Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition next year

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Thanks to Quizz Kid
http://thejethrotullboard.proboards...splay&board=general&thread=2569&page=10#21605
taab2.jpg
 
I love I.A. and Tull, and it's awesome we're getting a TAAB2 (and the original in surround) but man does the art design for this album project look chintzy. It looks like someone got ahold of Photoshop Elements and went to town with a bunch of cheap clipart files.
 
Perhaps it was done by Gerald Bostock. I doubt he's a graphics pro.

Love your handle. As all Tull fans know, everyone needs a pibroch.

I love I.A. and Tull, and it's awesome we're getting a TAAB2 (and the original in surround) but man does the art design for this album project look chintzy. It looks like someone got ahold of Photoshop Elements and went to town with a bunch of cheap clipart files.
 
Ian Anderson - Thick As A Brick 2 (Album Review) Thursday, 08 March 2012 Written by David Owen
http://www.stereoboard.com/content/view/171154/9

There’s been something of a second-coming for the concept album in recent years. The excesses of progressive-rock led to the form being derided as esoteric musical snobbery only enjoyed by men with beards and glasses thicker than milk bottles. Yet the proceeding decades have seen the concept album crawl back up from the underground and gain newfound notoriety after several mainstream successes from the likes of Green Day (American Idiot is now a popular Broadway musical), My Chemical Romance, and Coldplay, to name but a few. If there’s something prog-rock cannot stand, it is to be outdone. There is only one thing more indulgent than a concept album: a sequel to a concept album. And to mark the 40th anniversary of the quintessential conceptual specimen, Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick, front man Ian Anderson has taken it upon himself to show the young pretenders how it’s done.

The original casts a long shadow, and news of a belated follow-up has been met with understandable apprehension from fans. Thick As A Brick was Tull’s middle finger to the very pomp and hyperbole that defined and eventually destroyed concept albums, the sprawling pretension of the band’s contemporaries pushed to the outer limits of decency. It was a one-track continuous piece of music, presented under the conceit that all lyrics were derived from an epic poem composed by precocious schoolboy Gerald Bostock. Smartly, Ian Anderson has not tried to imitate past achievements, and instead presents a work worthy of consideration on its own merits.

TAAB2 asks the deceptively complex question – whatever happened to Gerald Bostock? It isn’t as clear-cut as you might think. The poetic ‘Might Have Beens’ establishes the concept in Anderson’s inimitably verbose style, positing any number of possible futures for his fictional protagonist. ‘Upper Sixth Loan Shark’ and ‘Banker Bets Banker Wins’ see Gerald dabbling in the shadier side of finances. Elsewhere he is a corrupt Christian Evangelist (the tongue-in-cheek ‘Give ‘till It Hurts’) or a casualty of war (‘Wooten Bassett Town’). Although his eye for British stereotype is as keen as ever, Anderson has deliberately shied away from the knockabout humour of the original TAAB. The result is lyrics that are surprisingly relevant and intelligent, although largely bereft of Anderson’s trademark verbal acrobatics and bite, instead often delivered near-spoken word. Still, there’s a warmth to his delivery that lifts the concept above an aging musician looking back over his life and asking, what if? This could have been any of our lives, and Anderson’s observations capture the uncertainty of modern life with all its highs and lows, indecisions and injustices. There may not be many lines that stay with you after listening, but it’s an impressive feat nevertheless.

So how will diehard Tull fans feel about TAAB2? It is sadly lacking the infectious energy of the original. ‘Shunt & Shuffle’ comes close with an irresistible groove that ends before it can hit full stride, and ‘Old School Song’ lives up to its name with brisk drums and a Hammond organ bounce straight out of 1972. Yet for the most part the music is straight-forward, with perhaps more owed to Tull’s folk-rock heritage, particularly the bucolic approach of Songs From The Wood. Acoustic guitar and piano are often the driving force. Pleasingly there are plenty of opportunities to salute Anderson’s virtuosic flute playing, ‘Pebbles Instrumental’ springing to life whenever the woodwind prances through. The real surprise is ‘A Change of Horses,’ 8-minutes of melancholic drift reminiscent of latter-day Marillion that crescendos in a simply mesmeric flute workout.

