Release Round-Up: Week of October 8

Tony Bennett, Live At The Sahara: Las Vegas 1964 (RPM/Columbia/Legacy)

Previously exclusive to The Complete Collection box set, Bennett’s first headlining act in Sin City is now available for standalone purchase. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Alex Chilton, Electricity by Candlelight: NYC 2/13/97 (Bar None)

The late Big Star frontman had a talent that not even a power outage at New York’s Knitting Factory could blot out, as this spontaneous, covers-heavy release showcases. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

The Kinks, Muswell Hillbillies: Deluxe Edition (Sanctuary)

The Kinks’ ninth album (and first originally recorded for RCA) gets a two-disc reissue worthy of any 20th century man you might know. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Alabama/Johnny Cash/Neil Diamond/George Jones & Tammy Wynette/Gladys Knight & The Pips/Martina McBride/Barbra Streisand/Andy Williams, The Classic Christmas Album (Legacy)

Following the success of last year’s wave of mid-priced holiday compilations, another eight are coming to fill your stockings with Christmas cheer.

Alabama: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Johnny Cash: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Neil Diamond: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
George Jones & Tammy Wynette: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Gladys Knight & The Pips: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Martina McBride: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Barbra Streisand: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Andy Williams: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Various Artists, CBGB: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Omnivore)

This 20-track compilation for the new film about the legendary New York club features some of the biggest bands who played that stage, plus a recording by founder Hilly Krystal and a new version of Blondie’s “Sunday Girl.” (Rhino will distribute a digital version in the future with exclusive tracks.)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Chili Peppers Revisit Classic Covers on Digital EP

How do the Red Hot Chili Peppers celebrate their graduation to legend status per their recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction? They pay tribute to the ones that came before on a new digital EP that includes a handful of B-sides paying tribute to their favorite fellow inductees.

We Salute You, to be released May 1, includes covers of Dion and The Belmonts, The Ramones, The Stooges, Neil Young, The Beach Boys and David Bowie, all of which can certainly be argued as influences for the long-running funk-rock outfit.  Half of the covers are studio takes, having appeared on CD singles or other compilations (the band’s take on The Ramones’ “Havana Affair” dates from 2003’s We’re a Happy Family tribute album, for example). The other half are live tracks, one of which is being released for the first time anywhere. (All but one of these tracks have never appeared in digital format before.)

For those fans that haven’t warmed up to new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who joined following original arguably best-known guitarist John Frusciante’s second departure last year, fear not: almost every one of these tracks features the band’s innovative axeman. (The cover of Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” dates from the band’s most recent tour last year, while their take on Bowie’s “Suffragette City” was released on a CD single during the One Hot Minute era, when Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction served as guitarist.)

Check out the full track lineup after the jump.

Review: The Stooges, “Have Some Fun: Live at Ungano’s”

Perhaps more than any other band, you can learn a great deal about The Stooges without ever taking a really close listen to their music.

For instance, when Raw Power, the band’s final album before a lengthy split, was remastered and reissued in 1997, chaotic lead singer Iggy Pop personally remastered the album to be as unlistenable as possible. Volume levels were at a violent, threatening level – a potent reminder of the band’s sonic death wish and Pop’s iconic, self-destructive attitude. The album was restored to its original, David Bowie-created mix in a deluxe Legacy Edition earlier this year – but the simplest explanation of the essence of the group came in one quick moment on the bonus live set in Georgia, where an audience member can clearly be heard saying of the snarling, uncontrollable singer, “I don’t think he likes us.”

If you needed more proof that The Stooges can only be truly understood when the music takes a back seat, look no further than Rhino Handmade’s new Have Some Fun: Live at Ungano’s. It’s the latest in a flurry of catalogue activity for the band (named to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year); all three of the band’s original albums were reissued in some way to commemorate the occasion (the Elektra-owned The Stooges was given its second expanded reissue through Rhino Handmade, its successor Fun House had the classic Handmade seven-disc sessions box put back into print and Raw Power – the group’s only release on Columbia – was given the Legacy and deluxe box set treatment). Again, all of those sets were fleetingly about the essence of the music itself – 197o: The Complete Fun House Sessions is a monolithic tribute to how improbable it was to capture the unfettered energy of The Stooges by audio alone – and Live at Ungano’s is no exception.

