The Smiley Smile Message Board

HOLY sh*t.

http://www.moodybluesboxset.com/

I think I might buy this before MIC...... :thud

I KNOW I will buy this before MIC....... ::)

most exhaustive career retrospective

Man, I got exhausted just reading that huge list of stuff in the set.

Sounds like Moodies may be taking a cue from success of the Smile box.

Whats the damage (price) for this monstrous mountain of Moodies miscellany?

Im not signing up, yet. 

Let's hope they tour for this and bring out some "special guests"  :afro

A certain duo that plays flute and mellotron.... ;)

Hey, at least we have Justin's new solo album to hold us over!

The box set sounds like it'll be great. And it'll be good for the American fans who didn't import the 2006 SACDs with the 5.1 mixes.

I hope live shows like this are on the box....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DYw49zJ8lQ

Everything about these guys is holding up! Even their hair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1lPynzbD-4

BTW, Ray's looking pretty hot these days! ..... Er, wait!

If only the Beach Boys had been able to carry on with this kind of class and dignity.

 :lol

Man I still haven't gotten the Quadrophenia box yet and now this and if MIC ever comes out...I need to save some dough!

I wish the moodies got more popular acclaim, it's sad people write them off.

Mellotron madness..... ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpLaCSVR_0o

Oh yeah??

http://youtu.be/Hyn9nJwUODA

I think the bald one has Patrick's (:afro) synth army and fog machines beat with the classic mark 2 mellotron.

Yeah, but this video really makes you wonder how any one band was every supposed to contain the guy!!!

I don't think so, Mike and Patrick should do a joint tour together as "The Moody Blues Sound" and duel their keyboards. I would pay money for that. :hat

With Ray in there too on flute and tambourine :)

Hell, get the core 5 back together for a reunion show to promote the box. I dream about that daily.

As much as I'd love to see it, I highly doubt it'd happen. I'm sure they'd probably sit down for interviews for promo material, but not much else.

Just all the guys doing promo work in the same room would make me happy.

I would sell my soul to see Pinder doing his songs on a modern digital mellotron in concert. "Nights" hasn't been the same without Pinder's keyboard style.

Well, the current keyboardists in the band use Mike's mellotron samples. The SOUND is there, but not the feel.

Interesting, thats what I was hitting at. I love watching Mike's hands in old concert footage, just such a natural on a difficult instrument. The live "out and in" from 1974 I posted earlier in the thread almost sounds like the record keyboard-wise. Graeme's drumming is shaky in my opinion though.

Graeme was a bit sloppy at times in concert. He improved when they went back on the road in 1978.

Can't be too hard on him though, he gave Keith Moon a run for his money on "peak hour".


How much is this box rumored to cost?

Given that it's 17 discs, I'd say in the $200 range. The first photo of the physical contents was released recently.

http://www.moodybluestoday.com/moodyblues/CMS/Moody_Blues_3dpackshot.jpg

Looks promising, I really want to buy this.

  I must be out of the Moody loop/When did Ray take his flute and leave the group?

He left at the end of the 2002 tour.

I need to listen to more of the Moody Blues, I've heard the debut and Days Of Future Passed which couldn't be more different from each other if they tried, what would you guys recommend next?

All of the Core 7 (DOFP- Seven Sojourn) are essential. A highlight out of those is "To Our Children's Children's Children".

Yeah, I'd listen to the core seven Moodies albums in sequence to start. My favorite is actually Lost Chord. It's a little dated I guess but I have always loved it.

Yeah, listen to the Classic Seven as well as the related singles/B-sides. Also listen to Caught Live +5 or Live at the Isle of Wight for a live album from the period. The 2-CD BBC Sessions set is required listening as well, especially for the EXCELLENT cover of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.

Not that The Magnificent Moodies is a bad album by any means, of course; it's actually among the best British Invasion records. The Mark I Laine/Pinder/Thomas/Warwick/Edge lineup were second only to the Rolling Stones and the Kinks when it came to playing R&B-based rock 'n roll music. But it's definitely a MUCH different band than the Mark II Hayward/Lodge/Pinder/Thomas/Edge era when they became huge.

Thanks for the info guys, I'll get right on it!

I think that's an all-time top 10 album for me. Perfection!

Don't stop at the core 7! You can skip Octave if you want (and come back to it later) but please please please give Long Distance Voyager, The Present, and The Other Side Of Life a spin.... Those three make a great trilogy!

