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Post by muzikguy on Sept 28, 2015 17:55:11 GMT
I happened to see in another thread that the version of this wonderful song that appears on Afterglow is actually a shortened edit. Can anyone point me to a place where I might be able to hear the complete recording? I can't believe I didn't know about this until recently. My curiosity is piqued.
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Post by Horacewimp on Sept 28, 2015 19:22:08 GMT
I think if anyone knew of its whereabouts it would be ShardEnder
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Post by ShardEnder on Sept 29, 2015 17:25:34 GMT
You rang?
The full length mix of Hello My Old Friend remains exclusive to the 2LP acetate set, and is therefore something most of us will probably never get to hear...
Saying that, it helps most of the differences are well documented. For example, on Afterglow the song fades in to remove the three-second crossfade from the shorter edit of After All, with this missing section described as a wind intro that I suspect is the same "thank you for listening" message later attached to the beginning of Rock 'N' Roll Is King (since the double album was to have used the US single mix of that particular track).
Similarly, the ending fades out to remove the "welcome to the show" section, though not before a very slight trace of this can be heard if you raise the volume. I'm guessing this was simply an error not caught by whoever mastered the Afterglow boxed set rather than being a deliberate clue, since there are other mistakes heard throughout the collection such as the first few seconds of No Way Out and Destination Unknown being clipped.
I've actually created a fan mix of the entire Secret Messages sequence to the best of my ability and put this in a homemade Digipak-style case with the intended handshake cover artwork plus a second disc of related tracks and even multimedia elements. Naturally, this includes an approximation of what After All and Hello My Old Friend may have sounded like in their original forms, though I would like to remake these at some point.
Jeff Lynne's perfectionism has spread to my own ELO-related pet project!
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Post by Helmut83 on Sept 29, 2015 17:47:55 GMT
Wow, this is surprising. I always thought "Hello my old friend" was incredibly long, now it comes out that it was a shortened version?
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Post by muzikguy on Sept 29, 2015 22:44:55 GMT
My thoughts exactly! I was thinking, if THAT is an edit, I can't imagine what a longer version would be like.
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Post by ShardEnder on Sept 29, 2015 23:05:56 GMT
As I said earlier, it's not as if the main song is really edited - whoever compiled Afterglow just faded the intro and outro to remove the crossfaded parts for some reason.
Saying that, I've always wanted to see if a single edit can be made, though I still can't make one that's proved satisfactory. Instead of the "breakdown" section, I always cut right into the second half, but the resulting version is still too long for radio play. Maybe you could drop the first instance of the "just to see the sunset" portion, as the later repeat leads into the ending with such impact (because of Jeff almost vocally sighing in defeat) that it would be wrong to drop this. At a push, I could probably live without the third verse as well, since you can't really take out the second as this is referenced during the coda, though I suppose you could fade out even sooner to help bring the overall time down...
Who am I kidding? We need the full-length Hello My Old Friend rather than an even shorter edit!
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Post by ash2 on Sept 30, 2015 6:40:25 GMT
As I said earlier, it's not as if the main song is really edited - whoever compiled Afterglow just faded the intro and outro to remove the crossfaded parts for some reason. Saying that, I've always wanted to see if a single edit can be made, though I still can't make one that's proved satisfactory. Instead of the "breakdown" section, I always cut right into the second half, but the resulting version is still too long for radio play. Maybe you could drop the first instance of the "just to see the sunset" portion, as the later repeat leads into the ending with such impact (because of Jeff almost vocally sighing in defeat) that it would be wrong to drop this. At a push, I could probably live without the third verse as well, since you can't really take out the second as this is referenced during the coda, though I suppose you could fade out even sooner to help bring the overall time down... Who am I kidding? We need the full-length Hello My Old Friend rather than an even shorter edit! I accept your challenge and a Single 15 mins long on a 12'' disc will be produced. Quiz time .....who here has heard the Spit at about 3.30 in.
