by doktordyper » 23 Oct 2008, 14:10
[quote]Originally posted by highinfidelity
A me invece sembrano falsissimi. Non piu' veri di un qualunque bootleg, che pressoche' chiunque e' in grado di stampare a costi irrisori, e su cui a maggior ragione chicchessia puo' incollare un'etichetta scritta a mano con lo stemmino della Philips. [;)]
Tant'e' che anche sulla pagina linkata da Carl c'e' scritto chiaro e tondo che probabilmente sono fasulli. [O:-)]
[quote]
Urka Marco come sei convinto... vediamo se riesco a dissuaderti... [:)]
Vado prima a correggere alcune tue affermazioni:
1) non è da tutti stampare un disco, ufficiale o bootleg che sia. C'è bisogno di un laboratorio che prepari le galvaniche, ovvero che elabori i vari passaggi da fonte analogica a stampatori (in negativo) di alluminio. La cui cosa ha un costo (non irrisorio), che viene ammortizzato con il numero di copie prodotte. Per stampare poi c'è bisogno di un altro impianto, manuale o automatico che sia, che utilizza gli stampatori come matrici, e le pasticche di vinile che vengono impresse a circa 180°. Le etichette non vengono incollate ma sono pressate a calore, e quindi non si possono staccare dal disco. Inoltre eventuali etichette frutto di fotocopie o stampe laser che siano, sono facilmente distinguibili con una lente di ingrandimento da quelle prodotte con un qualsiasi procedimento tipografico.
2) Quello che dice Adam è alquanto sorprendente, in quanto sa perfettamente che il disco esiste (alcune di quelle etichette le ha fotografate a casa mia!), così come il numero delle copie circolanti (attualmente ne ho tracciate 13) era un'informazione che veniva da me. I bootleg del test pressing di cui parla non sono su vinile, ma su cd (Some of you are going to die, Genuine Genesis Live). Dubito che ne siano state stampate più di una ventina di copie, motivo per cui è il disco ufficiale più ricercato dell'intera discografia dei Genesis.
3) Per quanto riguarda Scott Mc Mahan, copio di seguito il capitolo integrale - piuttosto lungo, ma riprova del fatto che tanti dettagli corretti possono comunque condurre a deduzioni sballate - del suo libro (del 1998, quindi di 10 anni fa), dove fu inclusa una mail "chiarificatoria" che gli inviai a smontare la teoria della non esistenza dell'oggetto in questione...
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MYTHOLOGY: The "Double Album Test Pressing" of Live
I'm going to drop out of the editorial voice for this section, since this topic has a very personal interest for me. An enduring myth, or perhaps urban legend, in Genesis history is the ultra-rare double album test pressing of the Genesis Live release. This legend has been perpetuated through the years, and seems to be generally accepted among Genesis fans. The story that Genesis made a test pressing of Live with 2 LP records worth of material has never been closely examined or questioned, even by papers such as Goldmine and Record Collector, and does not stand up very well under close scrutiny. This issue of the double live album test pressing is one of the most obscure and unsolveable mysteries of Genesis, because there is first of all very little information available, and also because some fans are adamant about the existence of this double album test pressing no matter what facts are presented. An examination of the concrete facts about the double album test pressing forces the conclusion that it does not exist, and is the product of urban legend.
(I say "one of the most" -- other mysteries include the Deep Green story related in the Phil Collins' session work section, which can be explained but is very baffling to anyone who is not an historian; and the mystery of Silver Song, why Phil sang on it and why it was never released. There are a few others like this. All of these mysteries can stand to have more light shed on them.) This section is the result of several years of personally researching the issue, and I'm going to detail my findings here. I began looking into the whole issue sometime around 1993, and have continued to this day. When I began assembling this discography, I tended to believe the standard story about Live, that there was an extremely rare double album test pressing extant someplace in the hands of some collector. I did not give it a lot of thought until I read several of the Genesis books and tried to fit what I was reading into the story. None of the facts really fit the story very well, and it made me suspicious. That led to more systematic research and the information which I present here.
Before beginning the examination of the issue, I think it is important to clarify what exactly is meant by "double album test pressing". I am taking about an actual Genesis Live ("Live" being the
proper noun title of the album) double album, not some other recording of the same shows released by a different source.
The King Biscuit Flower Hour recorded Genesis in concert in February 1973 at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester and at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, both in England. The King Biscuit Flower
Hour was a radio program in the USA which recorded live music for broadcast on radio stations. Genesis has been recorded for their show very often down through the years, in fact at least once
on every tour from 1973 to 1987 with the exception of The Lamb (which hardly fits in a 50 minute format).
