CREATION: Action Painting...Numero Vs. Edsel

[Frantic]

Disc: 1


1. Making Time

2. Try And Stop Me

3. Painter Man

4. Biff, Bang, Pow

5. Sylvette (edit)

6. If I Stay Too Long

7. Nightmares

8. Life Is Just Beginning

9. Through My Eyes

10. How Does It Feel To Feel

11. Tom Tom

12. Can I Join Your Band

13. Midway Down

14. The Girls Are Naked

15. Bonie Maronie

16. Mercy Mercy Mercy

17. For All That I Am

18. Uncle Bert

19. Cool Jerk

20. I Am The Walker

21. Ostrich Man

22. Sweet Helen

23. How Does It Feel To Feel (US version)



Disc: 2


1. Hurt Me If You Will

2. I'm Leaving

3. Work All Day (Sleep All Night)

4. Going Down Fast

5. How Does It Feel To Feel (US version - New Stereo Mix)

6. Biff, Bang, Pow New Stereo Mix)

7. For All That I Am (New Stereo Mix)

8. Can I Join Your Band (New Stereo Mix)

9. Through My Eyes (New Stereo Mix)

10. Tom Tom (New Stereo Mix)

11. Midway Down (New Stereo Mix)

12. Nightmares (New Stereo Mix)

13. Life Is Just Beginning (New Stereo Mix)

14. Painter Man (New Stereo Mix)

15. If I Stay Too Long (New Stereo Mix)

16. How Does It Feel To Feel (UK version - New Stereo Mix)

17. Cool Jerk (New Stereo Mix)

18. Hey Joe (New Stereo Mix)

19. Like A Rolling Stone (New Stereo Mix)

20. Making Time (Instrumental)

21. Sylvette (full length)

22. Instrumental 1
23. How Does It Feel To Feel (Instrumental)

Thanks to a UK-based media insider who has familiarity with both packages, I can exclusively reveal the differences between Numero’s Action Painting and Demon's Creation Theory packages.

The mastering on the Shel Talmy produced vintage material is exactly the same. The mono tape transfers and stereo remixes were done by Alec Palao, who has apparently had full access to Shel Talmy’s tape archive. Demon have used the same early 80s-era transfers for all their packages over the years. Shel approved the new transfers and remixes and actually insisted on supervising the final remastering for the Numero set in Los Angeles. Palao compiled it and it includes the four most suitable sides by the Mark Four (the early version of the Creation).

Demon has control of the 60s Creation catalog so presumably were happy to license those recordings to Numero. But it is highly likely that when they got wind of the fact that the quality of the US release might be superior, because of the remastering, they must have decided to quickly assemble a bigger package, adding more material, to “theoretically" kill Numero’s package in the global marketplace. Hence their “complete" Creation, Creation Theory.

The vintage Talmy-produced cuts sound exactly the same on both the Numero and Demon, i.e. they are the remastered versions and mixes done by Palao and Talmy.

What Demon’s Creation Theory has extra to the Numero is:
- The first two Mark Four Singles from 1964 (covers of Bill Haley, Marvin Gaye etc)
- The 1983 Mark Four reunion EP
- The 1987 Psychedelic Rose reunion album
- The 1996 Power Surge reunion album
- 3 solo tracks by guitarist Eddie Phillips from 1990 and 2011
(DVD material):
- the band’s two appearances on Beat Beat Beat from 1966 and 1967 (1967 is incomplete)
- 1993 and 1995 reunion shows (1993 is incomplete)
- a 2016 interview with Eddie Phillips
Now here’s what is interesting. Creation Theory purports to be a “complete” Creation package, but it’s missing several things:
- the handful of acetates by the Mark Four that are known to exist (detailed in the Creation bio Our Music Is Red)
- the slightly different mixes available of certain Talmy-produced tracks in Germany, such as If I Stay Too Long (Numero used the original UK single masters for its mono sources), and some of the album tracks like Hey Joe and Like A Rolling Stone
- the BBC Saturday Club session from late 1967 (if it exists)
- the instrumental backing track master to Making Time. Both the Numero and Demon sets have the instrumental track to Take 1, but Numero also have a 7” single of Making Time available that has the instrumental master track - in stereo to boot. Demon must have overlooked that . . .
- the various solo singles by Eddie Phillips and Kenny Pickett made in the 1970s with Talmy such as City Woman
- The DVD has several obvious omissions - the home movie footage of the band in Hyde Park in 1967 (to be easily found on youtube), the Beat Club performance of Painter Man, a missing song (If I Stay Too Long) from the 1967 Beat Beat Beat performance, and the missing songs from the 1993 Mean Fiddler reunion show.
The packaging is quite different for both sets, evidently. Lots of unseen photos in both, though more memorabilia in the Numero booklet. Design seems thrown together for the Demon. The liner notes for Numero are shorter and while they are quite detailed, with lots of session info, don’t have much fresh interview material. The Demon liner notes are much longer but seem to be a basic distillation of the Our Music Is Red bio with some added “cultural context” waffle- my contact didn’t say who wrote them but it is probably that book's author Sean Egan.

