Bob Seger Reissue News

In some ways Live Bullet is most valuable as the only way you can get versions of the old stuff ("Lookin' Back" "Turn The Page") on legit cd. Seger comes off as super-charismatic on it.

If I had a back catalogue like the cd MVB sent out I would exploit the living hell out of it. That shit is incredible. "Like a Rock" and the risky business shit song suck. Yes I'm drunk.

the risky business shit song suck

Ha! It's Friday late afternoon-evening in the USA. Excellent!

I kind of want to hear the rest of Live Bullet because of how eerie "Turn The Page" always sounded: not much crowd noise, that perfectly-placed feedback, the road-weariness of Seger's voice exponentially transcending any cliches, and probably the least-pretentious use of a mellotron in popular music.

I haven't listened to it in years, but I seem to recall how distant the crowd sounded on all of Live Bullet. It's funny because during one of the songs Bob's banterin' about how there are a couple of tape machines in the back of the hall and if you cheer loud enough you just might hear yourself on an album, but when you actually hear the cheers they come off like a bunch of detail-less white noise compared to how clean the actual music was recorded. Maybe it's mixed weird or something?

I think a lot of engineers/artists wrestled with how much to mike the crowd on live albums. Live At Leeds had a single mike pointed at the audience, while Kiss' Alive likely had many more than that, and the crowd noise on Rush's All The World's A Stage nearly overwhelms the music. Bob had a relatively large group at that time, and miking the crowd might have meant the difference between 8- and 16-track, the latter of which would have cost a lot more.

Kiss Alive was goosed and rerecorded, wasn't it?

Eddie Kramer has said that the only live element on the record was the drums. But he's also said the only live element was Ace Frehley's guitar. Gene Simmons said some mistakes were fixed, but that the label didn't have the budget for them to substantially re-record large sections (which seems plausible, as Kiss hadn't sold much, and Casablanca was at death's door). Whatever was overdubbed, it seems the crowd noise was largely left alone (but still way huge in the mix).

man, that comp really took off, didn't it?

"back in 72" (the song) really rocks. been in my head all week.

So, I'm curious, last year a fan-made compilation of your early stuff, "Never Mind the Bullets, Here's Early Bob Seger" made it all the way to 111 on the Pazz and Jop poll that Village Voice does.
Wow.

And that was something that wasn't even released commercially, you know, beating out records by Tom Petty and stuff...
I didn't know that.

I was curious if you had any plans or ideas about maybe reissuing some of that early stuff. This was real early stuff, and I was wondering if you had any plans to put that out commercially.
Well, if you're talking the pre-Capitol stuff, I have no control over it. You remember the name Alan Klein? He owns that, and it's difficult to get with Mr. Klein :laughter:, so it's completely out of my hands. On the other hand, I have a lot of spare songs that I've done down through the years that I do want to see the light of day, and all the way back to the early '70s, and even some '60s, and like, for instance, I think on the Live Record, we put out one that I did at Pontiac's Silverdome, which was about eight months after "Live Bullet," and it was an Albert King song called "Feel Like Breakin Up Somebody's Home." And we used to do a lot of R & B back then, and there's another Albert King song that I can't find, "Don't Burn Down the Bridge, You Just might Wanna Come Back," and I have so much old stuff, and I do want it to see the light of day, someday.

http://blogs.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/arts-a-entertainment/pop-noise/30989-bob-seger-interview-still-the-same-part-i

note that he doesn't say anything about the early capitol albums. i get the feeling he just wants them to go away. oh well.

*shakes fist* Alan Klein!

also that almost counts as Bob-props to Myonga, no? :D

Allen Klein: dead, and still pissing artists off.

can we dig him up just to shoot him in the face

this is kind of awesome, at least now he knows that we care.

I wish he had said "Omg this changes everything. I was going to record a new album but now I'm
going to dedicate my life to releasing all of my old material."

haha, "Wow" indeed.

& Allen Klein, so villainous! unknown to me bit from wiki re: him and jodorowsky!