There is a handful of forgettable pieces. TAAB2, like its predecessor, is conceived as a single piece of music, though this time split into 17 sections for the benefit of iTunes. It’s inevitable with albums of this nature that some tracks feel underdeveloped or uninspired, ‘Swing It Far’ and ‘Power & Spirit’ being little more than stepping stones in the overall concept. Otherwise, recurring themes, both nods to Tull classics and bespoke melodies, effectively tie the entire sequence together and move it forward to a satisfying conclusion likely to raise a smile from even the most cynical of prog fans.

Special mention must be made of the production. In recent years Steven Wilson, front man of Porcupine Tree and prog rock aficionado, has become the go-to man for taking the helm of remix projects (including Jethro Tull). His appreciation and understanding of classic prog shines throughout TAAB2, capturing a sound that is at once vintage and thoroughly modern.

Undoubtedly there will be those unable to overcome their cynicism about the need for a sequel to such an undisputed genre classic. TAAB2 will underwhelm those expecting a retread of hallowed ground. These might be the very same naysayers that believed the concept album was dead. For those willing to embrace the intelligence and craftsmanship on offer here, Ian Anderson proves that conceptual rock is very much alive, and that no one does it better than the old guard.

Thick As A Brick 2 is released March 30th.
 
Review: Ian Anderson - Thick as a Brick 2
http://jonnyabrams.blogspot.com/2012/03/review-ian-anderson-thick-as-brick-2.html
...two features that might repel any new listeners are set in stone, namely the medieval vibe conjured by Anderson's bard-like delivery, and the authentic but not entirely welcome chugs of '80s metal power chords. Suffice it to say, such a combination might bring the vehemently anti-prog out in some kind of rash, but accepting these stylistic concessions pays off handsomely with a collection of songs that hang together like those on Tommy or Arthur.
 
Ian Anderson Rocksucker ("It's a kind of fish, for crying out loud.") interview
http://jethrotull.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1894&page=1
http://jonnyabrams.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/interview-ian-anderson-jethro-tull.html
Are those guitar/piano stabs at the very beginning of the record sampled from the original? Or were they performed/recorded anew?

They were performed anew as opposed to the half-speed tape replay version used on the original. We thought about sampling but playing live was more fun.

And do you know yet when the 40th anniversary surround sound edition of the original TAAB will be released?

September some time in both the digital and stereo vinyl versions. I cut the new TAAB in vinyl at Abbey Road last week and it was really great. Best cut ever and the longest playing time. So no mean feat in engineering terms. It compared very favourably with the 24-bit digital master. Amazing.

http://jethrotull.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1835&page=13#26374
TAAB2 - some production notes on the new album:
additional vocals from Ryan O'Donnell
Trumpet, flugelhorn, tenor horn and e-flat tuba played by Pete Judge

Mike Downs - recording engineer
Florian Opahale - digital editor
Steven Wilson - mixing engineer
Peter Mew - mastering
 
Thanks to the Jethro Tull Forum - maddogfagin/bunkerfan
http://jethrotull.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=youtube&action=display&thread=1897&page=1#1332440316
'Banker bets, Banker wins' Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxsHo9GxILQ&feature=player_embedded

"For those who own a Sirius-XM radio, our hero will be on Deep Tracks, channel 27 on both services, at 2:00 Eastern on Friday afternoon!
They will play Brick 1 with comments from IA then play TAAB 2 in its entirety afterwards"
http://jethrotull.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1356&page=5#26380
Exciting news! Next Monday (26th March) we will be streaming Ian Anderson's ‘Thick As A Brick 2’ in its entirety right here on the Jethro Tull Facebook page for 24 hours! Stay tuned for more info...
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...48794590.46970.155624494454309&type=1&theater
 
Hitting the Bricks: Ian Anderson on Thick as a Brick 2, Part One
By Bill Baker, Columnist
April 3, 2012 12:45 PM
http://www.themortonreport.com/ente...-ian-anderson-on-thick-as-a-brick-2-part-one/

As improbable as it might sound, Ian Anderson has been leading his fellow members of Jethro Tull for the better part of half a century now. Throughout, it’s been Anderson’s singular voice and presence as both a composer and performer that has provided the focus for countless fans even as his pronouncements and appearances left some others, including a seemingly endless stream of critics, confounded or confused.

