Welcome to "A Jeff Lynne and Related Blog" following the latest works and releases by this musical craftsman. Feel free to follow along. Please note this blog is unofficial and intended for entertainment purposes only. Thanks and welcome aboard.
I wish I can take credit for finding this, but the credit goes to a fellow fan/collector who wishes to remain anonymous for the sake of his peaceful household. I don't know if this info was already out there among fans, but this is the first time I've heard this.
Perhaps unbenounced (or not) to ELO or their management, several ELO songs were used in an adult video from 1976 called Ecstasy In Blue. As is the case with many films of its genre, Ecstasy In Blue is this hilariously bad account of some scary-looking freaky guy who has magic powers over women, or something like that. The plot kind of escaped me. And according to the description on the box, the cinematography is great. I, er, beg to differ.
The video apparently made its way to DVD a few years ago. I'm told it wasn't terribly uncommon in those days for adult movie directors to use music by popular artists. But what makes this juicy bit of info even more odd is the ELO songs (among others) they decided to use:
Fire On High
In The Hall Of The Mountain King
Daybreaker
Ocean Breakup/King Of The Universe
Manhattan Rumble (49th Street Massacre)
Dreaming Of 4000
Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here. Manhattan Rumble was used in an old porn movie. Now, if that's not good trivia, I don't know what is.
There was a feature on Jeff Lynne in last weekend's Sunday Express newspaper in the UK... with an offer for a free ELO's Greatest Hits Volume 2 CD. There's an online version of the article here. The interview was done to help publicize the new Traveling Wilburys book from Genesis Publications. There's really nothing in the article that most of us didn't know already. Next up: 'writing a couple of albums under his own name' and working on an album with Joe Walsh.
The free CD, despite the word 'live' in the description is likely the 16 track CD from 1992 featuring Wild West Hero, tracks from Discovery and later. Regardless, it's another way ELO is staying on the radar...
Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty were on hand last night in LA for the book launch of The Traveling Wilburys by Genesis Publications. Much of the Wilbury family and extended family packed a Beverly Hills clothing store to celebrate.
Attention Facebookers: Here's a fun little group dedicated to ELO's Out Of The Blue. The admins of the page want to see a picture of you with a copy of Out Of The Blue; could be on vinyl, CD, iPod, whatever. Just grab your digital camera, snap a shot anyway you'd like and upload it to the Wall. They are aiming for a 1,000 pictures.
I think it would be kind of fun to spread the word about this...
An old favorite of ELO fans is finally released on CD. Helen Reddy's We'll Sing In The Sunshine from 1978 is paired with another album, Ear Candy, for this 2-on-1 CD on Raven Records. The Jeff Lynne-composed Poor Little Fool is included on CD for the first time. What on Earth took so long? It had been available digitally for a few years.
Yes, $600 is excessive for a book and you can bet this particular one will not be propped up next to the encyclopedia set. Yes, I still have a encyclopedia set.
Genesis Publications shipped this book as you would expect for that kind of money: (ahem) carefully. It's wrapped in custom brown paper exactly like the original Handle With Care single, and held together with a 'Handle With Care' sticker. The deluxe edition box is as described, fully encasing the entire book and clasping closed magnetically. Nice start.
Now, for double the price of the Collectors Edition, you got a faux leather book cover, the fully encasing book cover with felt lining, and an 8x10 color photo of the Wilburys with the signatures of all 5 embossed at the bottom. Is it worth the jump in price? Well, I'll let you all be the judge. The signed copies from Jeff were actually cards that were glued into one of the front pages. There are other glued cards in the book, so I suppose that was a good way to do it. I had this mental picture of dozens of boxes in Jeff's living room filled with books for him to sign.
The book content of both versions is apparently exactly the same. That turns out to be a good thing. The book layout is good for jumping around as opposed to reading it cover to cover. If there's anything the Traveling Wilburys Collection DVD documentary left off of the Wilbury story, it's in the book. Replicas of sheets of paper with lots of unused lyrics and studio notes are bound between the pages. An interesting idea I've not seen before. Then again, this is my first multi-hundred dollar book. There's even sketches and drawings for album and single artwork ideas, some were ultimately not used.
You get a better sense of how these guys put these tracks together. Some of these songs took more twists and turns than we were probably aware. Would I have liked for there to be a 4 track CD inside with some of these later abandoned ideas for Margarita and Not Alone Any More? Sure! Why not? Bring the reader of these expensive books even closer to the studio experience.
My only other gripe? Volume 3 is still pretty under-represented, mostly (used and unused) promotional photos with a few quotes.
On the whole, though, the book effectively relays the fun these guys had making these records. The entire book is pictures and quotes from the Wilburys (sans Bob Dylan) and "Sideburys." Some of the quotes in it are priceless including one from Barbara Orbison. She had an interesting bit about how flummoxed some reporters were when they tried to interview The Wilburys.
"I can see all the questions prepared over sleepless nights, the questions every interviewer always wanted to ask those guys but never could. And they walked in and they saw five guys without a serious bone in their body. They didn't want to talk about the music, they just wanted to talk about how they were interrelated!"
Go back and listen to/watch their vintage interviews, she's right!
#124 is pretty happy with the book, but he should probably spend another $10 for art collector white cloth gloves to thumb through it.
Roy Orbison is getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today. Jeff Lynne and Joe Walsh will be in attendance for the ceremony as well as a host of other Orbison celebrity admirers. His star will be next to the ones for John Lennon and George Harrison.
A link to watch the ceremony is available at RoyOrbison.com. It begins at 11am US Pacific Time, 2pm US Eastern Time.
