Wow, it's been a month to the day - probably the longest time I've been away from you. Truth is, I've been quite busy at work, and then travelling - in Japan, for a large chunk of last month. You can bet I visited a lot of record shops there, and I have the receipts to prove it! I bought mostly albums by Japanese bands, although I found great stuff in all kinds. I'll present as many of my purchases as I can in this blog (notice I've given up on the ambition to present all, or even the bulk of, my collection here). Let's start with this one, by the "Rolling Tickets":
Who are the Rolling Tickets? you ask. Fair question, that's what I asked myself when I came across this LP at the Shinjuku Rock branch of Disk Union. My first guess was some kind of Japanese Rolling Stones tribute band, perhaps? No siree, this is a Japan-only official Rolling Stones compilation. What the hell does the title mean mean, then? Why tickets? Is it a live recording? What does the word back refer to? I guess what we have here is a typical case of Engrish, otherwise known as Japanglish. You'll see it everywhere in Japan, from street signs to slogans on standardized food packages: English phrases that apparently sound good to Japanese ears but make zero sense to English speakers. Something else that makes zero sense to me is the concept of this comp: sure, what we have here is 10 stone cold classics from the 60's. One could argue for the inclusion of "Paint It, Black" and a couple of others, but there's no doubt that the songs included here are among the band's best. For some reason, 4 of them are repeated twice, once in their studio version and once live. Hence the "live" of the title. Each side opens with two versions of one song and closes with two versions of another. Sandwiched between these we get 3 more studio recordings on each side. The LP comes with a big 4-page insert, containing the band's discography, complete lyrics for all the songs with their Japanese translation, and info on the latest 1981-1982 Rolling Stones world tour, as well as a short text on each track. So we learn that 3 out of the 4 live tracks come from Have Live If You Want It ("Under My Thumb","Time Is On My Side" and "Satisfaction") and one from Get Your Ya Ya's Out ("Honky Tonk Women"). The provenance of the rest is less clear: we learn that these are studio recordings (or, in one occasion at least, rocordings) which appear in this or that single, album, or comp, but not which mix is included. I'm guessing it's the US versions (Rolling Stones albums were released with different titles and tracklisting on the two sides of the Atlantic), because the record label is London, Decca's US subsidiary. While I know that some of these early songs were also recorded and released in stereo, the label denotes "mono" so these are the original mono mixes rather than the true stereo ones or the hastily "electronically re-channeled for stereo" ones which are reviled by audiophiles. I confess I have the vinyl "digitally remastered in stereo" reissues of those early US albums, and never had any complaints about the way they sound. Then again, I didn't have the original mono LPs for comparison. Maybe I should listen to them back-to-back with this Japanese comp and see which sounds better. In any case: Rolling Stones compilations are a dime a dozen, but this one may appeal to collectors because it centers on mono mixes exclusively, or because they get to listen the same song in two successive versions, a live and a studio one; notice the difference on the two versions of "Under My Thumb" below.
***** for Under My Thumb, Let's Spend The Night Together, Let It Bleed, You Can't Always Get What You Want, Time Is On My Side, Honky Tonk Women - Live, Honky Tonk Women, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
**** for Under My Thumb - Live, Time Is On My Side - Live, Mona (I Need You, Baby), (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Live
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