The Capitol6000 Web Site is celebrating its 15th. anniversary this month. WOW... FIFTEEN YEARS!
Yours truly launched the web site 15 years ago to promote many of the great Canadian records by artists from the 1960s, cool Canadian record labels, and a few trips beyond. It was intended as a free resource for record collectors. Its primary purposes have not changed too much. No advertising - at least just for the good record stores in Canada, the organized record shows and of course for our reference books! For me personally, it is and has always been ... fun. Just like when I read the Pop weeklies and magazines in the 1960s and early 1970s. Fun to read and fun to learn.
By the way, we were here on the World Wide Web before Popsike, before Cat45 and before Discogs. In fact those sites have sometimes taken our labels! And we are OK with that. We were here on the web long before Facebook and Twitter! So I guess that makes use the original deal. But apart from our bragging, we are still here (hip hip hooray!) and we are planning to be here for a long while more .. IN FACT, YOU DESERVE MORE!
The content has been developed over (under, sideways and down!) the years with lots of HELP! from collectors all over the world and for that we are, and continue to be, truly grateful. While The Beatles remain the most popular of the Capitol 6000 artists, we still get a kick out of all of the other cool artists - from Mrs. Mills to those cool Biker soundtracks.
Serge Pelletier joined the Capitol6000 web site effort in 2009 and he has created a much improved look and feel for the site since that time. Serge has also been keeping track of sales and the information we have there is now very useful for many collectors to reference. He is also a regular contributor and specialist on new releases by the Beatles. Thanks so much Serge!
We are always getting great feedback from collectors all over the world and this little article celebrates some good ones that we received recently.
Larry Morton read our Yardbirds in Canada article ( www.capitol6000.com/yardbirds.html ) from a while back and was motivated to track down any kind of advert for the Yardbirds Vancouver concert date on Friday, November 10th, 1967. This was of course the Jimmy Page lineup. Well Larry came up trumps with a really nice advert from the October19th, 1967 issue of "Ubyssey" which was the campus periodical for the University of British Columbia. Many thanks Larry! We will add this image to our Yardbirds in Canada article.
The Canadian Page One label proves to be one of the hardest to document because many of the records issued on the label barely made it to the charts in Britain. I have always wondered why they were issued here - apart from The Troggs of course. Here are two updates that I am very happy to note. The Troggs more or less invented PUNK ROCK. While Hip Hip Hooray is a pretty contrived song for 1968, the flip side written by guitarist Chris Britton, is one of their best "sneering" non LP tracks.
Page One PO.1010 The Troggs - Hip Hip Hooray / Say Darlin'
Page One PO.1015 The Larry Page Orchestra - Wichita Lineman / Scarboro Fair
(we were missing the B side for this entry and now we have it)
The Globe Show is one band that I do not know too much about other than they had an earlier Page One single issued in Canada (late 1968) which contained covers of Beatles and Small Faces tracks Ob La Di - Ob La Da / Tin Soldier. Here is their second Canadian single:
Page One PO.1017 Globe Show - Yes Or No / Gettin' On Back (April 1969)
The Countrymen, a trio, sound like a British Kingston Trio and their track I Know Where I'm Going is a nice folk song from 1962 which charted in the UK and also featured on a UK Piccadilly EP. Nice.
Pye 35029 - The Countrymen - I Know Where I'm Going / Swamp Legend (white label, 1962)
Fred Masotti has unearthed a very rare Canadian Pye release by Sandie Shaw that we did not know about. It was previously listed as TBD on our Pye 45s listing. Many thanks Fred. Keep those rare ones coming! Here we have Sandie singing two of her British hits en Francais. These tracks were also issued on a couple of EPs in France and I would love to find a copy for my own Pye collection.
Pye 793 - Sandie Shaw - Tu L'As Bien Compris (Message Understood) / Pourvu Que Ca Dure (Long Live Love)
These would have been issued by Pye/ Allied (based in Montreal at the time) for the Quebec market in 1965. Many thanks again Fred for being such a terrific record sleuth ... Fred has filled in a few missing entries for us over the years.
