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Post by tibby10 on Dec 5, 2009 20:51:53 GMT
never been able to decide which is the better or greater album.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2009 21:15:18 GMT
I prefer Under Wraps 11 to 6 ;D I prefer the original LP track order of Under Wraps: Side A 1. Lap Of Luxury 2. Under Wraps 3. European Legacy 4. Later That Same Evening 5. Saboteur 6. Radio Free Moscow Side B 7. Nobody's Car 8. Heat 9. Under Wraps 2 10. Paparazzi 11. Apogee On 'A' I like: 1. Crossfire 2. Working John, Working Joe 3. Black Sunday 4. Protect and Survive 5. The Pine Marten's Jig 6. And Further On
Cheers!
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Post by steelmonkey on Dec 5, 2009 21:41:13 GMT
I think I like Under Wraps better than A but Black Sunday is the best song on either.
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Post by maddogfagin on Dec 6, 2009 11:40:24 GMT
Under Wraps by a mile IMO. "A" has some great moments - Black Sunday, And Further On, Crossfire etc but Under Wraps is the album where IA was experimenting with new technology and new "visions" in his song writing. And of course it had the great Peter Vettese on keyboards - a former band member who I don't think has ever had the true recognition to the overall Tull sound that he so richly deserves.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2009 15:29:27 GMT
A Sunday thought: steelmonkey ROCKS!
I agree about "Black Sunday"
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Post by shindizzler on Dec 11, 2009 5:12:34 GMT
I like both. In fact, since I was a 16 year old latecomer to Tull (joining in at the same time as Rock Island came out and buying most of the available stuff in the first 6-8 months afterwards), I had no purists telling me what to like or not. I had the clarity to sort that stuff out for myself over the last 20 years now. I was intrigued the time I read that Martin B likes Under Wraps for listening enjoyment. That gave me some pause to listen to it more. I already liked a few songs from it but I began to think in terms of what that album would be like were it to sonically sound like a more respected album from the 70's band. That got me to listen past the sheen of the 80's era recording and equipment used and to find the song within. In the case of Under Wraps (and Walk Into Light), I found that I liked many of the songs at some level, and it was a fun mental exercise to imagine the arrangements being filled in with either acoustic textures as on Heavy Horses, or a few more electric guitar parts played through tube amps instead of the tinny sounding solid state crap that got recorded. Live drums with human feel... the usual classic Tull sound.
That said, I don't dislike those albums as they are; I'm glad they exist just as they are, and I've made my own connections with them over the years, identifying perhaps with other misfits and underdogs to help make my own way in the world. I like them because I feel that I had a chance to create my own relationship as a listener. UW in particular offers another take on a period which I experienced, albeit in 6th grade. Or, like so many Tull albums, I find myself running to dictionaries or Wikipedia or whatever else sheds light on some of the topics or words or ideas within. In that regard, both albums have done the same for me as SFTW and Aqualung has done, and that is laudable. Tull music has afforded me a de facto liberal education.
A is similar for me. That one took a long time to get into, but it sits among favorites from that decade or so from 1977-87, which really is constitutes my favorite Tull period, even though it is sort of considered "many" Tull periods. My own drumming never could match Mark Craney so that album got brushed aside for years, but eventually I began to see the genius in his drumming, and I might dare say that that album is the last Tull album that had really identifiable drumming. Now, I love Doane's work and count him among just a couple reasons I picked up the sticks but his playing on the albums was never as loose and adventurous as Mark's, even though they sort of hail from a similar background. I do happen to think that Mark was way too busy, or would be if the music was not written around him, but I find A to be unique not because of its "electronic" colors, but because the drumming is pretty much out of the jazz-fusion handbook more than the folk rock or blues book. I do appreciate that he and Dave gave the new Tull a rhythmic kick in the ass. But I am glad that all that got toned down when BatB came out too--an album I like just as much for other reasons. Eddie J is just too much star power for a band like Tull, so I am glad he came in and left Ian wanting for something different than his usual acoustic guitar and flute colors, and ready to welcome the stuff Peter could offer. It is just a shame that in addition to the sounds being electronic they were also pretty low fi compared to what we do with electronics now.