Witnessing the commercial success of hard-core pornographic films, such as Deep Throat and The Devil In Miss Jones, which broke through to the mainstream, Klein saw similar potential in Pauline Réage's bestseller The Story Of O, but Jodorowsky walked out on the deal.

Ray Davies had a great line about Klein: "I never signed a piece of paper with Klein, but I'm sure he can pull one out of a drawer."

haha. it's funny, in that sam cooke bio from a few years back, klein comes across as this really passionate, devoted guy who has cooke's back at all times.

iirc, Christgau was pretty critical of Guralnick for essentially taking Klein's statements at face value. But Klein did get insane money for Cooke (and Bobby Darin) out of crooked record labels.

yeah i imagine klein was the lesser of two evils for dudes like cooke and darin. maybe guralnick got taken for a ride by klein, i don't know, but it was interesting to hear klein's side of the story for once.

a facebook friend of mine who's a veteran of the late 60s/early 70s detroit scene recently posted an "east side story" utube and commented that seger hates his old stuff and has never wanted it released. i find this credible, not only considering the source but seger's comments upthread feel evasive.

blaming allan klein is a convenient dodge. "the devil won't let me" not the first (or last time) a great musician fails to appreciate his own best work

I wonder if Seger even knows that Abkco finally reissued some of those songs?

a facebook friend of mine who's a veteran of the late 60s/early 70s detroit scene recently posted an "east side story" utube and commented that seger hates his old stuff and has never wanted it released. i find this credible, not only considering the source but seger's comments upthread feel evasive.

Except he still does "Heavy Music" in concert.

Also, if the Rolling fucking Stones can't even wrest control of their 60s catalog from Klein's cold, dead hands, I doubt Seger has much of a shot.

Except he still does "Heavy Music" in concert.

He didn't when I saw him in '07 - it was a straight Greatest Hits of the '70s and '80s show, with maybe three songs from Face the Promise thrown in.

i think klein has the pre-capitol singles, probably not those early LPs though no?

i think seger is dodging the question.

come on guys who needs bullshit like 'ramblin gamblin man' when we have 'like a rock'?

What not to do.

rock and roll never forgives.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/2df575b37804dc2a193737a338cb2dbe/tumblr_mgfuzk5fv81qg4f0do1_500.jpg

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/79-year-old-coma-bob-seger/

That's awesome.

Evie otm

http://grantland.com/features/bob-seger-detroit-week-career/

“Is ‘Night Moves,’ all things considered, your best song?” posits Costas, his usual sports-broadcaster cadence uneasily downshifted into a more casual, conversational tone reserved for serious rock talk.

“I don’t know, um,” replies Seger, age 46, his unnaturally dark hair and beard forming a quizzical question mark. “I don’t like to say this is better than that.”

No video here because this song isn’t online. Just imagine a very loud arena-rock song sung by a bearded Tina Turner.

“I don’t like to say this is better than that.”

Except, um, I don't want anyone to hear my early stuff.

his unnaturally dark hair and beard forming a quizzical question mark.

Pictures, please, I need to see this shapeshifting coiffure.

a quizzical question mark

http://kaipopunohuamst317.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/bob-seger-system-22.jpg

The Bob Seger System, live on Washington, DC TV in 1970:

"Ramblin' Gamblin' Man":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PWRVXOvqc

"Lucifer":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpAP7MF-uxU

"Song for Rufus":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mny3k9oku6k

Now that's what I call A FIND!

Yeah, they popped up on my Facebook feed and my eyeballs basically melted.

Wahoooooooh

Absolutely mindblowing.

I posted this to fb, and my uncle commented that he saw the Bob Seger System in 1969...during an afternoon assembly at his high school.

How the fuck do you go back to class after witnessing something like that?

Somewhere Seger described being a poor kid going to high school with "rich kids"---they portrayed themselves that way, and they had cool cars etc.---and still doing that when he suddenly got his first local airplay/hits, becoming this novelty celebrity, and the in-crowd, who had left him in the dust, were suddenly scooping him up, to be their status symbol/good luck charm, their golden mascot, him instead of fuzzy dice, I guess---and he wanted it! Wanted the acceptance, anyway.

Think he was still mainly gigging, but some local airplay already.