Did Bill Inglot master all of the Rhino TODD RUNDGREN CDs?

Reason I ask is...some have a credit for him (SOMETHING/ANYTHING?) and others don't (RUNT, RUNT. THE BALLAD OF TODD RUNDGREN).

Anyone know?

 

Rob,

I'm 99% certain the answer is yes (Gary Peterson, who oversaw those releases for Rhino and has been known to pop up here, would know for sure). His work continued through the Oblivion/POV reissue (now deleted) and, I believe, the "Very Best of TR" (where you'll see my name in the 'thanks').

I bought these babies the day they came out (in '87) and went through 3 phases:
First, I was thrilled to have 'em in a digital format, and as many of the albums were out of print, was glad to see 'em back on the market
Second, in the mid-90's (before I "saw the light" about the evils of compression, etc.), I viewed the discs as substandard and in need of a remastering
Finally, more recently, I've taken the view that they actually sound quite good and true to the original recordings. Yeah, they're a bit flat, but if you listen to the LPs they sound that way, too. And the early stuff, particularly "Ballad of TR", sounds heavenly when played through my tube-based Shengya CD player. Of course, everyone's ears are different.

Some will argue that the Castle remasters are the ones to get but I was told on very good authority that Castle simply took Bill I's work and tweaked it-- they did not revert to the master tapes.

It's also interesting to note that Todd "lost" the masters to several tracks from "Wizard" and "S/A?"-- he told me himself -- and that (as I posted recently) the masters to "Oblivion" and "POV" were destroyed/lost when Passport folded in the 80's. The aforementioned Rhino reissue utilized the original Passport CDs as "masters". Sad that a great catalog is missing key pieces.

I'd love to see "A Wizard" on an Audio Fidelity gold platter!!!

 

Steve,

I'm curious-- how often does that happen? Could your work not be considered intellectual property, or does that end with the original recordings themselves?

Thanks,

Ken

 

I'm not sure what you mean about those "lost" masters. Wouldn't they have been in the Bearsville or Warner Brothers vaults? Or did Todd at some point reclaim them and THEN lose them?

On a tangential note: What ever happened to the Something/Anything reissue that was announced but never released? The one that was supposedly going to have tons of bonus material filling out the two CDs?

Kwad

 

Yes, this is partly correct. On some of the remasters Castle simply used Bill's work - but he IS credited for it (at least in the sleeve notes!) Some of the remasters were, according to the credits in the booklets, made by other people. But Bill is usually mentioned somewhere in these credits as well.

 

Do you mean the DVD-A version? I heard talk a while ago that a DVD-A version was held back due to the lack of master tapes of some of the tracks. The rumored tracks in question? Unfortunately: "I saw the light" and "It wouldn't have made any difference". Not exactly fillers from that album!

 

I can't answer your questions but I can say to help clarify that I believe Ken meant multitrack tapes when he refers to the 'masters' in the above. One or more reels of the multis which contained songs on Something/Anything have definitely been misplaced or 'lost', as Todd himself has mentioned several times in interviews. This may be true for 'Wizard' as well I'm not sure. Actually last I remember, Todd had transferred many/all of the 'Wizard' multis in his posession to adat in preparation to do an 'interactive' version of that album and possibly others as was his interest several years ago with the CD-i (and eventual cd-rom) 'No World Order' audio projects.

I do know after talking to Bill I in some detail just after the Rhino Todd CDs came out about his original mastering of the 'Wizard' CD that he was confident he had the two channel 1/4" stereo master of the album because he told me he had to repair many of the tape splices to get the tape to play. Todd created the final stereo mix for that album using lots of splices of various two channel mixes from the multis, presumeably because he had no automation back then.

 

What's the general consensus on that CD? I had it when it was released, but I got rid of it in the "great sell-back of 93" when I was flat broke.

I have the original Rhino LP of "Ballad of TR." I never had the original LP, but I think the Rhino sounds heavenly when played through my tube Fisher KX-100!

 

How about the three Japanese mini-LP K2 remasters of "Ballad," "S/A" and "Wizard"? Would these also use Bill's work?

 

I remember Rhino announcing that one about 7 or 8 years ago. It never was released, but it was supposed to have 27 or so bonus tracks.

There was a Japan issue called Somewhere/Anywhere? that had a lot of the bonus material that came out in '98 or '99. Border's carried it for awhile and there may be copies still out there.An interesting collection of odds and ends.

 

Originally Posted by LaserKen:

Some will argue that the Castle remasters are the ones to get but I was told on very good authority that Castle simply took Bill I's work and tweaked it-- they did not revert to the master tapes.

Does anyone know WHICH of the Castle Rundgren CDs used Bill's work? I have A Wizard and Something/Anything Castle issues and I don't see Bill's name on them. Thanks.

 

In addition, I have Healing, Back to the Bars, and Hermit of Mink Hollow and I don't see any credit given to Bill either.

 

The S/A? 2-disc remaster was held up and eventually mothballed permanently because it contained the TR Radio Show, a promo-only item released to promote S/A? back in the day, which itself utilized snippets of songs TR produced, and some old Marx Brothers clips. This was around the time the folks who control the Marx Bros. catalog were looking at their own set of reissues, and getting clearance on use of the material (which is more or less a hiccup on the TR Radio Show) became an impassable hurdle. The set was mastered and set to go, but this small incumberance held it back, and if I'm not mistaken it has been shelved permanently, sadly.

Dabl is correct about the multi-tracks.. thanks for the clarification.

Per the Castle remasters, I can only relay what I was told, and I was assisting with Rhino TR reissue projects at the time-- as far as I know, no one has gone back to the original tapes since Bill I. did the original CDs in the 80's. I was told that Castle licensed the material from Rhino and that they never touched the original masters/mixes, only Bill's work.

Nice to see this subject discussed. A good portion of the TR catalog is again OOP...

 

How about MoFi's work on SOMETHING/ANYTHING? in the '90's for their gold CD and vinyl reissues?

 

MFSL's S/A CD sounds much better to these ears than any other CD issue of this title.

 

I suppose I could just check on Amazon, but has "Back to the Bars" been remastered?

 

Yes

 

The original Rhino edition is long OOP... what you may still be able to find is the Castle (UK) remaster which, IMO, has boosted highs and lows. I believe the Castles, too, have joined the ranks of the OOP, although copies are still floating around.

 

The Castles have dried up. The only one that any of the online retailers sometimes have is Something/Anything.

 

I bought a few of mine on eBay. The seller I bought them from lists them as imports. He had a few titles listed over the weekend.

 

I stumbled on "Runt" at a local CD shop a couple weeks ago. I think he had a couple more Castle titles.