I have to admit, it was an amazing half-time show for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Three songs from Full Moon Fever was a surprise.
It was one of the more entertaining parts of the evening until an actual football game broke out in the 4th Quarter.
The New England Patriots may be 12-point favorites in Super Bowl XLII, but apparently the odds Tom Petty will open the half-time show with Free Fallin' are 3:1...
Go Patriots...
He got it.
A new species of beetle has been named in honor of Roy Orbison. It gives the appearance of a bug wearing a tuxedo, so now scientists have christened it Orectochilus orbisonorum.
You can't make this stuff up. Or maybe you can.
This is probably the best mash-up of an ELO song I've heard to date. It combines ELO's Don't Bring Me Down with Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue with rather excellent results. Cudos to the remixer (who goes by the name Nemozob) and hat tip to the ELO Discovery web site.
On top of a US release on February 5, Ticket The Moon: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra Volume 2 will be released in Japan on February 20. Sony Music Japan is using an animated (30 second) video clip to promote Twilight. Moment in Paradise is promoted with a clip from Zoom Tour Live.
Twilight, by the way, kicked off the Japanese edition of All Over The World: The Very Best of ELO (Volume 1)... further proof Twilight was a bigger hit there than anywhere else.
Well, it stirred up conversation on several Beatles web sites and blogs and certainly piqued my curiosity, but indeed Now And Then is a fake.
Well, no one seems to be in agreement where this could have come from, but the track as a whole isn't terribly consistent with other Jeff Lynne productions especially Free As A Bird and Real Love. In a few ways, it's close, but it's too daft. There are other "official" videos posted by the same "user" but even that seems inconsistent in places, so increasingly my guess is it's an outfake.
I'm just going to post this video, only because it appears to be posted on Paul McCartney's official YouTube site. If there's anything official on this, I'll pass it on. But this is labelled The Beatles Now And Then... with some very convincing finishing touches.
Barring any major breakthroughs, I'll be laying low during this holiday week.
But I do want to say "thanks!" to all of you, especially you regulars (you know who you are!) for another great year!
Happy Holidays to you all and all the best in 2008!
I was just doing a short roundup of web site browsing and saw that Rossif Sutherland has updated his MySpace page. In short, the album is coming along and should be out soon. He's financing and selling the CD himself, no record company.
He also writes that the songs he did with Jeff Lynne were done two years ago, so we can only assume These Words is a final mix, which I think is a good thing. He writes that all three of his produced by Jeff Lynne songs will be on the album, thankfully.
Well, bang my bongos and call me Desi. It appears Xanadu is a hit on the Great White Way. One symbol of its success, Xanadu On Broadway is being released on CD on January 8, 2008. CD Universe and Barnes & Noble among other retailers have preorders up for it.
Now I guess I have to see it.
Pause & Play.com is reporting that ELO's Ticket To The Moon: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra Volume 2 will be released in the states on February 12, 2008. One can only assume at this point that the CD will be exactly like the UK version, only with an FBI warning on it.
I have to say, it has been a really nice 18 months (or so) for ELO and/or Wilbury fans. We now have a rather nice collection of new and refreshed music to savor... and believe me, I have been! The Rossif Sutherland surprise was the perfect cherry on top to 2007.
Personally, my favorites: A New World Record, Balance Of Power, Highway Companion, Maxine, Idle Race Japanese remasters and the complete set of ELO Mini-LP CDs.
But now, look ahead at some of the many projects which are currently rumored or waiting for a green light:
The Move - we should be beginning the year with a Looking On remaster and an all-out box set; Rossif Sutherland's album should be finished soon with a reported 3 tracks produced by Jeff Lynne; Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl and King Of Hearts should be remastered and released in 2008; An Idle Race Box set; an expanded and remastered edition of Jeff Lynne's Armchair Theatre; a re-release of ELO's Zoom; an ELO singles box (which should flush out remastered versions of Buildings Have Eyes and two versions of A Matter Of Fact); ELO Zoom Greatest Hits Live; Into The Mysterious, a collection of solo ELO and closely related tracks.
As for my wish list, that includes remasters of the Long Beach concert, Xanadu and a re-do of Secret Messages with remastered versions of Mandalay, Buildings Have Eyes, Hello My Old Friend and *gulp* a full-on, untampered with and unedited Beatles Forever; a CD collection of unreleased session material from ELO post-1973; a 70s box set of unreleased material from Del Shannon; and of course, a new album from Jeff.
