of the famous Leonard Bernstein classic from “West Side Story”) and “Ruby’s Arms”. Which brings us up to "Used Songs 1973-1980", his 3rd and best compilation covering that period.

Released November 2001 - "Used Songs 1973-1980" by TOM WAITS on Elektra/Rhino 8122-78351-2 (Barcode 081227835125) features 16 tracks Digitally Remastered by tape experts BILL INGLOT and DAN HERSCH at DigiPrep - and the sound quality is full, clear and beautifully rendered. It takes in songs from all 7 of his studio albums and one from the live double. Here's the layout and what track is from what album:

USED SONGS 1973 - 1980 (77:33 minutes):

1. Heartattack & Vine (on Heartattack And Vine", 1980)

2. Eggs & Sausage (In A Cadillac With Susan Michelson)

(on the live 2LP set "Nighthawks At The Diner", 1975)

3. A Sight For Sore Eyes ("Foreign Affairs", 1977)

4. Whistlin' Past The Graveyard (on "Blue Valentine", 1978)

5. Burma Shave (on "Foreign Affairs", 1977)

6. Step Right Up (on "Small Change", 1976)

7. Ol' 55 (on "Closing Time", 1973)

8. I Never Talk To Strangers

(on "Foreign Affairs", 1977) [duet with BETTE MIDLER]

9. Mr. Siegal (on "Heartattack And Vine", 1980)

10. Jersey Girl (on "Heartattack And Vine", 1980)

11. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

(on "Blue Valentine", 1978)

12. Blues Valentines (on "Blue Valentine", 1978)

13. (Looking For) The Heart Of Saturday Night

(on "The Heart Of Saturday Night", 1974)

14. Muriel (on "Foreign Affairs", 1977)

15. Wrong Side Of The Road (on "Blue Valentine", 1978)

16. Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen)

(on "Heartattack And Vine", 1980)

Being a single disc there are some glaring omissions and odd choices, "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You" from "Closing Time" is left off in favour of "Ol' 55". "Wrong Side Of The Road" is chosen instead of the beautifully evocative "Kentucky Avenue" or the fantastic "Romeo Is Bleeding", both from "Blue Valentine". "On The Nickel" from "Heartattack & Vine" isn't there either. And so on - you could bitch about choices for days. ("Ol' 55" first turned up on the 3rd EAGLES album "On The Border" and was probably most peoples first introduction to Waits - so its easy to see why it was chosen.) What is on here though, sounds fabulous.

Why is sound so important with this issue? Each of his Asylum albums are available on CD, but the earlier albums in particular are hissy and less that impressive sound-wise, because almost all of them came out in the initial vanguard of CD releases in the late Eighties - they weren't mastered well and have never been touched since. That's not the case with "Used Songs". The REMASTERING done by Rhino here makes all the difference. Right from the opening guitar and drum of "Heartattack & Vine", you're aware of the fantastic sound quality upgrade - it just pounds you. "Burma Shave", with just piano and vocals, is loud and beautifully clear. Then there's the delicacy of "Muriel" and "A Sight For Sore Eyes" and the hurting gargled-with-gravel vocals of "Tom Traubert's Blues" (his Waltzing Matilda song) - the sound on all of them is sweet and full, the saxophone and sassy rhythm section floating out of the speakers like some boozed-up turned-on jazz combo. It's thrilling, it really is! And lyrically, Waits has always been the equal of Joni or Bob - and way funnier. The booklet pictures the albums, there's a reproduction of a 1975 Jon Landau article from Rolling Stone, and a new liner note from Hal Willner - all tied off with a tasty card wrap, giving the whole package the class this release deserves.

Although it should have been a double, "Used" has the big advantage of its gorgeous sound and makes you pine for Extended Editions of each of his fantastic albums from that period. And on that point, when you think of the amount of lesser artists who have their entire catalogues released, remastered and pumped up with bonus tracks, and then you see someone of Waits' stature have no album from 1973 to 1993 in REMASTERED form by either WEA or Island on the market after 20 years of CD re-issues - it's just ridiculous and criminal. The same of course applies to Little Feat, Prince, Rickie Lee Jones, and Van Morrison. Come on Rhino and Universal - get their individual album catalogues remastered and get them out there - for God's sake!

In the near 20 years I've spent working in record shops and dealing with rare records, I've met some great artists and huge talents in the industry and enjoyed chin waging with them all - fame doesn't really faze me that way. But my love of Tom Waits is different. Tom is God incarnate. If Tom Waits actually turned up in our humble little shop, I'd be knobbled! I'd be too busy kissing the hem of his garment to actually speak to the man! An Irishman lost for words - yikes!

To sum up, "Used Songs" is a fantastic set, a superb introduction to the man & his music and frankly, a beacon of light in a landscape of increasingly dim musical pap. It's available from over 60 on-line retailers for about three to four quid including P&P.

Sure I'm biased. I adore the guy and his musical warmth and racket I do. If you love music - you need to hear this man's songs - it will be the best musical fiver you've ever spent...