Still, what remains is the music, a rather impressive backlist of titles, many of which are widely considered classics of modern rock, including Aqualung, War Child, Heavy Horses, and the disc that put Anderson and company firmly on the map in the US, Thick as a Brick.

Now, in an unprecedented move for Anderson, that groundbreaking work has spawned a sequel—aptly titled Thick as a Brick 2—which went on sale today.

Recently Anderson took a few moments from rehearsals for a lavish world tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of Thick as a Brick and the release of its successor to talk about Brick and its sequel, touring, critics and so very, very much more.

Well, to begin, congratulations on the 40th anniversary of Thick as a Brick.

Very kind of you; I’m not really an anniversary guy. I just react to people who love to have a zero on the end of things. So, it’s just an excuse to tackle something with a bit more gusto and a bit more of a … a bit more of a challenge, I suppose.

How does it feel to be getting back into playing that rather huge piece?

Well, playing the original Thick as a Brick, the first half of it is fairly straight forward. The second half, it gets really tricky, because there’s lots of places where I’m playing two acoustic guitars, two flutes, singing—all at the same time. And, obviously, I can’t do that when I’m doing that live.

So, I had to make choices at places where some of the flute lines, we have to imitate those as a keyboard line, or in some places where there’s vocals [and] a prominent flute line, then I have to give the vocals to somebody else. And that somebody else is a young chap named Ryan O’Donnell, who recently starred in the Pete Townshend theatrical production of Quadrophenia that was out and about on stages a couple of years back. John O’Hara, our keyboard player, was the musical director who worked with Pete Townshend to realize the live theatre stage presentation of Quadrophenia. And Ryan was one of the main actor-singers in that.

I met him, liked him. We had a couple of little get-togethers. And so he has various, various jobs in our show, including acting, mime, dance and song, to flesh out some of the places where I’m a bit stuck with too many jobs to do at the same time. So, yeah, an extra hand onstage is useful.

Has all of this been a bit like a homecoming for you, or has it been more of a journey of discovery?

Well, it certainly doesn’t feel like a nostalgic trip. Because I think, once you start playing…

First of all, there’s probably a good 15 minutes or so of Thick as a Brick that we have played in many—not all—but many concerts over the years, so we’re quite familiar with a decent chunk of it. But the rest of it is something that kind of slots into place. Each day I try to run over some of the parts and there’s nothing really difficult to play. I mean, there are a couple of places that are fairly testing from a flute-playing perspective, but nothing that I can’t quickly get back to in terms of remembering what it was and how to play it.

It’s just that, when you put the whole thing together as a continuous piece of music, there’s a lot to focus on. If you miss a cue, then it’s a train wreck. So, we have to have our wits about us, really, from start to finish.

And playing the new album, Thick as a Brick 2, or TaaB2 as I call it, is a little bit easier because, first of all, it’s more recent in all of our memories, and, secondly, perhaps was written very much as a live performance that we could play live onstage. Even down to thinking, “Okay, at this point, there’s going to be a guitar solo where I’m going to be here onstage, guitar players going to be there, somebody else is going to be there.” Even to the point of writing the music and rehearsing it, you start thinking of it as a stage performance, in terms of how you’re going to perform it. Geographically, where are you going to be on the stage during this bit?

Those things might not sound important, but they’re part of the expression, part of the outward, giving sense of the performance. And so, that’s kind of easier.

