Alec says:
Check out the remastered
Psycho-Sonic compilation (reddish/brown cover art) on Big Beat. There is no album master tape for
Boom but I did find the session master for He’s Waitin’ amongst the late, great Buck Ormsby’s stash.
Hence the clarity Mark notes - but there is another reason. On
Boom, He’s Waitin’ (and Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark) were recorded at Kearney Barton’s esteemed facility in Seattle (if memory serves, Don’t is actually an outtake from the
Here Are The Sonics sessions in the spring of 1965). Everything else on
the album was taped at Wiley/Griffith in Tacoma, a studio notable for for its dense, grungy qualities, as heard on
Boom, the Wailers'
Out Of Our Tree album, the Daily Flash’s Jack Of Diamonds and a couple of other iconic NW discs. It was a true egg-boxes-on-the-wall place with a uniquely lo-fi sound, and you’d find it difficult if not possible to get the same range of fidelity out of those recordings as is to be found on Kearney’s stuff (most of their day-to-day business tended to be country). Some Etiquette tapes showed up recently, no Sonics unfortunately but there was the mono master for the
Out Of Our Tree album, which doesn’t sound much better fidelity-wise than the vinyl.