Stooges Live Show, Out-of-Print Box Set Unearthed (UPDATED 10/25)

For a band that nobody seemed to care about when they were together, The Stooges have really done alright for themselves. All three of their major studio albums have been reissued multiple times to varying degrees of acclaim. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year for their contributions to the early punk rock scene before anyone knew exactly what punk was. And Rhino is planning a few Stooges-oriented holiday gift ideas to close out a banner year that saw another reissue of the band’s 1969 debut album from Rhino and a deluxe edition of 1973’s Raw Power from Legacy Recordings.

Rhino has e-mailed fans to fill them in on the last two payloads in The Stooges’ arsenal for 2010. First up, and most surprising: a new live album, taken from a famed performance at the New York City club Ungano’s in 1970. The disc, retailing for $19.98, will feature almost all the songs from Fun House (1970) performed live, along with two live songs that never appeared on any album. Pre-orders for the album are now being taken, with orders shipping November 16.

On the same date, Rhino Handmade will also reissue 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions. This seven-disc box set, originally released in 1997, was one of the first major Handmade titles to make a significant impact in the reissue community. After topping a poll from Rhino earlier this year of titles fans wanted to see put back into print the most, all 142 tracks containing the many takes and bits of session dialogue that would make up the Fun House record. (UPDATED NOTE: there has been some considerable confusion surrounding the initial announcement that makes up this post. Thus far, the Ungano’s set is available to order, but the box set is not.)

Pre-order links will be added when they’re live. In the meantime, we’ve got the Ungano’s track list and a chance to reacquaint yourself with the Fun House box after the jump.

Iggy Goes Back to “Kill City”

A bit of news that had slipped through the cracks: a reissue of a lesser-known record in the Iggy Pop catalogue. This one is a remixed and remastered version of Kill City, his 1977 collaboration with James Williamson.

Recorded in 1975 after The Stooges imploded (while Pop was in treatment for a heroin addiction), Kill City is another protopunk effort with some great efforts by Williamson (ex-guitarist for The Stooges). While it may not have the impact that those Stooges LPs still have, it was an important stepping stone for Iggy between his old band and his solo creative resurgence with David Bowie in the latter half of the ’70s.

This reissue is due out on October 19 from Alive Naturalsound/Bomp! Check out the original track list after the jump (no bonus material has been confirmed).

News Round-Up: Steve Winwood, India.Arie and The Stooges

• There’s some new info to post about Revolutions: The Very Best of Steve Winwood, the upcoming four-disc Steve Winwood box that may or may not be as good as the last Winwood box. This comes from a comment by an admin on Winwood’s official Web site. Also, note that the Amazon selling price is a not-terrible $39.98:

All the material in this box set was transferred from the original analogue master tapes at 24-bit, 192k resolution in 2010 using the highest quality Prism A-D conversion.

The albums “About Time” and “Nine Lives” have been entirely re-mixed and re-mastered, and these new mixes will appear for the first time on this box set.

Steve has recorded a brand-new version of “Spanish Dancer” which will also be exclusively available on the Revolutions Box Set coming June 7th 2010.

• Universal has another catalogue title on the slate for May 18: a two-disc special edition of India.Arie’s Voyage to India (2002). No firm word on the extras yet.
• A poster on our favorite reissue-centric message board reports that Rhino Handmade’s new collector’s edition of The Stooges (1969) has a pretty glaring technical error: each disc is labelled incorrectly (Disc 1 is labelled as Disc 2 and vice versa). The label is ready to ship replacement discs and has also given buyers an upcoming promo code to another upcoming release. We won’t spoil it here, but you can pretty much figure out which out-of-print Rhino Handmade set won this year’s earlier poll (and will thus go back into print) if you click the link above.

Still Your Dog

After a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and an upcoming reissue of their most iconic record, what more can The Stooges pull from their back catalogue? Not surprisingly, there’s an answer: Rhino Handmade is prepping a two-disc reissue of the band’s 1969 self-titled debut LP.

