All Hopped Up
NRBQ
Red Rooster 101/Rounder 3029 (1977)
Deadwax: Sterling ROU 3029-A
I was really glad to see garybx put up so much NRBQ a while back. I told him at the time that I had a copy of "Wild Weekend" that I would rip when I got my collection in order and was able to locate it.
In doing cleaning, I not only located that album, but also this Sterling/Rounder first pressing in NM condition which I had forgotten that I own. This is Rounder's first pressing, but originally the album was on the Red Rooster as an indie, before they signed a distribution deal with Rounder. The non-Rounder versions have blue lettering on the cover instead of pink and don't have the "Rounder Records" designation on the label. I've never heard one of those to make a comparison, but this one sounds mighty fine to me.
I actually have two and a half NRBQ albums which Gary didn't, and hope to share them all eventually. I took pains to keep the integrity of the NRBQ discography consistent, to the point where I altered a couple of my usual methods. First off, I lowered my levels 1.2 db to volume match Gary's "Yankee Stadium" (the next album in the series chronologically). No big deal. I also left band noise in instead of fading to silence between each track as I usually do. This was a slightly bigger deal to me because his system is enviably quieter than mine, but I hope the small amount of noise between the songs will not be a distraction. I did NOT EQ to try to match curves, though I will admit that I was tempted too. The Mercury mastering is a shade brighter than the Rounder and my ears favor it slightly, but I felt that introducing a curve into the method would offent "purists", even though every system introduces coloration of it's own, and it is nearly impossible to tell differences in mastering from differences in gear. Isn't that part of the joy of analog?
I have been burning the discography with two albums on one CD, and in chronological order, so I burned this one with my "Hopped" as tracks 1-13 and Gary's "Yankee" as tracks 14-25. The two albums share a common track, "Ridin' in my Car". In comparing the two drops of that track, I noticed a couple of anomolies. First off, the pitch of Gary's drop was slightly higher than mine. Fearing that this revealed a speed error in one of our systems, I went to YouTube to find some tracks for comparison. What I found was that versions ripped from "Hopped" matched my drop, and versions ripped from "Yankee" matched his. It seems that Mercury either deliberately sped the track up a bit to make it snappier (an old AM radio trick) or there was an error on their part (I lean toward thinking it's the latter for reasons that will be covered). Secondly, when comparing levels on our two drops of the song, his was a whopping 4.2 db lower than mine. I couldn't understand why Gary dropped at such a low level. Then it dawned on me to open up his entire "Yankee" drop in Audition and get a look at what was going on. In doing so, I saw that the entire "Yankee" album was consistently mastered except for "Ridin'", which was much lower in volume. It seems that the album was cut from a single master tape except for "Ridin'" which appears to have been haphazardly tacked on at the end. Looking at the spectral views leads me to believe that the "Yankee" version is from a tape dupe rather than the master. I don't blame Mercury for wanting to include the track. Has a more perfect three minutes of pop music ever been created? This track is likely what landed them the deal with Mercury in the first place. However, it does seem that they added the track haphazardly, and for this reason I would consider the "Hopped" version to be definitive.
Tracks...
I Got a Rocket in My Pocket
It Feels Good
Cecilia
Honey Hush
Call Him Off, Rogers
Doctor's Wind
Ridin' in My Car
Things to You
Still in School
Help Me Somebody
Queen Talk
That's Alright
Bonanza
Lineage...
Turntable - A vintage VIP Boyscout circa 1966 recently upgraded with a custom plinth hand made of Nubian Dragon wood illegally harvested from Djibouti at great personal risk but used for it's exceptionally nubian tonal response.
Tonearm - SMEK series 1984 modded with X-1R Crawler Track Lubricant from the Space Shuttle to give an out of this world character.
Cartridge - Koetsuzuki Ivory Platinum, a very limited production run of fifty three units, each one hand carved from a white key removed from the Blüthner Grand Piano that was used by The Beatles during the "Let it Be" sessions. The resulting musicality and magical aura is thought to be obvious to all.
Phono stage - Womanley Labs Marlin all tube stage with Russian Svetlanovski tubes that have had a few hundred months burn in time as used in the system of Sergei Rachmaninov as he listened to RCA Victor Program Transcription pressings of Beethoven symphonies for inspiration.
A/D converter - Apologee Schmenke 192 converter with firewire and vintage ESDI interfaces.
Cables - Galemark exclusively uses and endorses Lardas cables. They give him his signature fat sound. (Actually, Galemark would like you to know that he never uses any product as pedestrian as Lardas, but since they are paying him big bucks for the endorsement deal, that is what he is telling people.)
Software - Audacious for Vistakon OS with proprietary dither program written for me by Peter Gotcher because we're boys.
Cleaning - VIP Monsoon machine with a top secret fluid. This special enzymatic fluid is made with several proprietary agents, including pure bile removed from Steve Hoffman's gall bladder during his recent back surgery. The Hoffman magic shines through on every one of my drops.
Ugh...okay...I made all of that up...here is the actual "mid-fi" system that was used...
JVC QL-A7 direct drive turntable (with mods).
Audio-Technica AT440MLa Cartridge.
Marantz Model 2230 Receiver (Phono Pre).
Vinyl meticulously hand cleaned.
E-Mu 1212m soundcard capturing at 32 bit float, 192 khz.
Lightly polished with ClickRepair (unless completely manually declicked - see description)
Stray pops missed by CR manually removed with Audition single click tool (never batch processed).
Resampled and dithered with iZotope RX.
No other signal processing is used (unless noted in the description).
Another quality GALEMARK needledrop
"When you care enough to send the very best"
Always traded, never sold
Always trade lossless