Michelle Shocked: Texas Campfire Rip-Off
Paul Malan
to post it to get it out of my system.
After I "discovered" Michelle Shocked two or three years ago I bought
all her CD's I could find, including "The Texas Campfire Tapes".
To say the least I was dismayed to find that it had been recorded on
a *Sony Walkman* -- and it sounds like it. Who knew that the title
was so literal? :-(
I guess I am not a big enough fan to just accept the poor sound quality.
Die-hard fans pay more for bootlegs than studio recordings, but at least
they know the risk of potentially inferior sound. There really should
be a warning label on the outside of this CD. Do other people who
bought it feel it's a rip-off or not?
Paul
ma...@leland.stanford.edu
P.S. Anyone want to trade for a rare Michelle Shocked CD?
rmr...@afterlife.ncsc.mil
Well, I REALLY like it.
I was actually impressed with the sound given how it was recorded.
But then again, I knew about its history before I bought it.
--
Randy Rohrer && The George Washington University
rmr...@afterlife.ncsc.mil Department of EE&CS
roh...@seas.gwu.edu
Paul Malan
>In article <1993Jun3.0...@leland.Stanford.EDU> ma...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Paul Malan) writes:
>>to post it to get it out of my system.
>>
>>After I "discovered" Michelle Shocked two or three years ago I bought
>>all her CD's I could find, including "The Texas Campfire Tapes".
>>To say the least I was dismayed to find that it had been recorded on
>>a *Sony Walkman* -- and it sounds like it. Who knew that the title
>>was so literal? :-(
>>
>>I guess I am not a big enough fan to just accept the poor sound quality.
>>Die-hard fans pay more for bootlegs than studio recordings, but at least
>>they know the risk of potentially inferior sound. There really should
>>be a warning label on the outside of this CD. Do other people who
>>bought it feel it's a rip-off or not?
>>
>I don't know if it's possible to record on a Sony Walkman
I didn't think so either, but that's what it says on the slip included
with the CD.
NOTE: The P.S. on my original post about a "rare MS CD" should
have had a smiley. It was an ironical reference to wanting
to get rid of the Campfire Tapes CD.
Paul
Clancy
>to post it to get it out of my system.
>
>After I "discovered" Michelle Shocked two or three years ago I bought
>all her CD's I could find, including "The Texas Campfire Tapes".
>To say the least I was dismayed to find that it had been recorded on
>a *Sony Walkman* -- and it sounds like it. Who knew that the title
>was so literal? :-(
>
>I guess I am not a big enough fan to just accept the poor sound quality.
>Die-hard fans pay more for bootlegs than studio recordings, but at least
>they know the risk of potentially inferior sound. There really should
>be a warning label on the outside of this CD. Do other people who
>bought it feel it's a rip-off or not?
>
Lucien Van Elsen
> I don't know if it's possible to record on a Sony Walkman.
No, it was not on a DAT; the liner notes say "Recorded on a Sony
Walkman (tm) at Kerrville Folk Festival, Texas, USA". The text by Pete
Lawrence in the notes also makes it pretty clear that it wasn't any sort of
hi-tech recording session.
-Lucien
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Lucien Van Elsen IBM Research
luc...@watson.ibm.com Project Agora
David Mandl
Relax. You obviously don't know the story of this LP and are SERIOUSLY
overreacting. This was Michelle's first LP. Michelle sat down and gave
an impromptu (unofficial) performance during a music festival in Texas,
the name of which escapes me. It was recorded by someone with a walkman
who happened to be there. This guy liked the tapes so much that, with
Michelle's permission, he released them as an LP on his small independent
label. Michelle was completely unknown and unrecorded at the time. The
LP caught on, became a big hit, and made Michelle famous. Now she is well
known and has of course recorded a bunch of "real" LPs.
There's not much anyone could do to help you if you didn't know anything
about the record in advance. Yeah, I guess they could put a warning label
on the disc, but that seems kind of lame, and there are hundreds of records
recorded in home studios and on cheap equipment--should they all have warnings?