A new 30 track comp CD for Del Shannonwas released this week in the UK. The tracks cover his entire career including the Jeff Lynne co-written Cry Baby Cry (1975) and co-written and produced Walk Away from 1989.
One development here is that this is the first time Cry Baby Cry is available for digital download in case you're interested in building a rarities library and don't have this one yet.
Otherwise, this CD is the leading Del Shannon beginner's collection.
Many fans saw (Texas singer) Sharleen Spiteri's rather faithful live cover of Xanadu on the Graham Norton Show and since then on YouTube. Now, you can download the video on this blog.
Turns out, Ms. Spiteri is releasing a covers album of movie songs and Xanadu will be the lead single. The album is titled The Movie Songbook and is expected to be released on 1 March 2010.
Props to ELO Discovery for catching this little ditty from the Birmingham Mail. The story is from over a month ago when Roy Wood opened for Status Quo. Roy talks a little about his future plans including live shows, a possible autobiography, record company launch, and finally releasing at least one of the tracks he recorded with Jeff Lynne in the late 1980s. There are at least two tracks that we know of: Me And You and If You Don't Get What You Want.
“Some years ago I recorded a track with my old mate Jeff Lynne and I’m hoping to include it on a new compilation I’d like to put together next year,” he reveals.
“I’m gonna put together some of the tracks I particularly like, along with some unreleased songs.”
Well, we've come to the end of what turned out to be a relatively quiet 2009. There was even very little in terms of rehashed reissues. The only re-issues of note were Blu-Spec CDs for Discovery, Out of The Blue and A New World Record, which (correct me if I'm wrong) were really just very slightly higher quality captures of their current masters. The only worthwhile compilation this year came from The Move.
Really my only disappointment this year was reading how so many Jeff Lynne and ELO fans didn't bother with Regina Spektor. Understandably, we'd all like to hear more from Jeff himself. But I tend to view Jeff Lynne as a record maker more than anything else. The moment I see Jeff run across the stage and drop to his knees like Springsteen, I'll view him strictly as a performer.
Regina Spektor has won a fan in me. Nothing in her songs is conventional, yet they make perfect sense. Jeff Lynne provided a driving cadence to Blue Lips, a playful hand-clapping shimmy to Folding Chair, a dark ambiance to Genius Next Door, an antiquey feel to Wallet and a little spook to The Sword and The Pen. I thought he hit all of them out of the park. The other producers on that record fit her songs like a glove, too.
On a personal level, I had a little more (ok, a lot more) time on my hands this year thanks to being a economic casualty. (Still am, actually.) I thought I used much of the time wisely by at least 2 dozen bands/singers/acts live this year, Regina Spektor included, although they put her with an awful venue here, The Electric Factory. These live acts led me to some amazing CDs this year. If you're interested in some recommendations:
M. Ward (and Monsters of Folk) - He's turning out to be quite a prolific guy and amazing songwriter and yes, record maker. He released Hold Time early this year with several stand-out tracks, released an album as Monsters of Folk with Mike Mogis (who produced), Conor Oberst and Yim Yames. And in April, he's releasing an album with actress Zooey Deschanel.
Swell Season- I had the pleasure of meeting Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova following a concert on their current tour. If you haven't seen the movie Once, do yourself a favor. They won the Academy Award for Best Original Song from that movie. Their new CD is only a few months old.
One EskimO- a late-year entry, but a band I can't shut up about right now. Their music was used in a Toyota commercial and as the foundation for a series of animations that won top awards. The music was retooled and refined for their debut CD released in September. The whole CD is amazing with the rather addicting Kandi as the lead single. (By the way, their album and the complete set of animations is on sale at iTunes for $5.99)
I was also lucky enough to see Rickie Lee Jones, Roseanne Cash, Marianne Faithful, and less-knowns Peter Bjorn and John, DeVotchka, Diane Birch, the list goes on and on. For me, it was amazing year for new and live music.
So now we look to 2010. ELO's 40th Anniversary is being celebrated in 2010. Will this translate into some worthwhile releases? Time will tell. In case you missed it, ELO's official website from Sony is gone, and we're still waiting for elo.biz.
But in 2010, we should have a produced by Jeff Lynne album from Joe Walsh and a produced by Jeff Lynne album from, uh, Jeff Lynne. As I always say, keep your fingers crossed.
I hope it'll be a great year for all of you. Have a Happy New Year!
Genesis Publications is now shipping the Traveling Wilburys in January 2010. To hold us over, the publisher sent us a greeting card, not a gift card. Though, frankly, I wasn't quite sure how much a gift card would help for another $300-$600 book.
Those of you who ordered The Traveling Wilburys from Genesis Publications should have gotten this flier in the mail in advance of the actual book arriving on your doorstep. There's still no indication on when these books will ship.
A few things struck me in particular. It appears that Jeff may have written (or "written") the forward to the book based on the wording in the flier. The flier also notes that this book was originally George Harrison's idea, so this book has been a long time coming.
Deluxe Editions are sold out and the Collector's Edition will jump in price from 195GBP to 225GBP beginning of the year. So, if you're on the fence about this...
I recognize this is the typical 'you're getting old' argument. But I mean, they couldn't muster a single Grammy nod for Regina Spektor? Not one?? There are several other names that should be on the nomination list, too, but aren't. Not to begrudge any talented artist (and many names on the list are indeed talented,) but didn't the AMAs and the VMAs and the Billboards and the People's Choice, etc etc already honor [insert name here] multiple times over?? The Grammys must be in a bind. If ratings for the awards ceremony on TV are down, they need to have a nomination list like this one to stay mainstream.
The Grammys, however, should be digging a little deeper into the talent pool to keep their award's prestige above the others. Now it's just deluded with the others.