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arnoldlayne
Junior Member
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Post by arnoldlayne on Sept 30, 2015 14:03:07 GMT
I happened to see in another thread that the version of this wonderful song that appears on Afterglow is actually a shortened edit. Can anyone point me to a place where I might be able to hear the complete recording? I can't believe I didn't know about this until recently. My curiosity is piqued. To echo the words of the Legend that is ShardEnder -- There's no official long version/unedited version in circulation short of Jeffs Archive and the acetates that sold for an eye watering price. However, as has been said, it's possible to make a DIY approximation of the full length version. It's been reported that it the start had a '3 second wind intro' -- Which is about as helpful describing the sounds as it dancing about architecture (Obscure Frank Zappa reference!!!) -- I digress... You're best bet to get the '3 second wind intro' is to get a hold of the remastered Secret Messages CD which has that section at the start of Rock & Roll Is King before the song starts proper. Splice that at the start of Hello My Old Friend... and fade into the opening chord. Pretty easy to do in Audacity/Audition/etc The song itself is untouched as far as we know... Sit back and loose yourself in Jeffs love letter to good ol' Brum. Now for the ending... This is where things get rather interesting... and I'm going to run the risk of splitting forum opinion here... There are pretty much 2 paths you can go down here. I reckon ShardEnder will take path #1 where I took path #2. The ending of Hello My Old Friend builds into this wonderful cacophony before the fade out, which is widely reported to fade into the Wohs To Eht Emoclew/Welcome To The Show section that you hear at the very start of the album albeit reversed this time around. So naturally we need to get a sample of this section and tack this onto the end of the song and do some editing to get it to fit. Path #1 - If you listen to the end of Rock & Roll Is King on the remastered Secret Messages album you hear just that. It comes after the last chord and plays out the rest of the album. You can sample this directly. Path #2 - The very start of the album has the backmasked section cross-fading into Secret Messages. Personally I've sampled this with a little bit of the morse code-esque sounds, reversed it and used that because it's a little bit longer (if you listen you can still hear the section going under the very start of Secret Messages thus making it longer than the version at the end of Rock & Roll is King) When you have your sample of the Welcome to the Show section we need to tack it onto the end of the song. This is where the fun starts. Removing the fade on Hello My Old Friend takes a bit of time. I used Audacity for this utilising the envolope tool to increase the level of the track as much as I could get to remove the start of the fade. When I got as far as I could get, I would export the file as a WAV, reopen the file, and increase the volume some more. Repeat ad Nauseam. It's a bit of a buggar but by doing that and highlighting a second or two of music at a time and using the amplify effect also I managed to even out moreso than remove the fade out. I then mucked around with some EQ and Dynamics to try and even it out over the whole track and make my edits that little bit less noticable... Once you've got a version of Hello My Old Friend with the fade removed/evened out it's time to bring in our Welcome To Show Section... What we do know is that the unedited acetate version clocks in at around 8 minutes and 27 seconds when it's all said and done. Ideally we want to get as close to this as possible with what we have (hence why I use a reversed Secret Messages intro instead of the Rock & Roll is King outro) As ShardEnder says, there are some clues right at the end of Hello My Old Friend. The last words in the song that you can right in the dying moments are 'Choking Chimnies' -- My first attempts at splicing in the fade had the end of the word chimnies crossfade into the Welcome To Show Section so it sounds like the 'ies' sound of Chimnies is spoken in the Welcome To The Show Section (if that makes sense)..... I recently had another crack at it playing around with the point I bring in the Welcome To The Show section. At the 7:44 mark of Hello My Old Friend you hear some strings come through the mix a little bit more. I took that as a cue to bring in the reversed intro from Secret Messages there so the rest of the song naturally fades out behind the incoming Welcome To The Show Section. Doing it this way got me a final time of 8:26. If we had the original full length Welcome To The Show section we could probably get bang on 8:27 and work out the exact point it comes in... but that's what dreams are for. I realise that was a lot to read/take in -- Hopefully that will give you some indication on what to do/where to find things. Ultimately ShardEnder, this forum and I can give you as much instruction as possible but go with what sounds best to your ears. If you get stuck I'll throw a sample of the last few moments of my edited version into dropbox for you to have a butchers at.
