The Ventures Live in Japan!

[dubtrub]

Give me the original studio versions everytime and I'll close my eyes and drift off to guitar paradise. The sounds on "Surfing" for instance. You can almost feel the wood of the Mosrites! That was due to careful studio engineering, something that's not possibly capturable on stage.

If you get a chance to read the book The Ventures 'Walk Don't Run', you'll be surprised to learn that many of the Ventures albums were recorded with studio musicians while the Ventures were touring. It is discussed where they had to learn the songs on 'their' albums before a show because people might ask for a certain number that the Ventures had never heard much less played. Never ending learning lessons here.

[Univoxer]

To be severely critical, my first disappointment with The Ventures was the introduction of keyboards on some of their songs. To me this was sacrilegious! I was so taken with the "boys" that I wanted their records to be 100% unadulterated. I had the nerve to write to them to tell them how I felt. Naive me!

I was also totally disappointed when I found out that Eric Clapton played the lead guitar in "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." For some reason, though, it didn't bother me that Billy Preston played on some Beatles songs.

Does the book name the musicians that recorded for The Ventures, such as the usual session stars that "traveled" as a group? People like Carol Kaye:
info from Carol Kaye (http://www.united-mutations.com/k/carol_kaye.htm):
"This book will dispel forever the myths about the groups hit recordings, and will prove who really did play on them. The studio musicians cut everyone's hits in the 60s, from the Monkees to the Animals, even the Ventures (altho' some of the Ventures played on their recordings but that's myself on bass and Hal Blaine on drums, etc.), and one other, Frank Zappa had his own bass player and drummer but the rest were studio musicians: Tommy Tedesco on lead guitar on Zappa's recordings, Dennis Budimir and myself on 12-strings, and we loved his parts, there were challenging and good music. But after seeing the lyrics of the 2nd album, I opted out (just played on part of the 2nd, but all of the 1st album) as I was raising my 3 children and was sort of shocked at the lyrics, Frank was gracious, very nice and we remained friends, he understood. Yes, you might say I was a prude, but most of our bunch were (then)."

Give me the original studio versions everytime and I'll close my eyes and drift off to guitar paradise. The sounds on "Surfing" for instance. You can almost feel the wood of the Mosrites! That was due to careful studio engineering, something that's not possibly capturable on stage.

If you get a chance to read the book The Ventures 'Walk Don't Run', you'll be surprised to learn that many of the Ventures albums were recorded with studio musicians while the Ventures were touring. It is discussed where they had to learn the songs on their albums before a show because people might ask for a certain number that the Ventures had never heard much less played. Never ending learning lessons here.

[Deke Dickerson]

For the truly obsessed, like myself, you can listen to the live versions which were definitely our heroes and no other musicians, and then figure out which of the studio tracks are the Ventures or other musicians. It's fairly obvious, especially once you're able to zero in on Bob's Jazzmaster tone or Nokie's Mosrite tone. There is no doubt though--the Ventures could play their own darn instruments, they only needed the studio guys to crank out the 6 or 7 albums a year they were doing throughout the 60's.

I heard that there's not one Venture actually playing on the "Telstar-Lonely Bull" album, which was their best selling album in the States. That must have been weird for them!!

When we formed "Venturesmania" a few years back--our side band Ventures tribute band--our goal was to do only "Wilson-Bogle-Edwards-Taylor" compositions. We always thought those were the best anyway....

Deke

[Bushers]

I had almost every American LPs by The Ventures in the '60s. I didn't care for everything they did but to just to hear, primarily, the sound of Mosrite instruments was worth playing each LP at least once. In my opinion, Nokie can play circles around such guitar "gods" as Eric Clapton who never impressed me the way Nokie (and Don) did. There should be a statue erected somewhere with Eric sitting on Nokie's lap!

But to get to the point of this reply, Deke has mentioned the reason(s) why I don't care for live Ventures. Since they've played everything in their catalog over and over, one more time won't mean a thing and they do it by rote so emotion is gone and they got to get through yet another playing of "Walk Don't Run" or whatever. Perhaps before each performance they kidded with each other and Nokie said to the others "I bet I can do that songs in 3 notes!" And like Deke said, speed is of the essence without the essence.