Of course, as you may have read last week, the album already was given a double-disc reissue by Rhino in 2005. This set ups the ante by presenting a complete, alternate mix of the record and several unearthed songs. The set will also feature a bonus 7″ single of one of those previously unreleased studio cuts, “Asthma Attack.” No release date is set, but you can read more about it here and catch the track list after the jump.

Back Tracks: The Stooges

We continue our ongoing Rock and Roll Hall of Fame pre-game coverage by looking back at another batch of reissue offerings from one of the inducted artists.

The Stooges were one of those bands that were in the right place at the wrong time. Their music was raucous and energetic, their antics were nothing short of ostentatious. But when they rolled onto the scene in 1969, they really had no place in the rock music landscape behaving the way they did. Sure, other big rock bands of the day were into mind-altering substances and disturbing the peace and challenging the status quo. But those bands were photogenic about it, if not glamorous per se. The Stooges – led by wild frontman Iggy Pop, a performer not above smearing himself with foodstuffs and mutilating himself onstage – lacked the kind of image that got their rock ‘n’ roll brethren on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Then a funny thing happened. Years after the band dissolved, punk music took the same sonic sensibilities and the same on-stage tropes that The Stooges adopted and presented them to a more receptive public. Early British punk bands, and later American hardcore bands, were happily paying a large debt to the Ann Arbor, Michigan band that sold next to nothing when they were together. Before long, Kurt Cobain was naming The Stooges’ Raw Power as his all-time favorite record, and Iggy Pop – still ragged but more sober – was appearing in television shows and video games aimed at kids.

Thanks to this resurgence, The Stooges have enjoyed a lot of catalogue action over the past 15 years or so – some more official than others – and the best is presented to you here for your learning pleasure.

“Raw Power” to Melt Faces in April

Fans of The Stooges, get ready for a rush: Legacy Recordings is reissuing Raw Power, one of the most iconic pre-punk rock records of the 1970s. And hardcore fans are going to drool over the goodies that are coming their way.

The standard set is going to be a two-disc Legacy Edition (you know, the ones in a double digipak with a slip case). On the first disc is the original album as originally mixed by David Bowie. This is a really big deal, as the last time Legacy reissued the record in 1997, it was presented in a new “violent” remix by Stooges frontman Iggy Pop. Audiophiles have lambasted this release, largely considered to be the loudest-mastered CD in history. (According to Legacy, that version will actually still be in print.)

In addition to the original mix, another disc rarities is included. In this case, it’s a soundboard recording of a heavily-bootlegged live show recorded in Atlanta in 1973, several months after the release of Raw Power. The nine-track set features four songs from Raw Power as well as a few new tracks written on the road and later immortalized on releases such as the live set Metallic K.O. in 1976. The disc closes out with two previously unreleased tracks: an unreleased outtake from the Raw Power sessions and a rehearsal version of “Head On” from the album. The package is also bolstered with a booklet featuring essays by journalists Kris Needs (author of Joe Strummer and The Legend of The Clash and Keith Richards: Before They Make Me Run) and Brian J. Bowe (original managing editor of the Web site for CREEM) as well as surviving Stooges Pop, Scott Asheton and James Williamson.

But hardcore fans are going to want to check out the Deluxe Edition of Raw Power,available April 27 only through online ordering. This box set takes the complete contents of the Legacy Edition and adds in another two discs of goodies and some neat swag. The third disc compiles eight rare and unreleased tracks from the Raw Power sessions, including a few remixes from a rare U.K. pressing of the record. (Almost none of this stuff is present on the massive, band-sanctioned-but-probably-only-semi-official Heavy Liquid box set released in 2005 on Easy Action Records.) Disc 4 is a DVD documentary on the album featuring interviews with the surviving Stooges, Johnny Marr and Henry Rollins as well as performance footage recorded in Brazil last November. Also included are another 48-page book featuring more essays and photographs, a batch of collectible 5×7 prints and a reproduction of the Japanese 7″ single of “Raw Power” b/w “Search and Destroy.”

Talk about putting the power back into Raw Power. Full track listings for both sets are after the jump.