DCC "Spirit of America" by Beach Boys

[JohnnyK]

Amazon has the DCC of the Beach Boys "Spirit of America". I was thinking of ordering it. How is the sound quality?

I also noticed that there are some new twofers by the Beach Boys that have once again been remastered. Are these any good? Have they been NoNoised to death?


John
******************************
Ludwig drums---the best beat in town

[PsychFan]

I have all three DCC gold Beach Boys discs, and all are excellent. I definitely recommend Spirit of America.

And the latest two-fers actually have LESS no-noise than the old ones. I like them (not as much as Steve's discs, but ...).

[JohnnyK]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jeff Partyka
[B]I have all three DCC gold Beach Boys discs, and all are excellent. I definitely recommend Spirit of America.
QUOTE]

Jeff,

What do you think of the Today/Summer Days & Nights twofer? I am considering it instead of Spirit of America.

The first concert that I ever attended was a Beach Boys concert in either 1963 or 1964. The concert was similar to their "Lost Concert" on DVD. They wore white pants and white/blue striped shirts. My ticket cost $3.50!!!!!

John

[PsychFan]

Originally posted by JohnnyK
[QUOTE]Jeff,
What do you think of the Today/Summer Days & Nights twofer? I am considering it instead of Spirit of America.
The first concert that I ever attended was a Beach Boys concert in either 1963 or 1964. The concert was similar to their "Lost Concert" on DVD. They wore white pants and white/blue striped shirts. My ticket cost $3.50!!!!!


Wow, you're lucky. I would have loved to have seen them in their '60s heyday (I wasn't even born yet, I'm afraid ...).

The Today/Summer Days two-fer has always been my favorite of them all ('tho I have a soft spot for the post-Pet Sounds Capitol-era material, so the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey and Friends/20-20 discs get a lot of play at my place, too). Musically, Today has got to be their strongest of the pre-PS albums ("Kiss Me Baby" and "Please Let Me Wonder" have always been huge favorites), and Summer Days is pretty strong too before it peters out halfway thru Side 2 with a lot of filler (gotta love the rockin' "The Girl from New York City," plus "Girl Don't Tell Me" and "Let Him Run Wild," not to mention the big hit singles included, "Help Me Rhonda" and "California Girls").

Sonically ... the newer HDCD two-fers, as I said, sound a lot less "processed" and no-noised than the old ones, 'tho they seem just a hair brighter. (I've never heard them on an HDCD-capable player.) I personally think they're an improvement over the old versions ... Today/Summer Days included.

[czeskleba]

Originally posted by Jeff Partyka
And the latest two-fers actually have LESS no-noise than the old ones. I like them (not as much as Steve's discs, but ...).

According to Mark Linnett the current two-fers have no NoNoise. And they tried to take a more "authentic" approach this time around (ie, not digitally repairing things like the little glitch in "The Little Girl I Once Knew".) They sound substantially better than the old 1991 versions, though I do like the DCC BB stuff better.

[JohnnyK]

Originally posted by Jeff Partyka


Wow, you're lucky. I would have loved to have seen them in their '60s heyday (I wasn't even born yet, I'm afraid ...).



Jeff,

I guess that old age does have its benefits. I also saw, but did not hear, The Beatles perform in Chicago in the mid 60’s. Those tickets cost me $5.50. The girls were screaming so damn loud, that I couldn’t hear a single note from The Beatles. Unlike current concerts, The Beatles performed for less than 30 min.

John
*********************************
Ludwig drums--The beat goes on

[PsychFan]

Originally posted by JohnnyK
I guess that old age does have its benefits. I also saw, but did not hear, The Beatles perform in Chicago in the mid 60’s. Those tickets cost me $5.50. The girls were screaming so damn loud, that I couldn’t hear a single note from The Beatles. Unlike current concerts, The Beatles performed for less than 30 min.


Wow. I can't even imagine having seen the Fabs in the flesh. A good friend of my family's (now, very sadly, deceased) carried his ticket stub from the '65 Shea Stadium show in his wallet all his life. I thought he was SOOO cool ...

And ticket prices ... That blows my mind too ...

[Andrew]

Originally posted by JohnnyK


I also saw, but did not hear, The Beatles perform in Chicago in the mid 60’s. The girls were screaming so damn loud, that I couldn’t hear a single note from The Beatles. Unlike current concerts, The Beatles performed for less than 30 min.

John


Didn't Lennon refer to those later tours as "puppet shows"?

[Dave]

JohnnyK,

You definately will be impressed with Steves work on The Beach Boys.

I wasn't a super huge fan, unlike some on the forum, but when I played my first Beach Boys done by Steve (Endless Summer) I was totally blown away (falling backwards out of my easy chair).

The realism of the way Steve captures their voices was and still is just astounding.

So then I got DCCs "Spirit Of America" and I wasn't disappointed I can honestly say.:D

[lukpac]

The new twofers sound pretty good, but Steve's masterings are quite a bit better. *Much* more smooth sounding. I did an A/B with one of the twofers and the Razor and Tie set. When I put in the twofer, I thought "ok, this is pretty good." When I put in the R&T CD, though, I was like "wow! This is great!"

[Claviusb]

Originally posted by JohnnyK


Jeff,

I guess that old age does have its benefits. I also saw, but did not hear, The Beatles perform in Chicago in the mid 60’s. Those tickets cost me $5.50. The girls were screaming so damn loud, that I couldn’t hear a single note from The Beatles. Unlike current concerts, The Beatles performed for less than 30 min.

John
*********************************
Ludwig drums--The beat goes on

John,

A friend of mine's dad drove my friend's sister and a group of her friends to see the Beatles in Detroit. He was waiting outside for the concert to finish (since as you say, 30 minutes was the max then) smoking his pipe when a black limo goes barreling past him and he turns around and there is a mob of screaming teenage girls in hot pursuit! The dad jumps up on a light pole as they all run down the street chasing a dream. My friend's dad used to love to tell that story. If you know what Norman Rockwell looked, that's pretty much the look of my friend's dad too...

[Andy]

Order two I'm starting to think DCC stuff isn't going to be around forever.

[JohnnyK]

Originally posted by Andrew



Didn't Lennon refer to those later tours as "puppet shows"?

I have The Beatles Anthology on VHS. It is interesting to listen to them as the describe their concert tours. Initially they enjoyed touring, but after a while, the excitement turned into drudgery. They complained about never having any personal time off and never having enough studio time. They also disliked having to play the same songs over and over at each concert. In addition, they felt that it didn’t matter how poorly they played in concert because the screaming crowd drowned out their playing. Lastly, they knew that it would not be possible to performe their latest studio recordings live.

[Matt]

Exactly, man. It's significant that nothing from "Revolver" was played on their last tour. In fact, while they were cutting that album, they were still performing "I Want To Hold Your Hand," which was only two years old but had already seemed totally removed from what they were recording. And even then, they weren't even playing those songs well; they couldn't even heard themselves, much less know if they were playing all the right notes.

It's a real shame that there is no definitive live album in the Beatles catalog, one that captures what they were capable of with decent fidelity.