The Moraz show! :afro

Actually, the first two can be considered "the Moraz show". By the time of The Other Side of Life and Sur la Mer, Justin and John were programming the majority of the keyboards along with producer Tony Visconti.

That is interesting, it almost was the "blue jays" under the Moodies name.


Mike Pinder T-shirt I won on ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/200309977805?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Well, on The Other Side of Life, Ray and Graeme are still there, although the flute is nonexistent. Sur la Mer doesn't even have Ray on it at all. It all goes back to Polydor's policy with regards to the Moody Blues at that time - Justin would write the singles which would also open both sides of the albums, and the two members who would get the most emphasis in their promotions would be "the commercial-looking ones", those being Justin and John. The policy made sense commercially, but it pretty much marginalized Ray, Graeme, and Patrick. There were television appearances going back to 1986 up until the end of Ray's tenure with the group that the band credited as "the Moody Blues" was just Justin and John.

Of course, Patrick basically ostracized himself because his contract with the Moodies stipulated that he would be paid per gig, essentially as a member of the backing band. By 1986 he was starting to no-show at gigs, leaving second keyboardist Bias Boshell to pick up the slack. By 1990 the band had had enough, and then it went downhill from there.

Strange Times for the Moodies, you could start to see the start of the divide on Octave with Justin and John wearing modern clothes. While Mike, Graeme, and Ray looked like not "hip" anymore as middle aged adults.

Was there any consideration of letting Mike back into the group during the Moraz trouble or was the Octave fallout the true end of it for Mike?

Well, the issue with Mike is a bit more complicated than that. Mike basically left the sessions midway through Octave, leaving Justin and John to finish the keyboard tracks and thence the rest of the record. When the inevitable 1978 world tour came up, all five Moodies went to the contract signing but Mike couldn't bring himself to sign the contract. He claimed in 1981 when he sued the Moodies after Long Distance Voyager came out that the Moodies offered to have a deal with him where he would write and contribute to the records and he would be replaced in concert by a sideman in Patrick. The Moodies allegedly saw it differently, and the suit was settled in the Moodies' favor. Mike was never approached again about rejoining the band.

I think Moraz' work on Long Distance Voyager and The Present is absolutely fantastic. He really makes those records really sparkle.

A shame, I watched a documentary from the 1980s that whitewashed Mike out of the group's history. I hope he does some promo work for the box set.

Did/doesn't the whole Mike saga basically boil down to him telling off Graham one time saying something like "What do you know? You're just a drummer"

Thats part of the story, Mike was trying to work out a song and Graeme kept annoying Mike. Mike finally lost it and said that statement to Graeme to get him to back off. The octave sessions were a disaster to put it mildly.

Sounds like these guys were steppin in a slide zone to me.....

I think by 1978 Mike was just tired. He had the most trouble of all of them when it came to dealing with the whole rock 'n roll/touring/excesses of the road issue. He was also the same guy trying to keep the band together in 1966 when their fortunes were at an all-time low. Combine those two together, and something had to give.

I think he got out at the right time, he was too deep a person to deal with the hollow nature of the 1980s music scene. Plus Polydor would have probably thought him to be the most "uncommercial" of them all.

Its funny how Mike Love and Mike Pinder actually have a lot in common.

Dude, you have no idea the frustration I feel when I hear all these cougars with their dried up vaginas going on and on about how much they can't stand Mike's songs, like he was somehow playing second fiddle to Justin from the beginning. Nothing against Justin of course, but Mike's contributions to their songwriting legacy are not to be trifled with.

His songs on the "core seven" are some of the most thought provoking music I have listened to. The cougars are too dumb for the "melancholy  man". I would love to see Mike play the voyage for those weirdos.

I'll never forget at the Red Rocks show in 92 watching some old cougar with the worst hair I'd ever seen dragging a huge framed oil painting of Justin's face across the parking lot..... I can't imagine she went home disappointed that they didn't do Melancholy Man....

Yikes...  :lol     Got anymore cougar horror stories?

Have any of you guys checked out the solo albums yet?

Is Ray's box worth buying?

There's a more recent one, circa 2006, that includes him. I think all the guys are in it except Ray. Even Denny Laine is included.

Considering it's the first-ever remastering of his albums with bonus tracks, definitely.

Which Moodies solo albums should I buy? I am totally unfamiliar with the solo catalog.

Start with Blue Jays (Justin and John), Songwriter (Justin), From Mighty Oaks (Ray), Natural Avenue (John), The Promise (Mike), and Kick Off Your Muddy Boots (Graeme).

