The Bonus Discs – The Dark Side of the Moon

By my quick count, this is at least the fourth time The Dark Side of the Moon has been remastered since it was first mastered for CD in 1986, so the first question is, Have they got it right yet?  As the documentary on the second DVD points out, the original version included many third-generation takes.  In other words, all the tracks on the tape had been used up, so these were mixed down to another tape so more parts could be added.  The 30th anniversary remaster fixed this by going back to the original takes and synching them all together, meaning that each individual part is of the highest possible quality.  This latest remaster isn’t quite as loud as the 2003 version but you have to listen very carefully to hear any major difference.

Beyond that, there isn’t much more to say about the main album.  I mean, it’s The Dark Side of the flippin’ Moon, mate!  If you don’t know what to expect, then I’ll let you get back to figuring out how to get off the desert island you’ve been stuck on for the last 40 years.

So, to the other discs, and they really have got it right with this set.  Six discs, six versions and roughly six hours of content may seem like overkill for a 42 minute album but the reality is that any fan who wants one of these versions is going to want all of them so it makes sense to collect every version that’s been available over the years in the one place.  Although some of the versions have been previously available, the multi-channel mixes haven’t exactly been easy to play.

Disc 2, the live performance from 1974 (also available on the “experience edition”) is probably the most expendable disc in the set.  Don’t expect anything like Pulse.  It’s interesting to hear Dark Side performed live by all the people who made it, without an 11-piece band and all the production values of modern concerts, but it’s more of an historical curio than something that will reward continued listening.

On Disc 3, things start to get really interesting.  This DVD contains three different versions of the album in 5 different streams.  There’s the original mix of the album in 48kHz LPCM stereo and two multi-channel versions.  The 5.1 surround version is the mix that was created for the 30th anniversary edition in 2003.  Unfortunately, it was only ever available on SACD which made it difficult for most of us to hear the surround version.  Releasing it on DVD means many more will be able to hear it.  What’s even more interesting is the original quadraphonic version.  Dark Side was originally mixed for quad but since quadraphonic equipment did about as well in the 70s as SACD did in the in the noughties, few got to hear the album as intended.  For well over ten years the technology has been available to make original quad mixes available in a format that anyone with a surround system can play.  There are several ’blogs around that do digital decodings of original quad LPs that are often better than many CD remasters.  I don’t understand why more artists and/or record companies haven’t taken advantage of this niche market.  Personally, I prefer the quad mix, but it’s all a matter of taste of course.
The 5.1 and quad versions are in Dolby format at the regular bitrate of 448kbps and also the higher quality 640kbps bitrate.  Higher quality DTS or DVD-A options are not available, but all versions are on the Blu-Ray disc in 24-bit 96kHz high resolution.

The fourth disc contains the audio/visual material, which comes in three parts.  It starts with live performances of Careful With That Axe, Eugene and Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, filmed live in Brighton in 1972.  It’s hard to see why they included this.  The only way it relates to Dark Side is that it appears to be the same show that some of the tracks in Disc 6 were recorded at.  Other than that, these spacey jam pieces from earlier days seem completely out of place here.   There is also a 25-minute documentary made for the 30th anniversary edition, previously only available to the media, but the real highlight of the disc is the concert screen films.  Some parts have been seen before on Pulse but this features restored film in full screen, not circular as was shown at the concerts.  The full films from the British, French and US tours are included and it’s all very interesting experimental filmmaking in its own right.  The music comes mostly from the studio mixes, with some tweaking, especially in the extended Speak to Me.  There is also an additional section in the films from the French tour called Assorted Lunatics which has only the spoken-word parts without music.   The audio is PCM stereo or Dolby 5.1 (not quad, which would be more authentic as the band toured with a quad PA) but this is something of a side-issue as the music fades out as soon as each film clip ends. 

