Richard Lloyd - Field of Fire (Revisited)

How much would you pay for a remastered reissue of Television guitarist Richard Lloyd's second solo album Field of Fire? How about $17.95? A fair price when major labels are charging close to $20 for many CD reissues. How about the low, low price of $12.50? Don't answer yet, because that's not all you'll get. Included with every copy is a second CD that presents the music stripped of its dated 80s production with more guitars, fewer synths, and newly recorded vocals! Don't answer yet because as an added bonus you get two tracks not on the original LP. But wait, that's not all you'll get! You also get liner notes from Ric Menck (Velvet Crush), Bill Flanagan and Richard Lloyd. But don't answer yet because you also get a CD jewel case! ...Okay, maybe the jewel case isn't so exciting, but you get the idea--this is a high quality reissue.

Aside from complaining about music hasn't been reissued (but should be), and music that is needlessly being reissued for the umpteenth time, I sometimes like to draw attention to recent reissues that have been done right. Field of Fire (Deluxe) is an object lesson in the right way to do a reissue. Kudos to Lloyd and Reaction Recordings, the new reissue division of Parasol Records, for doing everything better than perfect.

When Lloyd recorded Field of Fire in 1985, he was coming out of a difficult period in his life both personally and professionally. Lloyd had been suffering from what are sometimes euphemistically referred to as "health" problems (aka drug addiction) that had nearly destroyed his music career. To hear Lloyd tell it he had been through his own personal field of fire after hitting a "bottom" that "would have made Dante or Hieronymus Bosch proud." The details surrounding the recording of this album are laid out in Lloyd's liner notes better than I could explain them here, so I won't bother.

Personally, I always felt Field of Fire was a very good album with some great guitar work, but hampered to a large degree by a production style that already sounded dated by the time the album was released by Celluloid Records in the U.S. in 1987. For lack of a better term, the album is plagued by the "big 80s drum sound" pioneered by producers like Steve Lillywhite. It's a sound that works just fine for bombastic arena rockers like U2, but has spoiled many albums by artists like Marshall Crenshaw, Chris Stamey and Richard Lloyd whose music is best presented in a more subtle fashion.

I always hated it when one of my favorite artists gave in to the "big 80s drum sound." Though the sound was considered commercial at the time, I doubt it created any additional sales for the artists who adopted it. On the contrary, it mostly helped alienate an already established fanbase who would accuse the artist of "selling out." But the real problem with the sound--in which the drums are brought way up in the mix with tons of added reverb--is that it tends to overwhelm the rest of the music, and it could make a drummer as subtle as Max Roach sound mechanical.

Mercifully, Lloyd managed to strip the drums of this overbearing sound for the revised second disc, and the result is an altogether more listenable album. In the past, I always felt I had to listen through the production, and with the new disc I feel like I can finally hear the actual music for the first time. Lloyd also stripped away some dated synths and replaced them with additional guitar, and re-recorded his sometimes overly horse, shouted vocals. The results can stand proudly alongside Television's classic albums and Lloyd's outstanding first solo album Alchemy. Field of Fire is finally the great guitar album it was always meant to be. I imagine revisiting a 20 year-old recording could present its own field of fire for an artist, but this project is 110% successful, and an absolutely essential purchase for any Television fan.

Parasol has made the "revisited" version of the title song available as a free MP3 download on their website. The only complaint I have is that the new version features a shortened version of the this track. But if they hadn't done that there would be no reason whatsoever to listen to the original album again. And hey, if for some strange reason you are nostalgic for that "big 80s drum sound" it's still there untouched on the first CD. Nothing's been dropped down the memory hole here. Check it out.

