Five Cool Things And A Larch

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I thought I had previously posted a bunch of my Five Cool Things articles, but it appears that is not true. So, I thought I’d return to the beginning and post the first one I wrote. Before I started writing these articles for Cinema Sentries I had a separate blog where I was writing about the things I was enjoying every day.

It was just for fun, like I said earlier it was a way of bringing a little joy into a dark world. I did it enough that I wanted to bring it to a larger audience, hence Cinema Sentries. The owner of the site liked the idea but we struggled with a title for it. I knew I wanted to do more than just one cool thing per article and somehow we landed on five things and then we added the “And…”. As a joke my friend decided the first article should be And…a Larch (don’t ask me why.)

And here we are. It is fun reading these old articles and see the things I was enjoying back then. This first one was written in January of 2017. That seems a lifetime ago. You can check it out here.

Five Cool Things and David Lynch

twin peakst

I used to write an article for Cinema Sentries entitled “Five Cool Things And…” the “And” being a sixth cool thing that worked as a way of making the title unique and usually highlighting something current (whereas many of the other things were rather old.).

I took what I thought was going to be a short break during the Pandemic. Nearly four years later I’m finally writing it again.

The basic idea is to highlight interesting and fun (and cool) things I’ve consumed over the last couple of weeks. I like the idea of sharing a little joy in these dark times.

My first one just landed and you can read it here.

Queen – Newcastle, England (07/09/86)

Queen
1986.07.09
Newcastle, St James Park

ONE SWEET MOMENT

Quality : Amazing

Lineage: “One Sweet Moment” (silvers) > WAV (EAC) > FLAC (TLH Level 8)
except track 07 from CD2 (Hammer To Fall) : “One Sweet Moment” (silvers) > WAV (Windows Media Player) >
FLAC (TLH Level 8)

Comments :
No surprises in the setlist. Now I’m Here (Reprise) has worse sound than the rest of the concert, so I think
it comes from another source. It has almost the whole recording a very stable sound with no major problems.
A funny moment during Tutti Frutti when Roger is a bit too late on the drums to start the heavier part of
the song. This is the complete concert.

Tacklisting :

CD1 :

  1. One Vision
  2. Tie Your Mother Down
  3. In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited
  4. Seven Seas Of Rhye
  5. Tear It Up
  6. A Kind Of Magic
  7. Days O
  8. Under Pressure
  9. Another One Bites The Dust
  10. Who Wants To Live Forever
  11. I Want To Break Free
  12. Impromptu
  13. Guitar Solo
  14. Now I’m Here

CD2 :

  1. Love Of My Life
  2. Is This The World We Created?
  3. (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care
  4. Hello Mary Lou
  5. Tutti Frutti
  6. Bohemian Rhapsody
  7. Hammer To Fall
  8. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
  9. Radio Ga Ga
  10. We Will Rock You
  11. Friends Will Be Friends
  12. We Are The Champions
  13. God Save The Queen

U2 – Santiago, Chile (10/14/17)

U2
Estadio Nacional
Santiago de Chile, Chile
October 14, 2017

SETLIST

01- Intro (The whole of the moon)
02-Sunday Bloody Sunday
03-New Year’s Day
04-Bad/Heroes
05-Pride (In The Name Of Love)
06-Where The Streets Have No Name
07-I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
08-With Or Without You
09-Bullet The Blue Sky
10-Running To Stand Still
11-Red Hill Mining Town
12-In God’s Country
13-Trip Through Your Wires
14-One Tree Hill
15-Exit
16-Mothers Of The Disappeared
17-Beautiful Day
18-Elevation
19-Vertigo
20-You’re The Best Thing About Me
21-Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
22-One

Talking Heads – Seattle, WA (12/02/83)

Talking Heads
December 02, 1983
Seattle Center Arena
Seattle, WA


MS Archive Series No. 7 Via JEMS

Taper: MS
Source: Nakamichi 700’s > Sony TC-D5M
Audio Transfer: MS master cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A (azimuth-adjusted) > Sound Devices USBPre2 (24/96 Audacity 2.0 capture) > iZotope MBIT+ convert to 16/44.1
Mastering (BLG): Adobe Audition > Izotope Ozone 5 > WavePad (tracking) > xACT (tags) > FLAC

Setlist:
01 Psycho Killer
02 Heaven
03 Thank You For Sending Me an Angel
04 Love -> Building On Fire
05 The Book I Read
06 Slippery People
07 Cities
08 Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open)
09 Burning Down the House
10 Life During Wartime
11 Making Flippy Floppy
12 Swamp
13 What a Day That Was
14 This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
15 Once in a Lifetime
16 Big Business
17 I Zimbra
18 Houses in Motion
19 Genius of Love
20 Girlfriend Is Better
21 Take Me To the River
22 Cross-Eyed and Painless

Total Time: 123:02

JEMS is pleased to continue our series of master transfer releases from our longtime comrade, MS.

