listen to this and lose thirty years
357901
well, 29 to be exact, as special kind of guy could have just as well been on his 1985 vinyl record Boys and Girls and ditto the staccato sounds of One Night Stand from his 1988 album Bete Noire. He loses ground with a simple little ditty best done a capella by July Collins, Send in the Clowns and ditto a painfully slow version of Johnny and Mary better done by Tina Turner on the soundtrack of the 1982 movie Summer Lovers. The actress Keira Knightley recently said she liked Ferry's former band Roxy Music because it sounded "decadent." Ferry, on the other hand, seems to me the musical version of a tranquilizer, the best proof we have that after all we and he have been through, everything will be all right. Happy to see the CD is executive produced by members of the Ferry family and i hope Mr Ferry is well after his illness.
4571809
I would rather hear about 1972-1974 era , having said that 1977 in my humble opinion maybe great but its overrated as a year there were many better years to chose from there 30 years career in music , even after that year 1980,1981,1982,1988,1989,1990 is polished and smoking hot , just get out of tunnel vision and get into the bigger picture
1947329
I heard the music of Catherine Wheel on an alternative radio station and liked it. But when I learned what a "Catherine Wheel" is, I discontinued listening and will not further listen. I cannot abide the idea that a musical band would name themselves after among the most hideous instruments of public torture and death in human history.

Think about it -- somebody had to formulate the name and decide that of a billion choices of word pairings connoting ideas, this was the one they wanted on their masthead. I won't listen to their music, anymore than I would listen to death metal. At some point we have to see the big picture in these things.
4202673
The original 1985 CD issue is far superior to this poor re-mastering job.
Well-enough should have been left alone.
The '85 CD is full, rich, warm, glowing, vibrant...natural in it's sonic power.
This reissue is bright, clinical, edgy, sanitized...scrubbed clean of warmth and natural beauty.
In other words, digital at its worst..
I found that EMI did the same stupid thing when they re-mastered the Beecham-Delius collection.
Moral: If you're going to re-do it, do it better. If you can't do it better, leave it alone!
4343275
I really enjoyed listening to this CD back in the eighties, and I mean I liked every cut. Of course the CD I had back then is long gone, but whenever I thought of it I would think that I would like to have it again for nostalgic reasons as well as because I don't hear much nowadays that can compare with it. So one day I looked into buying a copy, thinking I would probably pay at the most about 10 to15 bucks. Lo and behold, I discover that this joint is hard to find, and the ones out there are going for over 20 bucks a copy! I must not have been the only one who liked reminiscing over the jams from "back in the day". So I forked over the 20 clams and now I'm transporting myself to the early eighties every now and then. You can find most of the cuts from this album on others, but not all; so you have to decide for yourself if it's worth paying the extra money for. For me, I bought it, so I guess it was worth it, but too bad that it's a sign of the times that you find yourself in this position seemingly all the time.
Sorry, but back in the day they came on cassette tape, not CDs
2352167
Being 78 and having lived through the heyday of stage musicals, I suppose I have a certain bias. However, this does NOT justify The DESTRUCTIVE "modern treatment" given by these performers, many of whom do not appeal to me at all. If they want to ruin some music, have them ruin some of the "modern stuff", SOME of which I consider trash. I am very sorry I listened to it, and even more sorry that I purchased it.
833308
I was lucky.  I know the original release from the '60's inside and out.  Being a DIRE fan in the 60's assures that.

While I understand that the artists may be trying to reach a new audience in 2006, it must be understood that this album is in my opinion, the wrong way to do it.  Herb will NEVER catch the the teenage audience today, not with the RAP gimmicks, and CERTAINLY not with the "Bass it" approach to these classics.

However, if they just tried just to catch the 20-35 year-olds of 2006, they'd come up with a lot more fans, and a lot more $$$$.  Do a little at a time - this age group is intelligent enough not to be rigidly stuck in their perceptions of what is "cool" music - they've had a chance to age a bit and can recognize good music when they hear it - that is with THE ORIGINAL Releases (available from right-chere @ Amazon.com).