Bottom line is - if your interest is the 60s vintage Creation, go for the Numero. It’s half the price of the import. If you are a completist and think the reunion recordings are essential, then go for the Demon. But be aware it’s not everything and sonically it is no better for the tracks it shares with the Numero package. The Numero appears to be way better value for money.

 

[mr. splendid]

I have the two double Lp sets that Retroactive issued in the late 90's , which sound pretty good to my ears . Nothing on the Numero or Demon comps tempts me to buy more mixes of the same songs .

 

[MopTopMike]

I disdain stereo mixes of nearly everything

 

[Frantic]

I disdain stereo mixes of nearly everything

These are all from Shel Talmy's original master tapes. Alec drove down to L. A. many times to work with Shel personally on this project. You may not like stereo mixes but lots of people do and these are the best you will ever hear. The retroactive stereo mixes are terrible. Shel wasn't a fan of those.

 

[beccabear67]

There's a video of someone opening the little Numero box here:
http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/video/sdetv-the-creation-action-painting/
What I have against it is it seems to show (further in) that the CDs are in little paper pockets in the book. I hate that kind of packaging because the CDs can get rubbed against the paper, also their little boxes are a unique shape and size (at least to me), so don't really fit in with anything else I have, or some shelving/racks. Also they put their Numero company logo on the front of everything (plus their number release) and everything has a sort of uniform graphics no matter the music involved, not the artist name (just on the edge).

I could stick the CDs in separate cases like I did with the Where The Action Is L.A. Nuggets book-thang, but I have the Mark Four (and Five, but that was a different group I am pretty sure I remember) stuff (eight tracks from singles plus three 1985 live reunion tracks), and 2 CD earlier collection plus the book Cherry Red published, and one of the Beat Beat Beat shows, so am thinking if there will be a flac (or wav) download I might go for that as it sounds like a big leap forward soundwise!

 

[Dominic]

if there will be a flac (or wav) download I might go for that as it sounds like a big leap forward soundwise!

FLAC is here:
http://www.numerogroup.com/products/the-creation-action-painting

 

[Dave Baldwin]

Got a copy of the Numero version yesterday. Beautiful book and
great Alec Palao liners and session notes as expected. Grade: A+
(knocked down to an 'A' because of the idiotic way the CDs are
sleeved in the book that makes them difficult to remove without
scratching and scuffing the discs right out of the box).

Some other definite pluses and minuses though:

Disc 1 - Tried this on headphones. Yikes! The remastering is super bright
and loud to the point of almost being "brick-walled". A painful listen and
mastered so loud that I couldn't even crank the volume (as I usually do
for this band) without wanting to turn it down immediately. Sonically I
would compare it to the ear-bleedingly unpleasant 1998 UK Essential
re-mastering of The Kinks Pye albums that were supposedly supervised
by Ray Davies (much like this Creation remastering was overseen by Shel
Talmy). If this is the product that they are pushing, those two cats have
some pretty serious hearing problems these days! Grade = C+ (A material
meets C-minus re-mastering)

Disc 2 - Lots of great moments, both musically and sonics-wise here. To
start off: The Mark Four tracks sound much better and closer to the masters
than any other versions I've heard (except for mint UK original 45s). I really
cranked up the Decca sides and they sounded fantastic. As far as the
re-mixes go...they were awesome. Lots of natural drum sounds and Eddie
Phillips 'wiggy bits' on guitar that I had overlooked before. Great job Alec!
Tom Tom might be the most brutal freakbeat song I've ever heard, and the
stereo mix here ups the brutality factor. Best of all...the mastering sounds
more like an 'Ace Records' release than Disc 1, so you can crank it up and
rattle the windows without severe discomfort (except possibly to your
neighbors). A few other rarities that I hadn't heard before were also
pretty cool. A real treat overall for die-hard Creationists. Grade = A

Overall grade = B+

Recommended for fans. If you're just interested in getting clean,
crank-able versions of their regular mono singles, hang on to the old
Charisma label LP and some of the earlier reissues.

