the zombies

not always right because (a) a lot of recordings from the '60s and before were originally recorded/mixed with a mono product in mind, and stereo mixes created after the fact often rely on some cheesy, unnatural-sounding processing, and (b) some people just plain like the sound of everything piled together into one glorious mono blob. either way you're coloring the sound; it's just a question of which way you prefer it to be colored.

All of disc 1 and everything on disc 2 that's not Odessey at least.

The booklet in my copy of the boxset has detached from the spine of the box. :(

it has turned into crystal..

Wrong band.

(!)

Are you calling me an anus?

Bummer In the Summer

The Velveteen Rabbit Box Set?

Every week I like to pick up an album by a band I've never heard before. Last week it was Pere Ubu, this week The Zombies. Although I might have made the mistake of buying a copy lacking the mono versions. Doh!

Next week: Red Aunts, motherfucker!

oddessey & oracle = perfect summer record

wow, i am drunk. i meant to say "spring." I listen to it every spring, anyway.

hell, it's perfect any time of year

"Odessey & Oracle" plus "The Decca Stereo Anthology" contain absolutely everything anyone would ever need by The Zombies.

Yeah Geir you said that 3 years ago.

I have proof.

I found out too......

Late!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uB-0D-gV8mY/RvqkxHuak8I/AAAAAAAAEL4/XRSBTVcWjao/s400/999.jpg

I would search out "R.I.P.", their final album which never actually got a proper release (though all the tracks are available on the aforementioned box set and there's a Japanese CD release too). "I'll Call You Mine" is maybe my favorite song they ever recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxZqr0XYHs

Man this is great for all kinds of reasons including - Schlitz breakfast of champions sweater / cameraman vs pillar FITE / pretty french girls in sequined dresses dancing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eExAFAxZJxE

What's the song out now that samples "She's Not There"? I heard it in the car today, first time. More interesting than particularly good. (Google gave me an Eminem song, but this was a woman.)

Black Hippy "Rolling Stone"

Interestingly, at the show I saw, Argent prefaced the song by saying "a lot of people think I wrote this, but it was actually Chris White". They are both officially credited, though.

yeah that was cool. i also lol'd when rod said something like, "i've been performing this song for a number of years. for some reason, people seem to think the lyrics are 'hold your head up, woah!' actually the lyrics are 'hold your head up, WOMAN.' so, if you're going to sing along -- and we really hope you do -- for god's sake, get it right."

Verbatim here, and probably everywhere, iirc, since they've been doing the same exact setlist for a couple of years.

Man, that reminds me--Rod Argent is 71, and still shredding on the keyboards, while playing just about the whole show standing up. That was something to see.

Do keyboard players tend to lose dexterity as they age? I would imagine so, and maybe Argent has, but I couldn't tell.

Aside: Great article from last year about the group that toured the US as the Zombies to cash in on their success. Included 2/3 of ZZ Top!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/danielralston/the-true-story-of-the-fake-zombies-the-strangest-con-in-rock?utm_term=.it8GBR9V9b#.uvYAWMYeYq

which, as the article explains (though i've read this elsewhere on some zombies fan site), led the zombies to record their great lost album, unreleased until 2012 i think.

anybody have an opinion on "rip" ? it's one of those things (like the vu quine tapes) that i keep thinking i'll buy but never do.

thanks for that youtube clip upthread. i've always loved that song and that 'era' of the zombies but hadn't seen that video before. plus, i never realized what a tall drink of water blunstone used to be.

just came back from seeing the Zombies at the Grammy Museum, in a small theater there. It was about an hour and forty minutes, the first hour being an interview with Colin, Rod, Chris, and Hugh, and the remainder being a set of Zombie songs (including a pair of new ones, which I thought were a cut below but performed with a lot of joy that was infectious.) This set was just Rod on piano and Colin singing, which was remarkable. He can still belt it out at 71. They played about ten songs, i think. Such legends.

wow

i did not know that...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvuOs7o944

would have thought all the ilx chillwavers would have hepped me to this fact. i have been playing old prefab a TON recently.

holy shit, that's really good. not a reimagination as much as a perfect match.

Picked up Time of The Zombies, a double LP comp Epic put together in the '70s. The second side is a bunch of stuff slated for RIP (post O & O sessions w/Argent & White), and almost all new to me. It's like The Left Banke if they'd been grownups.

Sounds tempting

Can’t check now but I think all of that is on the Zombie Heaven box

Zombie Heaven has everything from the '60s. RIP itself finally came out in the 2000s.

Time of the Zombies is so great, plus you get all of O&O in it

I thought Heaven had a bunch of post O&O stuff on it and comparing track lists on discogs it sure she seems like all of Time is on Heaven but maybe I’m misunderstanding you

Bad phrasing on my part. Zombie Heaven is their complete recordings (all of which were made in the '60s) RIP was later broken off as its own individual release a few years later.

...and apparently a bundle of recordings not included in the box were released as Into The Afterlife in 2007.

This should be a fun listen

https://omny.fm/shows/the-true-story-of-the-fake-zombies/trailer

Rod Argent suffers stroke, cancels tour.

https://deadline.com/2024/07/the-zombies-cancel-tour-rod-argent-suffers-stroke-1236009361/

Saw and enjoyed the Zombies "Hung up on a Dream" film doc Sunday night. It was directed by Robert Copolla Schwartzman, son of Talia Shire, brother of Paul, and from the band Rooney. After the screening, Rooney did 2 songs, and then backed Colin Blunstone on Tell Her No, She's Not There, This Will Be Our Year, Caroline Goodbye, Hung Up on a Dream, and Time of the Season. After that Bob Boilen of NPR Tiny Desk fame interviewed Colin and Robert.

The doc shows how the Zombies enjoyed and learned from being on Dick Clark traveling bills and Murray the K shows from the likes of Patti Labelle & the Bluebelles, and Aretha Franklin and others, but did not enjoy getting paid little on those gigs or on a series of gigs they did night after night in an arena in the Philippines, and elsewhere. The Zombies did not turn on each other, they were just mad at promoters and management. The doc does its best despite not alot of old footage and conveys how Rod Argent, and Chris White and the others created O & O and other original cuts. The doc goes deep on telling the stories of each original member

Blunstone still sounds good at age 80