The Blu-ray disc contains everything on both DVDs, but in high definition and with high resolution audio.  This means that if you have a Blu-ray player, the DVDs are basically redundant but they have done well to supply the multi-channel and video content in formats that suit everyone’s systems and don’t force people to upgrade just to access content that is exclusive to the Blu-ray.

Many of the “wow!” moments are saved for the last disc.  The main part of the disc is a complete early mix of the album from 1972.  Although clearly unfinished compared to what we are familiar with now, even if the album were released in this form, it would still have become a classic.  The most notable differences are in Richard Wright’s two pieces.  The Great Gig In The Sky does not yet have the vocals of Clare Torry (who is now credited with Vocal Composition) and Us And Them is a very sparse arrangement without the guitar arpeggio.  Eclipse features some lovely guitar lines that ended up buried in the final mix.

The remainder of the final disc is a collection of alternate versions and out-takes.  Two pieces from a 1972 live performance (when the suite was called Eclipse) indicate that they knew exactly what they wanted to do.  The Travel Sequence and the Mortality Sequence would eventually become On The Run and The Great Gig In The Sky, respectively.  There is also a studio version of The Travel Sequence which is less of a bluesy jam than the live version and more like an unused theme for Top Gear. 
The Hard Way is taken from the Household Objects project, which would later become Wish You Were Here, which makes one wonder why it was included here.  It doesn’t immediately sound like Pink Floyd, which was the point of course.  In fact, if you didn’t know better, you’d think the track was much newer than it really is.  Finally, there are two demo tracks.  Richard Wright’s solo demo of Us And Them is beautiful just on its own, and Roger Waters’ demo of Money sounds like a demo. 

Worth paying extra for?
For the music, absolutely!  However, whether it’s worth buying a 12-inch box, two photo books, replica concert tickets and backstage passes, a facsimile of Roger Waters’ hand-written interview questions, a cheap looking cotton scarf, nine cardboard coasters and (I am not making this up) three marbles in a bag, plus a new coffee table to store the whole lot on, will depend on the individual.

Money - 1986 CD release

Money - 20th Anniversary Edition

Money - 30th Anniversary Edition

Money - 2011 remaster

    

   

  

Of droughts and flooding rains

Not long after I started this moderately amusing waste of time, I wrote briefly of a visit to Ballarat.  When I was there in January 2008, Lake Wendouree had dried up in the drought and the lake needed mowing in some places.  When I went there again a year later, a grass fire had started in the lake. 

This is old news, but thanks to recycled water and some massive deluges, Lake Wendouree is being rehabilitated. 

I think the locals are happy about it too

Soundtrack to the trip:

Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me
Le Show
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
Bang! - World Party
Thirty Three & ⅓ - George Harrison
The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby and the Range
All That You Can’t Leave Behind - U2
Australian Idle - Tim Freedman

  
 

Three suggestions for the ALP’s membership drive

As part of the ALP National Conference, Julia Gillard has announced a target of 8,000 new members.  Here are some suggestions if they want to reach that target:

Try being the Labor Party.
The main reason that so many have abandoned Labor in favour of the Greens is that they see in the Greens what they used to see in Labor.  While it’s right and proper to pitch to the centre, you have to realise that you are the centre and that for every wavering Liberal voter you pick up, you’re going to lose two to the Greens.  Be the party you say you are.

Stop accepting the Liberals’ narrative.
You have allowed the Liberals to turn the idea of a budget surplus into a national fetish and done nothing to capitalise on the fact that the Hawke-Keating government practically invented budget surpluses as something that could reasonably be expected in a good year.

Of course a budget surplus is an honourable aim but there’s a time and place for such things.  Delivering a small, technical surplus just so that you can say you did does not impress anyone and only plays into the opposition’s hands.   The situation is summed up in a tweet by the brilliant Shock Jock Coach:

It’s like you’re trying to impress the Liberal Party’s girlfriend.  “Oh, you like a budget surplus, huh? Sure, I can do that!  Wanna see it?”  She’s only going to laugh at you and vote Liberal anyway.  Let it go.  You know who else said good leadership was about taking unpopular but necessary decisions?  John Howard!  But you probably won’t throw that back at the Liberals either.

