SEVENTEEN (+ EP#1 & 2 + single)

[MarkRJones1970]

Haha! “Potty mouth”!

[Lord Reith]

Thanks guys. I appreciate all your comments even though I may not respond personally to some.

I'm listening to this again and am amazed anew at the quality of the performances. For so long, we've bought into the narrative that the Star Club tapes represented an untidy, disreputable version of the Beatles. Peeling back the layers of noise as LR has though, we see that the performances are actually very polished. Really. "I'm Going to Sit Right Down and Cry Over You" is every bit as good as the BBC take. And the "Mister Moonlight" performance (though not the recording quality, obviously) is superior to the later "Beatles For Sale" EMI track. If you can overlook John's potty mouth, there's really not much sloppiness here.

I love this version of Mr Moonlight! I mean, it's classic early-Beatles and they perform it at a nice fast tempo. They really just murdered it on Beatles For Sale and the organ was the nail in the coffin. I remember reading in "Beatles Forever" (Schaffner) that MM was one of the five most unpopular Beatles tracks ever. But there's little not to like about this version, and it even has some comedy moments from John. I was also pleased to be able to bring out Paul's bass line, which was largely reduced to one note on the official release

As for sloppiness, no. I mean, some authors have even implied that the Beatles performed badly on purpose, which is an outrageous statement. There was also an implication that they deliberately avoided playing their newer repetoire and hauled out all the old songs as some kind of payback, but that's equally bonkers. They played Red Sails In The Sunset and Your Feets Too Big because they were requested by Bettina. In fact, you can hear that more than half the numbers they play are requests. Also, they were doing two or three shows a night, so how could they not be forced to dip into their back catalogue?

It doesn't really matter that they didn't want to spend Christmas in Hamburg. As Ringo has said many times, as soon has the count-in to the song came in nothing else mattered. All their problems and arguments disappeared the moment they started playing. You can hear in these recordings that they are enjoying themselves. Not enjoying being in a sleazy nightclub at Christmas, but enjoying their own ability to make music. They were huge rock and roll fans, so they are revelling in their own ability to make such a sound. They know they are good and part of them still can't believe how good they are.

The lack of enthusiasm was actually on the other side of the footlights. People went to St Pauli to see outrageous things to tell their buddies the next morning, and while The Beatles' earlier onstage antics had appealed to them greatly, the late 62 "cool and confident" stage persona they were less crazy about. You can hear there's a clique of music fans in the audience who are highly appreciative, but all the drunks who just wanted to witness something outrageous are unmoved. So any bad vibes in these recordings is entirely down to a lack of imagination on the part of the audience. They just didn't get it. To them, seeing the waiter sing Be Bop A Lula was far more thrilling.

[Lord Reith]

What I find odd is that the original release of this edited out one of the ending refrains of 'Red Sails in the Sunset' ("The one you've come for") because there was a slight squeel of feedback! I mean, as if that would have put anyone off. We know what conditions it was recorded under and we can hear the dodgy quality! I wonder who it was who said "Ooooo no! Edit that out!" thinking that Beatles fans wouldn't be able to deal with that!

Yeah, the feedback is great, I love it. That was one song that was butchered on the Lingasong set. When the purple chick came out years ago I did a double take when those missing sections came up. I couldn't believe what they'd done to it.

[BeatleGuy1949]

Lord Reith: The gift that keeps on giving. Merry Christmas!!~

[Ziggy C]

...Like, track 14, "I'm Gonna...". At 2'09", there is a sharp injection of hiss in right channel, decreasing but still noticeable for several seconds. Hopefully you could fix this with some hiss reduction...

(Edited because I was listening with XLD Player, which for some reason compresses the time, but plays back at normal speed....when I play it back with VLC, the correct/real time is shown....)
I am hearing this hiss right at the end of the song. A sharp bit of it right at 2:09. It tapers off. No big deal. In fact, I expect a certain amount of imperfection. Divine intervention often prevents the absolute presentation of something perfect. So consider it a kind of a compliment that its there. We are hearing something that is not meant to be heard like this. Mysterious ways indeed.

Overall, this really fun!! A wonderful listen. The crustiness of the original recording doesn't bother me at all. I prefer it. This tape is not meant to be listened to as a refined, sterilized, studio-driven project at all. The energy is in the crustiness of it all. Take that away, and it's blah.

Thanks for taking the time to boost the vocals, tweak the EQ, and bring even more presence to these recordings.

-Z

[sam004]

Oh man-- thank you! This looks fantastic. I really hope Peter Jackson somehow gets a copy of this and is inspired by it.

PJ seems to drop into a few podcasts, how cool would it be if he paid us a visit here !
He could accidentally share his 18 hr Get Back cut.

[Claude_de_Faux]

Thank you Lord !

[Antonio218]

Thank you so much Lord Reith. It is absoluty amazing. Well done, congrats!

[firefoxnumber6]

With this I am simply having a wonderful Christmas time, thank you

[zaval80]

I am hearing this hiss right at the end of the song. A sharp bit of it right at 1:44. Tapers off. No big deal. In fact, I expect a certain amount of imperfection. Divine intervention often prevents the absolute presentation of something perfect. So consider it a kind of a compliment that its there. We are hearing something that is not meant to be heard like this. Mysterious ways indeed.

Very mysterious, I'd say! To me, 1:44 and anywhere in the vicinity is absolutely perfect, I don't hear anything, and I made sure to reverse the phones too this time (I did some online tests of my hearing - turned out I relied in my naivety on the "Stereofile" CD from 1992, which just produces a selection of tones at certain frequencies - strangely, some tests give different results, but they all showed that, although the "frequency profiles" for my ears are different, if I am not able to hear something below 12 kHz properly at least in one ear, that must be a highly specific frequency ) As for the spot I've reported, 2:09, it seems to me this particular hiss is the remnant from volume manipulation.

I've also noticed a couple of distortion spots in Track 13 at 2:34 and immediately after, but they did not stand out too much unlike the 2:09 hiss in Track 14 IMO.