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Post by ShardEnder on Sept 30, 2015 16:04:50 GMT
Having looked through my research notes again, it seems that I'd actually forgotten a key detail regarding the Afterglow version of Hello My Old Friend...
According to a reliable source who has spoken to me, none of the songs included on this 1990 boxed set were edited, instead being transferred directly from whatever tapes Sony could find in the vaults (which may explain why some of the earlier tracks especially have their channels switched compared with other titles they feature on). You have to understand that Rob Caiger had yet to become ELO's archivist by this point, so a lot of mistakes were made, such as the double album mix of Four Little Diamonds accidentally showing up without any mention of this being a previously unreleased variation, for example.
Just days before the final set of Secret Messages acetates were pressed, Jeff experimented with a very different running order. While the first disc has yet to surface, the second was part of the "unmatched" pair auctioned off by collector Rob Ford a few years ago. Curiously, side three was to have ended with Hello My Old Friend, described as having a three second wind intro and lasting approximately 7:47. Sound familiar? Maybe this was the only copy that could be found by the Afterglow compilers, who simply faded in the opening keyboard note to remove what must surely have been the "thank you for listening" message? Furthermore, the last side concludes with the short mix of After All then Rock 'N' Roll Is King, presumably ending as it did when later restored to this position when its parent album was reduced down to a single disc.
Regarding my own recreation, I should have been more specific before, as I too flipped round the section from the start of the album rather than using the reversed piece that follows Rock 'N' Roll Is King, which is affected by that song's final chord ringing out. Also, it helps if you extend the first chord of Hello My Old Friend by about another six seconds, since it's likely there would have been a little extra of this in the original mix to help segue out of After All. I've no idea whether the "thank you for listening" whisper would have been banded to be part of After All or Hello My Old Friend, though I personally consider it part of the latter. Finally, the edit point into the "welcome to the show" tag occurs right after the last repeat of "choking chimneys" that is normally buried in the fade, being quite abrupt as opposed to a gradual transition. Again, you can hear a trace of this, which I once wrongly thought was simply tape noise.
To make one quick final point, Richard Tandy once said that Jeff would often record the best versions of tracks at home, voicing this opinion when speaking on the subject of Hello My Old Friend. Like so many of the other songs from this period, could Hello My Old Friend have been attempted - and therefore preserved - during the mythical Garden Rehearsals? What about the other sessions, held at at least two other less than conventional locations in late 1981 and early 1982 that I've been told about? Despite the liner notes for Secret Messages overplaying Kelly Groucutt's contributions and claiming that only Wisseloord Studios was used, we know that Letter From Spain was a Jeff solo track possibly recorded at home, and I'm starting to think Dave Morgan's credit should have been expanded to reference his greater role in the album's creation.
P.S. Spit around the 3:30 mark? The only thing I can hear that could be this is the first instance of the "'Spatch And Mail" sample, which sounds as if it was treated with a little reverb. For someone who's gone on to dismiss anything except natural room echo and champion acoustic instruments after working with George Harrison on the Cloud Nine project, Jeff was sure fond of that AMS RMX16 digital effects rack they had at the studio in Hilversum, as it's all over this material along with the Oberheim DMX!
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Post by soonerorlater on Sept 30, 2015 19:07:39 GMT
Ah, the 'spit' at around 3:30?
Yes indeed, I've always heard it as that - in fact I hear it as a short 'gun slinger enters saloon bar' sequence in the style of the Beach Boys' Heroes And Villains! First you hear the quick burst of honky-tonk piano (saloon bar style), then the spit and finally what sounds like the clang of a bell but for me is the said spittle hitting the spit bucket that such a bar would supposedly have had on the floor.