I can understand the way you feel, I guess (personally, I value good music
more than state-of-the art slick production), but it's extremely inaccurate
for you to call The Texas Campfire Tapes a rip-off.
--Dave.
Susan Krauss
was recording but it was originally released without her knowledge. She
doesn't even consider it her first record. But there were some legal
problems and she couldn't stop its release.
The songs are good even if the quality of the recording isn't though.
Susan Krauss
skr...@panix.com
Paul Malan
>
>Relax. You obviously don't know the story of this LP and are SERIOUSLY
>overreacting. This was Michelle's first LP. Michelle sat down and gave
>an impromptu (unofficial) performance during a music festival in Texas,
>the name of which escapes me. It was recorded by someone with a walkman
>who happened to be there. This guy liked the tapes so much that, with
>Michelle's permission, he released them as an LP on his small independent
>label. Michelle was completely unknown and unrecorded at the time. The
>LP caught on, became a big hit, and made Michelle famous. Now she is well
>known and has of course recorded a bunch of "real" LPs.
Well I think it's a *serious* overstatement to say I'm seriously
over-reacting. After all, I waited more than 2 years before mentioning
it. Over-reacting would be to sue the company or try to take the CD
back to the store, rather than simply discussing it.
Having read the liner notes I do know the story of the LP. The problem
is I had to buy it to find out. Many LP's have little blurbs on the
outside, and I don't think that would have been untoward here.
>There's not much anyone could do to help you if you didn't know anything
>about the record in advance. Yeah, I guess they could put a warning label
>on the disc, but that seems kind of lame, and there are hundreds of records
>recorded in home studios and on cheap equipment--should they all have warnings?
Cheap equipment is one thing, but surely a Walkman is unusually primitive?
>I can understand the way you feel, I guess (personally, I value good music
>more than state-of-the art slick production), but it's extremely inaccurate
>for you to call The Texas Campfire Tapes a rip-off.
Well, rip-off is perhaps a bit strong, and it has engendered a
correspondingly strong reaction. But I felt that I had been ripped off.
Maybe the problem lies with the fact that (as someone implied in an
e-mail to me) buying music is a gamble. However, I don't suppose that's
likely to change in the near future -- the record companies would
lose too many sales if we could all listen before buying.
>
> --Dave.
>
Paul
Steve Wyrick
Elsen, luc...@watson.ibm.com writes:
>> I thought it was recorded on a portable DAT machine.
>> I don't know if it's possible to record on a Sony Walkman.
>
>No, it was not on a DAT; the liner notes say "Recorded on a Sony
>Walkman (tm) at Kerrville Folk Festival, Texas, USA". The text by Pete
>Lawrence in the notes also makes it pretty clear that it wasn't any sort
of
>hi-tech recording session.
They may mean a Sony Pressman, which is a recorder about the size of a
Walkman. There are models with varying complexity & fidelity.
---------------------------------------------
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's,
there are few." - Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
Steve Wyrick (sjwy...@lbl.gov)
Ugo Piomelli
I personally like it, too. The story I know is that she agreed to be taped,
then the guy proposed to release the album on a small rebel label in
the UK, and she agreed to that too. It's quite clear that now she regrets it,
since she refers to "Short sharp shocked" as her first album.
Ugo
*************************************************************************
Ugo Piomelli
Associate Professor There are no kings
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Inside the Gates of Eden
University of Maryland Bob Dylan
College Park, MD 20742
*************************************************************************
Steve Cobrin
around 7 years old is still sold and still regarded as one of the best
recording "walkmen", rather large and heavy, but often used to be
reviewed alongside real Hi-Fi Cassette Decks, still regarded as a de
facto standard for journalists on Fleet Street (UK). I believe it was
one of the first walkmen to feature Dolby C (well the new type
anyway).