I would not recommend buying this album, simply because it's not targeted towards HA&TJB fans, and is a mis-guided attempted attempt to capture a "TOO YOUNG" audience - search on "Herb Alpert", and buy the ORIGINAL remixed, and otherwise improved (aurally) CDs.

Steve
4642909
I bought this album as an LP three decades ago and have not listened to it since that period. The Airplane was one of the truly extraordinary rock bands... which eventually got taken completely off planet by Paul Kantner... and then morphed into just another group (which turned out some hits along the way.) 35 years ago it was also obvious to me that Great Society was not at the level of Airplane and maybe never would be, but it filled in the gap of understanding of how the SF scene created itself, one band inspiring another.

It is interesting to me that of all the groups that played in SF, the one album recorded there which best serves as an example of that period of experimentation was done by the Canadian band Steppenwolf - "Live at the Matrix" - which has a 20+ minute live version of "The Pusher" which starts out with sporadic and seeming random musical and vocal sounds... and proceeds to slowly build in coherence and power until an amazing musical experience is created.

If you only listen to the musical artists of the present, it's like the 60s never happened. There are no long songs, there is no experimentation, there are no funny songs; it's like the bands have all targeted one mass audience of very bland people - probably fine if you were say, an accountant - and know that this audience could never stand anything new or non-linear but would buy anything that was SHORT and HAD A BEAT and whose musicians were clothed to match the target audience. These bands produce exactly the kind of music that OUR PARENTS wanted US to listen to! I'm sure the agents and music industry moguls sit around all day long with one goal in mind, an exact thought: "WHERE IS THE NEXT LAWRENCE WELK??"
398924
After reading the EDITOR's so called review of this wonderful trio. I got so upset I was ready to empty my shopping cart and never shop here again! Those of us who shop for DVD's of our favorite groups/singers do not want to hear about how they have lost their hair or their figures! That was so unnessesary! Not to mention the slam of the song "Puff the magic dragon". This was such a huge hit and a wonderful memory from a childhood long gone. I have several of the P,P & M albums on my iPod and will continue to add them till there are no more. My favorite song? "The Marvelous Toy". They did a childs album that will make you smile while you are listening to them. I don't know if this song is in this DVD, but I hope to find it someday if it isn't.  Yes, they were radical for the era they came from. I give the editor that. But let's leave the comments about hair and waistsize out of your reviews. Someday, I hope this editor can look in the mirror and not see a fat balding idiot.

