The Easybeats - The Best Of The UK Years 1966-69

First released January 2014
 
Disc 1
1. Baby I’m A Comin’
2. Mandy
3. Friday On My Mind†
4. Made My Bed, Gonna Lie In It†
5. Pretty Girl†
6. Remember Sam†
7. Happy Is The Man†
8. You Me, We Love†
9. Who’ll Be The One†
10. Do You Have A Soul?† (long version)
11. Saturday Night†
12. Lisa
13. All Gone Boy
14. Heaven & Hell
15. Good Times
16. My Old Man’s A Groovy Old Man§
17. Where Old Men Go§
18. Station On Third Avenue§
19. We’ll Make It Together§
20. I Know It‡§
21. Where Did You Go Last Night§
22. Land Of Make Believe (orchestral version)‡
23. Amanda Storey§

Disc 2
1. The Music Goes Round My Head (fast version)
2. Come In You’ll Get Pneumonia (orchestral version)
3. Hello How Are You (Bill Shepherd version)
4. Peculiar Hole In The Sky
5. Falling Off The Edge Of The World (second version)
6. Little Red Jug
7. Fancy Seeing You Here†
8. What In The World†
9. See Saw†
10. We All Live Happily Together†
11. Lay Me Down And Die† (instrumental)
12. Down To The Last 500
13. Bring A Little Lovin’
14. The Shame Just Drained
15. Johnny No-One
16. Moonshine & Whiskey Galore‡
17. Wait A Minute
18. H.P. Man
19. Such A Lovely Day
20. St. Louis
21. Can’t Find Love
22. I Love Marie
23. Rock & Roll Boogie†

All tracks mono except † stereo
‡ = never officially released on CD
§ = new, never before used source

==About the compilation==

Like most fans of Australian '60s music, I've always been fairly familiar with The Easybeats' Aussie output, which in the scheme of things is fairly straight forward.

But after the band moved to the UK in 1966, things went hazy for me. What with different mixes, unreleased tracks, demos etc, it was always hard to keep on top of it all.

Then recently I came into contact with a few like-minded, but more serious, Easy fans. As these guys had already navigated most of the UK years, they were able to guide me through and help lift the haze.

Now with a better understanding, I've found that as a whole I actually prefer the later output. Sure, apart from a few tracks the period was not as commercial or uniform as their earlier Aussie days--a result more likely attributed to poor management decisions--but still, amongst the hefty output there's quite a few gems, many of which perplexingly remain unreleased to this day, or are available only as transfers from scratchy acetates.

So, I decided to assemble what I felt were the best tracks from the period, using both existing and new sources. What started as a simple one disc collection quickly turned into a two disc set given the vast amount of material to trawl through, including numerous unreleased Central Sound Studio demos.

One thing I've always found distracting with some of the later Easy recordings is the poor sound quality. Fortunately, I've been lucky enough to find better, previously unused, sources for some of the more average sounding tracks. To that end, this collection contains a number of tracks from superior sources.

Given the random release over the years of some of the tracks, I have sequenced by recording session, where known. For disc 2, as the Vigil and Central Sound studio sessions covered a number of overlapping months, the tracks won't necessarily appear in chronological order as I've grouped by the session first. Session details are included in the artwork.

I think that the end result provides a great mid-depth insight into the group's later years.

==About this transfer==

The majority of tracks used for this collection were sourced from the 1992 Repertoire CDs. The 1992 CDs are more dynamic than the 2005 reissues.

Eight tracks have been taken from never before used sources, including two tracks that make their debut here. A further track--"Land Of Make Believe"--is an alternate orchestral mix that has never been released on CD.

In addition, I have repaired the more obvious tape dropouts and other artefacts that are inherent in some of the 46 recordings that grace this collection.

Source Matrices
CD1 01-13, CD2 01-15, 17-19, 21-23: Repertoire 1992 CDs; dropouts/artefacts repaired by Q, 2013
CD1 14: CBS 1990 "Absolute Anthology" CD; remastered by Q, 2013
CD1 15, CD2 20: Varese Sarabande 2003 "Very Best Of The Easybeats" CD
CD1 16-21: 1967 reel; transferred in the 1980s and remastered by paulisdead, 2013
CD1 22: EMI Drum 1975 "Best Of The Easybeats Volume 2" LP (XAPAX 154); transferred and mastered in 24/96 by Q, 2013
CD1 23: 1967 acetate; transferred in the 1980s and remastered by Q, 2013
CD2 16: 1968 acetate; transferred in the 1980s and remastered by Q, 2013

Hardware
- N/A

Software
- Exact Audio Copy (audio extraction from CD)
- Audition 3.0.1 (audio editing and repair)
- iZotope RX2 Advanced (audio repair)

Artwork included
(samples of CD labels)

CD quality - Info, Artwork and CD 1 (296mb)
CD quality - CD 2 (287mb)
Hi-Res (not available)

UPGRADES:
'Johnny No-One' with the one second intro restored (as per the original 'Shame...' LP) (8mb)

PS: If you like the overview presented here then pls buy all the official CDs. :)