Tomorrow - Tomorrow (Orig. UK Mono - Parlophone PMC 7042 )
24bit/96kHz (High Resolution Audio for DVD burning)
01 - My White Bicycle
02 - Colonel Brown
03 - Real Life Permanent Dream
04 - Shy Boy
05 - Revolution
06 - The Incredible Journey Of Timothy Chase
07 - Auntie Mary's Dress Shop
08 - Strawberry Fields Forever
09 - Three Jolly Little Dwarfs
10 - Now Your Time Has Come
11 - Hallucinations
Bonus:
12 - Claramount Lake
All Tracks are MONO mixes; never once available on CD with the exception of Tr. 1 & 12
Tr. 1, 5 & 6 do not exist in true stereo and have appeared (mostly) in re-channeled fake stereo on CD & LP.
Production: Mark P. Wirtz
Engineers: Peter Bown (1,2,4,5,7,9,11,12), Geoff Emerick (3,6,8,10)
Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, April '67 - September '67 (approximately!)
Hardware:
- Technics 1210mk2
- Jelco SA-750D Tonearm (w/ JAC 501 cable)
- Audio Technica AT33PTG MC
- Pro-Ject Tube Box SE-2
- Yamaha CA-1010
- RME ADI-2 A/D Interface
- VPI 16.5 (using VPI brushes and Audio Intelligent’s Enzymantic formula, Super Cleaner Formula)
- Nitty Gritty mini-pro 2 (using Ultra pure water)
Software:
- Audition 3.0 used for adjusting DC bias, editing, (incl. manual removal of clicks and pops), adding gain and making cue points.
- Click Repair 3.8.3 used with setting Cl: 10, Cr: 0
- CueListTool v1.7 & Mediaval CueSplitter used for generating the .cue's & .m3u's.
Transfer & Restoration: Prof. Stoned
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Prof. sez:
Let me get straight to the point this time: this is British Psychpop at its best. In a better world, this eponymous debut album would have achieved the same legendary status
as Piper, Odessey & Sgt. Pepper but despite being recorded at Abbey Road in 1967 like those other three albums, and despite the band being on the same label as The
Beatles, it is still a rather obscure gem. This collection of songs captures pretty much everything that was good about this brief era of flourishing musicality, while steering
clear of the usual pitfalls of self indulgence and excess.
The band Tomorrow existed for only about a year, but with this one album they left a considerable legacy. Principal songwriters were singer Keith West (real last name:
Hopkins) and Ken Burgess, who was not a member of the band but nonetheless wrote much of the music. Upon hearing "My White Bicycle" in the studio, John Lennon
declared it "the anthem of the psychedelic era." As soon as the upbeat opener of the album finishes, however, we hear the story of "Colonel Brown", a retired army man
who has lost everything he once held dear aside from a few of his medals. Contrary to what you would expect from a psychedelic 60s band, the lyrics are sincere and the
character comes alive in a way Ray Davies' characters never could. The rest of the songs likewise represent extraordinary 60s pop, rock & psychedelica in a consistently
tight 3 or 4 minute format, from the whimsical "Three Jolly Little Dwarfs” to the raga-inspired "Now Your Time Has Come," the bewildering-yet-catchy "Revolution"
(A-side of their second 45rpm) and the dreamy "Hallucinations." The band could be forgiven for attempting a decent but pointless cover of the Beatles classic; they must
have fallen under the spell while hearing the fab four working in the studio next door. And who could really blame them?
The album was recorded in bits and pieces over a time span of five months in 1967. Contractual matters and disinterest from the record company eventually delayed its
release date another five months by which time the band had lost its momentum and was about to fall apart. Predictably, the album sold poorly when it was finally released
in February 1968. A small number of original UK copies survived, divided more or less equally between mono and stereo versions. In subsequent years, a growing number
of listeners began recognizing the album's greatness, but the few reissues on vinyl and later on CD all feature the stereo version, the mixing of which was neither supervised
nor approved by producer Mark Wirtz.
As you can imagine, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share this transfer taken from a superb looking and sounding UK mono copy (kindly loaned to me by local
collector Paul B.). The mono mix of this album is generally regarded as the true version. Original members Keith West and Steve Howe have stated that the stereo album
with its wide uneven panorama was a bit of a joke, while the mono represented what the band really sounded like. According to one expert, the original EMI mono master
tapes of this album may have been destroyed or erased. Of course, that would be a terrible shame. At the same time, it seems doubtful that EMI will ever do another
reissue of this.
EMI pop records from this era were cut LOUD for maximum impact and almost always teeter on the brink of distortion, especially the mono ones. It takes a clean copy to
minimize the noise as much as possible. This record is no exception; it was made to sound punchy on transistor radios and kids' phonographs. A few of the tracks here do
have some distortion, but it is tolerable and is definitely not a result of worn grooves.
Last but not least, I have added the B-side of the "My White Bicycle" 45 for the sake of completeness. This was taken from the 1991 See for Miles CD which, aside from
the original 1967 single from various countries, is the only place to hear the mono mix of this track. Consequently, this song only appears in 16/44.1. I hope you will forgive
me, but finding a clean source on vinyl would have been too much of a hassle and a costly endeavor as well. Instead, I won the SFM for 2 bucks on eBay.
Enjoy!