I believe it was a British Folk writer (Ian Anderson?) who recorded
her. At the time it was released it had a specially low price to
reflect that not much was done in terms of technology to record it. As
a chronicle of one of the new breed of contempory folk singers, I rate
it as one of my favourite recordings, Crickets and Truck noises
included! Of course, since then its been released on CD, to slightly
more inflated prices.
She used to live in London, on a Canal boat, and I'm looking forward to
seeing her again at Glastonbury this July.
-- steve
Hiram Jackson
ma...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Paul Malan) wrote:
>
> O.K., this is an old gripe, but it's been festering for so long I had
> to post it to get it out of my system.
>
> After I "discovered" Michelle Shocked two or three years ago I bought
> all her CD's I could find, including "The Texas Campfire Tapes".
> To say the least I was dismayed to find that it had been recorded on
> a *Sony Walkman* -- and it sounds like it. Who knew that the title
> was so literal? :-(
>
> I guess I am not a big enough fan to just accept the poor sound quality.
> Die-hard fans pay more for bootlegs than studio recordings, but at least
> they know the risk of potentially inferior sound. There really should
> be a warning label on the outside of this CD. Do other people who
> bought it feel it's a rip-off or not?
The Campfire Tape was actually the album that brought her to the
attention of everybody. At the time the appeal of the album (which
received a few favorable reviews) was that you could hear all of the
incidental noises of playing around a campfire -- the crickets, trucks
driving around in the distance, shuffling around between songs. Some liked
the debut album because it showed perhaps a romanticized notion of how folk
music should be presented -- outside of the studio, in person, maybe on a
Texas ranch on a summer night.
A representative from Cooking Vinyl (a record company) was present at
the Kerrville Folk Festival during this time and liked the material that he
heard Michelle Shocked playing at the time. All he had at the time was a
Sony Walkman on which to record her music. When he got back to the U.K.,
he decided that he really wanted to release an album of her music.
Unfortunately Michelle Shocked was more or less a homeless transient
without a permanent address. So the Cooking Vinyl fellow decided to take
his chances and release the Sony Walkman tape as the album. It was only
because that album was released that Michelle Shocked and the Cooking Vinyl
gentleman got in contact with each other and that she released subsequent
albums. Perhaps a nauseating rags to riches story, but more wonderful
because it's more truth than fiction in this case.
I agree with you that it sounds like a rough demo or bootleg concert
tape, but maybe knowing about the circumstances of its release is helpful
to appreciating the album itself. Personally I feel like I got my money's
worth for the album. Perhaps a second edition of the album should include
some text regarding the circumstances of the recording on the outside
packaging in order to warn people who really prefer a more polished sound.
Hiram Jackson
Dept. of Geology
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
Tom Velazquez
(Michelle's husband).
Any mis-spellings and or mis-quotes are the solely the fault of the typist. Me.
Once she'd told me about it, I used to grief Michelle about how thoroughly she'd pre-
planned her first three records as a trilogy - that other one, the Texas campfire
thefts, counts just as long as we can count whatever YOU do when nobody's watching
and your not getting paid. From the day she ever signed a contract to make records
- which was significantly after her records were available for purchase
ghost
>It was recorded on a Sony Professional Walkman D6C, which although is
>around 7 years old is still sold and still regarded as one of the best
>recording "walkmen", rather large and heavy, but often used to be
>reviewed alongside real Hi-Fi Cassette Decks, still regarded as a de
>facto standard for journalists on Fleet Street (UK). I believe it was
>one of the first walkmen to feature Dolby C (well the new type
>anyway).
Hey! thats my baby you're calling names! Large & Heavy??
7-1/4" x 1-5/8" x 3-3/4", 1 lb 7 oz including batteries!
You never tried to lug around an old Sony TC-110A, I can tell that...
David Mandl
>I thought it was recorded on a portable DAT machine.
>I don't know if it's possible to record on a Sony Walkman.
Of course it is. There are many many models (Sony and others) that
record. DAT was probably not commercially available yet when "Texas
Campfire Tapes" was recorded.
--Dave.