 

[MopTopMike]

Thanks for the sonic review, Mr. B.
I think I'll pass, I dig the group but now have nowhere near the desire to be a completist of any group / performer.
The harsh red-line digital headache inducing crap is also a no-go for me.
I do not understand why these guys who do transfers seem to feel that analog must be mixed peaked to near max, like an old Motown / Tamla / Gordy label 45 - those were mastered to sound great on transistor AM radios. Maybe that's how we should listen to these CDs?

 

[Frantic]

I forwarded this to Alec and this is his response:

Note to Dave - thanks for the kudos. I attended the mastering session and didn’t hear anything untoward myself, though Shel insisted on supervising this stage as part of the Numero deal. It was amazing to see him throw out eq and compression notches to the engineer, somewhat like Rainman! FYI both discs were mastered at the same time so am curious why Disc 1 comes across as brickwalled and Disc 2 not . . .

Note to Mike Markesich - the transfer of audio sources i.e. master tapes, and the mastering of CD/vinyl are two completely different processes. Transfer is as it implies the copying of a tape to digital file. It should be as flat and transparent to the original tape source as possible. Subsequently, an engineer or producer do some initial processing to remove noise etc. Mastering is then the preparation of that audio for the final product, adding whatever equalization and compression is deemed suitable for the wishes of the client. In the old days, as we all know, there were some pretty radical things done to master tapes - eq, limiting, additional echo/reverb - as the vinyl was cut, often leaving anomalies between tape and released disc. Nowadays, there are a whole range of opinions as to how to master digital files. Bottom line is, whatever your tastes are, it’s obvious a great master can be made from a well-transferred tape source, but even the best engineers will have difficulty making a good master out of a lousy transfer.

FYI I did all the transfers for this set myself, using a full-track mono head for the original mono masters. Being an American, Shel preferred to use the NAB eq curve rather than the UK standard of the time, CCIR (though some of the tapes at format). In any event, the transfers were done carefully with plenty of headroom, so any apparent level adjustments or maximizing etc was done in the mastering.

 

[Dave Baldwin]

I forwarded this to Alec and this is his response:

Note to Dave - thanks for the kudos. I attended the mastering session and didn’t hear anything untoward myself, though Shel insisted on supervising this stage as part of the Numero deal. It was amazing to see him throw out eq and compression notches to the engineer, somewhat like Rainman! FYI both discs were mastered at the same time so am curious why Disc 1 comes across as brickwalled and Disc 2 not . . .

Note to Mike Markesich - the transfer of audio sources i.e. master tapes, and the mastering of CD/vinyl are two completely different processes. Transfer is as it implies the copying of a tape to digital file. It should be as flat and transparent to the original tape source as possible. Subsequently, an engineer or producer do some initial processing to remove noise etc. Mastering is then the preparation of that audio for the final product, adding whatever equalization and compression is deemed suitable for the wishes of the client. In the old days, as we all know, there were some pretty radical things done to master tapes - eq, limiting, additional echo/reverb - as the vinyl was cut, often leaving anomalies between tape and released disc. Nowadays, there are a whole range of opinions as to how to master digital files. Bottom line is, whatever your tastes are, it’s obvious a great master can be made from a well-transferred tape source, but even the best engineers will have difficulty making a good master out of a lousy transfer.

FYI I did all the transfers for this set myself, using a full-track mono head for the original mono masters. Being an American, Shel preferred to use the NAB eq curve rather than the UK standard of the time, CCIR (though some of the tapes at format). In any event, the transfers were done carefully with plenty of headroom, so any apparent level adjustments or maximizing etc was done in the mastering.

