TICKET TO THE MOON

Not including box sets and special editions, Ticket To The Moon is the 36th compilation title in my (and probably many other's) private collection.  With its companion CD, All Over The World, this would be the current definitive 2-disc retrospective of the band's works for the masses.  In an overall sense, it'll do.  But for my money, there is no career retrospective unless it starts with Fire On High and finishes with Hello My Old Friend. I still compile the ELO retrospectives for friends who want them... and they get it.

Ticket To The Moon had a lot going for it quality-wise since it was being companioned with All Over The World.  But, it fell to the cheap side.

Right out the gate, Twilight barges in with no fade and ends with the intro to Yours Truly, just as it's indexed on the Time CD.  To me, that says no effort was put into this.  Can't Get It Out Of My Head still starts with a rough edit.  I thought that's what Pro-Tools was for!  These are easy fixes!

Secret Messages and Eldorado had fast (and rather thoughtless) fades at the end when a more prolonged fade could have made a better dramatic statement.  Again, we're dealing with the masses, the hardcore fans already know what's going to happen next.  I figured this would be a good time to smooth over the tape flaws on Calling America and It's Over.  I figured incorrectly.

I try not to nickpick at the track list too much.  It may be an ideal track list for someone out there.  But Starlight?  If we're going to highlight album tracks from Out Of The Blue, why not put something a little more daring and edgy, like Jungle or Birmingham Blues.  Starlight is just more light pop.

Heaven Only Knows.  Two words: alternate version.

Eldorado.  Wonderful track, but very out of place here.

In My Own Time. Good.  I'm glad this made it on here.  Of all the songs on Zoom, this was the one that really brings out the qualities in Jeff's voice.  And it's an airtight pop song.  I've always loved this one.

Besides the sleeve notes which help, the bare minimum was done for the packaging as well.  A dinky tri-fold computer graphics cover, with a spaceship (naturally) and a generic and rather artifical-looking backside and inlays. 

How possible is it in the next go-around to have a dignified-looking career retrospective?  I mean, Flashback is great, but come on.  Come back to Earth once in a while and appear to try.

SUNDANCE

The Traveling Wilburys website is updated in antcipation of next month's Deluxe Edition re-release.  They're confirming that the vinyl edition will be released December 4.  And it looks like the new deluxe edition may be in a blue box.

But the website is also advertising something on the Sundance Channel, most likely an airing of the True History of the Traveling Wilburys.  The dates are:

11/5 @ 10:15pm EST/PST

11/10 @ 6:30pm EST/PST

11/23 @ 1:50pm EST/PST

11/25 @ 11:35pm EST/PST

 

"CUT ME SOME SLACK"

Here's a little red carpet stuff from Tom Petty's premiere screening of Running Down A Dream in LA.  Jeff does his best to give this poor humorously clueless Hollywood reporter a soundbite.  Regardless of how much she knows, this was an incredibly strange line of questioning.

HANDLE WITH CARE

The Wilburys vinyl box set is retailing for $74.99 here and here.  Wow. 

RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM

A few opening thoughts on the new Tom Petty documentary just released to DVD by Best Buy.  I'll keep to the Jeff Lynne-relevent parts.

The story of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers needed the four full hours to tell.  The pace of the documentary is nice and even, but I can't imagine being in a theatre for that long regardless of the topic.  Anyway, of course, my main interest in this documentary is when Jeff entered the picture.

I suppose I expected to see some new raw footage from the Roy Orbison, Wilburys, Full Moon Fever sessions because there seems to have a been a good deal of videotape rolled around this time.

Instead, they (and by they I mean Bagdanovich) lifted the exact part of recording You Got It from a previous documentary, Going Home.  When it got to the Wilburys, all of the video was essentially lifted from the recently released True History of the Traveling Wilburys documentary... even down to the May 1988 date stamp used on the DVD!  I shit you not.

The filmmakers apparently had nothing to b-roll the Highway Companion part of the documentary.  They ended up using those horrendous music videos made for a few of the songs, plus some b-roll shot after Jeff gave his (recent) interview for the film.

One thing I was glad to see was Jeff's role as a producer put in perspective.  Tom Petty draws the difference between making a record and playing live.  Some people just can't separate the two, which may partially explain the visceral response Jeff Lynne gets by some critics.

More thoughts to follow...

WILBURYS ON VINYL

In two places including Amazon, I've seen/read that the Traveling Wilburys Collection on LP may be pushed to the first week of December.  Could mean nothing, could mean something.

TICKET TO THE MOON

My copy hasn't arrived yet, but from what I'm told, this comp is not impressing anyone... at all.

GEORGE HARRISON ON ITUNES

We knew it was going to happen eventually, just not so soon.  Much of George Harrison's catalog (mainly the recently remastered stuff) has become available on iTunes.  George is the last of the Fab Four to enter the digital realm, but sadly, nothing yet from the Fab Four.

One thing that may not sit well with fans: several of the new digitial editons contain an additional bonus track from their 2004 remastered editions, but only available if you buy the whole album.  Further proof that there's a long way to go before record companies stop being clueless about how to deal with digital music.

Cloud Nine's bonus bonus track is Got My Mind Set On You (Extended Version) which was previously only available on vinyl.  I wish I can purchase just that.  Oh well, another lost sale for them.

I hope Radiohead blows the doors off the current digital music industry with their new album.  I'm buying it and paying them for it, too.

DEL SHANNON RE-ISSUE

Thumbs down on the new Del Shannon Rock On! re-issue.  Unless you want the extra bonus tracks (which may or may not feature a few Wilburys) there's not much reason to own this.  It's not remastered and I'm told the booklet is nothing to write home about.

Del's official website promotes the bonus tracks (sans the end demo) as having three of the five Wilburys playing.  But that has long been a matter of dispute, namely with one of his former stuido musicians who claims to have played on them.