My point of reference is almost every clichéd portrayal of a western saloon bar sequence ever seen on British TV. If it's of your era, think Carry On Cowboy, The Benny Hill Show etc;
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Post by ShardEnder on Sept 30, 2015 20:55:22 GMT
Ah, now I see what you all mean! I've always thought of that brief instrumental bit as representing another key feature that was once seen around Birmingham - its glass works. You have what sounds like bottles being played then a smashing sound, perhaps to indicate the once industrial city being reduced to a derelict ruin, which makes sense if you consider the following breakdown section - maybe the cloud emerging from the cooling towers on the final sleeve design isn't just steam as you'd normally expect, but the smoke of a demolition, as quoted in the final verse of Hello My Old Friend ("big machines that once were champions turn to dust under the sky")?
On the other hand, it surely can't be coincidence that a lot of you hear this as a honky tonk piano, especially since Jeff had already used the same device on Wild West Hero to more obvious effect. Since this song also includes a string part blatantly lifted from The Diary Of Horace Wimp and a descending chord sequence very much in the style of 10538 Overture and therefore I Am The Walrus as well, perhaps he was indeed attempting to further reference his own musical past? Besides, it wouldn't be the first time an ELO track paid tribute to Heroes And Villains by The Beach Boys... In addition to Across The Border, he'd just recorded The Way Life's Meant To Be for Time.
Whatever the reason behind that spitting noise, it's repeated twice in the same place during two successive variations of the main programmed drum pattern that loops throughout the first half of this track, so there's no way this is just a mistake. I'm not usually one to get too caught up with interpreting the creations of my favourite artists, but few examples are quite as dense and out of place as Hello My Old Friend is on Secret Messages. Were it not for the heavy reliance on electronic elements, a piece this progressive could almost have fit on ELO 2, though as the group's intended closing statement it's a perfect bookend that brought everything full circle.
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Post by ash2 on Oct 1, 2015 6:32:21 GMT
Ah, the 'spit' at around 3:30?
Yes indeed, I've always heard it as that - in fact I hear it as a short 'gun slinger enters saloon bar' sequence in the style of the Beach Boys' Heroes And Villains! First you hear the quick burst of honky-tonk piano (saloon bar style), then the spit and finally what sounds like the clang of a bell but for me is the said spittle hitting the spit bucket that such a bar would supposedly have had on the floor.
My point of reference is almost every clichéd portrayal of a western saloon bar sequence ever seen on British TV. If it's of your era, think Carry On Cowboy, The Benny Hill Show etc; Yep that is it exactly , as if someone was spitting into a spitoon if you listen here it's bang on 3.35 just seems odd to have this in there?
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Post by LoserGoneWild on Oct 1, 2015 21:39:11 GMT
Ah, the 'spit' at around 3:30?
Yes indeed, I've always heard it as that - in fact I hear it as a short 'gun slinger enters saloon bar' sequence in the style of the Beach Boys' Heroes And Villains! First you hear the quick burst of honky-tonk piano (saloon bar style), then the spit and finally what sounds like the clang of a bell but for me is the said spittle hitting the spit bucket that such a bar would supposedly have had on the floor.
My point of reference is almost every clichéd portrayal of a western saloon bar sequence ever seen on British TV. If it's of your era, think Carry On Cowboy, The Benny Hill Show etc; Yep that is it exactly , as if someone was spitting into a spitoon if you listen here it's bang on 3.35 just seems odd to have this in there? Aah I can hear it now. 20 odd years I've been listening to this song but that's the first time I've ever noticed that. I can hear the 'ding' of the spittoon but I think the "spit" is just the drum machine.
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arnoldlayne
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Post by arnoldlayne on Oct 2, 2015 14:12:08 GMT
I would love for the Beeb to do a radio documentary on this album similar to what they did with Dark Side/Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd a couple of years back - and that's sit down with the recording engineers, producers etc and play isolated componnents of the mix and talk about how they got the sounds. It's amazing what is buried in the mix sometimes.
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Post by ells1972b on Oct 4, 2015 19:02:16 GMT
I remember "Hello My Old Friend" was played on the radio back in 2001. Not sure what version was played though!
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