First of all, let me apologize for not getting this information posted yesterday. After a temporary setup over the Winter, I have moved into a new place and it was certainly an event. It went smoothly aside from the Cable TV/Internet hookup and of course that is crucial for some of my plans here for this site -so, thankfully everything is finally in place and functioning properly!

Since we have a couple of weeks worth of releases to talk about, lets jump in...ERIC CLAPTON collectors should be thrilled with a couple of new Japanese offerings...Beano has released a 2CD set called "The Core", which was recorded live at the PNE Coliseum in Vancouver on February 1st, 1978...then Cross Border Records just released CREAM "Sweets", a Limited Edition pressing of 200 copies and this one pieces together 2 recordings with Disc One featuring the power trio live at the Konserthusert in Stockholm, 7th March 1967...and Disc 2 comprising of an imcomplete recording at the Ricky Tick, Hounslow, West London, 22nd April 1967. There are plenty of new BEATLES boots out as well...from MisterClaudel comes several titles, the 4CD "Tokyo Highway 1966" pieces together virtually every known audio piece from their 1966 visit. Disc 1 & 2 feature their complete shows from the soundboard on June 30th and July 1st that also features the opening acts sets as well. Disc 3 features the withdrawn 6/29/66 Press Conference, and Disc 4 compiles audio recollections of the Japanese visit in '66 along with thoughts on the Budokan Concerts by the individual members of the band. "Gone To Atlanta" documents their 8/18/65 Atlanta Stadium concert and tacks on some bonus audio tracks from their Cow Palace show in San Franciso on August 31st, 1965 and other newsreel audio tracks from the show as well..."Vanishing In The Denmark" features the boys performances from K.B. Hallen Gardens in Copenhagen on June 4th and The Netherlands on June 6th, 1964...another interesting BEATLES title is from Secret Garden and it's called "We'd Like To Carry On", this single CD compilation pieces together rare audio tracks from every stage of their career together...from Granada-TV 1963 throught to the Twickenham Film Studio in 1968.





Here's a very cool announcement on a special edition DAVID BOWIE DVD Audio/Picture Montage release from Genuine Masters!...This DAT Master was personally recorded by Blackdog himself and he's given it the kit-glove GM treatment...the recording is from Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on February 26th, 2004 and has been referenced by Bowie himself as being one of the best concerts on the Reality Tour...plus, this show has the distinction of being one of the longest of the tour as well, clocking in at over 130 minutes. It has been described as "stunning" and, according to the Mp3 sample I received - I would concur. I have also been told that the high-res slideshow will feature over 700 images from the Reality Tour and the title will have a nice pace with photos refreshing about every 15 seconds. This should be fantastic! No firm release date or exact title info just yet so stay tuned on this one. In other BOWIE release news...the Southwest Entertainment Label issued the DVD "Two Sides To A Hero", and it features 2 killer shows from the Stage Tour in Bremen, Germany on May 30th, 1978 and Tokyo on December 12th, 1978...the title comes housed in a gorgeous DigiPack presentation. As we mentioned earlier in the week Mainstream is going to issue the recently torrented Boston '74 BOWIE audience tape as "Plastic Soul"...the performance at Boston's Music Hall took place on November 14th, 1974 and is sourced from the Joe Maloney tape that was posted over at EZ Torrent last month before the site shut down.

