Archive for the ‘Steve Miller Band’ Category
On The First Day of Second Discmas…
We need a little Christmas…right this very minute.
Here at The Second Disc, the holiday season is the perfect time to do what we love to do best: share the gift of music. For the second year in a row, we have we reached out to some of our favorite reissue labels and we’ve teamed with them to play Santa Claus to our awesome and faithful readers. It’s called – what else? – Second Discmas, and it’s going on now through Christmas!
Today’s giveaway is courtesy the fine folks at Edsel Records! We’re giving away a COMPLETE SET of Edsel’s Steve Miller Band reissues! That’s right: all five of Edsel’s deluxe reissues can be yours for the First Day of Second Discmas!
How to win? Simple! Just click on the above banner to head over to Contest Central for the complete rules! This set is just the first of many prizes to come, so enter now and stay tuned for all of our daily drawings! See you at Contest Central!
Review: Five from The Steve Miller Band (1968-1970), Reissued on Edsel
The 1968 debut of the Steve Miller Band begins with a shattering cacophony, followed by an acoustic strum emerging like a beacon of light amidst the darkness and clatter. The album’s title track “Children of the Future” is far removed from the ironic detachment of “The Joker” or the sleek majesty of “Fly Like an Eagle,” later hits that proved the group could go “pop” while still showing off their versatility and impeccable musicianship. Edsel Records has just afforded listeners the opportunity to revisit the band’s hard-to-find first five albums, recorded for Capitol in an incredibly prolific period between 1968 and 1970. These well-designed reissues are all housed in uniform digipaks, containing colorful booklets with full lyrics, liner notes from San Francisco rock journalist Joel Selvin, ample photos and memorabilia, and the original LP front and rear artwork. Each title has been remastered by Phil Kinrade at Alchemy.
Though the blues-rock guitarist from Wisconsin rose through the ranks in the fertile Bay Area psychedelic rock scene, Miller’s first album was recorded by producer Glyn Johns at London’s Olympic Studios. Miller and his band (originally Boz Scaggs on guitar/lead and background vocals, Lonnie Turner on bass/background vocals, Jim Peterman on mellotron and organ/background vocals, and Tim Davis on drums/lead and background vocals) married blues guitar licks to hazy, lysergic melodies. The centerpiece of Children of the Future is the side-long suite which opened the LP, primarily written by Miller. It’s bookended by the title song (“We are children of the future…wonder what in the world we are going to do…When they get high, they can see for miles and miles/When we get high, I can see myself for miles…You know I’ve got something that you can use”) and the B.B. King-influenced closer “The Beauty of Time is That It’s Snowing (Psychedelic B.B.),” an instrumental with only the “We are children of the future” mantra for lyrics. What Mr. King thought of it, I don’t know. Miller did, indeed, get high, as his lyrics went, and was busted and imprisoned for marijuana possession while recording the album. The suite’s lyrics combine optimism with hippy-dippy cosmic belief redolent of the period (“In my second mind, I can see you grow/Feel you flow/It moves my soul, yeah”) though traditional love song sentiments and blues tropes are also present.
The second side is more traditional, though songs still flow into one another. Boz Scaggs, on the verge of coming into his own as a solo artist, contributes two tracks to Side Two. His pretty, ethereal pop song “Baby’s Callin’ Me Home” (with Ben Sidran on harpischord) segues into the electric rock of “Steppin’ Stone” (not the Monkees hit). Long before “Jet Airliner,” Miller contributed the folk-rock “Roll with It” (“There’s a plane goin’ down the runway…Believe I better go with it/There’s a train goin’ by the highway…believe I better roll with it”) with its wailing guitar solo. The album is rounded out by Jim Pulte’s “Junior Saw It Happen” and a couple of R&B covers, “Fanny Mae” (with its striking R&B harmonica and a riff that was also semi-appropriated for The Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda”) and the slow-burning “Key to the Highway.” The new reissue adds one bonus track, the shimmering non-LP single “Sittin’ in Circles,” written by another well-regarded tunesmith, Barry Goldberg of the Electric Flag.
Join us after the jump for more, won’t you? Read the rest of this entry »
WE HAVE A WINNER! The Steve Miller Band’s First Five Albums On CD!
CONGRATULATIONS TO DAVID KNOBLOCK, WINNER!
In Case You Missed It: Edsel’s Mega-Release Slate
The recent release slate from U.K. super-reissue label Edsel is what we at Second Disc HQ like to call “an embarrassment of riches.” You’ve seen our giveaways over the past few weeks highlighting some of the best expanded discographies Edsel’s had to offer this year: Suede, The Beat, Sugar, Everything But the Girl and Jimmy Somerville, to name just five. Then there’ve been other expansions, like the recent Aztec Camera reissues, and neat compilations on the Music Club Deluxe sister label.
Can it get any better? We say yes!
