Author Topic: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW  (Read 7475 times)

Josh

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 1386
Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« on: February 12, 2008, 02:17:32 AM »
PREORDER NOW - SHIPS MARCH 18


Quote from: Amazon
This 3-CD limited edition set is comprised of 49 re-mastered tracks from the legendary Boston band's original tapes, plus the mysterious "Faith Healer" video, all for an incredibly low price. Chronicling Big Dipper's years on the Homestead label, discs one and two include the 1987 EP "BooBoo" and the LPs "Heavens" (1987) and "Craps" (1988). Nine little or seldom heard bonus tracks from that era fill out Disc 2. Disc 3 compiles fifteen previously unreleased tracks from the band's 1991 and 1992 post-Epic recording sessions. Extensive liner notes from the original band members and Tom Scharpling (host of The Best Show on WFMU).
"Alright, well, for the sake of this conversation, let's say the book does not exist."

yesno

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 3426
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2008, 12:20:22 PM »
$9 at Amazon mp3:  http://www.amazon.com/Supercluster-The-Big-Dipper-Anthology/dp/B0014DI3HO/ref=sr_f3_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1205857008&sr=103-1

$30 at iTunes: wtf?

Neither include the liner notes, probably. 

Spoony

  • Achilles Tendon Bursitis
  • Posts: 844
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2008, 12:30:39 PM »
I can't wait to hear it.

Omar

  • A Recapper/A True Star.
  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 2007
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2008, 12:34:23 PM »
Merge has the 3-CD set for $15, .mp3s for $10.99, and FLAC for $13.49.
"Let's have a device-a-thon, just you and me." -- Montgomery Davies

Forrest

  • Guest
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2008, 01:07:09 PM »
No vinyl release of this, huh?

masterofsparks

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 3323
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2008, 01:17:37 PM »
No vinyl release of this, huh?

I'd imagine vinyl would be cost-prohibitive. 3 CDs, depending on how full they are, would probably translate to 5 or 6 LPs, which would mean having to charge anywhere from $60-$100, depending on how fancy they are with the pressing and packaging. I'd imagine you can probably track down original vinyl copies of their entire catalogue for that much and still have money left over for a few back issues of Forced Exposure and a nice meal.
I'll probably go into the wee hours.

Forrest

  • Guest
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #6 on: March 18, 2008, 05:10:15 PM »
Makes sense. I like the idea of big vinyl boxes, though. I'm still crossing my fingers for the 8x LP of The Art of the Slap.

masterofsparks

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 3323
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2008, 05:50:12 PM »
Makes sense. I like the idea of big vinyl boxes, though. I'm still crossing my fingers for the 8x LP of The Art of the Slap.

Each Mother 13 call would take up an entire LP. It would be like the Mountain Jam or Nantucket Sleighride of comedy tracks.
I'll probably go into the wee hours.

Matt

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 1021
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #8 on: March 21, 2008, 02:45:45 PM »
I gots mine in the mail today! The package and Tom's notes are very cool.

I'm curious, though - are they only making 5,000 of these things?
It ain't ego, it's my love for you.

bruce

  • Guest
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2008, 07:06:41 PM »
I need to point out I picked it up for the sum of 12.88 while the Mission Of Burma reissues that I would like to get also are 13.88. Sure the Burma ones have a DVD with them but still a lot less music. Damn you Newbury Comics!

Gilly

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 2110
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #10 on: March 21, 2008, 07:25:41 PM »
I need to point out I picked it up for the sum of 12.88 while the Mission Of Burma reissues that I would like to get also are 13.88. Sure the Burma ones have a DVD with them but still a lot less music. Damn you Newbury Comics!

I check out Newbury Comics a lot on Ebay for vinyl. They have great selection but a little higher than normal shipping costs.

Josh

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 1386
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2008, 12:54:15 AM »
Big Dipper, a rock-and-roll quartet from Boston that will perform tonight at the Knitting Factory, pulls its inspiration from sources as varied as punk-rock, American history, the Billboard charts, romantic poetry and PBS. Its members are musical contortionists: they love to toy with extremes, juxtaposing ferocious guitar noise with celestial vocal harmonies or planting a delicate melody in jagged rhythm. Already established favorites on the club circuit and college radio stations, the band makes its major-label debut later this month with ''Slam,'' a sonic romper-room of colliding dynamic extremes and witty, irreverent lyrics.

Big Dipper's current sophistication owes much to the fact that each band member brought years of musical experience with him when Big Dipper was formed in 1985. Bill Goffrier and Gary Waleik (the two lead singers and guitarists), Steve Michener (the bassist) and Jeff Oliphant (the drummer) played in groups like the Embarrassment, Volcano Suns and Dump Truck; their stylistic terrain ranged from arty guitar pop to ear-singeing garage punk to gentle folk-rock. As Big Dipper, they began to recombine their influences into a more cohesive sound that kept elements of each genre, but often mangled them beyond recognition.

''It's a very democratic band, so it never comes out sounding like what any of us wants to hear,'' Mr. Goffrier said recently in a phone interview from Boston. ''We had an audience that seemed to like that here was this loud, reckless punk guitar band that had catchy melodies.''