Well, I seem to be theming my announcements so let's move to the latest in ROLLING STONES bootleg fare. I failed to mention the "new" Sister Morphine title a couple of weeks ago...now out from The Boring Sister is "Urban Jungle 1990", which features to well-documented and uninteresting re-issue of the stunning broadcast tape from Wembley Stadium on July 7th, 1990...the title also features bonus tracks taken from the excellent Toronto DAT recording on September 3rd, 1989. If SM's titles were ALL upgrades or have had a solid track record lately, I wouldn't give them such a sarcastic mention but, the fact is their titles are sloppy and and erratic at best of late...Exile has snapped up another Joe Maloney tape that was shared via the internet Bit Torrent platform at EZ Torrent...they've titled it "Well, You Heard About The Boston...Live 1969" and it documents the bands' 2nd show at The Boston Garden on November 29th, 1969 and this one has very nice sound for an audience tape from that era...we also shared that the next release from Dog N' Cat Records will be "Paris Match"...also an uninteresting choice as VGP and others have already compiled very nice sources of these Paris performances from 1965 and 1967 but, whatever...Empress Valley is going to introduce the first of a series of "Lost Sessions" CD's by The Stones, just like they are continuing to do with their popular LED ZEPPELIN EP/Lost Mixes titles...the first is due out soon and is simply called "The Lost Sessions Vol. 1" and features soundboard outtakes of the "Sweet Black Angel" sessions from the Winter of '71-'72 on a single disc...Screamer has their "Rockin' The Forum" title in circulation now and it features the July 12th, 1975 Mike Millard tape...if it's as cleanly transferred and presented as their July 9th release, this could be another recommended acquisition...and, just a reminder that Genuine Masters definitive version of "LiveR Than You'll Ever Be" streets this Friday and my review of this outstanding title will be completed later tonight...I noticed it got published prematurely without the actual review but I'll shore that up a little bit later. This is an upgrade to all previous versions and provides some very nice clarity to this excellent audience tape.





On to other things...the best that I can guesstimate, their are at least 4 different versions of the QUEEN/PAUL RODGERS show from Brixton Academy, London on March 28th in circulation right now...Royal Command has issued the show on a double CDR called "All Right Now", which adds some bonus tracks from Georgee, South Africa on March on March 19th and features the African Children's Choir on "We Are The Champions" for an interesting twist... and Trial DVD Masters has their DVD-R "The Show Must Go On" out now as well as a CD version of the recording "Feel Like Makin' Magic"...From the new U2 Vertigo Tour we have the first 2 concerts assembled by the Atomic Label and comes on 4CDRs called "This Is Our Moments"...these would be the San Diego 3/30/05 Tour Opener and the concert at The Pond in Anaheim, California on April 1st...we rarely get to mention URIAH HEEP but the Sirene Label has converted the recently posted Muenster, Germany 1972 show for download and is making it somewhat commercially available...the concert was recorded on May 3rd, 1972 and only rates a "good" quality mono...also from Sirene is RICK WAKEMAN "Amazing Journey", recorded again at the Boston Garden, this date is October 5th, 1974 and is actually a Silver Disc Limited Edition...on a related note and just 2 months later at the same venue!...from Mindwarp 9 is YES "Sound Of Gayser", an FM broadcast from their Boston Garden appearance on December 11th, 1974. With ROBERT PLANT & STRANGE SENSATION on the road there are already a couple of new boot titles to check out...from Trial comes "Rearranged Warwick", an audience recording from Coventry, England at the beginning of the month on April 2nd...from the Coffee, Tea or Me Label is PLANT and band "Irving Plaza 2005", this one documents his New York City stop on March 24th and appears to be an outstanding recording of the gig...Also new from Coffee, Tea or Me is KILLS "This is Radio Chaos, and You're Dead", a single CDR release of their March 15th, 2005 radio broadcast from Paris...From Trial DVD Masters is a video document of the resurrected KANSAS..."Rockfest 1995" is a Pro-shot video of their show in Cadott, Wisconsin on July 16th, 1995...another quick DVD mention, from Prime Cuts is "Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame 1989" which is a complete video of the 4th annual induction ceremonies and the now predictably shaky jam session at the end with the Stones and Springsteen, etc...