Field of Fire [right click to download]

Collector's Choice Music

I complain a lot about music that should be reissued, so I wanted to cast the spotlight on a label that has reissued a lot of formerly rare albums, Collector's Choice Music. In the course of going through my record collection and looking for out-of-print music to post here, I've discovered that a lot of the records that I spent years searching for have been reissued by Collector's Choice. Here are a few of them:

Sammy Davis Jr.: Sings The Complete Dr. Doolittle. I used to have a super-cool girlfriend. On my 27th birthday this chick gave me a mint copy of Sammy Davis Jr. Sings The Complete Dr. Doolittle, plus a copy of George Jones' autobiography, I Lived To Tell It All. She must have noticed that I had spent months drooling over a copy of the record at Footlight Records in New York City, but had always balked at buying it due to the high price. Where I come from, when a woman gives you birthday presents like that, you have to marry her--so I did.

Duke Ellington: Afro Bossa, Plays Mary Poppins. You would think that an LP of the Duke Ellington Orchestra playing the music from Mary Poppins would be a sad reminder of a great band's past. You would be wrong. The album is actually a tribute to the incredible arranging talents of Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Afro Bossa is one of the very best Ellington albums from the LP era.

Phil Ochs: Tape From California, Rehearsals For Retirement/Gunfight At Carnegie Hall, All The News That's Fit To Sing, I Ain't A Marchin' Anymore. I paid way too much for a sealed copy of Tape From California at the over-priced Orpheus Records in Washington, D.C. But for years it was the only copy of the record I ran across, so I have no regrets. It's nice to see that Collector's Choice has made Ochs' difficult to find (and sometimes difficult to listen to) A&M albums available on CD.

The dB's: Stands For Decibels/Repercussion, Like This, Christmas Time Again. You might be thinking, "Collector's Choice has the dB's? But I thought they were an oldies label?" If you are thinking that, wake up you senile old coot! Collector's Choice is an oldies label. The dB's are oldies, and so are you. The dB's music is older today than the music that was featured on Happy Days or Sha-Na-Na in the 70s. So sit on it, oldster. The dB's albums have been in and out of print for years, it's nice to see they have found a home at Collector's Choice. I would like to see them reissue the currently out-of-print Sound Of Music too.

Oh-Ok: The Complete Recordings. This is the kind of thing that is surprising to find in print. Oh-Ok featured Lynda Stype, Linda Hooper (Magnapop) and Matthew Sweet. They released a couple EPs on the dB label before splitting up. This CD combines the studio records with some live material.

Let's Active: Cypress/Afoot, Big Plans For Everybody, Every Dog Has His Day. Okay, Let's Active's music is pretty easy to find on LP, still it's nice to see it kept in print. I'm guessing someone at Collector's Choice has an 80s-southern-jangle-pop fixation.

Richard Lloyd: Alchemy, Field of Fire. I can still remember how psyched I was when, after years of searching, I found a mint, white-label promo of the former Television guitarist's solo debut, Alchemy. (In fact, I can remember it quite clearly because it happened this past Saturday). White-label promos are more valuable than ordinary record pressings (or at least they used to be). Aside from mere fetishism, there is a good reason for this: they tend to be the most minty-fresh used records available. Promo records were typically the first done in a pressing, so worn-out stampers weren't used to press them. And perhaps more importantly, the fact that it's a white-label promo means the record likely belonged to someone in the music industry, which in turn means it was never played much (if at all) because--as a rule--music industry people do not actually like music. For these reasons, white-label promos tend to be highly prized by audiophiles and other people with more money than common sense.

Alchemy is a very interesting record. The music isn't much like that of Lloyd's former band, and Lloyd isn't much of a singer, but the album sounds like a rough blueprint for much of the alternative/college rock music that followed during the 80s. I'd be willing to bet Michael Stipe wore out his copy. Drug problems kept Lloyd inactive for several years until he released Field of Fire.

Tom Verlaine: Tom Verlaine. Tom Verlaine's first solo album does sound like his former band, Television, only not as good without Richard Lloyd to serve as co-lead guitarist. It's still a very good record though.

Collector's Choice has a ton of other reissues in print that are worth checking out. But good luck navigating their website.