Hard to find firesign

[Cat Simril Ishikawa]

In article <4soib9$5...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, lala...@aol.com
(Lalalawyr) writes:
>
> Msg-ID: <4soib9$5...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>
> References: <4sgn4a$8...@news-e2b.gnn.com>
> Posted: 19 Jul 1996 13:58:01 -0400
>
> Org. : America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
>
> In article <4sgn4a$8...@news-e2b.gnn.com>, Dre...@gnn.com (Bluto Lungs)
> writes:
>
> >Besides, CDs are going to be obsolete in a few years anyway, once DVDs
> take
> >hold.
>
> Some people predicted the demise of standard audiotapes when CDs came in,
> and again when DAT was first available, so you just never know.
>
> You might want to follow the debate in the entertainment industry trades
> before you buy stock in any company touting DVDs. Even then, it's
> anybody's guess and expensive gambles by people who are paid huge sums to
> predict these things and still get it wrong. Anybody seen CD-i around
> lately?
>
> Entertainment technology developments are often influenced by factors
> other than what seems reasonable or likely technologically or
> business-wise. After all, most cognescenti agree that Betamax WAS the
> superior technology and should have beaten VHS. Many think the main thing
> Sony did wrong was refusing to license Betamax for porn films, which
> drove
> the VCR industry in its infancy.
>
> I researched a paper in law school 15 years ago, when Comsat had a deal
> with Sears to sell those small home dish antennas and most interested
> parties truly believed they would be flooding the market and replacing
> cable by the mid-80s. Ha!
>
> Personally, I'll take FT on CD, or any other format that is then-current
> when the distributors deign to favor us, and not hold out for the next
> big
> thing.
>
> Melissa
>
> Members of the Firesign Theatre have mentioned quadrophonic versions of
> Bozos and I think EYK as being their best work, but who has ever heard
> it, or is likely to do so? That technology came and went faster than
> (insert firesign metaphor here). Ain't it great knowing all the great
> Firestuff you'll NEVER hear?
>
> Cat
>
> "Do the Hun, it's the latest rages,
> Do the Hun, it's from the Middle Ages.
> No other dance can touch it,
> No other holds a candle,
> I learned it from a Visigoth
> Who learned it from a Vandal
> Do the Hun! (c'mon, hon)"

[Radiolaria]

Now there's an interesting spin on TFT CDs, I want to hear the quad mixes
on CD.
Radiolaria a.k.a. Mark G.

[GemMemory]

Cat Simril Ishikawa sent a message with two other attributions so I
had a hard time telling who was saying what, but one was Lalalawyr, and on
looking again, I'm surprised to find the other one is my friend Johnny
Dresden.

Anyway, one of the above people wrote:

> Sony did wrong was refusing to license Betamax for porn films, which
> drove
> the VCR industry in its infancy.
>

Um, my family was the first on the block, getting a Sony Betamax in
September, 1977, and porn films were readily available as quickly in Beta
as in VHS (faster actually, because at the start of sales/rental of
pre-recorded video, there were far more Beta titles available than VHS).
Trust me. I was a horny little 12 year old at just about the time they
became available. I know.

Where I've always felt Sony messed up was on the time issue: when
you could fit 6 hours on a VHS cassette you could only get 3 on a Beta
(though the 3-hour quality on Beta was even better...and still is...than
the 2-hour speed on VHS). I remember nothing else seeming to matter to
lots of people other than the time factor, and that it was pushed in ads
heavily, until Beta became solely for snooty Art Snobs like me who care
fanatically about picture and sound quality (recognize these teeth? I'm
Art Snob.).

And yes, I still record stuff on Betamax. When it's working. Among
the pre-recorded stuff I own on Beta are "Eat or Be Eaten", "Hot Shorts",
and "The Case of the Missing Yolk" which I got for $1 apiece when the Beta
Only store in NYC went bust a few years back.

Technically ever forward into the past,

Dr. Gemini Memory
Insert Here, Maine

**********************
"...and intelligence agents preparing an 'antipathy matrix' of who in the
world is angry at whom."
---New York Times, July 12, 1996
"Cinema is far too rich and powerful a medium to be merely left to the
storytellers."
---Peter Greenaway
**************************

[Al Kossow]

From article <86945-8...@mindlink.bc.ca>, by Cat_Simri...@mindlink.bc.ca (Cat Simril Ishikawa):

>> Members of the Firesign Theatre have mentioned quadrophonic versions of
>> Bozos and I think EYK as being their best work, but who has ever heard
>> it, or is likely to do so? That technology came and went faster than
>

I found a quad copy of EYKIW by accident in a used record store a couple
of years ago (it was in the stereo jacket). The mix, even in stereo, is
very different from the 'normal' version. It has a lot of extreme L-R
panning, and the common quad trick of 'spinning' voices around you in
the more spacy segments. My favorite difference is near the end you can
clearly hear the Big Dick say "you won't have me to kick around anymore"
as he goes down the hole on the President's Float.

[James_W_McKelvey]

They were pressed as SQ (or something similar),an encoded format similar to
the surround channels used on laser discs and the movies. They were never
available in the discrete quad format, which is why they are playable without
damage with an ordinary cartridge.

It may be that some surround-channel processors can play them properly,
anybody know?

--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of good
is for evil men to do nothing.
mcke...@suite.com