Mamas & Papas mono "Eyes and Ears" master tape found in UK

[Dark Horse 77]

From the Both Sides Now Stereo Chat:

Sundazed is currently remastering the mono LP of "If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears," on vinyl only, as announced on their Facebook page. In response to a poster commenting that he thought the mono master was long gone, they replied:
"The master tape is NOT long gone... This was recently recovered from a U.K. vault... and we have first crack at it. Say 'hooray'..."
Hopefully someone will issue this on CD...


This makes me wonder whether the individual albums could be rereleased with another disc of additional bonus material. I'm no expert on what's rumored to be in the Dunhill vault but maybe they have enough material to flesh things out. There's always the Complete Anthology from 2004 that had a lot of unreleased material, but who knows.

[CassFanForLife]

Thanks for that tidbit of news...that would be awesome if could be reissued on CD. I would enjoy hearing a CD of just the in studio chats, retakes, etc from the M & P's as well as for Cass' own stuff and Denny's where Cass and Michelle sang on.

[glennc]

I find this to be exciting news, if it eventually ends up on CD as well. The sound quality on "In Crowd" could be better, I think- I remember it sounding better on vinyl when I was a kid. Maybe this will improve that track because Cass really rocked out on that one!

[Ars_Nova_Chris]

[Drawer L]

Guys--the MONO MASTER TAPE of If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears has been located,NOT the session tapes,and so far,only for the first album.I too would love to see outtakes and unreleased tracks,but we can't because THERE ARE NO TAPES LEFT!!!!---With very few exceptions,here & there,around 1973,a decision was made at ABC/Dunhill (Jay Lasker is usually the one blamed) to THROW AWAY any session tapes,and any MONO tapes(IF there was a stereo equavilant...).Mono was obsolete by 1973,and as far as session tapes,the thinking was hey,we have the two-track stereo masters,why should we pay to keep the multi-track tapes in storage???? I do recall that John Phillips (if he can be believed....) once said that the multis for (about) four M&Ps songs still exsist,and the only reason they survived was because he had taken them out of the vault,in order to mix a QUADROPHONIC M&Ps Greatest Hits album (Which is the reason the Grass Roots' multis survived...)

There is now ANOTHER problem,that Universal doesn't want to talk about---a few years ago,there was a fire a Universal Studios,and MANY,MANY master tapes were destroyed.At first they said it was just a small amount,"really nothing too important".In the years since,the truth is slowly leaking about exactly what was lost.And it's VERY sad. Big Time.....And to add to it,some people have said that the could have been saved,or at least not as many that were lost HAD to be.One story is that the firefighters were too busy trying to control the (easily replaceable) attractions at the Universal Theme Park,than to concentrate their efforts on putting out the fire around the IRREPLACABLE tape vaults.Other story is that the tapes weren't even supposed to be where they were.----Apparently,Universal-the movie/TV company,no longer has any connections to UMG,the music division and the tapes were supposed to have been removed,but they hadn't yet bothered to....(AGAIN)

[jcg]

Ugh! I new this story would again come back to haunt.

I remember that Universal Studios fire. The stench from the burning masters enveloped the San Fernando Valley in a toxic fog that forced us to have to leave home for the day. I remember thinking that it was going to be disasterous for the archives, as the main burn area was where they were stored. Universal tried to minimize the losses but this news by Drawer L justifies my initial skepticism.

Anyway, I hope this mono mix makes it to some kind of definitive CD reissue.

[jcg]

I checked sundazed's website and found no release information. Does anyone know when we can expect this?

[cherbette]

I, too, would love to know when they plan on releasing this gem! Hopefully it's done RIGHT! Anybody know who is mastering it?

[Ars_Nova_Chris]

[cherbette]

According to the Sundazed FB page, it will be released in October. I asked who is mastering and am waiting for a response...