Armando Gallo's book says: "...on the 20th July 1973, Charisma released Genesis Live [...] Genesis Live has never been released in America [remember this was written in 1977 before the Buddah's
records were re-released on Atlantic!] because originally the tapes that made up the album had been recorded just for an American radio show. The King Biscuit Hour people recorded only two concerts, and the sound quality wasn't perfect, but it definitely managed to capture the atmosphere of a Genesis concert during one of the most significant periods of their career. Tony Stratton-Smith had managed to get the original unmixed tape from King Biscuit and the band
mixed and edited it with John Burns, an engineer at Island with whom they had worked on Foxtrot and who later worked on Selling England and The Lamb." The Book Of Genesis quotes Phil: "There was a suggestion from Charisma that as [writing Selling England] was taking such a long time and there was a chance we'd miss the deadline, that we should release a live album compiled from the
best of the King Biscuit Hour tapes of recordings we'd made of our last tour. This was the first Genesis live album."
I believe the urban legend of the double album test pressing can be explained as a case of mistaken identity. What people think is a "test pressing" is actually the King Biscuit Flower Hour
recording of the show at Montfort. King Biscuit distributed the Montfort show on two LP records, and they were not marked very clearly. (I believe that King Biscuit put a sheet in with very plainly records to identify the show. Original KBFH shows are very difficult to come by. I've only seen one or two in my life and don't remember them well. I know they were in plain white sleeves.) This
double LP set isn't even a test pressing (although King Biscuit probably did do a test pressing of their LPs and a King Biscuit test pressing might be mistaken for a Live test pressing), it is a real
pressing sent out to radio stations by King Biscuit completely separate from Genesis, their management, and Charisma. Probably hundreds of these exist. Through the years, these King Biscuit records from Montfort have been distorted by rumor into test pressings of a double album version of Live. Genesis fans are capable of some of the most incredible rumors. Things that start
out as facts grow and grow out of proportion as they circulate. I think this double album test pressing is one of the best examples of this phenomenon. For the record, Live is mostly all from Manchester, with the exception of Hogweed.
The explanation that the double album test pressing is really just a KBFH record fits in with all of the numbered points below. All of the facts surrounding the rumor make sense when you work
backwards from the assumption that the double album test pressing is the King Biscuit show. There really was an actual record that someone mistook for a test pressing. It would explain how
the myth started – remember every myth has a kernel of truth -- since someone could have actually believed that the record was Live itself. It would explain that there never was a fourth
side, so the absense of the track list is correct.
For this explanation to be proven to be completely 100% true, I would have to prove that King Biscuit pressed their albums on the Phillips label. I can't really do that.
Here are some of the reasons why a test pressing ought not to exist:
1. No copy of it has ever surfaced. In over 20 years, not a single copy of this double album test pressing has actually been seen. Only one photograph of the LP label has appeared in Goldmine, and it does more to prove my King Biscuit theory than anything else. There
have been more photographs of the Lach Ness monster and Bigfoot than this double live album! No reputable source like a magazine article or a discography by someone reliably connected to Genesis has ever produced any reliable information about the test pressing.
The only people who claim to have seen it are shadowy, underground collectors who claim to have photocopies of the cover or know "someone else" (not themselves) who has the test pressing. People who openly claim they have it, when pressed for more details,
reveal that what they really have is the KBFH show. No copy of the test pressing has ever been put up for sale. Where has it been all these years? In the hands of certain individuals who have no interest in selling them and in keeping them an absolute secret? Rare
records are the province of people who want to sell rare records. You don't have one without the other. There is a certain proportion of fans who want to get the rare records for their own sake, but the entire record collecting market is dealer driven. Somewhere
along the line one of these test pressings would have fallen into a dealer's hands, or come up for sale, and news of it would be all over the world. Stated in other words, if a fan had a copy of the test pressing, cassettes would have leaked out and a bootleg probably would have been made; if a dealer had a copy, it would either have been sold or at least bragged about.
2. The fourth side doesn't exist! If Genesis had truly done a double album and had it test pressed, they would not have had a blank side! The tracks on this fourth side (Supper's Ready would have been either side three or side four, and be the only track like it was on
Second's Out) would be required to finish out the remaining side. One-sided records have been done, but hardly seem practical for a struggling band like Genesis since it would have been perceived as shortchanging the fans by charging double-album prices for 1-1/2
an album. The lack of a fourth side is actually a compelling argument against the double album never even getting to test pressing stage. Genesis' set at the time would hardly
contain enough material for a fourth side. Tony Banks said in a 1982 Trouser Press article that "The only thing [Live] didn't have on it was 'Supper's Ready,' probably our strongest track to date, but we felt we couldn't have two albums in succession with that
on it." (Obviously, they were not influenced by Yes who released their previous two albums almost in their entirety on their first live album, which had been released before Live!) King Biscuit could easily do a one-sided album, since they charge a station a blanket
fee. It doesn't matter to them, they just package up the show and send it out.
