When I got The Stooges reissue I went straight to Cale's mix of No Fun - my favourite track from the orginal album. I always loved the sound of this album and Cale's mixes are very interesting.
The first thing to notice that everything sounds more noisey, more tactile. This may be part due to some tape-hiss evident at the start, but also seems to be a quality inherent to the instruments themselves. The mix brings out the materiality of the sound. There's also a more 3-dimensional, more architectural soundscape with a more deliberate use of stereo separation than the released version. Cale has placed the (much quieter) guitar and hand-claps on the left and the drums on the right. He's made these two sound sets counter-balance perfectly where they do the job of framing or butressing the central vocal which is supported from underneath by a solid bedrock of bass. At first it seems less powerful than the released version but thats because he's mixed the guitar much lower down at the start, allowing to it fully unleash later in the song. Brilliant.
Its an unusual and subtle mix - much less obvious than the one they released and you can understand why they made a much more upfront mix for commercial reasons.
My only gripe with this re-issue is that we could have had more Cale mixes (I guess he did the whole album!) instead of some slightly uninteresting alternate vocal takes. Apart from that its very very good and also has a taste of what they were like as the more freaky Psychedelic Stooges with the long versions of Ann and Fun House.
Delboy Schwartz
Cale mixes on The Stooges - some kind of review
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iaredatsun
- Now jelly rolls in the street
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- Location: London, Texas
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Pernod time
- On the wild side
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Ummm...C'mon Pernod, is that the only the reason you hate Funhouse? After all, that should completely preclude you from liking "w/ Nico" at all. Actually, it should make you hate it even more than Funhouse.Pernod time wrote:I've grown to hate Funhouse over the years, its influenced too many shit bands, but Stooges is heaven.For me its a tie between "With Nico",Stick yFingers and the best of otis Redding for my all time favourite record
Bargain bin gold, favorite bands, concerts, photos, and my record collection: All Good Music
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iaredatsun
- Now jelly rolls in the street
- Posts: 1894
- Joined: 08 Jun 2004 21:38
- Location: London, Texas
I love the material on Funhouse - I feel its overall a stronger collection of songs but I really love the sound of The Stooges. Sometimes I can listen to an album simply because the sound quality gets me somewhere between the ears. Sometimes I even listen to Man Who Sold the World! Of course it helps a lot more if you actually like the artist.mg196 wrote:Ummm...C'mon Pernod, is that the only the reason you hate Funhouse? After all, that should completely preclude you from liking "w/ Nico" at all. Actually, it should make you hate it even more than Funhouse.Pernod time wrote:I've grown to hate Funhouse over the years, its influenced too many shit bands, but Stooges is heaven.For me its a tie between "With Nico",Stick yFingers and the best of otis Redding for my all time favourite record
I kind of agree with this love/hate thing - I have often gone off bands and blamed it on mass popularity and over-exposure but in retrospect I can't honestly say that is the case otherwise I would really have to hate the VU. Maybe this was one such band that taught me to examine my suspect elitist attitudes towards music. Hey, I still like Smile and look what they did to that!
I love Funhouse also, in fact I saw the Stooges on Tuesday night in London. They played the whole thing from start to finish! Then they played No Fun, 1969, Now I Wanna Be Your Dog and a few other faves also. I was a superb gig - best I've ever seen Iggy perform.
Sorry this is a bit off topic, but I'm still buzzing from this gig.
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Sorry this is a bit off topic, but I'm still buzzing from this gig.
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Who Loves the Bun