There are a couple of other releases from Mainstream to point out...THE WHO "Hollywood Palladium 1969" is a single disc release featuring an audience recording of their June 13th, 1969 L.A. show...then there is BOB DYLAN "The End Of Summer", which is a soundboard of his show at the Gurten Festival in Bern, Switzerland
on July 17th, 1993...in other things DYLAN, Hot on the heels of the late March release of "A Fish That Walks", Volume 3 of the Studio Outtake Masters series from Hollow Horn...comes details of the next 2 Volumes in this highly regarded series..."Blood On Your Saddle" will be Volume 4, and features all the outtakes from the Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid sessions, along with the complete alternate tracks and outtakes from the "Blood On The Tracks" sessions as well. Volume 5 is "Where The Monkey Dances", which gathers outtakes and such from Bob's '74 to '81 work, "Planet Waves", "Desire", "Street Legal", "Slow Train", "Saved" & even "Shot Of Love". Both of these later volumes should be streeting by the end of April. There will be 8 Volumes in total in this stellar set. In LED ZEPPELIN boot release news...hot on the heels of their title, "The Diploma", Tarantura have announced their plans to release the March 5th & 6th, 1971 Belfast and Dublin audience recordings, this package will be called "The Triump for Mother" in another extremely limited pressing from the Japanese Label...Badgeholders has released "Ultraviolence Attack" featuring the LED ZEPPELIN audience recording from Detroit on January 31st, 1975 in a 2CD slipcase package...and the Cashmere Label will release "Remains Of The Holy" which is the superb performance from Vienna, Austria on March 16h, 1973 in a soundboard/audience mix which to most collectors is again superfluous but beginning ZEPPELIN collectors should seek out any version of this show!

The rest of the miscellaneous bootleg info roundup includes...the new Zipperman Label FRANK ZAPPA title is "Money Demos: We're Only in It for the Mothers", a single disc compilation of the core demos plus rare tracks from the German Beat Club in 1968...from the Scorpio family of Labels, this time HiWatt comes MOTT THE HOOPLE "Hooplessly Furiously" which pairs up a couple of sources, BBC 1971 & 1972 soundboards with an audience from the Tower Theater in Philadelphia on Halloween Night 1972...there are several new R.E.M. releases to mention also...on WB France Label is "Road Sound", a double CD soundboard from Atlanta in November of 1995, plus some bonus tracks that feature Fan Club singles as well as some live acoustic snipets from 1991...from Sylph comes "Sun To Shine On Me", March 18th, 2005 Osaka, Japan performance and "Truth To Set Me Free" from the previous evening in Aichi on March 17th...also from Sylph is GREEN DAY "Across The Alienation" which is also from Osaka on March 17th, the night before R.E.M played there...also in the same batch of releases comes MARILYN MANSON "Love Songs In My Head" is a single disc of his 2/5/05 Osaka show with a DVD-R that features a 23 minute Pro-shot exerpt from Chiba, Japan on August 3rd of 2004...On King Stork Records comes a JAMES TAYLOR 4CDR Live compilation called "Century Road", covering live performances from 1970 through 2003...S.D.R. Records/CD has HEART "Greetings From Jupiter", a stereo soundboard from Seattle on 5/29/04.

The Latest Bootleg News out of Japan for this Monday...Trial DVD Masters has the Various Artists title "Playboy After Dark" that brings back the unique performances from the U.S. Cable TV program that features DEEP PURPLE, IRON BUTTERFLY, NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND, THE GRATEFUL DEAD, TAJ MAHAL, CANNED HEAT, LINDA RONSTADT and more!...the show was broadcast circa 1968-1970 and will be very cool to see...on Trial CD is BOZ SCAGGS "Hard Times", a double CDR of his Budokan concert in Tokyo on February 7th, 1978...Sirene DVD Masters has QUEEN "En Argnentina", a Pro-shot concert event taped in Buenos Aires on March 1st, 1981...and finally Rising Arrow has released those 2 RAINBOW titles we mentioned awhile back...available now are "Hail To The King" (Osaka, December 5th, 1976) & "Lucifer Rising" (Osaka, December 8th, 1976).


I'd like to wrap up the news this week with an early word about some changes here at HotWacks Online. Number one will be a more fluent posting of reviews, plus we have plans to bring other sources on board to help us grow our database and broaden the coverage. This was one of our goals for the first year anyway and we seem to have a couple of interested parties that would like to contribute. Also, we are going to give the site a new look. Watch for that to be implemented in the next week or so. The other plans we have include growing a new section to feature Top Ten Bootlegs by Artist. So if you would like to assist with assembling those lists, shoot me an email. All sort of plans for the Spring! All good news! Thanks again for your continued support AND, your patience. The pace will pick up.

Have a good one!

Svengi
April 18th, 2005