3. Genesis' financial situation was hardly solid enough at the time Live came out for them to decide on a double album, go far enough ahead with it to do a test pressing, then change their minds, and then commission a new single album. The record company would not
have expended this much on Genesis. From all of the interviews and sources where band members talk about this album, the decision to go with a single album seems to have been made very early into the process, and was a very firm decision. There doesn't seem
to be any equivocation or waffling on the album's length. For example, take this part of the Gallo quote above: "Tony Stratton-Smith had managed to get the original unmixed tape from King Biscuit and the band mixed and edited it with John Burns, an engineer at
Island..." To me this reads like Strat had the album planned out before he even started mixing. They made the master tapes to give to Charisma themselves. I doubt they would have made two versions of the album and then try to decide which to use, especially since
the goal was to make a budget-priced record. More from Gallo: ``"Genesis were never keen on the idea of a live album at that stage," Strat told me. "I think that Peter for one didn't really want it to come out. l finally convinced them to go for the idea because it came out at a very low price which meant that it could go in the large chain stores like Woolworths, W H Smith and Boots on a rather more extensive level. It was an attempt to broaden the audience, and in that sense I think that it worked. ...''
4. No bootleg of it has ever come out. In over 20 years since the test pressing was alleged to have been made, it has never once been bootlegged in any form. Considering that Genesis has had bootlegs made of anything that was not nailed down, and incredible rarities like a live Seven Stones, The Light, Going Out To Get You, the BBC sessions, and the Island Studios outtakes have all come out during this time, it is farfetched to imagine that the test pressing has been kept secret for this long. Not a single cassette dub from this test pressing exists. Surely whoever posessed the album would have played it once and made a dub to cassette, or a reel-to-reel, in order to personally listen to it (without playing the record over and over, since test pressings are very fragile and not meant to be played much), and some dubs of that would be given to friends and eventually leaked out. Since Live was mixed at Island Studios, from which all of the In The Beginning outtakes were outtaken, if there were other live tracks from Live they would probably have also been
included in the In The Beginning set. But, see #5...
5. King Biscuit's original recording of the shows at De Montford and Manchester that were used to make the album are readily available. One show that has been widely bootlegged has the same track list as the live album with the addition of Supper's Ready and the inbetween
song stories. The King Biscuit recording is often passed off as a copy of the test pressing. It is not. (Note that the King Biscuit show is actually three sides and was released on LP. King Biscuit used LP records to distribute shows to radio stations. King
Biscuit wouldn't particularly care if they had a blank side.)
6. With a bootleg named like "The Great Lost Live Album" -- which is ironically from the next tour, for Selling England, and was recorded after Live was finished! -- it is easy for rumors to circulate. Add to this the alternate version of Live released in Italy with a different cover but still only one LP, and these faux clues to the double album are bound to be responsible for a lot of the myth. It would be easy to have this single album with a different cover confused with an alternative version of Live that was a double album.
Genesis fans have been well-known for starting and perpetuating wild rumors that have no basis in fact. This could easily be another one.
7. Nick Davis asked Tony Banks on my behalf about this issue, told me Tony, generally agreed to be the most historical person in Genesis, said that there was no test pressing.
Tony Banks personally said that the double album idea was scrapped before any pressings whatsoever were made, and even before a definite track list was determined.
Supper's Ready was the only song they left off the album (no others for the fourth side were ever decided upon). I am not saying Tony has an elephantine memory or is infallable, but adding his categorical denial of the double album to the other evidence supports the King Biscuit theory. (I am indebted to Nick Davis for asking Tony about this for me!)
8. Record Collector is apparently wrong. From the British periodical "Record Collector", #146, 10/91: ``The "Genesis Live" album, issued by Charisma in July 1973, still manages to convey the excitement and atmosphere of those early gigs. It was mixed from a King Biscuit tape gleaned from the Manchester and Leicester gigs earlier that year, and one double album test pressing of both sets has leaked out - a Dutch release on the Philips label. Only slightly more attainable is the rare Italian edition of "Genesis Live", which
came with a totally different limited edition sleeve of Gabriel in his flower mask, surrounded by a white border. In Australia the LP was released as "Rock Legends - Genesis Live" with a variation on the UK sleeve.'' This is all, though. There's nothing present to back up this mention of the double album. I find it hard to give this much weight. It does not even state that the test pressing is a Genesis album. In fact, this article more than anything else supports the theory that a King Biscuit release mutated into the
double album test pressing through rumors. It says "test pressing of both sets", which I take to mean the entirety of Montford and Manchester. They never say here that the test pressing is of Live and was intended for release. The vagueness of this article is
perplexing. If the test pressing "leaked out", where is it? They can't provide proof of what they're asserting.