Decide once and for all whether you want a leader or just a front-person.
The documentary Labor in Power recalls the time Kim Beazley – not the most intimidating man even in his most passionate moments – stood over Bob Hawke during a cabinet meeting impasse and said, “Bob, you’re our leader, now bloody well lead!” 

“Old jellyback,” as he was later dubbed by Paul Keating was so concerned with popularity and consensus that he couldn’t pick a side when he needed to.  Keating – who is seen by generation-X through through the same rose-coloured glasses as many baby-boomers view Whitlam through – had far less qualms about setting the agenda, but what the Keating fan club forgets is that the only election he won was the one where he was opposing John Hewson’s Fightback policy.  Three years later, when John Howard offered absolutely nothing other than that he wasn’t Paul Keating, the Liberals won in a landslide.  It didn’t help that your own advertising admitted that Keating’s hubris was toxic with the “You don’t have to like him, but you’ve got to respect him,” line. 

Beazley took none of his own advice as leader in opposition, adopting policies that offered so little difference to Howard’s that it was hardly worth changing the stationery for.  Latham had all the mongrel of Keating but little of the substance. 

In Kevin Rudd you had someone with the vision to lead, the substance to back it up and could pull it all off without insulting people.  So naturally, you ditched him for being…, well, a leader.  Rudd’s so-called micro-management and lack of consultation was replaced by Julia Gillard who immediately started talking about what “I” have done, what “I” have decided and what “I” will do, and the result was a hung parliament and wishy-washy approximations of Labor policy.  Under the current leadership, the apology to the stolen generations would surely have been watered down to an expression of regret, ratifying Kyoto would have become in-principle support and the masterstroke of guaranteeing the banks at the beginning of the global financial crisis (which resulted in Australia becoming a safe haven for cash from all over the world) probably wouldn’t have been thought of.

The ALP, like the country as a whole, wants a combination of leadership and consultation and can’t quite come to terms with the fact that these two qualities are not always compatible.  There is a crisis in leadership in the ALP, but it’s less to do with any particular leader and more to do with the powerbrokers not being able to make their bloody minds up.

Address these fundamental issues, and you might stand a chance at winning people over, or back.
 

Why So Surprised?

Or, Obligatory Kyle Sandilands ’blog

That Kyle Sandilands is an idiot and a creep is beyond question.  It’s a truth self evident.  Therefore, it’s somewhat curious that we are still shocked when he offers more evidence.  It must take a special kind of talent for a known prat to find new and shocking ways of being a prat.

As far as I can work out, Sandilands first came to national prominence when he replaced Ian “Dicko” Dickson as judge on Australian Idol.  Dickson himself had been cast as the Simon Cowell character on the judging panel* - the mean one who tells the contestants exactly how crap they are.  When Dickson left, it became Sandilands job to make the contestants cry.  He is literally a professional arsehole.  So why are we so shocked when he does what he was employed to do?

Apparently, he’s done it again, saying nasty things about a journalist who bagged his latest television venture with his ever-present sidekick Jackie O (or Henderson, to her family).  Compared to some of his other stunts, it’s pretty mild.  The most notable thing about it, ought to be the irony that a man who made his name telling people their acts are shit should throw such a hissy fit over someone telling him that his act is shit. 

I watched all of twenty seconds of his show.  I switched over out of voyeuristic curiosity and switched off as soon as he said Justin Beiber would be coming up to the sounds of obviously canned applause.  So, Sandilands and “O” hosted a shit show, journalist says it’s a shit show, Sandilands chucks a tantrum, move on.

Maybe it’s because he attacked a journalist in the employment of News Ltd that Sandilands is copping just as much abuse for being who he is as he did during the infamous, “lie detector” segment when a teenage girl was hooked up to a lie detector on live radio and quizzed by her mother about her sexual experiences.  When she revealed that she had been raped, Sandilands broke the uncomfortable silence with, “Right… is that the only experience you’ve had?”