All I can say is that Shel likes to compress and eq things really, really bright. I noticed the same thing on his re-master of The Who "My Generation" CD a few years back. Not really my cup 'o' tea.

 

[soundog III]

Interesting discussion. Dave's characterization of the sound on disc 1 being brickwalled reveals an unfortunate aspect occasionally attendant to certain CD masterings. Though not all.

I was listening to a Japan CD release of Small Faces 1st UK LP on Immediate and it sounded terrible for precisely the opposite reason. The sound was murky / indistinct / cloudy & muffled. Everything a Small Faces record should NOT sound like. The sound was so off that I immediately ( yes, pun intended ) compared it to a US There Are But Four Small Faces vinyl and a 1991 US CD of same and in both instances the difference was immediately apparent. The CD was clear crisp biting & focused, with just enough brightness & attack to highlight the fabulous production details with clarity and hmmm, searching for the right word here, OK, perhaps just a bit of restraint. A really nice listen, done with a light touch. The vinyl sounded great, as it always has, perhaps a bit warmer than the CD, though not lacking in focus or punch in any regard whatsoever.

Plenty of CD masterings sound terrific to my ears, so when advised about the problems seemingly inherent in the mastering of this set my reaction is to stand back and wait for a bargain priced copy to surface, as I'll only really be needing it to check out the stereo tracks on side two and the booklet. So about half price or perhaps a bit more would win me over. I know I'd never play the overloaded / redlined tracks.

Follows a bit of action painting in action. Fanning the flames with the violin bow is a nice touch.

Never seen any color pics of the band on stage, does the booklet have any?



Would but that these tracks mentioned in November 1966 were extant >>>



Score one for the buskers !

 

[MopTopMike]

I appreciate Alec's comments relayed by Frantic. i do know there is a difference between making a transfer, and remastering a track, obviously. My point is that some folks, when making a transfer from an analog source, do tamper in some way with the sound. I used to make analog to digital transfers, 'tho not of musical variety, as part of my old job. I always made a tape to digital transfer "untouched" - no changes to the track until it had been transferred to digital format, and only if it were necessary (removal of excessive reverb and extraneous noises from spoken word recordings, for example).

One reason I've not been as eager to buy CD collections and remasters is that the people behind these releases often feel a need to "improve" the sound in some way, from adding EQ to remixing, to creating stereo mix from a mono mixdown, etc. Most annoying, I've found of late - removing the silence or "space" between tracks, making the next track start less than one second after the previous one, or dropping the natural, ambient fade out of the music, even on a cold ending. Whenever that occurs, it tells me that (1- the person who did this doesn't know what they are doing, or 2- somebody else did a change before a final mastering).

Well, fine and dandy IF any or all of this fixing is done in addition to leaving the original analog recordings "as-is". No EQ. No remix. No anything. I bought the original pressings because I like the music as it was recorded during the time. That is the way I want it digitally. There are far too many folks who slave over EQ, and audio cleanup so that it sounds improved - but only to their ears. If I want EQ, I'll add it myself, thanks.
But, I'm in the minority so none of this matters via the big picture - I'll wait for a bargain aftermarket price, like Soundog!

 

[beccabear67]

I think some of the earliest CDs sounded better than a lot of what has come out recently. I remember reading about how The Hollies had a poor reception in the U.S. because Imperial the U.S. label would tamper with the sound supposedly to appeal to the N.American audience and to sound like Johnny Rivers live or somesuch (not that there is a thing wrong with Johnny Rivers). Meanwhile in England the Parlophone singles were hugely popular. Go figure. I'm of the if it ain't broke... I like the sound of human musicians and singers performing in a studio. I think the early Beatles is massively exciting the closer you get to the original un-mucked with tape as mixed at the time. I used to not really like them from years of poor quality and later pressings and when I heard them the closest to the masters or from original early pressings that ended that feeling. It's like dolby and noise-gating and imitating Phil Spector and all other 'improvements' have built up over the decades and buried the real treasure.

 

[soundog III]

Well, there IS a workaround to the issue of less than optimal sound quality / transfers / remastering. At least as regards disc one of the set:

 

[mr. splendid]

a band with lots of nice pic sleeves......

 

[soundog III]

Even the outtake shots from the Pic Sleeve photo shoots warrant observation.

 

[soundog III]

 

[soundog III]