Happy Monday all. Just coming off a full day of digesting the new LED ZEPPELIN Houston '77 soundboard from Empress Valley, "The Dragon Snake". Really great, just another cool thing to come around and I highly recommend it to anyone. Mr. Sparaco has posted his review right here on these pages and I generally agree with his takes on this title. I will go out on a limb and say that I believe that this is taken from the video soundtrack though. No spectral analysis here, just an intense listen and gut feeling about it. While we have nice depth in the recording, you can sense limitations of the sourcetape. A "ceiling" over the high end that somehow gives the source away for me. Now, IF that is the case - it provides plenty of "what ifs" about a potential video release down the road! Sure, there's some wishful thinking factored in there somewhere. Kudos to those at the Mid-Valley/Empress Valley Label for another fine release. It does blow me away that they don't release these stellar shows in some primo packaging. These are the ones that deserve it! The flipside is that they keep the pricing relatively reasonable with the generic effort. Whatever.



Well, let's get the other ZEPPELIN title info out of the way. Empress Valley is releasing 2 versions of "Boston Cream Pie", the Boston concert recordings from July 20th, 1973...the 2CD set will feature the seemingly complete Joe Maloney source tape recently torrented around the net...the extremely limited 4CD set will feature the Maloney source in it's entirety on 2 discs, and the previously available source #1 on the other set of discs. Another clarification from last week on EV's "Lost Sessions Vol. 7"...this is a single CD of Royal Albert Hall material from January 9th, 1970...2 tracks were produced by Jimmy Page for Coda in 1981 ("Bring it On Home" and "How Many More Times"), but these are unedited and are "very different mixes" (than what?)...the other 3 tracks are original audio mixes by Andrew Griffiths for th 2002 "DVD" project...those tracks are "Moby Dick", "White Summer" and "Long Tall Sally". The Wendy Label are ready to release "Riot House", featuring the ZEPPELIN show from Alexandra Palace, London on December 22nd, 1972 in audience quality of course.



In ROLLING STONES release news...Sister Morphine has found yet another title that has seen countless releases but not by them. This will be remedied with "L.A. Sunday '75", the superb July 13th, 1975 Mike Millard audience recording...nice to see Cool Cool Hand really stretching himself...speaking of which - the very latest announcement from "The Good Sister" indicates another release on the schedule, "The Lost Live Album", which in essence they have released in varying degrees already with "Deuces Still Wild" and "Ladies & Gentlemen..", as this is all the superb 1972 soundboard material that has again seen a billion releases in the last 3 years on CD alone (sources being Houston 6/25/72, Ft. Worth 6/24/72, Philadelphia 7/21/72). Unless I'm mistaken, it's just repackaged previously released material and from their own label! We'll see. Dog 'N Cat Records next STONES title will be a single CD, "Altamont"...a distilled version of the infamous December 6th, 1969 "Free Concert"...with the soundboard kick that the label is on, this could simply be all the soundboard material out there but I am simply speculating.

I am apparently in a themed mode so...let's recap the BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN releases touched upon earlier in the week...Digital Line is putting the final touches on a new DVD called "Storytellers Uncut", which will feature the "Long Broadcast" of the VH-1special, over 2 hours of unedited sourced broadcast footage in 16:9 Widescreen and Dolby Digital Audio. Crystal Cat has recently issued "The Point Night", SPRINGSTEEN's May 24th concert at The Point in Dublin, Ireland...Whoopy Cat has a new BRUCE title that was recently released as well called "Devils & Dust In Madrid", and captures his performance at Palacio de DePortes de la Communidad in Madrid on June 2nd, this is said to be a very clean and clear audience source...also, from Digital Gang Productions comes news of a "Cleveland 2005" release set for August and said to be a superb audience source...also from DGP, they are apparently still assembling an ambitious TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS Anthology and is likely a late Fall/early Winter projected release...another expected title from DGP this Fall will be a rare KISS 1976 Stadium concert on DVD, said to be of better quality than the Tokyo '77 vid they sourced earlier this Spring so that sounds pretty cool.



BOB DYLAN releases continue to be issued at an impossible rate but the cream of the crop all year long have been the Hollow Horn Reference Master Recordings...Volumes 6 & 7 have been unveiled and will chronicle his body of work through the balance of the 80's from 1983 through 1989...their titles are "A Man With No Alibi" and "One More Layer Of Skin"...just one more release expected to complete this
wonderful set. Finally, MisterClaudel has announced a couple of cool sounding PAUL McCARTNEY DVD releases..."One Hand Clapping" captures the WINGS 1974 Tour Rehearsals at Abbey Road while "James Paul McCartney" contains the special TV program produced back in 1973 and aired over British Television. That's all for now!

Thanks again for all the continued support and we look forward to stepping up coverage and offerings as we make the transition from Summer to Fall so stay tuned! Keep an eye on the News Ticker and check into HotWacks On-line regularly for the latest news AND the reviews. Have a great week.

Svengi
July 18th, 2005