I’m going to be controversial here and give Sandilands a pass on that particular incident.  Why?  Because it is absolutely impossible that he could have been solely responsible for that stunt.  It would have to have been approved by the show’s producers, the co-host, Miss O, who inexplicably goes uncriticised in all of this, the station and network’s legal departments, not to mention the girl’s own mother.  The outrage is that such an idiotic stunt ever got as far as it did.  I’ll forgive Sandilands for that stupid follow-up question because it’s entirely understandable that a person like he is, would react to the realisation that he’d bitten off more than he can chew by vomiting all over the desk.  The fact is that Sandilands is employed to be who he is.  Blaming him for being a dickhead is like blaming a dog for wagging its tail.  The real culprits are his enablers.

Two questions have come up both then and now:

Why would anyone employ him?
Well, duh!  He rates!  So long as he rates, he’s going to have a job.  If media outlets only employed people who made a rational and responsible contribution to public discourse, three quarters of the media would be unemployed.  The station doesn’t care if people tune in because they hate Sandilands, just so long as they are listening and hearing the ads the station is paid to play.

Why does anyone sponsor his show?
Duh! See above.  Holden and The Good Guys have so far pulled his ads from his show.  Mind you, Qantas pulled their ads after the lie detector but Sandilands and “O” (who, it must be remembered, is every bit as responsible for the content of the show as Sandilands) still have a show that is popular enough for them to try and make the crossover to television.

Sandilands and “O” do what they do for the same reason Alan Jones does: it pulls the punters. 
If you have to blame someone, don’t just blame Sandilands for behaving the only way he knows how, blame those who encourage it by producing the show or by listening to it. 
Also, ask yourself how disgraceful the program has to be before Miss O’s self respect finally kicks in and she decides she’s better than that.


* I’ve never watched the horrible show, but you just can’t help learning these things sometimes.
  
 

How to make a speech to a gathering of Australian MPs

Governor General, Prime Minister, the Honourable Leader of the Opposition, distinguished guests,
Thank you for this warm welcome, and… Gidday! [pause for applause]

Our country has no greater friend than Australia.  We are, great mates.  [pause for applause]
And we have shared this great friendship since each of our countries were knee high to a grasshopper.

Whether it was [old tragedy] or [more recent tragedy] or [current challenge] Australia was always there to say, “no worries, [pause] “she’ll be right.” [pause for applause]

I am fortunate to share a deep personal friendship with your prime minister.  I can say without hesitation or fear of contradiction that he/she is a top bloke/sheila*.  [pause for laughter and applause, smile and wink at PM]
You know he/she can always be relied on to be fair dinkum.

There are of course, times when we don’t see eye-to-eye on everything.  If I live to be a hundred, I’ll still never understand the rules of cricket or how the heck you can eat vegemite.  [pause for laughter and applause]

But I know that we stand as one on what’s really important: courage… loyalty… freedom… mateship. [pause for quiet murmurings of agreement]

I thank you again for your friendship to our country and your hospitality during my stay in your great country.  You have been bonza.  [brief pause for laughter]  A little ripper!  [longer pause]

I look forward to a continuation of the special relationship between our two countries, and may God bless the people of Australia. 
[move to sit down, return as applause begins]
Cheers!

   
  
*Be sure to check which of these applies at the time

   

 

Time to Call the Quit Line – For Good

I support any effort to reduce smoking, but I have to say that the latest law to regulate how cigarettes are packaged makes me uncomfortable. In fact, it brings out a libertarian streak in me. I think that restrictions on the display of cigarettes and the warnings on the packets are already as strict as they can reasonably be.