MS started his taping in the late ’70s, and while he was extremely active covering the Grateful Dead out west, he branched beyond as well, recording hundreds of shows over the last 35 years. His base rig was a pair of Nakamichi 700 microphones (often on a pole) and a Sony D5 recorder, and with his years of experience taping the Dead, he worked harder than many to find the sweet spot and get his mics up and away from the audience when possible. He doubled up several shows that JEMS also recorded, but often times MS had the superior location and the better gear.

The MS Archive series resumes with a terrific sounding Talking Heads show from 1983 that’s superior to JEMS previously torrented recording of the same show. Yes, yes, the set list is ostensibly identical to soundtrack to Stop Making Sense, but that was the nature of this tour and doesn’t detract from a performance that made a huge impression on me when I was in high school. In fact, I attended this show and took the SATs the next morning.

Thanks to BLG for his help in mastering and finishing this recording. With his help, our releases from the MS archive should accelerate.

BK for JEMS

Queen – London, England (07/11-12/86)

Queen
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium, London, UK
July 11, 1986 (discs 1 & 2); July 12, 1986 (discs 3 & 4)



Number: WARDOUR-096
Source: Silvers > EAC > WAV > jetAudio > FLAC

A brand new release from Wardour. This time they’ve released a 4 CD-set which contains both famous Wembley shows from July 1986.

The first night is the same old source, but from a much lower generation tape, as the old version had worse quality. This version sounds much better.

The second night is a new source, taped right near the stage in great quality. You can hear the whole concert performed as live as it was in fact, without all those overdubs present on the official releases.

Disc 1
01 One Vision
02 Tie Your Mother Down
03 In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited
04 Seven Seas Of Rhye
05 Tear It Up
06 A Kind Of Magic
07 Day-O
08 Under Pressure
09 Another One Bites The Dust
10 Who Wants To Live Forever
11 I Want To Break Free
12 Impromptu
13 Guitar Solo
14 Now I’m Here

Disc 2
01 Love Of My Life
02 Is This The World We Created?
03 (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care
04 Hello Mary Lou
05 Tutti Frutti
06 Bohemian Rhapsody
07 Hammer To Fall
08 Crazy Little Thing Called Love
09 Radio Ga Ga
10 We Will Rock You
11 Friends Will Be Friends
12 We Are The Champions
13 God Save The Queen

Disc 3
01 One Vision
02 Tie Your Mother Down
03 In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited
04 Seven Seas Of Rhye
05 Tear It Up
06 A Kind Of Magic
07 Day-O
08 Under Pressure
09 Another One Bites The Dust
10 Who Wants To Live Forever
11 I Want To Break Free
12 Impromptu
13 Guitar Solo
14 Now I’m Here

Disc 4
01 Love Of My Life
02 Is This The World We Created?
03 (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care
04 Hello Mary Lou
05 Tutti Frutti
06 Gimme Some Lovin’
07 Bohemian Rhapsody
08 Hammer To Fall
09 Crazy Little Thing Called Love
10 Big Spender
11 Radio Ga Ga
12 We Will Rock You
13 Friends Will Be Friends
14 We Are The Champions
15 God Save The Queen

The Substance is the New Blu-ray Pick of the Week

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I have a friend on Bluesky who I used to know in real life. And by used to know I mean he was a coworker some fifteen years back. We were friendly back then but not exactly friends. I mean we didn’t hang out outside of work or anything. We’ve stayed in touch via social media and once in a while, we’ll have a little chat.

The other day, he messaged me asking if I’d seen The Substance and what I thought. I still haven’t, but as soon as I do, I’ll give him my notes.

I love that. I love that someone I worked with for over a decade is still asking me my opinion on social media. There is a lot wrong with the world right now (and certainly social media is a large part of that) but there is still plenty of cool things.

The Substance is a horror movie about an aging actress using some kind of specialized drug to make herself appear more young and beautiful. Demi Moore has been getting rave reviews. It also stars Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid. That’s all I want to know about it but I can’t wait to finally get to watch it.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

Love and Crime: Radiance Films keeps putting out really good films that I’ve never heard of all wrapped up in beautifully produced packages. This one tells four short stories about four famous Japanese murders.

Kill Bill Vol. 1&2, Jackie Brown: Three Quentin Tarantino films are getting cool-looking 4K UHD releases.

Smile 2: This fun horror sequel is getting a cool-looking 4K UHD steelbook release.

The Cell: Arrow Video is releasing this visually arresting thriller in 4K UHD. I don’t remember much about it other than was visually interesting but kind of confusing. So this might be the perfect time to revisit it.

The Grifters: John Cusack stars in this Crime Drama as a man torn between his mother (Angelica Huston) and his girlfriend (Anette Benning) both of whom are notorious grifters. Criterion has the release.