In this post, you’ll find a comprehensive breakdown of all the major discographical overhauls announced and released by Edsel in the past month or two. Some are welcome straight reissues of underappreciated albums, but most are exhaustively(!) thorough expansions of some of the best alternative bands and artists to grace the United Kingdom during the 1980s and 1990s.
Let’s just cut right to the chase after the jump!
Release Round-Up: Week of September 18
Box set season is totally in full swing this week! Are you ready?
Michael Jackson, Bad 25 (Epic/Legacy)
The King of Pop’s legendary 1987 album gets the deluxe treatment in a number of formats. The standard edition includes the remastered album and a 13-track bonus disc featuring rare and unreleased outtakes and new remixes. (That version is available with a T-shirt at Wal-Mart, and a bonus DVD with all nine original Bad-era short films – including the long performance edits of “Smooth Criminal” and “Speed Demon” from the Moonwalker film – is an exclusive at Target.) Then there’s the deluxe box set, featuring those two discs and a CD and DVD of Jackson’s July 16, 1988 performance at London’s Wembley Stadium; that box is also available as a super-collectible version in a swag-filled box. The Live at Wembley DVD is available separately, as well. Who’s bad? Well, that depends on your wallet. Joe’s review can be found here!
The Jackson 5, Come and Get It: The Rare Pearls (Hip-O Select/Motown)
Not enough MJ for you this week? How about two discs of unreleased Jackson 5 outtakes, with a collectible vinyl single to boot?
ABBA, The Essential Collection (Polydor/UMC)
While this new U.K. ABBA compilation doesn’t offer much of anything new, it does offer every single the band ever released on one set, plus a bonus DVD of music videos (featuring the premiere home video release of the videos for the Spanish versions of “Knowing Me, Knowing You” and “Thank You for the Music”).
Steve Miller Band, Children of the Future / Sailor / Brave New World / Your Saving Grace / Number 5 (Edsel)
The first five albums of The Steve Miller Band are reissued by Edsel with new liner notes, lyrics and rare photographs!
The latest expansions from Gold Legion include Branigan’s two biggest hit-filled discs (featuring “Gloria” and “Self Control,” respectively) and Grace Jones’ first post-Island album for EMI, produced by Nile Rodgers. All three are expanded with bonus 12″ mixes and expanded booklets.
Angel, Angel / Helluva Band / On Earth As It Is in Heaven (Rock Candy)
You’ll agree that Angel – discovered by Gene Simmons and lampooned by Frank Zappa – was one “helluva band” with Rock Candy’s remastered editions, all featuring deluxe booklets with new essays, memorabilia and rare photos.
Ben Folds Five, The Sound of the Life of the Mind (ImAVeePee/Sony Music)
Our final spotlighted title isn’t a reissue, but the first Ben Folds Five album in 13 years really, truly lives up to the hype. Add to that the fact that Mr. Folds was behind last year’s best catalogue title of the year, and we’re going to proudly present this as a future catalogue classic that certainly deserves your ears today!
Release Round-Up: Week of February 8
The Beatles, Love (iTunes Version) (Apple/EMI)
Another Beatles album drops on iTunes: the 2006 soundtrack to the Cirque du Soleil attraction – and this version has two previously unreleased bonus tracks. (iTunes)
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew Live (Columbia/Legacy)
The jazz great lights up the Newport Jazz and Isle of Wight Festivals in this vintage compilation (Sony)
The Stan Getz Quintets, The Clef & Norgran Studio Albums (Verve/Hip-o Select)
A three-disc box collating Getz’s early quintet years, much of it unavailable on CD until now. (Hip-o Select) Read the rest of this entry »
Short Takes: Ray Charles Unearthed, Steve Miller Band Reissued
A couple short announcements to kick off your Friday morning – one regarding a Ray Charles compilation we’ve been waiting to learn more about, the other regarding a reissue of a classic ’70s rock album.
First, our gratitude to Vintage Vinyl News for lifting the curtain on Ray Charles’ Rare Genius: The Undiscovered Masters, coming October 26 from Concord. This ten-track set includes entirely unreleased material from several phases of The Genius’ career, from the ’70s to the ’90s. The first single will be a duet with another dearly departed musician, the Man in Black himself, Johnny Cash. Bill Dahl has penned the liner notes to this set, which looks to shed some light on where each track came from.
Then we turn to Classic Rock magazine for this neat tidbit: Demon Music Group is releasing an expanded edition of The Steve Miller Band’s Fly Like an Eagle. Apparently, though, it looks like the content will be identical to the 30th anniversary edition released Stateside by Capitol in 2006 – three bonus demos and a DVD including a 5.1 surround mix and live material recorded at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in California the previous year. Still, if you’ve missed it, perhaps now’s as good a time as any to pick it up.
Check the track lists for both after the jump.
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