DEEP BENEATH THE WAVES vol 9

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 14:40:24 +0500
To: karlerik@telepost.no
From: xyx
Subject: DEEP BENEATH THE WAVES vol 9

  I've been stocking up the oxygen supply readying for a plunge I'm not sure
I should take. The tanks are ready, so why my timidity? I'll tell you
why - the likes of Craig and Ben and Andrew and RSweener are probably going
to be waiting with their harpoons when I surface. But the Graham Parker song
"Fear Not" is ringing in my ears, so heeeeeeerrrrrrrre goooeeeeeesssssss.....
(The intent of this review is to help you make an informed decision as to
  wheteher or not you should spring for this set).

"BOB DYLAN 1965 REVISITED"  14 CD BOX  (Great Dane
Records)   The fact that I got this free will not cloud my judgment. Disk by disk,
I will gauge the relative merit of each, along the way ID'ing where else 
the material can be found, quality comparison, etc. Some disks will be given
short notice, others long notice, as warrants. (KEY  BS=Bootleg Series,
BIO = Biograph).

DISK ONE: "Bringin' It..." outtakes  Jan 1965  - 12 tracks including 4 found
on "BS" or "BIO" (I'll Keep it With Mine/Farewell Angelina/SubBlues/If You
Gotta Go), plus Baby Blue/You Don't have to Do That/She Belongs/Love -0/
I'll Keep it With Mine instrumental found on "Thin Wild Mercury Music"
and/or "Lonesome Sparrow Sings" plus additional 3 takes of If You Gotta Go.
Quality
is excellent throughout, comparing favorably to other releases, except the
official ones, of course.   Les Crane Show, Feb 17, NYC - interview plus
Baby Blue & Its Alright Ma w/Bruce Langhorne on 2nd guitar for both songs-
great performances and to my knowledge unavailable elsewhere. Fine quality
sound on performances and interview.

DISK TWO: Live Santa Monica, CA 3/27/65  - 13 tracks already released on the
Tuff Bites CD "Songs That Made Him Famous" (although that disk had 5 extra
bonus trax), quality here is the same, IMO, they probably copied it for this
release. Sound quality is listenable but annoying - personally, it is not
the kind of disk that will be played repeatedly. I know the historians will
say any Dylan 1965 show on tape is important, but it is the standard show/
set list he did in 1965, and personally I find the Manchester Trade Hall much
better.

DISK THREE:  6 tracks Sheffield, UK 4/30: Times/Ramona/Gates/Gotta Go/Alright
    Ma/Love -0   Lame quality, distant, historical significance be damned.
You won't play it that much, take my word for it.
The rest of the disk contains interviews/press conferences from the 1965
tour April 26 - May 9 in excellent quality, some from "Don't Look Back" and,
I believe, contains the complete live and backstage performances
found in "Don't Look Back," all in excellent quality. This stuff is perhaps
the highlight: Dylan backstage doing Lost HiWay/I'm So Lonesome I Could
Cry/Baby Blue to Donovan, plus the concert performances and the great 6 song
medley nicely pieced together here by Great Dane. Great to have it all in
one place and in such good quality.  Less the first 6 tracks, this disk will
spin
repeatedly.

DISK FOUR:  Manchester Free Trade Hall, May 7   : Absolutely essential show,
15 track concert (broadcast, was'nt it) previously available on Swingin'Pig
"Now Ain't the Time" and cleaned-up Wanted Man release "Now is The Time For
Your Tears." To my ears, quality is more natural sounding than on the Pig
release, this disk is more akin to the sound on the Wanted Man, so much so
that I'd say it is a clone. Nevertheless, if you don't get this box, do
grab one of the 2 disks mentioned above. The definitive '65 acoustic Dylan,
best quality available.

DISK FIVE:  Royal Albert Hall, May 9 : Same exact set list as above show,
15 tracks, but in barely listenable quality. More a curiosity piece, will
probably not spin very often in your player due to the sound. Previously
not available on disk, probably why it was included here.