What I'm waiting for is a 70s era boxed set like the one they put out for his 60s material.

FOR IPOD FANS

You know, if someone told me 10 years ago that our music collections will be on one device with artwork and all sorts of other things incorporated, the wait would have killed me.  If this sounds like a shameless plug for Apple, sorry.  But yesterday, I found myself at the Apple Store in SoHo and impractically and without much thought, purchased an iPod Touch. For the record, my sixth overall.  I've re-sold my previous models to friends.

After a few hours of sorting through, scanning and saving artwork (yes, it was a leisurely Saturday) and submitting to mp3 exclusivity (would rather full wav's) for this player, I started surfing through my ELO, Move, etc. collection on the iPod Touch and almost literally, the world stopped for about 2 solid hours.  The artwork pops like I've never seen and in cases where a collectible comes in, I inserted other appropriate picture sleeves.  Here are examples:

.

The Surrender artwork came from FTM and because it's practically from the source, the picture is stunning on the display.  Maybe more artwork, FTM?  It's very time consuming work to get all of these images right on iTunes, but it's worth it.  That's been the only downside to their Cover Flow feature, some of the artwork is old, wrong, or non-existent in their database. In those cases, you'll have to create it yourself.

I don't think Apple has figured out how to show multiple pages or lyrics on these yet.  But this is huge next step.  If you're going to jump on board the digital music bandwagon, this is where to do it.  Expensive for now, yes, but worth every penny.

Anyone interested an old(ish) 60GB photo iPod?  :-)

TRAVELING WILBURYS DELUXE EDITION

During my last schlep around New York last week, I wondered into the Virgin Megastore in Times Square.  I found at least 7 copies of the Traveling Wilburys deluxe edition in stock.  If you missed getting one and are close to New York, you can grab one there.

... WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER THIS MESSAGE.

In the last 5 minutes, I saw/heard one Honda commercial with Hold On Tight (my fourth time today) and one film trailer for the (rather embarrassing-looking) Heartbreak Kid that features Don't Bring Me Down.

NEW TOM PETTY

Clips from the new Fats Domino tribute CD are up at Amazon.com.  Included in that is I'm Walkin' from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.  Hard to say whether it's Jeff production work... it had shades of it, but again, not sure.

Anyone know for sure?

Don't forget, Tom Petty's new documentary film is out in a few weeks.

UPCOMING FROM ELO

On top of a planned ELO comp, there's also apparently a 2CD Face The Music and A New World Record set coming September 17 and just released is ELO's Out Of The Blue (the 20 track remastered edition) in carbon neutral packaing.

UJLRP UPDATES

 Sorry the updates and posts have been slow the last few weeks, I'm still scaling back, enjoying the summer and traveling, etc.  But it's been rather active in the BrumBeat world recently and slowly, I'm getting a chance to hear all of the new Move releases and the Roy Wood Boulders remaster (when it arrives... it hasn't yet), so I'll have more here in the coming weeks.

I'm also working to spruce up the site a little.  Some of these pages haven't been touched in years and it shows.  I'll get to that and embed some music videos on the first rainy day or first opoortunity I get after Labor Day, whichever comes first.

IDLE RACE MINI-LP CDs

Been taking a break from the ELO and related world to take vacation and enjoy the rest of the summer.  But, as soon as I get a moment, I'll write more about the Idle Race CDs that were just issued on mini-LP CDs in Japan.

Turns out, they're digitally remastered by Peter Mew.  And sound amazing.

NEW INTERVIEW

There's a new interview with Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty talking about the new Traveling Wilburys Collection.

FUSSY SYNTHS AND SUGARY GUITARS

I got an interesting e-mail telling me to check out the Rolling Stone review of the Traveling Wilburys Collection.  Rob Sheffield gave it two stars and started tearing into Jeff Lynne's production.

Mind you, I don't know Rob Sheffield from Adam, but I suspect he's an old school rock 'n' roll kind of guy.  Clearly, he'll never let Jeff Lynne off the hook for using synthesizers in ELO.  He didn't quite grasp that the Wilbury records were made much more organically than he's led himself to believe. 

What can I say??  Some people hear a keyboard sound on a rock record and that's all they hear.  Others, on the other hand, hear the keyboard/synthesizer or whatever as one element among many others in a song.  Call me crazy, but... 

 But, "...Lynne got work because he was a nice bloke with zero ego..."??   Mind you, I don't know Jeff Lynne from Adam, but I strongly suspect that in 1988, after just having a Top 20 record with ELO, and a successful collaboration with George Harrison (a #1 hit single included), his ego was anything but zero.  He may want to re-research his legends.

So, Mr. Sheffield is, of course, entitled to his opinions, however misguided and boneheaded they are.  It's just a shame such an unfair assessment of the Wilburys set is in a such a high-profile place. 

But as far as the rest of us are concerned, we can take comfort in knowing that Rob Sheffield is clearly in the minority on this one.

BILLBOARD

Well, it wasn't the number many of us were hoping for, but the Traveling Wilburys Collection enters the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart at #9.

Still, given the artist make-up of charts, this is quite an achievement, especially for sets that retailed for $20-$45 a piece.

Hopefully, everyone sees this as a rousing success.

THE BOOK OF WILBURY

The Wilburys will keep on rolling into the fall with a new book from Genesis Publications.

For those who are not familiar with Genesis Publications books, they are highly elaborate, very collectible books, but with prices way out of reach for most people.  Most of their books start at $350 with deluxe editions starting at about $600.  And it goes way up from there.

They claim to be pulling out all the stops for the Wilburys, so it may be best to start looking at payment options now if you're interested: saving your pennies, using a credit card, refinancing the house, etc.