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New Level 42 / MK Interview


crez5150
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[quote name='Rich' post='272446' date='Aug 29 2008, 12:28 PM']Does he apologise for the truly appalling production on his last album?[/quote]

I thought I had a bad copy or my HiFi was not as good as I assumed! It's like everything is turned up to Max isn't it. Hurts my ears on headphones.

Pity because the tunes are good.

Brendan

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[quote name='doctor_of_the_bass' post='272889' date='Aug 29 2008, 11:00 PM']He's put on a bit o weight!

Liked the comment about the thumb insurance ... `its now only third party fire and theft!'

He don't like me!

N[/quote]


That's because you own all the basses in the world..... hell I don't like you! :)

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[quote name='doctor_of_the_bass' post='272902' date='Aug 29 2008, 11:14 PM']Aww!

Thats a shame, was looking forward to popping round for a nice cup of tea and some custard creams! I'm actually doing a days worth of bass tuition for a chap in Great Totham - might have to nip and see Mr Green before I start work![/quote]

Are you likely to leave Colchester with one more bass than when you arrived?

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I [i]love[/i] the early Level 42 stuff, and have been a fan since the start, but strangely, I'd never gotten around to seeing them live until a couple of years ago at the King Georges Hall in Blackburn. It was truely awful, I was very dissapointed indeed. I think the venue was to blame to be fair, it was a sh*t view, with a stage about 6 foot high. I was on the front row and couldn't see a bloody thing as we were all sat down. The sound was terrible too, and I ended up moving from the front, to the circle upstairs (the place was half empty). The sound was better up there but not great. The band just looked out of sorts to me, and MK seemed to be just going through the motions.

There's two basses I've always wanted, a Wal and a Jaydee Mark King, don't s'pose I'll ever have either, but I still dream about slapping away on a Jaydee in front of my Trace Elliot pretending to be MK.

New album? Nah, I haven't bought a Level 42 album since World Machine.

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[quote name='crez5150' post='272411' date='Aug 29 2008, 11:50 AM']If anyone's interested there is a 4 page interview with Mr King in this months Performing musician mag.[/quote]
What a terrible interview! The guy's got 10 minutes or whatever with MK at his rehearsal room, for a magazine about live sound/performing live and he asks him about Level 42 back in the 80s.

Questions like: 'talk us through your live set-up' and 'how do you get a good bass sound on stage' might have been better questions. Anything rather than: "Why did the band split up...' :)

Edit: quite a good little mag though, never read it before.

Edited by stingrayfan
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[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='273398' date='Aug 30 2008, 11:16 PM']I was thinking the same about "Retroglide" right from the first day I put it in my car's autochanger... The first track in particular is mixed terribly. The instrumentation totally drowns out the vocals![/quote]

Not saying the album is a production masterpiece...... it isn't by any means. Not exactly a Quincy Jones effort !!

But mixed on high quality studio monitors and then listened to in the car with a critical ear doesn't translate ! It's avery different listening environment even with a good quality in car audio system.

I spent a small fortune on a Naim Audio system only to find that it's too revealing of the limitations of the source material and the mix engineer's ability !!

70% of my CD's sound horrible....... don't even think about MP3 playback..... !!!

Want badly engineered CD's ? try Zappa's CD back catalogue..... on LP they're fantastic, CD transfers are shockingly bad !

Just my HO ofcourse....

I know Jack Sh*t really....

Edited by Marcus
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I think it depends if they are just releasing a stereo tracking version of the original or completely remastering..... if you listen to a lot of re-masterd to digital stuff it's pretty good. Digital versus Analogue..... that argument will go on forever.... Analogue sounds more Organic but Digital is far superior IMO of course. Digital is going to be the future if you like it or not.....

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I think in absolute HiFi terms home audio reproduction reached a peak in the late 80's with the LP format....

since then, the industry has been trying to make Digital as convincing.... fighting a losing battle (IMHO)

however.... "They" have to keep coming up with new "super formats" to make us part with our £££s & $$$s

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[quote name='Marcus' post='273689' date='Aug 31 2008, 01:47 PM']I spent a small fortune on a Naim Audio system only to find that it's too revealing of the limitations of the source material and the mix engineer's ability !! 70% of my CD's sound horrible....... don't even think about MP3 playback..... !!![/quote]
Saying that - I remember having a Steely Dan album (think it was Katy Lied) that had all this guff in the liner notes about it how it was a true audiophile album that was recorded with no EQ, compression and with only top of the range German mics.

Guess what? It sounded sh!te... :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

[quote name='Rayman' post='273112' date='Aug 30 2008, 01:01 PM']I [i]love[/i] the early Level 42 stuff, and have been a fan since the start, but strangely, I'd never gotten around to seeing them live until a couple of years ago at the King Georges Hall in Blackburn. It was truely awful, I was very dissapointed indeed. I think the venue was to blame to be fair, it was a sh*t view, with a stage about 6 foot high. I was on the front row and couldn't see a bloody thing as we were all sat down. The sound was terrible too, and I ended up moving from the front, to the circle upstairs (the place was half empty). The sound was better up there but not great. The band just looked out of sorts to me, and MK seemed to be just going through the motions.

There's two basses I've always wanted, a Wal and a Jaydee Mark King, don't s'pose I'll ever have either, but I still dream about slapping away on a Jaydee in front of my Trace Elliot pretending to be MK.

New album? Nah, I haven't bought a Level 42 album since World Machine.[/quote]



you can use my jaydee, and stand infront of your trace elliot and pretent to be mark king, as long as i get a go too :)

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[quote name='Marcus' post='273689' date='Aug 31 2008, 01:47 PM']Not saying the album is a production masterpiece...... it isn't by any means. Not exactly a Quincy Jones effort !!

But mixed on high quality studio monitors and then listened to in the car with a critical ear doesn't translate ! It's avery different listening environment even with a good quality in car audio system.

I spent a small fortune on a Naim Audio system only to find that it's too revealing of the limitations of the source material and the mix engineer's ability !!

70% of my CD's sound horrible....... don't even think about MP3 playback..... !!!

Want badly engineered CD's ? try Zappa's CD back catalogue..... on LP they're fantastic, CD transfers are shockingly bad !

Just my HO ofcourse....

I know Jack Sh*t really....[/quote]
The problem with Retroglide is the awful, criminal over-use of compression. It's so bad it almost sounds like a dog panting at times. Everything's louder than everything else. Last time I tried to listen to it through cans, it gave me a headache within 5 minutes. In fact, that was the last time I listened to it at all.

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Could never stand Level 42 in the 80's but I was a total Metal-Head, so, given that everyone keeps going on about how good "he" is, and given that I listen to pretty much anything these days, i've just sat through the first 4 level 42 songs on youtube with a totaly open and objective mind and I can't honestly work out what the hype is about. He just sounds a bit too average to me.
Saying that, respect for keeping the groove as tight as he does whilst playing and singing live, I just wish the groove had that "make me wanna dance" vibe. :)

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