For five years now, explicit pictures and warnings have taken up the majority of space on a cigarette packet. Now, those packets cannot even be displayed at the point of sale – you’re left to wonder what they’re hiding behind those little roll-a-doors. Yet, there are people who still buy cigarettes. If the pictures of cancer on the packet still haven’t deterred them, I honestly don’t see how making the picture bigger is going to change anything. If you asked someone who bought a packet of cigarettes today, why they didn’t heed the myriad warnings about how dangerous it is, I doubt they would reply, “The picture wasn’t big enough.” I also don’t see how forcing cigarette manufacturers to sell their product in generic, dull coloured boxes will do anything other than create a counter-culture fashion for other generic, dull coloured things. After decades of information and education, anyone who buys cigarettes in this day and age knows exactly what they are doing and what they are getting. In the 90s, there was a brand of cigarettes called Death. Their gimmick was truth in marketing. They clearly proclaimed that their product, if used as intended, would kill you. People still smoked.

Anti-smoking campaigns have been very successful. Smokers have gone from being the cool people, to being the naughty people, to being almost outcasts. The success has not just been in Australia. Perhaps one measure of how far we’ve come is that fact that during the US presidential campaign in 2008, Republicans tried to counter Barack Obama’s popularity by revealing that he was (gasp!) a secret smoker!

Smokers are a minority and it’s an ever-dwindling minority, thanks in no small part to regulations that make it harder and harder to promote smoking. For all that, I think it’s a dangerous precedent to allow government to ban a legal product from identifying itself, or at least distinguishing itself from the competition. It’s been said that if this new proposal prevents just one person from smoking, then it will have been worthwhile. I can see that point, but I don’t think it’s government’s job to save the last few stragglers from themselves. I think this new proposal goes too far.

And yet, I think it doesn’t go far enough.

Ever since the television advertising of cigarettes was banned in 1976, successive governments have been gradually banning everything to do with cigarettes… except cigarettes. It’s time to stop faffing about and go all the way.

I am not talking about outlawing tobacco tomorrow. That would be unworkable and cruel to many remaining addicts. Ozzy Osbourne has said that nicotine is the hardest addiction to break and Lord knows, there speaks a man who ought to know.

What I am suggesting is that we set a deadline for a phased withdrawal, just like with leaded petrol, analogue television and incandescent light globes. Announce that from 1st January, 2020, the production, sale and consumption of tobacco products will be banned, so start making your plans now! These may be lifestyle plans for smokers, business plans for retailers and producers (and indeed, anyone in the business of helping people to quit smoking - after all, they rely on smoking for their business too), and economic plans for governments that still have a nice little earner from tobacco excise. That should give everyone fair warning. The minimum age at which it’s legal to buy cigarettes is 18. Raise that age by one year every year. This way people who started smoking legally are not turned into outlaws overnight, but by the time the full ban comes into force, no-one under 26 should ever have smoked legally anyway.

As with leaded petrol, by the time the deadline comes around, many producers and retailers may have discontinued the product anyway, which will only accelerate the phase-out. After the deadline, anyone whose addiction is such that their doctor feels quitting would cause more discomfort than good can obtain cigarettes by prescription.

Would this cause job losses? Quite probably – but no more or less than any change of industry. Digital cameras caused the loss of thousands of job in the photographic film industry around the world. Did any of us stop to think of that before we bought that digi-cam? Did we oppose diesel trains out of concern for coal miners? Did anyone object to sewerage on the grounds it would put the dunnymen out of a job? Industries change, and a deadline helps everyone to manage that change.

We are past the point of appealing to people’s sense of reason or hip pocket. Anyone who is not already persuaded by the health, ethical and economic arguments will not be convinced by more of the same. Constantly increasing taxes on tobacco under the guise of discouraging smoking is a conflict of interests. We say we want to prevent smoking, but we still take the money and factor it into the budget. Cigarettes would never be allowed to be sold if they were brought onto the market today. They’re a left-over from a time when we didn’t know any better and we have spent nearly forty years trying to catch up. If we are serious about stopping smoking, this is the way to do it.
 

Seven Suffixes

which should be stricken from the English language immediately:

 
- gate

- ageddon

- 101

- inator

- pocalypse

- athon

- licious