I finally got the 1970 discs the other day. I love the Ungano's recording. It'll get some heavy rotation in my CD player. Too bad "Fun House" is truncated.

On the other hand, I'm terribly disappointed in the Thousand Lights disc. If I had been able to hear it first, I probably would not have bought it (although it wasn't expensive and is nice to have). I'll probably stick with my old collectors' recordings which I've cleaned up myself. While it seems Easy Action used lower generation tapes than my old recordings, drenching them in reverb has, to my ears, rendered them almost unlistenable. If I didn't already have these recordings as a point of reference, they would be great but I find the reverb a TERRIBLE addition. Sure, a bit of reverb will fill out the sound some but they were far too heavy-handed in their use of it on the Ungano's, Chicago and Goose Lake tracks.

However, the Cincinnatti recording is probably the best version I've heard and I don't hear any reverb on it (or it's minimal). I guess that's worth the price of admission. But I still have a complaint that they omitted the announcer at the beginning. That might please some folks but, to me, it's part of the complete recording and I would prefer to have it intact. Likewise, the announcer on the Gooselake recording is cut. I would rather have it included.

In addition, although the recordings are my focus, I was hoping for more STOOGES photos on both packages. But both are very Iggy ladened, especially Ungano's. Thousand Lights has incredible photos but so much of the focus is on Iggy. More shots of the band from this era would have been great.

None the less, it's great that these recordings are now commercially available.

[quote="Chazz Avery"]I]Thousand Lights[/i] has incredible photos but so much of the focus is on Iggy. More shots of the band from this era would have been great.

.[/quote]


There'll never be quite enough of those! :)

Interesting...I thought the reverb was ok.

Why?

I listen in headphones a lot, so reverb can help 'widen' the sound a little, without becoming clumsily done fake stereo (I don't even mind fake stereo personally - if it's done well, and it's not easy to get right, I know).

If anything while I could tell the Cincinatti tracks on 1000 Lights were from a very good source, the distortion I could also hear meant they were a *slight* disappointment. That doesn't mean I think they should have been drenched in reverb... anyway as you can tell, one person's trash is another's treasure.

I quite like the 1000 Lights disc...the cover pics is very nice and so is the presentation...not sure all the colour pics added that much (and I normally like colour pics) but to people who are into the Stooges more visually than I am / those who attended the gigs they must be like a goldmine. Also I thought it was odd the venue information was missing, and I thought there could have been more biographical detail.

BUT...aside from those minor quibbles (and for me they are minor) I felt it was among the best Easy Action releases yet, and I felt they are learning from earlier mistakes (one of the worse being the live in the toilet Chicago '77 rehearsal gig when a hundred times better versions have been torrented...after and BEFORE Where the Faces Shine was released ).

Ungano's? Not got it yet and I'm looking forward to it...