I finally tracked down a copy of the Goldmine article (thanks to [some guy whose name has been lost] for providing me with a copy!) from June 6, 1986 which discusses Live:
Genesis performed live on Feb. 22-23, 1973, in Liecester and Manchester, England. The concerts were recorded for a U.S. radio broadcast. A group of songs was taken from the radio broadcast, remixed, and issued by Charisma as Genesis Live, their first live album. One song -- a 26-minute live version of "Supper's Ready" --
was not included on the album; but it does appear on an unreleased double live test pressing. Needless to say, the double album (on the Dutch Philips label) is a stunning rarity ... [elipsis theirs] probably the rarest Genesis record in existence and no doubt worth hundreds of dollars.
Like Record Collector, this is vague, and seems to be repeating the conventional rumor as fact. The only thing they have to support their assertation is a picture of the record. The best thing about this article is that it has a picture of the record in question. The
worst thing is the picture, like those of the Lach Ness monster, is inconclusive. I hope this is enough information to settle the issue once and for all.
As you would expect, however, it is not! No sooner had I formulated this water tight theory did Marcello [send me…]
"And now to THAT. The test-pressing. The tracks recorded are the same of Genesis live + Supper's ready. It is 4 sided. The sequence of the songs, such as the mixing, is different than the official release.
Intros to the songs are complete. The only known image of the label is on Goldmine because the article's author was owning a copy. The author of the RC's discography, (- if I well remember - Julian Berkeley - one of the toughest SH collectors in the world), was a friend of Keith Whelan and got these info directly from him. It has been bootlegged originally on a 1000 copies CD, called Some of you are going to die (if you need a copy let me know...). I got the tape in 1983. It's not a US promo radio-show, but a legitimate Philips release for the following reasons:
- no relation existing between US radio networks and Holland Phillips
- catalogue number on the vinyl is different from the radioshows system and similar to Philips releases
- there are no 4 sides KBFH vinyls in existence.
- US radio stations didn't issues vinyl until late mid-70s (If you are able to find me a copy of such records containing pre 75 material, or even LA Shrine 75, that we all know it was broadcasted at the time, I will pay 1000$ for it...). The oldest Canadian network that issued a similar item is from 1976. Neither Westwood One, nor KBFH did something more than reel-to reel tapes until late 70's. I cannot be 100% sure about UK (BBC Transcription Discs) because the oldest I have is from 1978 - with a Wembley 75 concert on it - but I have seen other groups ones with an older designed label; moreover I know a French collector that claims to have a BBC Transcription having on one side the 3 outtakes of the Sound of the 70's broadcast. But THE OBJECT is definitely not a BBC record, and it was pressed in a handful (or less?) of copies. More details on request..."
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Proseguo con le note:
4) I Genesis in questione, così come il loro management, hanno dimostrato più e più volte di non ricordare una beneamata fava di quello che hanno fatto nella loro quarantennale carriera... Va da se il fatto che la gestione delle case discografiche è spesso e volentieri al di fuori del controllo del management. Addirittura all'interno della stessa casa discografica, in un determinato paese non si hanno informazioni certe su cosa sia stato o non sia stato fatto... affidabilità molto relativa, insomma, soprattutto in presenza di controprova manifesta!!
5) Un acetato NON E' un test-pressing. L'acetato è in acetato (appunto) su supporto metallico, inciso in presa diretta). Da un acetato si prepara il negativo metallico, il positivo metallico e lo stampatore metallico. Quest'ultimo diventa poi matrice con cui si pressano i dischi (in pvc). Un test pressing è un disco vero e proprio, in pvc.
6) Come ho già detto a Scott, un disco a 3 facciate (un radioshow della DIR, un King Biscuit Flower Hour, insomma) di Leicester/Manchester 1973 non esiste! Ciò che fu trasmesso a suo tempo (e immortalato dal bootleg in vinile Live at Carnagie Hall, ovviamente dal titolo sballato) è una bobina.
Il perchè poi in Olanda sia uscito un test pressing doppio, a distribuzione inesistente (e quindi verosimilmente ad uso di pochi dell'entourage) resta ancora tutto da spiegare. il che non significa affatto che quello che esiste non sia un disco vero e ufficiale al 100%
Per quanto sopra, non è affatto indimostrabile che sia vero... anzi è vero il contrario! [:)]
Ciao,
Last edited by
doktordyper on 23 Oct 2008, 14:17, edited 1 time in total.
I hope I die before I get old... talkin' 'bout my generation