More over, if you get a chance to watch this group, take it. Those of us that lived the 60's will remember these songs and find ourselves singing along with them.
2812940
I heard this album 10 years ago and am still haunted by it's weight. This is a nightmare inducing psychedelic ride with tortured vocals. Proceed with caution.
3862710
i listened to it once, and tried to figure out how i could return it.......ah well, i made a mistake....i OPENED IT AND PLAYED IT!!!  what a piece of garbage, it's even worse than "tusk", and that's when he was one hot writer.  the cd just put me and my cd player in a coma. i can't get specific, because it would be cruel and unusual punishment to both me and the cd player to have to listen to it again.  this should be on the playlist at gitmo, in heavy rotation!
1917983
I love heavy metal but I get headache if I listen to this album for more than 30 min and now I know why.  They raised the volume all the way up and everything all sounds the same.  Don't buy this CD.
3336737
Unfortunately, I have ordered this CD after some favorable review.
I cannot believe this horrid concoction could be rated appealing. You better listen to the original recordings (I certainly will) instead of volunteering for a nauseating treatment from the mindless machine jamming that dominates each (!!!) number.
What a loss.
I wish I could claim damages.
616561
I don't like writing reviews, all the same regarding this is one, I just can't turn away. I purchased the LP when it was first released and it spend a inordinate amount of time on the turntable. I recently sold my 5000+ LP collection piecemeal in lots and individually depending on the LP in question. Though I own a high quality CD of this recording, I'm sorry I let my near mint LP go, even at eight times what I paid for it new. Some things can't be replaced. Enough about that. Today it would be difficult for me to name a recording from that time that is better than this one. I hope that means something. By the way, I was a second semester Junior drop out of the Reemco School of Numbness. Class of 81.
2733068
For once, trust the critics!
How Ten Years After came up with this disaster is beyond me, particularly since it was sandwiched between "Undead" and "Sssh", two of their hardest rocking and  best albums.  Let's face it, Ten Years After was basically no more than a  vehicle for Alvin Lee to drop jaw-dropping guitar riffs on your head.  As  long as they appreciated this and stuck to this pretty simple (albeit  limiting) formula, they were pretty swell.
On this album, they completely  lost their way.  Been listening to too much Pink Floyd/Moody Blues or  otherwise "overindulging", I guess.  They seem to be going for  some sort of trippy psychedelic blend of Brit-pop, blues, and classical  rock.  Alvin and the boys just don't have the songwriting talent or vision  to pull something like this off.  What we are left with is a mess that is  mildly interesting in a historical context (think of the Stones  "Satanic Majesties" for a parallel, but this is much  worse).
"Gonna Try" is about the only decent thing here, and it  sounds like it was patched together from 2 or 3 songs.  Each member gets  their "own" track (think Ummagumma) with mostly embarrassing  results.  'Nuff said, this is bad.
If you are unfortunate to have heard  this as your first exposure to Ten Years After, disregard this as a  temporary loss of sanity and get "Undead", "Sssh" and  "Cricklewood Green", all of which are excellent.
2778732
It's probably way too late, and the shelf life of this CD has expired, but I want to note (for the record) that this CD was one of the most embarrassingly awful productions I ever had the privilege of previewing and then not buying. And as such, an occasion for sorrow and bewilderment.

Sorrow, because Friedemann Wojtecka is a gifted guy, yet could only prove to be a one-disc wonder.  And bewilderment because "Indian Summer" (the one-disc wonder) was SO good, one stands in shock that the composer-arranger of that masterpiece seemingly had nothing else in him after that!

The setting: It was in the early 90s.  I was a thrilled owner-listener of "Indian Summer" which even now, in 2005, knocks me out, and I was a somewhat bemusedly disappointed owner-listener of "Aquamarine", when this CD popped up.  Having noticed a huge drop-off in quality (meaning "uninspired") from "Indian Summer" to "Aquamarine", followed by a huge gap in time to this one, I thought (wisely) "Uh-oh.  How long does it take to go really far down hill?"  Answer: about four years.

If it takes someone four years to come up with something like this, their fifteen minutes of musical fame is surely over.

This poor ol' CD shows the poverty of our Herr Vojtecka and his musical imagination.  There's no there there.  Nothing melodically or harmonically or instrumentally or inspirationally going on.  The melancholic uplift of "Indian Summer" stayed with that disc, and the inspiration dried up thereafter.  And I don't get it.  Friedemann is a great recording engineer and producer; he's worked on the CDs of a lot of good artists, and he's got a good ear.  Why did he put this out?

Well, you probably either ducked and ran when this came out, or you bought it and either feel protective or ripped off.  It's too late to warn you, but if nothing else, you can see that one quasi-fan of Friedemann is still listening to the best, and lamenting the fallout.
2786131
Well, another CD from our friends, The Dave Matthews Orchestra. 'Live at the Grange' is proto-colonial country-pop, brontosaurus musik that will provoke headache and dizziness to some if listened for a prolonged period. I can't even imagine hearing that stuff for more than 40 seconds ; as a torture i'd prefer hearing the repulsive metal noise of the worst trash/speed metal bands. Here the DMB has exceeded it's own expectations: It sounds out of date, a sort of '1870 old-western', 'saloon and dance floor style' if you will, and it could do for a perfect soundtrack to a (forthcoming) Lucky Luke motion picture. (z^p)