Roger Chapman's post-Family group. Not heard them myself so I need to lisen to 'em a bit on the net. Anyone got opinions on them? Anyway 4 studio albums CDs, 1 x CD of BBC sesions and 8 live ones + 2 CD singles + 92pp book. Similar presentation to the Family box set and issued by Madfish / Charly as was the Family box. The discs come in card gatefold sleeves, though not the quality of the 'Japanese mini LP CD type sleeves' stated in the promo blurb, but good enough for a Euro issue. Costs £125, same as the Family box, which I think is a fair price for career spanning LP sized box set (as opposed to 5 or 6 formats of the same album in a super deluxe box)as long as the live stuff is of good recorded quality.


https://www.burningshed.com/store/madfish/product/397/6974/?utm_source=Newsletter+28+09+2015&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter+28+09+2015

PM

15 CDs of a bang average group who made four plodding albums in their lifetime? No wonder the reissue industry is dying!

Been listening to their 'Red Card' album on Youtube, I rather like it. I think such a big set for a band with only four studio albums is rather a lot though. Maybe just the studio albums in a slipcase would have sufficed with one live one. I'll keep it on my watch list anyway.

PM

I like to be positive wherever possible, but I'm not sure I could wade through eight CDs of live material by a major long-standing band like the Beatles or the Stones. The thought of doing so for a short-lived, unremarkable band like Streetwalkers - one of the reasons why punk happened - sounds more like the box is going to be a blunt instrument of torture rather than an uplifting experience. Sorry to be so bitchy, but anyone seriously contemplating paying £125 for the privilege of doing so suggests that there is indeed one born every minute.

As an 18 year-old in 1977 I would have dismissed Streetwalkers within 30 seconds and gone back to my Ramones, Stranglers, Pistols et al records and quite rightly (and as I still do). But after four decades, the context is entirely different. I doubt I'll bother with the Streetwalkers box set, it's too much of too little I think, but I still like what I've heard of them.

PM

No, it's absolutely nothing to do with context, it's entirely to do with music. Doesn't matter whether it's 1977 or 2015, fifteen CDs of average music is not an enticing proposition.

Andy, I'd agree about the 15 CDs bit, when 4-5 would have sufficed. I guess they must have enough confidence of selling most of them to make it worth their while. I still can't listen to Genesis (Gabriel era), most of the post Syd Floyd, ELP or Yes, so I have a consistency of dislike there at least.

I disagree on context, for me it always matters. The context of this music when it originally appeared was of course as you already noted, why punk had to happen and these sort of bands had to be swept away to mainland Europe and the USA where they still had fan bases. But so far on personally, I listen to old music as being of its own time now. It was a bleak musical time then, post-glam rock pre-punk, music had reached atrophy, or at least that which got any platform (top of the pops and Old Grey Whistle test) and a terminally morribund commerical radio in thrall to major record companies and their comfortable older generation soft rock and MOR acts. I can see / hear Streetwalker fitting into all that on one level. But I think it sounds pretty bouncy and vibrant compared to Dark Side Of The Moon!

I don't seek to lionise Streetwalker, I'd never heard of them until a few days ago, but I do find listening to old music like theirs without the baggage of past culture wars weighing me down allows me to hear it in a newer context where it can be heard outdside of all that. I dare say I'll never buy a Streetwalker record, but I wouldn't turn the radio off now as I would have 40 years ago either.

PM

I appreciate your point of view, Paul, but to me "context" is still a nebulous red herring. Either it's good or it isn't, irrespective of when it was made.

That's a different thing though Andy, that's 'taste' which is entirely subjective and personal. It's not objectively measurable against anything. Which is why it's so passionately felt and liberatingly experienced (in my opinion!). Long may it remain so.

Paul

Obviously "taste" is entirely subjective and personal, that goes without saying. But "context" - which as I said, is a nebulous concept anyway and merely an attempt to muddy the waters - is such a distant second to "taste" that it is of no consequence. Irrespective of alleged "context", what we choose to call "taste" is the only true determinant of the merits of a piece of plastic. Nothing else is relevant.

I know it comes down to taste Paul but i'm hoping, no should say wondering that you don't listen to Genesis Phil Collins era.

Not as a rule Greg, I like some Collins era stuf like 'Mama' and 'I Can't Dance' By the dane remove I'd far sooner hear Collins era Genesis than Phil Collins solo.

PM

Interesting that you see context as 'mudying the waters' Andy, I see it as a means of clarification and wider perspective. We all know examples of albums slated by the music press / media at their time of release and which over the years becomes the 'general opinion' but that have been re-habilitated retrospectively.

I agree with you that personal taste is the only arbitor of what you listen to or what you spend your hard earned on, but are you saying your taste has never changed, or that you have never changed your opinon of a record for the better on hearing it years later? That is a context. I would quite agree with Peter Gabriel that 'I know what I like and I like what I know..' but that does not preclude the potential for re/discovery of music you thought you didn't like does it? I've certainly encountered music over the years I never thought I'd like (some country music being a case in point). So I think there's a lot more scope than if a music / artist or record is judged good or bad at any given time becauze time passes and contexts change.

I stil love all the music I listened to when I was 15 but it has widened over the years like it does for many people. How and what you hear has also a context to it so I can't see that as 'nebulous'. You must have favourite records or artists as we all have. Are you saying that there is nothing outside of immediate 'like' or 'dislike', that informs that?

PM

I'd like to think that I've always been open-minded about music, rather than closed off due to the antics of so-called arbiters of musical taste like the NME, Melody Maker etc. I remember buying a Roy Harper single and a Twiggy single on the same day, and my brother saying to me, "I can see how you might like one of those records, but how can you like both of them?" I said that I thought they were both good songs (which I still think), and nobody was going to preach to me about what was good or bad. So no, I'd say "context" is only an issue to weak-minded, weak-willed people who are desperate through either low self-esteem or peer group pressure to be seen (often by themselves) as hip or cool.

Well I'd certainly side with you on the example you give of the singles and open minded listenting for sure. Those sound like the sort of selections I would make. I can only say that I feel context always offers expanded ways of understanding and in this case hearing and as a listening experience, that has to be good. But we'll have to agree to disagree about that.

PM

Family are playing in London 13/12 at Sheperds Bush, tickets still available probably because of the high price. Acoustic Strawbs are the backup act.