HW remasters

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 06 Aug 2008, at 04:09 , SHLL (Scott Heller) wrote:
> It says all remastered from the original tapes. I find this highly  
> unlikely but it is possilbe. The recent space ritual recordings  
> they did take the original 1/4 mix down tape to Abbey Road and it  
> does sound really great but then who will put that kind of effort  
> into the rest of the catalog? Do these 1/4 tapes even exist still  
> and what shape are they in? I guess we will soon find out. I am not  
> sure I will buy yet another copy of these records. I already have  
> like 125 Hawkwind CDs...



I would guess there is some chance that Dave himself still has an  
increasingly large percentage of original tapes as we get closer to  
the present?  I would guess he has piles of out-takes and things,  
too.  (Rehersal jams for the Hawkfest?  Lemmy whacking Nik in the  
head for being a loon in glorious 5.1 surround sound?  Who knows!? ;))

On the other hand, I wonder how much remastering will help the more  
recent releases (and is it _worth_ getting a remastered _Distant  
Horizons_? Rather than bonus tracks, I might cut it down to an  
EP! ;)).  And even on the Virgin-era stuff, I wonder if the new  
remastering can do anything more that the Griffin remastering did  
not.  (Though it would be worth knowing whether we will get the  
expanded Griffin _Live Chronicles_, or just the original).  But, yes,  
for my part, I'm not sure I'm missing much worth struggling for from  
between '76 and '97. Pssibly I don't have _all_ the edits of "Douglas  
in the Jungle" or something like that, but being a very small "k"  
kollektor, maybe even a subscript ;) I will probably survive.

Still, I think the important thing here is not that stuff is getting  
bonus tracks or remastering -- it's that it's going to be available  
at all, meaning that people who missed the last rounds of reissues or  
who have since become fans can get the albums in some sensible way  
again .... Assuming there's any kind of decent distribution! :)   
(Should I complain that there should be sales of FLAC downloads of  
these new reissues?  Nah, who would listen .....)

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
http://www.carlaz.com/