Don Wegeng
The thing that has puzzled me about all this is that Michelle continued to
release albums (in the UK, at least) via the same record company that she
claims ripped her off. Perhaps I'm missing part of the story.
Eyebyte Design
had never been made and taken to eorope, michelle may well have never been
"discovered" and would never have got to make the other records that you
like...or perhaps think about the fact that this is in fact what most folk
music started off sounding like, before we all got addicted to digital sound,
"perfect" studios and sweetening everything up in the mix! fwiw dugg of
eyebyte
S10...@umrvma.umr.edu
Kerrvert (although I have only been so for 2 years now).
The campfire tapes were recorded at the Kerrville Folk Festival Campfires.
For those of you who don't know what the campfires are, let me explain.
The campfires happen after the big night shows. The stage musicians and
the "unknown" musicians go back to the campground and arrange themselves
at the various camp's campfires. (Camp Cuisine, etc.) Around these
campfires, the famous and not so famous sit and trade songs until the wee
hours of the morning. Beautiful harmonies and extra instruments are
added by the by standers and it is a great experience.
My understanding is that someone taped Michelle Shocked at one of these
campfire settings. To expect such a recording to be either 1. Produced
2. "DDD" 3. Representative of the occasion. would be out of line.
Maybe this needs to be explained on the liner notes. I'm not sure. However,
the fact that these campfires are taped sometimes almost seems a shame.
The Kerrville campfires are a place where music is lived and experienced
rather than just observed.
All IMHO of course,
Jon Steltenpohl
aka Captain Goatee
p.s. If you really love live music performed as folk music rather than just
a stage or a CD, I would heartily recommend the Kerrville festival. It is
a great chance to lose the hustle and bustle of the real :( world.
SG/EBC/KX/ZMEC Magnus Blomqvist 08-764 0061
I think that Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Album is one of my best
CD's. This is true musik!! You almost feel that you are there at the
campfire. OK, the technical quality of the reording is not so great
but I regard the music as number one priority.
Regards,
Magnus
---
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Magnus Blomqvist (SG/EBC/KX/ZMEC)
Ericsson Business Networks AB, Sweden
Internet: ebc...@ebc.ericsson.se
MEMO: ERI.EBC.EBCMBQ PSI: 2403713201101::EBCMBQ
Telephone: +46 8 7640061 Fax: +46 8 289918
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Tim McGinnis
>Hi,
>
>OK, the technical quality of the reording is not so great
>but I regard the music as number one priority.
>
damn it, i think that there's something wrong with my
new 10 cd discpack or my digital koss headphones,
there's so much hiss when i listen to the texas campfire
recording.
actually, i can't really listen to music w/o video
stimulation. does anyone have the video album of
this.
J. Lani Herrmann
Are Walkman PROs -- not the joggers' specials you see everywhere nowadays.
Though I (and other folks) have had Problems with the mechanisms
-- and I have Very Serious Questions about design of the smaller one --
The larger model (6-volts) is still worth the coupla hundred-or-so dollars
I paid for mine a while ago, before the exchange rate went through the roof.
-- Lani
<||> Lani Herrmann * School of Library and Information Studies * South Hall
<||> la...@info.berkeley.edu * University of California, Berkeley 94720
Your Pal
|>
|>The following is an excerpt from "Does this road go to Little Rock"
|>by Bart Bull (Michelle's husband).
|>
|>we can count whatever YOU do when nobody's watching and you're not
|>getting paid.
I'm not sure that I would trust Michelle Shocked's husband to give a
historically accurate account...
(caution, rampant rumormongering to follow)
Here's an incident that apparently occured at the recent ABA (American
Booksellers' Association) convention. Michelle was at the convention
(apparently she performed at one of the parties there), and a certain
publisher (I forget which one) was coming out with a book about her.
Well, apparently, Michelle's husband threw a fit in this publisher's
booth, doing some serious damage. The reason? This book contained a
passage that implied that Michelle had, at some point in the past, been
a lesbian.
The fellow just doesn't strike me as a stickler for historical accuracy.