DISK SIX:  BBC TV, London, June 1 : great performance previously available
on Scorpio release "The Circus is in Town." I compared these for awhile
trying to figure out which sounded better and could not really reach a
definitive conclusion. The sound on here has a bit more hiss but appears
more natural, while the "Circus" one is cleaner but perhaps a bit more tinny.
If you ask 10 people, would probably be a 5-5 tie. Anyway, you need to have
one or the other, if not a tape at least. Set list worth mentionong:
HBrown/TMan/Gates/Go Now/Hattie/It Aint Me/Love -0/One Too
Many/Boots/Ma/She Belongs/Baby Blue.

DISK SEVEN:  "HIGHWAY 61" outtakes - the harpoons are waiting for me, I know.
Here's what you get here:  Mono, stereo, acetate versions of the following:
Barbed Wire Fence - 3,  It Takes A Lot to laugh - 4, LARS - 2 (including
the piano waltz warm-up found on "BS"), Crawl Out Your Window - 2, From
A Buick Six - 3, Positively - mono, Tombstone - mono. A few of the acetate
versions sound the same as the mono and/or stereo mixes, so you are getting
the same take from a different source. Quality is excellent throughout, 
many of these versions are found on the Scorpio releases "Highway 61
Revisited Again" and "Highway 61/Blonde on Blonde Mono Mixes." Sound quality
on the box set appears to be from tape sources, whereas the 2 Scorpio 
releases are from acetates and vinyl LP's. A worthwhile disk, though I find
it hard listening to 4 takes of a song in succession (hey, idiot, that's
what the programming button is for on your CD player).

DISK EIGHT:  "HIGHWAY 61" outtakes - Mono mixes of the following tracks:
Desolation Row ("boiled guts of birds" version)/Queen Jane/HWY61/Thin Man/
Tom Thumb. Again, excellent quality mono mixes previously found on the
Scorpio release above. Quality here is excellent and it is up to the listener
to decide whether the preference is with the mono or stereo version of these
songs, though DRow is markedly different in this incarnation and has to be
heard. This will receive some spinning in my player, though more often than not
I'll spin the official gold disk CD.   Also here: Nice sounding 7/24 Newport
workshop performance of "All I Really want to Do" plus the famous/infamous
"gone electric" Newport tracks, so exhaustively reviewed I won't bother to
comment other than to say that if you have'nt heard them it's your loss, and 
the quality here is up to snuff and on par with the previous Newport
releases, which is to say very, very, good (I can't hear booing, either). 

DISK NINE:  Forest Hills, NY  8/28  Pt 1  13 tracks : I call this the 
curiosity piece of this set, much like the Elephant Man's bones. Cool to check
out once or twice, but beyond that not very fulfilling. Quality is dire, though
I hesitate to say unlistenable. Murray the K is treated badly in the intro
and your curiosity is piqued, "How will they treat Dylan." The recording
suffers from some distortion when the crowd is loud, which is often, so
it is hard to determine what kind of reaction Dylan is receiving. Certainly
not outright booing, I'd say a bit of booing is in evidence, though. The
sound is really bad and hard to enjoy, especially repeated listenings, so
let's put it in the "historical significance only" category. My opinion,
of course.

DISK TEN:  Forest Hills Part 2 (4 tracks) see above . Plus "Blonde on
Blonde" outtakes in excellent quality: Crawl Out Your Window#3&4  - 2 mono
& 1 stereo mix, I Wanna be Your Lover - 2 mono mixes, Jet Pilot - stereo mix
sounds to me like the one on "BIO", "Medicine Sunday" (working title) - mono
mix, Number One inst - mono mix, Freeze Out - acetate. The last 3 can be
found on "Thin Wild Mercury Music" or "Lonesone Sparrow." Quality is
excellent on all these, same quality to these ears as what is previously
been available.(I'll leave it up to the harpoonists to determine which of
these tracks/takes has been available/unavailable before on CD, and which
CDs they are available on. You need hours, which I don't have, to do the
comparisons. One of these days, maybe...). All in all, disk ten is a winner.

