THE DECCA DILEMMA (re-up)

[blackcatbone]

Thank you very much.

[BTL1210]

AWESOME stuff M'Lord - Thank you for the EP ......

[joguema]

Thanks for the complete set!

Screenplay by K(wai) C(hang) and the Moonshine Band?

[BillyPilgrim404]

Thank you Sir John, this and your work on Stowe is outstanding and a fine addition to the canon.

[Appleyard]

As if they were recorded yesterday. Thank you. Amazing work as always.

[Alessandro Rocchi]

Thank you very much, Lord Reith!

[Claude_de_Faux]

Thank you very much !

[Lord Reith]

Thanks guys, I'm glad I finished it off too. Listening to Three Cool Cats I think I like it a bit better now. Before it kind of sounded like George was bellowing into a garbage bin and that was what really put me off. The reverb certainly did nothing to improve their sound. One wonders what the guys behind the faders were thinking.

One thing still bugs me, and that is the nearly inaudible bass guitar on Besame Much, Crying Waiting Hoping, Love Of The Loved and Sheihk Of Araby. I hope to retrieve this using the same methodology I employed on the vocals on Stowe. But it will be a lot of work... don't expect it anytime soon! I also found that I was able to isolate John and George's backing vocals on Love Of the Loved enough to be able to hear what they are actually singing... hopefully these can also be retrieved in the not too distant future.

Thank you! This is so exciting, I had heard a new Beatles record was coming out that used modern technology to improve an old recording, and now I have it in my virtual hands. So am I right that Paul and Pete just overdubbed their parts this year? Thank you, Peter Jackson!

Ha ha! Yes, at the session there were fans outside shouting "Pete Best forever, Ringo never!"

[Lord Reith]

Thanks for the complete set!

Screenplay by K(wai) C(hang) and the Moonshine Band?

Shake your boot-leg, shake your boot-leg...

[JoeWadley]

Glad you enjoyed it guys.

I love the sound of these. There are only 12 tracks. I thought there were 15 tracks on the tape. Am I missing something?

I will do them if people want, it's just that I really hate those three tracks. I think this kind of works nicely as an album that never was. Sequencing to me is everything... you get the sequencing wrong and you've ruined the album. The Beatles albums and radio shows always had great sequencing. But yes, we've got Side One and Side Two now, so I guess we can add an EP release too.

I find it odd that someone went in and snipped off all the count-ins. Who did that? And when? Presumably it was at the request of Brian because he had two reel to reel 7 & 1/2 ips tapes that he was hawking around. But did he pay to have that done? Did the person responsible make other changes, like altering the running order? And what then happened to the studio master? Was it just junked? Why did a 15ips tape with all 15 songs turn up in the 70s with all the count-ins snipped off and a minute of leader tape between each song?

Were Brian's two tapes intended as Side One and Side Two of a vanity release to be privately funded by Brian? It seems incredibly strange that Decca would not just give him a single tape recorded at 3 & 3/4 inches per second with all 15 songs, if the purpose of the tape was to play to other A&R people. Changing a reel of tape is a pain in the arse, and it would mean that if he wanted to play the target person a song from the other reel he would have to waste the guy's valuable time by asking him to swap reels. Two 7 & 1/2 ips tapes implies to me that there was a different purpose intended.

So many dilemmas! A dilemma for Decca in the sense of what to do with this weird group, a dilemma for The Beatles in deciding what to play, a dilemma for Brian in deciding whether to take Decca's crap offer of a contract (which apparently involved Brian contributing a sum of money to the release according to Lewisohn in Evolver 62), and a diemma to us in figuring out what to make of this strange recording. I guess we'll never really understand what went down. But my guess is that it was considerably more complex that what we've been led to believe over the years.

Thanks, with all this great demixing technology we have these days would it be possible to even out the tempo of Pete's drumming on "Till There Was You" without Paul's voice speeding up and slowing down in random places in the song?

It could be done but I'd feel like I was straying over to the Dark Side there. I don't like altering the actual performance. My comment about retuning Pete's bass drum was just a fancy - I'd never actually do that other than as a one off "what if".

Do we know if the gentle reverb on Brian's tape was on the master? Or did someone do that to Brian's copy in the name of giving him sonething "produced" like a record?