I am sure that this post will incite some anger and flames and that is fine. But I strongly feel the need to share my opinion about this rerelease so that others may take some of what I say into consideration and have something else to draw their own conclusions upon. As I am now recovering from surgery, I will most likely not post any replies/responses within any reasonable timeframe.

Well, after all this time of lurking on this site/forum and (im)patiently awaiting the rerelease of Ghost Dance material, I wasted no time "pre-ordering" 4 copies for myself when I saw them advertised. After spending a week in the hospital, I came home saturday (July 23) and what came in the mail? My Ghost Dance cd's!!! I was so excited until I opened the package. How disappointed I was to find that these were only cd-r's and that the booklets had absolutely nothing to offer but being cruddy print outs with no inserts, writing, pictures or anything. Even the main cover/insert is nothing more than an overally dark thumbnail of the original cover, what gives?!?!? I was even hoping that for those of us that ordered early or whatever that we would be graced with a signed copy or something special, but not here. So, I was willing to forgive that and give the audio remastering the benefit of the doubt. My god, what a huge disappointment! It is so muddy and lacks any high end. I spent about 20 hours last year remastering my own cd-r from my own primo vinyl collection using high grade computer hardware/software. I am totally sorry to say that I even feel that my own remastering taken from vinyl sounds at least comparable if not a bit better (which is what I guess I will listening to instead of my "official" copy). Heck, even the bonus song that is alluded to is only The Grip Of Love (Cheaper Blues Version). Not that big of a deal considering all the awesome tidbits that have been offered here on this site. Why it's not even listed on the booklet/inserts remains a mystery to me because it's not that great of a bonus as it should have been part of the natural rerelease anyways considering the nature that Gathering Dust was just a collection of all the singles to begin with. Why not put the other odd remixes/versions that were on the odd 45/12"'s as well if you are even going to bother?

Overall, I am very sadly disappointed. I honestly feel that I have been duped and taken advantage of out of good faith. I really expected much more than this and above all, the merchandise page doesn't even make one single mention that this was going to be a cd-r release (as of the time of this post). We cannot assume these things, nor should we have to, especially considering that Mr. Marx put out his solo project on real silver pressed cd's, so why the gip here? I know that pressing these things isn't cheap, but shit, I paid $25 (american) for each of the 4 cd's I bought. Thats $100 for 4 cd-r's! If anything, the price should be so much lower than this for something of such disappointing quality. If I knew this was going to be my experience, I would have only bought one of these ill-made cd-r's just as a show of support instead of the 4 I bought which I thought was going to support a "real" honest release. At this point, I am now trigger shy to ever buy anything else from this or any supporting sites unless I know that the results will be something much different and better than this

I can understand your problem. Perhaps it would have been a good idea, Boss to have pointed out it was a CD-R.

I don't know much about remastering, but I'd have settled for the vinyl versions (most of which I have anyway) put onto cassette, or recorded straight from soundcard.

But whatever, I'd not buy it anyway, I prefer vinyl to CD.

I'm just really glad I'v'e got "Gathering Dust"on CD,I'd still have got the CD from here even if the price was higher and I'd known it was a "cd rom"!,so once again Mr Marx and Quiff Boy,Ta very much!!

Got to admit that I was disappointed that it was basically a CDr with a photocopied sleeve - especially for the price that was charged for it.
I was expecting a 'proper' CD release and hoping for decent sleeve notes.
If it had been made clear exactly what we were getting, I may have not felt so disappointed.
Having said that, any disappointment was at least partly offset by the fact that I now have those tracks on CD.

I just checked the merchandise page to see if it was updated to describing the cd as a cd-r and it was. But the cd-r is also now discontinued? What exactly does this mean? Is there going to an actual factory disc released afterall? Are there going to be updates/changes to the track listing and/or booklet/inserts? What about those of us that already received the original cd-r's if there are better versions/copies made available? I must say I am now baffled and quite disappointed that "management" has not had anything to say about my grievances concerning this cd-r issue. Any enlightenment would be most welcome and respectful towards us that trustingly send our money for these things.

I might be wrong but don’t think there is anything more planned...

The reality of it is that given the time and effort Gary would have to put into getting it sorted, with the numbers and %’s being what they are, its financially not feasible for him to then hand it all over to another label.

The sales/money he would get in return would be unlikely to cover the self-financed re-mastering.



This kind of self-financed "diy" burning/distribution are the only way to cover your costs in a short space of time when you are dealing with such small runs of a product.

I may be putting words into his mouth here, but I think he assumed that having top quality, digital versions of the material was more important than having shiny new packaging.

Again, don’t forget the original vinyl version was pretty sparse – this website contains more information about the recording etc of any of those releases than has ever been available elsewhere.

Given the “success” of this one I don’t know if he still has any plans to release the other material on CD (silver or -R).

Not a great surprise, since after 14 months of being online only 200 people have shown any interest.

Just so the record is straight I paid for my copy (even though I'd already done a decent job of transfering the original myself) simply to provide a 'thankyou' to the band/web team for the enjoyment they have brought me from re-issuing some of those 'unreleased' tracks even in lo-fi.

Ever since the incredible disappointment I felt years ago when Celebrate / Stop the world were released I'd hope the record would be set straight and I'd be able to hear those songs I'd enjoyed so much as a kid hitching from gig to gig to hear them all again - after all you couldn't buy the bloody songs!!!

Mark/Etch have been very generous letting us listen to their work for free. I have been humming 'House of Cards' for weeks and it was great to hear "four Winds Blow" and a 'proper' version of 'Dr. Love'.

CD-R / CD-B / CD-Q makes no difference to me but I understand that it does to others. The music and the squad were always more important to me.

thanks

and on a related note, there should be a couple more downloads added later this evening.. for members only this time

I'd be happy to buy future CDRs containing demos/unreleased material, so I hope its still a possibility...