Thanks, I will check those out. I am a little wary of a Graeme Edge solo album though....

Well, they are more Adrian Gurvitz as he sang on both of them, but Graeme's all over the songwriting.

I like a lot of those solo albums and even love some of it, but my problem is: each of these guys gets old on their own. Even Justin. It's like breaking a puzzle apart and taking a couple pieces home and trying to enjoy them on their own. The whole puzzle together is what works....

Yeah, it was always the case that the band was bigger than the guys themselves. At least with the solo albums during the hiatus they didn't necessarily try to do solo albums "by X of the Moody Blues". I don't think any of the solo albums have any particular "Moody" flavor to them. Granted, some work better than others, but that's to be expected. I think the most successful and consistent of the albums released during the hiatus are clearly Blue Jays and Songwriter. The rest are basically "fans only" types of deals.

I have to say I got that vibe during my limited listening of the solo catalog. Octave is almost like a solo sampler album.

I'm a fairly recent convert to The Moodies. I frankly thought they were a load of rubbish back in the day except for a couple of tunes. . When I purchased the SACDs I started to really appreciate them, even their sillier moments. I heartily recommend "This Is The Moody Blues" as an introduction to the band. You can easily find the 2-CD set used for peanuts; great overview that flows as beautifully as their individual albums. The "Time Traveler" box is also very good but pricier.

The remastered version of Mike's Among the Stars" is great!  The remaster really brings out the Mellotron sound.

Did anybody buy the remasters of the first 7 albums with bonus tracks? Released only in Europe??? I did. 5.1 SACD mixes too.  I hope the box set is just not those thrown together with some video DVDs.

The box set is due to be released June 3 in Europe and June 4 (MY BIRTHDAY!!!) in North America.

http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/the-moody-blues-timeless-flight-massive-17-disc-box-set/

I am excited for this! ;D

Interesting comment from that page:

Mychael says:
March 28, 2013 at 09:07
According to interviews in PROG magazine the set will (for the first time) include the original first stereo mix of “Days Of Future Passed” in full. All previous CDs used a remix from the 70s with markedly different passages (only two or three songs from the original mix appeared on the first Moodies box set).

http://store.universal-music.co.uk/restofworld/rock/boxset-moody-blues-timeless-flight-box-set-2013/invt/0600753429785/?utm_source=Moody+Blues+Fan+Pages&utm_medium=website+and+social&utm_campaign=moodyblues

Tracklist is finally released...and I'm a bit underwhelmed.

The first five discs are basically the "best-of" portion with the "rarities" sprinkled in. Thing is, the "rarities" are nothing new to seasoned collectors, and have been released before on the 2006 Classic Seven reissues and other compilations. If you're still listening to the 1987 or 1997 CDs, this will be a welcome addition. Six of the CDs are live. The first is from 12/12/69 at Royal Albert Hall, which is the same concert used for Caught Live +5. The second is the fabled Blue Jays live recording from December of 1975, which has never been heard before. The third is a selection of tracks from a 5/25/79 concert in at the Seattle Center Coliseum, which was originally aired on the radio across the United States from promotional vinyls, and later became the source of the bootlegs. The fourth and fifth discs are from a 12/3/83 concert at the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles. The sixth disc looks like a series of highlights from when the group toured with symphony orchestras.

I am kinda disappointed myself....

I guess it'd be worth it to have the official copies of the concerts, since there are innumerable sources of the 1979 and 1983 gigs, all in varying quality. Luckily I was able to acquire a copy of the 1979 gig dubbed from the original broadcast vinyls. The 1983 gig I have in a pristine 1.25ips recording from WNEW-FM in New York.

Have to agree.  Nothing I don't have on the Studio CD side. Not being a big live album fan, I'll pass and save my money for MIC.

What I've done is make up several "lost Moody Blues albums' by collecting the solo albums and a few rarities and hashing them together into a nice flow. The tracks even overlap just as they would on a Moodies album. It's quite enjoyable to listen to their solo work in this way since the music is good, but a lot better when you mix it up into that Moody Blues stew. I even made album covers using Phil Travers artwork:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52684612/Minstrels.jpg)   (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52684612/MInstrelsBack.jpg)
If anyone would be interested in checking these out just let me know.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/readers-poll-the-10-bands-who-should-enter-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-in-2014-20130424/5-the-moody-blues-0026246