God bless Tara for putting up with me because when I get obsessed about a certain artist, I can play the shit out of their albums. As I have previously written about, my darling, smart, funny gorgeous wife has put up with an ultra intense reggae jag (the soundtrack to the first two years of our marriage was Big Youth, Alton Ellis, Joe Higgs and King Tubby), as well as additional “phases” (that’s what she calls them) where In the past six months, I’ve practically worn out CDs of the second Faust album, Dylan and the Band’s Basement Tapes set, various Zappa, Kinks, Joni Mitchell records and scores of things from lesser-known bands that I won’t bother to list. I’m one of those idiots who can play the same album ten times in a row for ten days in a row. I wrestle it to the ground and pin it. Suffice to say, my girl has the patience of a saint and a very open mind about music!
For the past week, I’ve been playing a lot of ‘70s Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel albums. I don’t feel like that’s so much of a hardship on Tara because, hey, practically everyone likes Simon & Garfunkel and 70s Paul Simon, don’t they? (And if they don’t they’re idiots and they can go fuck themselves! And if you want to know how I really feel…).
The two things I’ve been listening to the most are the Quadraphonic versions of Bridge Over Troubled Water and Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years. Both albums are justifiably considered classics and to hear them in a surround sound mix is simply stunning. Mind you, you can’t exactly pick these up in stores.
As I posted about last year when I was guest blogger at Boing Boing, there is a coterie of professional and amateur audiophiles who have been, um, liberating the quadraphonic mixes heard on 8-track and reel to reel releases in the mid ‘70s. They get pristine copies on Ebay (reel to reel tapes are obviously more desirable than 8-tracks for these purposes), play them on refurbished decks capable of handling split tracks, then take the tracks into ProTools and clean them up. Then they take those files into a DVD authoring software and create (often professional looking) menus. Then ISO files are made and uploaded to torrent trackers. All you have to do is download them, burn the files in Toast and now you have a multi-channel DVD-A discs you can play in your DVD player.
This is music that in many cases is literally being lost to time and technological change. Some classic rock albums that came out in the quad format have been put out as legit DVD-A releases (Tubular Bells and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid come to mind) but not most of them. These underground music enthusiasts who are recreating these buried treasures are doing a tremendous favor for deep fanboys and audiophiles, allowing them us to hear some truly incredible things that would have otherwise been trapped in obsolete formats.
Hearing Bridge Over Troubled Water in quad is something akin to a peak religious experience. I stand in the middle of the room—the “sweet spot”—and I CRANK IT UP. Soaking up the intense beauty of that song—and Art Garfunkel’s angelic voice—coming at you from all directions is almost overpowering. So gorgeous. So amazing.
Art Garfunkel must have the most comforting voice I’ve ever heard. Every time I get sick—I mean really sick, puking, feeling like you are going to die and feeling really, really sorry for yourself sick—I usually reach for Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits (and for whatever Freudian reason a bowl of “Life” cereal). Only Neil Young’s Harvest or Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks have the same calming effect on me. I can’t think of a single singer whose talents rival the purity of Garfunkel’s tenor voice. You can’t top him. He’s the very best of the very best. Paul Simon’s songs are great—some of the greatest American musical treasures—but they are much, much greater because of what Garfunkel brings to the table. Paul Simon is wonderful on his own, don’t get me wrong, but with Artie in the mix his music becomes transcendent.
Take My Little Town. If you’re reading this far(!) then chances are you’re probably planning to track this stuff down on the Internet. DO look out for the quad version of Still Crazy After All These Years. Obviously, this is a classic album, every track is a gem, with no filler at all. But… the BEST track is My LIttle Town. When Garfunkel is around Simon is just better and even in the stellar setting of this classic album, My Little Town proves the point. And it’s mind-blowing heard in surround sound.
When I was a kid, wanting desperately to be someplace where things were happening and where I’d meet interesting people, My Little Town spoke to me. No one wanted to get out of their town the way that I did. I have loved this song since I was 10-years-old, but man, lemme tell you, the multichannel mix of this song a powerful revelation.
Having “new” versions of these classic albums helped me get into them again and appreciate them anew. Why hasn’t Columbia or Warners ever reissued BOTW or SCAATY as a surround sound DVD-A releases? Because no one would buy them?!? BOTW was only a number one album in every country in the free world, selling over 25 million copies! SCAATY won a Grammy for best album. These multichannel versions obviously exist in their vaults. It seems crazy to me that the labels wouldn’t jump on the fact that—based on the evidence found on torrent trackers—fans would love to hear these. It’s just leaving money on the table, but even more importantly, most music fans won’t get to experience these Simon & Garfunkel classics as they can best be appreciated on modern sound systems.
From Simon & Garfunkel’s 1968 TV special sponsored by Kraft, here’s a great version of Patterns:
And I had to include this, too. Witness Simon and an extremely cute—and highly exuberant—little girl on Sesame Street duetting on Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard. Like I say, Simon’s at his best with Artie, but he’s aces with little Linda here, too! “It’s against the law!”