Back to the WIL and UW stuff though... When I hear them as songs, and not as battlegrounds for this debate among Tull fans, I hear Ian being Ian, exploring his world through little vignettes of song, observations of mundane things, or world crises. I also have to say that I think that the drums and rhythmic content carried on in some interesting ways, still trying to create interesting parts to support songs with varied feel and dynamics. Remember that with sequencers and quantizing, a lot of stuff got real stiff and boring, but listen to these albums. There certainly is that stiff feel in points, but there are other touches or even (perhaps) hand played parts that have rather more feel than simply programmed parts. They retain a bit more groove than a comparable track played for a dance setting. Songs like Toad in the Hole are in interesting meters too. Sure, the instrumental textures are a bit brash and cold, but I insist there is an Ian Anderson in there. I'd rather hear these albums than Too Old or Dot Com--the ones that to me smack of stagnation.
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chea
Master Craftsman
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Post by chea on Dec 11, 2009 13:05:00 GMT
Under Wraps is the album where IA was experimenting with new technology and new "visions" in his song writing. . Hi Maddog. That's true.When Under Wraps came out it was hardly criticized,and later also.Many people did'nt understand what you are explaining now whit your words. :)I like it because so different.Only very few are the songs it's hard for me to appreciate.Maybe Tundra or Astronomy....
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Post by shindizzler on Dec 14, 2009 1:05:47 GMT
Hey now... I actually like Tundra a lot. Chalk it up to my favoring the Tull orphans. I find something neat about the stuff that PJV brought to the table, aside from the synthesized nature of his work. I haven't launched into any detailed analysis of harmonic and melodic trends in Tull periods, but I find those things to pop a bit more in the Vettesse years. Certain of his ideas resonate with me in a way that the other players' ideas haven't. Maybe it was PJV being young and reckless like he was talking about, and excitedly throwing out all sorts of stuff in creative glee. I'm glad it happened, whatever it was. Sure, it would be out of place if Ian's concerns were still about the rural themes, but PJV complemented the more urban-political and technological concerns that were on Ian's mind at the time, and the music was written accordingly. Then of course, when Crest came out, Ian had the good sense to push all that stuff back for a while and use the most limited keyboardist he had available---himself---while he found himself new concerns again. The easy thing would have been to look up Palmer and say, yo, Gimme some strings and brass on this, but even that is beyond what Crest needed.
All that said, I think UW is among the last of the albums that had the greatest number of things going for it in terms of recording details. Sure the samples sound coarse and lo-fi compared to the 24 bit stuff now, but the recording as a whole is articulate and punchy. The vocals are richer sounding in their complexity and detail (he was experimenting I think with a few extra tracks freed up from not having a full drum kit to mic). It sounds like UW had someone actually bother to mix the thing and work in some details. Other later things like RTB and DotCom strike me as "faders up" mixes. It's hard for me to put a finger on it, but the later things sound like they were done in a bit more of a hurry, like some of what I said about the Christmas album being something thrown together by whoever was in town that day. It is a measure of sonic lushness, as in, with Heavy Horses, say, there are seemingly more detailed overdubs of guitars and mandolins--beyond the number that could be played by the band in a live setting--in contrast to the newer albums which have a more stripped down appeal and don't seem as detailed. I began to notice this when A Little Light Music and the 1992 re-recordings came out. They sound good, but it is clearly a live band and a rather straight mix with the requisite effects and the most necessary overdubs. Kind of naked, sez me. RTB and Dot Com had a similar formula. The Christmas album is sort of like that but those songs were already tried and true in several cases, so I have earlier ones to consult.