In 1987 the band released its first EP, ''Boo-Boo,'' which has quirky, agitated melodies played with arty minimalism at punk velocity. But Big Dipper was searching for a stronger identity that went beyond the sum of its individual parts. By the LP ''Heavens,'' released at the end of that year, Big Dipper was emerging as a pop band, albeit a highly unusual one. Songs like ''She's Fetching'' and ''All Going Out Together'' have wonderfully coaxing melodies undercut by an almost alarming roughness in technique. A breezy guitar riff would be echoed by the same notes played octaves lower; Mr. Goffrier's flat, wavering vocals added a touch of irony to lyrics like ''I saw a tree that still had one last leaf.''

Sound vs. Manner

Live on stage, the band also alternated between punkish fury and dapper pop, with sweet melodies struggling to be heard above a wall of feedback. Big Dipper was perfecting the art of playing pretty sounds in the ugliest manner possible.

This insouciance carried over to the band's lyrics. Instead of boy-meets-girl love songs, Big Dipper wrote about astronomers, Presidents, boats, anything that defied expectation and appealed to the group's offbeat sense of humor. Big Dipper seemed tickled by the idea of placing friendly characters in vaguely threatening situations. ''Ron Klaus Wrecked His House,'' a song from the 1988 album ''Craps,'' told the story of one of Mr. Goffrier's former bandmates. It starts innocently enough (''He had a party/he had a band/and a thousand loving friends'') but it quickly turns bizarre (''He threw the doors out of the windows/and the windows out of the doors'').

''Ron was the bass player in the Embarrassment,'' Mr. Goffrier said. ''When his landlord gave him a month's notice to move out because the house was being demolished, he decided to have a big house-wrecking party. He invited everyone to bring sledgehammers, tools, whatever implements of destruction, and just bring the house down. A lot of it was hauled away and taken home as souvenirs. I got a doorknob.''

Onward and Upward

After ''Craps,'' Big Dipper's contract with the independent label Homestead ran out, and the band decided it was ready to move on to a bigger label. While ''Craps'' showed the band members to be honing their pop sensibility even further, it still had the grungy, cluttered feel of a low-budget garage-band album. ''You can only go so far turning up the guitars real loud and distorting them as much as possible,'' Mr. Goffrier said. ''We felt we'd suffered enough from a lack of distribution. We wondered whether a larger independent would have the means to do what we wanted to do, and give us the freedom we wanted.''

The band also considered offers from major labels, although as Mr. Goffrier said, ''It seemed like a huge, mysterious, overwhelming world.'' When Epic offered a deal that allowed the group to keep maximum creative control, the band accepted. The chance to record for Epic - at a more leisurely pace, and with a more generous budget to encourage further experimentation with structures, textures and arrangements - was welcome.

''Slam,'' the new album, retains Big Dipper's aggressive guitar edge and invented melodies, but sounds smoother and more professional; it proves that a garage band can sound clean and sharp without lessening its noisy thrust. By using crisper production, Big Dipper has achieved one of its primary goals; to balance the different extremes in its music.

The leadoff track, ''Love Barge,'' could even fit in on mainstream rock radio stations. ''Conceptually, it's ultra simple: just three major chords,'' Mr. Goffrier said. ''Our goal was to retain the integrity of those three chords, and still make an interesting song out of it. That meant creating more space in the recording - something that, as a young band, we were much less likely to do. It's a real challenge to treat open spaces in songs as carefully as the sounds we make.''

A First Ballad

Another song, ''Father's Day,'' is, Mr. Goffrier said, ''our first ballad.''

''It's a case where there's a distance between a father and a family,'' he said, ''and the father's way of maintaining that distance was always to be puttering around fixing the physical house, and putting off fixing the emotional home. We took the drum kit out and did it with just some added percussion. To us, that was a huge step.''

''Slam'' is sure to broaden Big Dipper's audience. More importantly, the band has successfully maneuvered itself within the industry without losing sight of its original goals. ''We have to satisfy certain personal standards, and a personal esthetic,'' Mr. Goffrier said. ''Things just have to seem right to us. We're still trying to write the best songs we can write, and improve our ability to play them.''
"Alright, well, for the sake of this conversation, let's say the book does not exist."

yesno

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 3426
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2008, 01:37:48 PM »
I found this dude who had posted the major label, not very fondly remembered Big Dipper major label effort:

http://isupplythecountrywithbutter.blogspot.com/2008/01/big-dipper-slam-1990.html

Gilly

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 2110
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #13 on: April 05, 2008, 06:10:26 PM »
I went to a record show today and was able to pick up Heavens and Craps (in excellent condition) for $4 for the pair! I was very happy. Actually, the whole day was great... I've been selling stuff on Ebay and Amazon to save up money to go nuts today and I picked up about 50 albums that I actually wanted, not just that I wanted to buy because they were cheap, for around 60 bucks.

Jason

  • Guest
Re: Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology PREORDER NOW
« Reply #14 on: April 05, 2008, 07:31:44 PM »
Tom's liner notes, scanned by Bruce. Click for large readable versions.
Gilly, where was the record show?