Don't get me totally wrong Quiff, I totally appreciate the fact that Mr. Marx, along with you and others have made this site available and have been so gracious to make available the items they have and for free above all else. Thats not where my concerns lie at all. It's the fact that the merchandise page was not entirely forthcoming about the cd being a cd-r considering the rather steep price. And when you consider the fact that Mr. Marx released his own solo vanity project on factory pressed cd's, it really makes you wonder why the same considerations were not taken for this considering there's an obvious market for them as ebay has shown many times over and then the price would be totally justified and we'd most likely even pay more!



At this point, why was the decision to even pull the cd-r's then? Obviously there is no overhead at all once you get the "remastering" done and the overall cost to profit ratio (especially at 10-12 pounds) is without a doubt, significant.




Well, once again, thats kind of an issue/non-issue when you consider that if the description for the product was better, then I think there wouldn't be an issue at all since you'd know exactly what it was you were paying for. But with that said, as I stated earlier, I even question if the overall sound quality is really as good as it could have been. I would have been more forgiving in the overall cd-r aspect of the thing if the sound quality was crystal clear, but it's not, it's actually fairly muddy sounding and therein lies the culpability of the overall product.



Are you then stating that this release was at best a failure? Was the response/purchases just lukewarm or close to nil? I think the most important thing to remember is this site started off with a lot of interest from people, but due to the low volume of feedback and the length of time it took to put this cd-r together for the very short duration it was available (since it's now not available), how can anybody expect this to have been a success?

Now it almost feels like the few of us that get into this are just kind of left almost being blamed that there will be no more offerings because we aren't gracious enough to just accept what we were given. I find that rather a sad way to go, not only for us the fans, but for the band as well, because this type of scenario only creates animosity which none of us wants. I just want somebody (whoever released this cd-r) to take some responsibility for their lack of a better description of what was being offered and try to make it right by those of us (whether by apology or whatever) that felt they received less than they had paid for. I know I paid ~$100 for the 4 cd-r's I received and thats hardly any overhead costs for whoever put these together. I'm just baffled

Above all of this though, I don't want any hard feelings about any of this. My sole intent and aim was to try and clear the air of the disappointment I felt about this whole ordeal. I'm not trying to stir the pot as it were, but I just think that things have gotten more mysterious about this all since I originally posted my original message.

So with that said, I would once again like to thank everybody that has made this web site available and for letting me speak my peace

1) the description on the merchandise page was my own and at the time of writing i was not aware that it would be a cd-r... i had received an "advance" copy from mr marx which contained a note saying it was "not the finished article, but it gives you the idea..."

my bad i'm afraid. something got lost in translation between mr marx and myself.

the first time i realised it was a cd-r was when people started posting on here that they had received it and that it was a cd-r...

2) the decision to pull the cd-r was made yesterday...or was it the day before? i forget - the last few days have been a bit hectoc and things blur into one

basically, gary rang and asked me to remove it, which i did a few minutes later.

he said he was busy, but that he'd post a quick news update explaining that it had been pulled, meanwhile he'd "let the thread do its thing", meaning, i assume, that he'd let the discussion continue uninterrupted. maybe when he has more spare time he may comment on the matter himself...

it was pulled in response to comments on here. again, i'm only interpreting what i felt when he made the request, but i got the feeling that he pulled it for two reasons :- 1) he didnt want the hassle and 2) he didnt want to cause any further ill will or confusion with the fans...

he seemed genuinely surprised at the reaction it provoked - its not a case of you being "gracious enough to just accept what you were given", though i can imagine how my post further up this thread may have sounded like that. again, thats my editorial spin - i was a bit baffled and a bit disappointed at the time, and i let that colour the tone of my response. once again, my bad.

i'm not really in a position to say any more - a lot of what i've said already is guesswork and supposition. i can tell you though that the last thing he wanted was for anyone to feel ripped off, and that he is genuinely surprised at how it went down

oh well

First time I have been prompted to post in here ! What's all the fuss ? I for one was grateful to get this on CD and judging by E Bay if I put my copy on there I would get more than I paid. (If you are unhappy, stick yours on there!) Give the guys a break- they do a fantastic job for the love of it and not for ££££££
If you remember the good times we all had because of this band , arguing over £10 (or $) seems so petty and downright ungratious. I for one listen to GD because they lit up my life and made me smile (still do) and thats worth a whole lot more than £10 !
I followed them when I had to hitch, bum lifts, steal beer and blag my way into venues- now I am lucky enough to be able to afford to pay something back I will do !
Keep up the good work guys- would love to hear more- and I for one, don't mind paying to hear your hard work !

Ok, so I can kinda understand why some of you were disappointed by a CD-R but what disappoints me is that I didn't get in there quick enough to be able but one before they were made unavailable. I have the original vinyl of Gathering Dust but was looking forward to getting my hands on a remastered CD, whether CD-R or not. This band gave me so many great times as a kid that to part with some cash for any items that bring back those happy memories is fine by me. Ghost Dance are still a great band and I would jump at the chance to go to a gig again, although now a days it would probably mean pulling a sicky from work rather than bunking off school to hitch to wherever! Or getting changed out of school uniform in a train toilet before I was 'old enough' to hitch!!!! Aaah happy days, please please keep the recordings coming!!
And as far as the only 200 people showing interest is concerned, I'm sure that if Ghost Dance were to be doing live shows that figure would shoot up. I realise that they aren't really interested in playing live but I'm sure that there are a lot of people who look at this site without registering to see what's going on.

when I got my copy of gathering dust it didnt bother me it was a cdrs I just hope mr marx releases some more early ghost stuff,[/i][/b]

isn't all about the music, rather than the format and packaging?