DISKS ELEVEN & TWELVE:  INTERVIEWS: 10/24 Allen Stone in Detroit, Nat Hentoff
(Unpublished) Playboy Interview, NYC October or November. Excellent quality
interviews, revealing, playful, fun to listen to, no doubt. My contention:
As cool as these are, how often are you gonna play 'em? I think they should
have transcribed them and put them in the booklet, thereby eliminating
2 disks and making it more affordable. A good listen, ONCE, but better to
have it in print to refer back to for specific quotes. 

DISKS THIRTEEN & FOURTEEN:  San Francisco Press Conference  Dec. 3 - hilarious,
vintage BD. Play it for your friends!!  Plus Parts 1&2 of the classic tape
from the Berkeley Community Theater December 4 - not great quality but oh
so listenable. To my ears the same quality as found on the original Wanted
Man release of this show "Long Distance Operator," and no need to review
the show itself beyond "thin wild mercury loud and live," you catch my 
drift? Set list: Tombstone/Believe You/Baby Let Me Follow/TomThumb/Long
Distance Operator (yessss!)/It Ain't Me babe/Thin Man/4th Street (whewww)/
Rolling Stone. Last Thoughts on This Show: the Band cook up a sizzling
brew, white hot flame on top of BDs scorching vocals. And another press
conference, this one from LA Dec 17. The press conferences serve as nice
bookends to the show.
So, is it worth it you ask? Put it this way -  if you have the following
material on any of the other CDs mentioned above:
Blonde on Blonde, Bringin' It & HWY 61 outtakes
Manchester Free Trade '65 show
Berkeley '65 show
BBC Broadcast June '65 London
Then it probably is not worth spending $250+ for this set. Granted, there
are a few takes of some outtakes which appear to appear (cute) here for the
first time, but the "first-time on CD" release of Forest Hills, RAH '65,
Newcastle '65 does not warrant the investment when you consider the quality.
The "Don't Look Back" CD is great, and I'd be willing to bet it comes out
as a single CD cloned from this box. The interviews are cool also but can
be just as enjoyable on tape, after all it's not like you can program it
like a song, once into it you are in for the duration of the interview unless
you sit there and fast forward - yeah, sure you will. Better to find someone
to tape the press conferences, interviews and poor quality live material than 
shell out for the box. On the other hand, if you have nothing and want to get
started, this would not be a bad place. But I think I can safely say that if 
you are on rmd that you are not in this particular boat. My recommendation
is to consider what you already have, consider the "new" material on this
box, consider how essential it is to have this new material on CD, and 
determine for yourself what you need or can afford. Don't forget - approx
4 or 5 discs worth of material here are interviews or press conferences.
Another factor in your decision might be whether or not you can get this
material on tape from someone.
I hope to sit down soon armed with a six pack, the outtake disks in this box,
the other outtake CDs and Krosgaard and determine what studio material is
appearing on this box for the first time. Or Craig, perhaps you've done it
already - if so, give it up, mate.
Lastly, I'd be remiss if I did'nt mention the fine packaging job on the set.
Each disk individually packaged in its own jewel case, some double slim lines.
Large format 12x12 booklet with source information (how accurate it is I've
yet to check) and nice photographs, all previously published. A fine overall
job, yet I really believe a 10CD box with the interviews transcribed would
have been better, not to mention more affordable.
My air is running out and a swarm of sharks is fast approaching. Can't decide
what is a worse fate, the sharks or a group of saavy Dylanologists. No simple
twist among those choices. Before I surface, coming attractions for next week
include Oslo 1995 ("Salt for Salt"), the  "Dignity" compilation and the
terrific 3CD soundboard from Shoreline, Mountain View, CA 1986. This one has
me puzzled as I think it's excellent, yet another review I read was
negative about the quality. Strange things have happend......

                      Love & Mercy & A merry weekend To All - xyx

      "You can have the truth but you got to choose it" - Dylan '76 
          
           

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