Overall, the matter is one of why one records in the first place. Ian records so that songs can be recorded and documented, not so that his mixing chops can be put on display. I haven't read liner notes in a long time, but being as busy as he is, with all the hats he wears, it isn't hard to see how he wouldn't work a mix the same way as a dedicated mixing engineer. Of course, the mix alone does not seal the connection to the listener, but it doesn't hurt to go for it if possible. Most of us can listen to a fuzzy and dull live recording and fall in love with it if the material is good, but for the anticipation and money we pay to get a new album, it's nice when there is some spit and polish. My feeling is that the last decade and a half of newly recorded output has been rather rushed sounding since records have been increasingly wedged into days off from world tours and the like.
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chea
Master Craftsman
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Post by chea on Dec 14, 2009 7:47:06 GMT
Hi Shindizzler. These one are a very interesting and deepened opinions. :)Do you play any musical instruments?
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Post by shindizzler on Dec 14, 2009 8:46:18 GMT
Um, not like I used to, and not as well as I would if I had the discipline. But a younger me did the personal studio exploration extravaganza and employed my first instrument, drums, and the various other things I needed to use and had accumulated functional knowledge of--guitars, keys, vocals. I worked as an audio engineer for a while and regularly saw bands of some variety doing their working thing. Got a worthy education from that exposure, my own dabblings for self and friends, and some self-guided study of the basics of musicianship. Finished a retail-ready CD of my stuff in 2001, but never went anywhere. Used to live and breathe this $h1t, but have since had other agenda in life.
But still dig Tull since high school. These days I play more mp3s than drums or guitar. What can I say?
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Post by maddogfagin on Dec 16, 2009 18:39:35 GMT
Back in 1980 I worked in Sutton, Surrey with a guy called Phil who's sister worked for Jo Lustig. Knowing my fondness for Tull, she sent me a small "booklet" (amongst other things) with the usual history of the band etc. More of interest at the time was IA's thoughts about the individual songs on "A" and this is what was written.
IAN ANDERSON TALKS ABOUT THE NEW 'A' ALBUM AND THE NEW JETHRO TULL LINE-UP
Most of the songs were specially written for the new album. Some were written in the three weeks between the last Jethro Tull tour and starting work on the album, and quite a lot of them were written in the rehearsal room while the album was being recorded. Although I had some material in hand, I wanted to have enough flexibility and freedom to move into other sorts of musical fields after I had started to work with the people on the album. In the past quite a lot of material has been written while on tour. But this time I think only about four songs written this way appear on this album, because I found that working with these particular elements of the band it was quite refreshing to be able to write a song in the morning, rehearse it in the afternoon and record it at night. This album is not arranged in that it has more spontaneity than previous Jethro Tull albums. The musical line-up on this particular album is one that allows for that approach.
With the song Crossfire I had the title with some idea about the lyrics and we were actually rehearsing the track when my wife Shona came rushing in and said that the Iranian Embassy in London has been seiged. We all stopped rehearsing and came to watch it on the television. Then the next morning before the others arrived for rehearsal I wrote all the lyrics. So although it was kind of aimed in that direction anyway, when this particular thing happened on the news I filled in the missing words.
Fylingdale Flyer was also provided by a news story about the last time the Americans had a slight hitch with one of their early warning systems and they thought the Russians had provoked an attack. It's sung from the point of view of those gays at the Fylingdale Early Warning Station in Yorkshire. They think, well there's a missile coming across but it's only half way to America, we've still got a bit of time left to work out whether it's serious or not and "time for a last game of bowls" which is just what Sir Francis Drake did in 1588 when he was told that the Spanish Armada has been sighted off Plymouth Hoe;
Working John, Working Joe is one of the songs that's about 2 or 3 years old and which was written at the time when a lot of flack was being thrown at the middle class by the unions. This is a slightly tongue-in-cheek song suggesting that the chap who is the white collar worker, a director of a company, has the same hard slog day to day as the chap on the shop floor. He may drive to work, but he gets stuck in traffic jams just the same, and the price he has to pay for his greater degree of wealth is ulcers and heart disease.