Give me the original studio versions everytime and I'll close my eyes and drift off to guitar paradise. The sounds on "Surfing" for instance. You can almost feel the wood of the Mosrites! That was due to careful studio engineering, something that's not possibly capturable on stage.

For me, "The Ventures Live, Again" in the studio!

I beg to differ, and by the sounds of it you clearly havent listened to any of these albums. The sound of the mosrite is as clear, if not clearer than many of the studio recordings, they have their place but the drive and energy in all of these songs is apparent, how can you miss that?? A quote from Gerry Woodage of the Ventures fan club in the inlay card sums it up;

"It's like the all the band vie with one another for front spot which seems odd - but boy does it work."

If you have never listened to the 3 other albums I have seeded in bit torrent then you're missing out, there is an energy these songs that isnt captured on any studio album, except maybe slightly in the 'On stage' album with the fabricated screaming audience. There is no way that the ventures are playing these tunes with the arrogance of 'lets get this over and done with'. Listen to Besame Mucho/Batman/The Man from U.N.C.L.E./Black sand Beach/Yozora No Hoshi, the list goes on, here you'll see that emotion is clearly evident.

LISTEN to these albums, I now have all four combined into one easy download from here and come back with an accurate reflection, also read the inlays from Gerry. The download includes;

Live in Japan - 1965
Live in Japan Vol II - 1966
On Stage Encore - 1967
Live, Again - 1968

[Univoxer]

I snipped some material from your reply but kept your comments. Last night I downloaded from an mp3 website "Live In Japan '65" and burnt a CD-R. I listened on high quality headphones (Titanium drivers) and then on my stereo with excellent speakers.

My comments still stand. I did not enjoy hearing The Ventures live whether on the headphones or speakers. A few things aggravated me and I'm glad I wasn't there because I would have felt trapped and I would have had to leave the venue.

First: Nokie felt it necessary to bend notes beyond good taste. Once or twice, alright. But almost every song over and over? No.
Second: The 9-minute-long drum solo on Caravan was just downright ridiculous. It goes without saying that Mel is one heck of a drummer, he has unbelievable chops. But he doesn't have discipline. Drum solos are boring unless there's taste as in ELP's "Tank" for example. By taste I mean such drum solos as in Dick Schory's "MUSIC FOR BANG BAAROOM and HARP" - "Duel on the Skins," percussionists Frank Rullo and Bobby Christian; Chuck Flores on "Skinned" and "Skinned Again"; Cozy Cole on "Topsy" and Turvy"; Sandy Nelson "Let There Be Drums." IOW, short and tasty not for a superboring 9 minutes. I'm an ex-drummer.

Third: I'm expressing my opinion, like you, and I love The Ventures as I've stated time and again. After learning that other musicians are responsible for released LPs as by The Ventures, I'm totally surprised and "shocked" 'cause now, not knowing who did what, I love whatever musicians were responsible for they were my influence into liking The Ventures. Remember, I saw them live in 1981 in a smaller L.A. venue and it was a more personal thing than sitting in an auditorium. The sound was more immediate. Unfortunately, while I was extremely happy to see the boys, I was disappointed that they were not using
Mosrites for that's the sound I came to hear. But I still enjoyed being close to them on the stage. I'll post the photos in the near future now that I found the negatives last night.

So as not to get embroiled in any kind of flame war, I will always hear The Ventures on my CDs (superior to vinyl) and whether I'm listening to their playing or an unnamed musician, it'll still be The Ventures and Mosrites. But I just cannot get up any enthusiasm for them or anyone else live. I might enjoy Los Straitjackets for themselves, or Jon and the Nighriders, heck even The Astronauts. But never Dick Dale!

Take me to the studio, James! Surf's up!

Apache - awful and Nokie's constant "arrow" sounds got on my nerves.
Besame Mucho - avoid!


[quote="Bushers]
I beg to differ, and by the sounds of it you clearly havent listened to any of these albums. The sound of the mosrite is as clear, if not clearer than many of the studio recordings, they have their place but the drive and energy in all of these songs is apparent, how can you miss that?? A quote from Gerry Woodage of the Ventures fan club in the inlay card sums it up;

"It's like the all the band vie with one another for front spot which seems odd - but boy does it work."