The Rolling Stones – East Rutherford, NJ (11/06/81)

The Rolling Stones
Brendan Byrne Arena
Meadowlands Sports Complex
East Rutherford, NJ, USA
November 06, 1981

Five Stones Ready To Roll

1-1 Take The A Train ~ Under My Thumb
1-2 When The Whip Comes Down
1-3 Let’s Spend The Night Together
1-4 Shattered
1-5 Neighbours
1-6 Black Limousine
1-7 Just My Imagination
1-8 Twenty Flight Rock
1-9 Going To A Go Go
1-10 Let Me Go
1-11 Time Is On My Side
1-12 Beast Of Burden
1-13 Waiting On A Friend
1-14 Let It Bleed
2-1 You Can’t Always Get What You Want
2-2 Band Introduction
2-3 Little T & A
2-4 Tumbling Dice
2-5 She’s So Cold
2-6 All Down The Line
2-7 Hang Fire
2-8 Miss You
2-9 Start Me Up
2-10 Honky Tonk Women *
2-11 Brown Sugar
2-12 Jumping Jack Flash
2-13 (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
2-14 Outro : Star Spangled Banner

*w/Tina Turner

The Beatles – Hamburg, Germany (12/xx/62) Three-Thirty Blues

The Beatles
Star Club
Hamburg, Germany
December 1962
Three-Thirty Blues

1 Falling In Love Again
2 Twist And Shout (Incomplete)
3 I’m Talking About You
4 Ask Me Why
5 I Remember You (Incomplete)
6 Besame Mucho
7 Long Tall Sally
8 Mr Moonlight
9 I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)
10 Chat
11 Road Runner (Warm-Up)
12 Chat
13 A Taste of Honey
14 Money (Tony Sheridan)
15 Sparkling Brown Eyes (King Size Taylor & The Dominos)
16 Lovesick Blues (King Size Taylor & The Dominos)
17 First Taste of Love (King Size Taylor & The Dominos)
18 Dizzy Miss Lizzy (King Size Taylor & The Dominos)
19 Hully Gully (Cliff Bennet & The Rebel Rousers)

The Beatles – London, England (01/01/62)

THE BEATLES
THE DECCA TAPES
The Definitive Edition
January 01, 1962
Decca Studios
West Hampstead, London, England

Remasters Workshop RMW 540

Pitch, level and phase corrected January 14, 2010 from the CD on Masterdisc 005.

OK, Beatle Peetle, this is it! The Decca Tapes…at the honest-to-(insert your favorite deity here) right speed, at last, no foolin’.

Despite what they all said about their Decca Tapes being speed-corrected, they were all wrong. These tracks have always been at the wrong pitch on every single issue – Deccagone, Circuit, Yellow Dog (twice), Vigotone, Masterdisc… but this issue is guaranteed to have these recordings running at A=440 on every track. Each has been played against the grand piano preset on a Korg M50 workstation, and adjusted to match in Adobe Audition 3. Even if the group were not precisely tuned to concert pitch when they played it, they are now. You can play your instrument with all the songs without having to retune or being even a hair sharp or flat.

The source used here is the Masterdisc CD. It sounded the best out of all the other issues, and had no noise reduction, except that it ran a semitone sharp, with some variations. There was a small imbalance in level between channels – that’s fixed. Not a fraction of a second of audio is added or taken away.

Two fixes have been performed. The first note of “Hello Little Girl” ramped down in speed from a higher pitch. That has been straightened out. And the folks at Masterdisc had combined the channels of their tape to mono. This was fine because their playback was in phase to begin with. But on “Searchin'” there were two spots right next to each other where the phase was out for a very short time, as it had the telltale swishing of phase cancellations. Those have been patched with audio from the Vigotone CD “March 5, 1963 plus The Decca Tape.”

That iteration was horribly out of phase due to azimuth misalignment during digital transfer; it was at the wrong speed (which was fixed), and it has a ton of noise reduction applied, which dulled the high end and rolled off the bass. Even after phase correction, it was still brighter in the left and duller in the right, evidence of multiple-generation dubbing on different tape machines. So the two fragments needed for the patches are taken from the left channel, and re-equalized to match the Masterdisc sound as closely as possible. It worked out so well that you’ll never hear it when the patches go by (the patches are less than a second in total).

Barring another issue from even closer to the master, this is about as good as it gets for the Decca Tapes.

Track list:

01 Like Dreamers Do (2:35)
02 Money (That’s What I Want) (2:24)
03 To Know Her Is To Love Her (2:36)
04 Memphis (2:21)
05 ‘Til There Was You 3:01
06 Sure To Fall (In Love With You) (2:05)
07 Besame Mucho (2:40)
08 Love Of The Loved (1:51)
09 Hello Little Girl (1:39)
10 Three Cool Cats (2:24)
11 September In The Rain (1:55)
12 Take Good Care Of My Baby (2:29)
13 Crying, Waiting, Hoping (2:02)
14 The Sheik Of Araby (1:41)
15 Searchin’ (3:05)

Artwork is included.

Please preserve the lossless quality of this material.

Enjoy!

Uploaded to Demonoid on January 14, 2010.

Remasters Workshop
RMW 540