I wrote the lyrics to Black Sunday just before I went on tour, which is the sort of sound it has, although I tried to write it in the kind of way that anybody would feel if they were going off to work and always wondering if, when they come back, they will find things the way they left them. It is just full of the kind of images that I see when I travel.
Protect And Survive is a title taken from the Government pamphlet of the same name which, in the event of a nuclear attack, gives a very skeletal rundown on what to do. It is a slightly tongue-in-cheek dig at the Government for not having given us enough information and for treating us in a very down market way. The sentiments of the song are not necessarily my own, but the way that I would expect an average person to react upon reading that sort of pamphlet, especially in the aftermath of a nuclear attack.
Batteries Not Included is a bit macabre really. A child wakes up on Christmas morning to find this fabulous mechanical toy at the bottom of his bed, but it doesn't work because the batteries were not included. During the period of time that he is assessing its lack of life as being due to that fact he identifys with the toy so strongly that when his parents wake up they find he has become like the toy and he's switched off as well. On this track my son Jamie makes his recording debut.
The Pine Marten's Jig is a traditional sounding piece of music, but it employs a lot of fairly tricky little time signature pieces, and the instrumentation - mandolins and violin - although fairly traditional, here have an end result of being quite an electric thing,,
The song Uniforms is again a slightly tongue-in-cheek comment on the fact that we all dress up, we all undertake roles in society according to the clothes we wear. There are not many people who tend to express their individuality in terms of dress: they tend to conform to various social groupings, and they are severely in uniforms just as much as a soldier or a policeman.
4-W.D. (low Ratio) is just about having an affinity for four-wheel drive vehicles. I thought it nice to have a song about that, and it's spelt that way to avoid confusion with another song on the same subject which is nothing like ours musically.
And Further On is one of those ambiguous, wistful things that have a private and personal connotation for the author, but a broad enough imagery, hopefully, to work in different ways for different listeners.
To specifically explain my understanding of the lyric would be to rob the individual of his right to a personal interpretation! I suppose it really serves as a musical and lyrical postscript to the rest of the songs on the album.
On tour we'll obviously be playing the songs that are well known Jethro Tull classics that people expect us to play. If I went go see the Kinks, Led Zeppelin, The Who or Frank Sinatra, I'd be upset if they didn't play those one or two songs that to me are "the ones" and that are still magic no matter how many times I hear them. So I assume people feel the same way about Jethro Tull.
To two of the band it's a completely new show. In the past we have had the core of the material from the past and rehearsing it was just sort of stimulating the memory buds again, but this time we're going to have to put a lot more work into rehearsing the show. Two thirds of the show will be relatively new material. There might be half an hour to 40 minutes worth of material that people are familiar with from previous Jethro Tull line-ups, but there will be all of the new album, and there will be some more new material specially written for the tour, plus members of the band doing solo spots which are their contribution pieces which they will have written or put together.
I am sure that in terms of our presentation on stage well probably move a little bit away from the kind of thing Jethro Tull has been doing in the past and which tends to be a bit historical. It's always felt, and 1 am sure it looked like, we were low-key "Village People" on stage being dressed up in very definitive styles of clothing that had nothing to do with each other. With this album being a tight and quickly put together affair, there is a validity in presenting this in a more uniform sort of basis since the group does play well as a group and will make more of a contribution as a group on stage. Once we get up there, my part of the thing is just one of the group. I may be more to the fore than the others, but it's still a group entity and it's all a great irony considering the fact that the album was supposed to be a solo album in the first place. It's turned out to be more of a group album than many of the previous Jethro Tull albums,
lan Anderson London - July 1980
ps. Any spelling errors are down to the ABBYY FineReader "thingy" on my scanner. Well that's my excuse.
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Dan
Journeyman
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Post by Dan on Dec 17, 2009 2:26:15 GMT
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Post by jeffrey on Dec 17, 2009 23:44:57 GMT
thanks for the details of those a songs maddog
very informative for those of us who havnt got the tour program
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