If you have never listened to the 3 other albums I have seeded in bit torrent then you're missing out, there is an energy these songs that isnt captured on any studio album, except maybe slightly in the 'On stage' album with the fabricated screaming audience. There is no way that the ventures are playing these tunes with the arrogance of 'lets get this over and done with'. Listen to Besame Mucho/Batman/The Man from U.N.C.L.E./Black sand Beach/Yozora No Hoshi, the list goes on, here you'll see that emotion is clearly evident.

LISTEN to these albums, I now have all four combined into one easy download from here and come back with an accurate reflection, also read the inlays from Gerry. The download includes;

Live in Japan - 1965
Live in Japan Vol II - 1966
On Stage Encore - 1967
Live, Again - 1968

[Bushers]

I'd still like your comments from the other 3 albums though, they are somewhat different to the one you just heard. Live Again was the only one I had in my collection up until a week ago and was my favorite, but the other 3 stand equally as insipirational.

You wont find these on any mp3 site, I doubt, so download the torrent, if you have any problems doing so, let me know!

[Univoxer]

Thanks for your offer of help with torrent, I appreciate it. I do not have any knowledge regarding Bit Torrent aside from trying to understand a primer on google and not being able to understand it. To help you help me, I have a pc with Windows XP (home), Pentium 4, HyperThreading (dual core), 3 GHtz, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB hard drive, and I have cable access.

On another thread I offered the CD-R I made of "Live In Japan '65" but I'm willing to give the other 3 a chance so that I can learn with variety.

Please don't use any technical terms if you can use lay language. Thanks.

BTW, I forgot to add in my evaluation of "Live In Japan '65" that their version of "I Feel Fine" was just downright awful with Nokie not allowing the opening note to go into feedback. What a drag!

I'd still like your comments from the other 3 albums though, they are somewhat different to the one you just heard. Live Again was the only one I had in my collection up until a week ago and was my favorite, but the other 3 stand equally as insipirational.

You wont find these on any mp3 site, I doubt, so download the torrent, if you have any problems doing so, let me know!

[Bushers]

Ok, first you need a torrent program, this enables you to use the small torrent files that 'control' where the download comes from. Install this program first, it's only 263kb;

http://download.utorrent.com/1.8.2/utorrent-1.8.2.upx.exe

After that's installed you need the torrent file that will control the download, basically what it does is get bits of data from everyone that's seeding the files, or already have them downloaded, think of each byte as a piece of the puzzle, once all of them are downloaded, everything is re-assembled. The small torrent file that you download below, is like a 'controller' for the download, it tells you who are connected and what the pieces of the puzzle are.

Download my torrent from here (16.8kb);

http://www.demonoid.com/files/download/HTTP/1772765/7329860

To open either double click on the downloaded torrent file or use the 'Add Torrent' button from the program (located just below the 'file' button).

Now, when you first run Utorrent (the program) a box will pop up 'Speed Guide', just to see if the correct port (a random port it selects) is forwarded correctly to your pc, click the 'Test if port is forwarded properly' button, this will bring up your internet browser window and let you know if the identified port is forwarding traffic correctly or not. Dont panic if it's not, the torrent will still download but will be slightly slower, I get a message back saying;

Welcome to the µTorrent Port Checker.
A test will be performed on your computer to check if the specified port is opened.

Checking port 14XXX on XX.XXX.XXX.XXX...

OK! Port 14XXX is open and accepting connections.

You will be able to receive incoming BitTorrent connections.

A couple of things about Bit torrent downloads; you can only get pieces of torrents that have the exact files that were in the original download, once anything is modified in the folder its downloaded to, or it is moved, it will not seed. All files are downloaded to the default file location of C:\Documents and Settings\your user ID\My Documents\Downloads.

One thing about port forwarding; if you have a router between your pc and the cable modem then to acheive the optimum download speeds you need to forward the random port the program selects (or whatever one you want to change it to) to your local pc address (192.168.?.?), this would have to be done by loggin on to your router. Not entirely necessary though and we can walk through this if you get issues, but I'd need to know what router you have!

If you run into any problems, post back.

[Chemo]

"Live in Japan 1965"

That album is just fantastic!

Edit: it's in my Top2 live albums of all time (the other one is Ramones - It's Alive).