It’s not exactly hard to see why the Traveling Wilburys Collection on vinyl was priced as high as it was. In a nutshell, it’s the deluxe CD/DVD edition, only larger… and without video.
The contents of the box, though, are pretty impressive. Both LP covers and labels are faithfully reproduced, the inner sleeves are now just one sheet inserts while the albums themselves are held in a more storage-friendly paper/poly sleeve. With the poster and postcards included, the set works. It may not be the biggest value for your dollar, but it makes for an excellent collector’s piece.
But any vinyl pressing is only as good as the source music. While Volume One and Volume 3 are pretty solid sound wise, some of the bonus tracks have detectible tape flaws. The extended version of Handle With Care is particularly bad. Whatever the case, the bonus tracks are worth the price. There’s a sizable improvement in the extended version of End of the Line.
The main exclusive here (for me anyway) is the remix of Not Alone Any More. Will most people shell out $75 for that feature? Probably not. But it’s a nice soon-to-be rarity using different vocal takes from Roy Orbison while uncovering some nice instrumental parts.
I never really weighed in on the debate over vinyl vs. CD. And frankly, I’m holding off on it until I have the ability to rent a high-end turntable and capture these tracks in 24-bit digital on this PC. But, after I spent a considerable amount of time using my (not high-end premium nor bottom of the line) consumer turntable, running the audio thru a small professional-grade mixer/amp, digitizing it into a consumer (but not cheap) audio restoration program, then creating uncompressed audio files for the iPod, I still can’t get satisfactory results sound-wise. So, for now, my stance on preferring remastered CDs stands. I'll hold out hope there will be some CD of these bonus tracks (whether promo or not) eventually.
Now, anyone is welcome to change my mind about vinyl. But when I hear the Traveling Wilburys on vinyl, I hear these songs as good quality recordings. But, whenI hear the remastered CDs, I hear these songs like they’re happening in front of me. I understand the Vinyl + Analog = warmer, fuller & better versus the CD + Digital = thinner, weaker & shittier argument. But, making uncompressed audio files (stressing uncompressed here) from remastered CDs and listening to those files on an iPod is currently blowing the doors off of any vinyl I’ve ever heard. Again, if you have any suggestions on the right way to hear vinyl records properly, I’m all ears.
I tried to get some opening thoughts on the Wilburys Vinyl box set on here this morning, but I flat out ran out of time. Been trying to capture a good quality version of the bonus 12" before I start writing. I will get to that this evening after work.
The box set in one word (so far): impressive.
A few readers of this site have sent e-mails about their music. They're fans of Jeff and ELO and many times their music reflects it. So, when you get a moment check out:
From Dom: http://cdbaby.com/cd/domnk and
Paul: http://myspace.com/paulraab
And spread the word if you like them!
How many ways can you recycle and remarket ELO CDs? From Sony/BMG's Custom Marketing Group comes this: a 2CD collection of previously released budget compilations smartly titled 2CD Collection (A 712251). They're the same discs released in the early 90s: ELO Classics and Burning Bright. They're not remastered and retail for about $10.
After giving it a day to soak in, a thumbs up for Rossif Sutherland's These Words. A nice and understated little tune. The uh-huh's in the verses grow on you. Funny, some of his new songs have been up on his MySpace page since at least September. Hopefully, the wait for the entire CD won't be long now.
It just kinda occurred to me, this is the first Jeff-related studio track that didn't involve ELO, Wilburys or Beatles in ages. His stuff with Rosie Vela was never released and probably won't be.
Showdown, The Official ELO Mailing List has taken the wraps off this rather exciting news tidbit. Rossif Sutherland, the brother of 24 star Kiefer Sutherland, is releasing an album (perhaps by the end of the year) with three songs produced by Jeff Lynne. A rough mix of one, These Words, is available to hear on his MySpace page.
It's a nice simple little tune and as with many Jeff Lynne productions, the devil's in the little details: a laid-back style with some nice sounds. A cleaner version will flush those details out. As awlays, it's great to hear something new coming from Jeff's corner.
Makes me wonder how far (if at all) Jeff is working towards an album of his own songs again.