LP Marble Arch MALS-680 - Irish Folk
(various artists album featuring Ramblers Two, The Dragoons, The Johnstons, The Southern Folk Four, The Ludlows and
Brian McCollum Folk Group)
Every once in a while I will find something that surprises me and this album is one of those. Nice mid 1960s folk sounds from various Irish folk groups of the period. All of these artists are top notch. The Ludlows are particularly good. This is one of those LPs you can find in the thrift stores or dollar bins. Well worth picking up if you find a copy, and it is nice to be able to see how different Irish folk is relative to English and Scottish folk. My only quibble is that this album, like most of the Marble Arch albums issued in Canada, has no liner notes!
One group we have purposely ignored for some time is the Rolling Stones. BUT! This will be remedied soon ... perhaps along with the Beach Boys. Two great groups that will have great Canadian discographies. Gotta get those done, including a very rare white label one sided London promo 45 for Satisfaction!
Now you know that the Capitol6000 web site has been around for 15 years, we sincerely hope that you will keep checking out our OLD and NEW content. We also look forward to celebrating another 15 years of giving you MORE, because you deserve it ... and that will be in 2029!
Soon we plan to announce a very special limited (numbered) poster that will help us (and you!) to celebrate the 15th. anniversary. For sure, we will keep you Poster-Ed!
Next week, Apple will release updated LP versions of four Beatles albums: Love, 1, 1962-1966 and 1967-1970. Needless to say, these will have remastered versions of the tracks, but interestingly, the red and blue compilations will not feature the digital remasters from the stereo box set. Instead, special analogue remasters have been prepared from the original 1973 tapes, much like the process used for the mono remasters LP box set. Unfortunately, we can only speculate what sources will be used for the the other two albums, but being originally made from digital masters, it is much likely that the two other albums will not feature all analogue masters from original tapes, but use the commonly known stereo digital remasters.
It was also noted this week that with the new vinyl craze of the last few years, Apple has repressed some of its recent albums like Let It Be... Naked, and some interesting (but small) details have been noted to identify originals from repressings. The Naked LP cover for one, is now almost a centimeter smaller, the colours of the cover are slightly different, having no pure white in the pictures anymore, and finally, the legal text on the back cover is also slightly different. These new copies were spotted at HMV stores for a mere 12.99$! Other albums have yet to be confirmed as well, but most likely saw a similar treatment in the last few years.
Pink Floyd fans were also given a nice treat on Monday. The new (and final) Pink Floyd album was released under the name The Endless River. It was released on CD, in a special box set including a DVD and on LP! The LP came in stores a few days later. Although the artwork has left some fans a bit confused (seeing striking similarities with the cover of the book "The Life Of Pi"), the packaging is absolutely beautiful, with a velvety texture to the cardboard, and a nice booklet inside.
Reviews (up to now) are quite positive, although many newer fans seem to find Endless River a little too ambient, hoping to find the crunch of the old 1970s Pink Floyd. If yours truly would dare to share his view on the new album, I would say I disagree with hard critics. In fact, I find this album to be extremely consequent with the evolution of the band, musically as well as thematically. It ties the knot quite well on such an illustrious career! It is an instrumental album, yes, but a well crafted one! There many very interesting references to pretty much every period of their career, flashing the different sounds of their many albums, over the canvas of the current modern setting in which they are acting today.
The only negative detail I would point out would be that the artwork (as beautiful as it can be), does not reflect well the music inside the album. They chose a universe that does not seem exactly relevant to the journey Pink Floyd is immersing us in with their final opus... But that is merely the point of view of the over analytical fan that I am, so please take the time to listen to it yourself and appreciate the final work of Pink Floyd!
One last interesting detail for the record collectors in the room: reports seem to indicate that two different pressings exist of the album, although both imported from the UK. Pressings we have here in Canada (and through Amazon.ca) are Columbia pressings, while pressings ordered through Amazon.uk apparently have Parlophone pressings!