As I say, it’s more about remembering everything in the right order. And with six of us onstage, there’s a pretty reasonable chance that, at any one time, somebody has completely screwed up. And your job is to try to listen hard enough to say, “Wait a minute. That wasn’t on the record!” [Laughs]

How hard was it for you to recapture Gerald’s voice, particularly after all of these years?

It’s not about capturing his voice, because usually I’m actually singing about… they’re portraits of people. So, quite often I’m not singing in the voice of a character. Sometimes I am; but sometimes I’m singing in the third person, a bit more objectively, painting a picture, and wanting to share that with you.

So, it’s not about capturing a voice—it’s capturing a snapshot of things today. This is not an album about something that happened 40 years ago. This is an album that is about today, the differences we have in the world today that weren’t there 40 years ago. The futility of two major wars since then—I think we were still in the tail end of Vietnam, then—but certainly in terms of the more recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wanted to bring those elements into today’s world through the notional alternative of the young Gerald’s growing up and career possibilities, that takes us to a very vivid description of today.

So at least half the album, lyrically-speaking, is talking about here and now. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to go back to write a sequel in the sense of “What happened in 1973?” I’m skipping out most of that bit. I’m just jumping 40 years in the future because I want to make an album that is applicable to people of teenage, or maybe early 20s, years who are faced with major life-changing decisions, just as we all were [at that age].

And so, while some of us older folks can look back on some of the pivotal moments in our lives, some much younger people have to face those right now. So I tried to write an album that works for the 16-year-old and the 60-year-old.

Are you at all concerned about how TaaB 2 will be received, whether by critics or long-time fans?

Because I have an intellect, and I am determined to use it before I die, and since many people spend an awful lot of time watching The X Factor and dumbing down music in general, then it’s good to have one or two small voices here or there that present the clarion call of the thinking man’s music—as well as sticking their heads above the parapet, being prepared to have them shot off by the carping critics who think it doesn’t have street cred, or is a bit too fanciful or bombastic.

But, tough shit. I’ve got a brain. I’m going to use it. You don’t want to listen to it? Stay at home. [Laughs]

I know what I’m saying sounds a bit contentious, but it echoes the very opening words of Thick as a Brick back in 1972: “I really don’t mind if you sit this one out.” It is laying down a bit of a gauntlet, and I’m prepared to lay that gauntlet down again right now.

And I know, with a certain sense of irony, whilst doing that, the reality is there’s a lot of open ears and willing minds and hearts that are welcoming this proposition of a kind of a progressive rock album for the new millennium. It’s not as if I think it’s going to fall on entirely deaf ears. I know that, yeah, I’d be guessing probably 50% of people who would have ever have counted themselves as a Jethro Tull fan will find this to their liking. And the other 50%, you know, probably the beer-drinking bozos who kind of just go for the big rock riffs and never see beyond that, or the people who like everything in convenient song links tied up in a nice bow and prefer the idea of, I suppose, my music being Deep Purple with a flute, they might not like it.

So, I guess 50% of the people will find it perhaps not quite what they were looking for, and the other 50% will. But let me put it this way: If 50% of the people who listened to or bought Thick as a Brick back in 1972 were to buy this on iTunes or Amazon, that would be, by today’s standards, a very, very big selling album.

But it won’t because, of course, not that many people are going to buy it. They may approve of it if they hear it. But they just may never get round to hearing it, because we live in a different world—one where marketing and promotion is just as expensive as it always was, and record sales are probably, on average for most artists that are still around, probably 10%, 15% tops of what they would have been 40 years ago—as many bands, like the Rolling Stones, have found to their record company’s cost.

They make a new album. It just serves as a loss leader to promote the old catalog. That is marketing and promotion in these years. We’re faced with the realities of records that actually, in terms of paid downloads and in terms of physical sales, are only going to sell a fraction of what they might have done back in the heady days of big unit sales of major albums. Those days have gone. They won’t be coming back.

Or if it does happen, it’ll be the exception to that new rule.

Well, it’s not that people aren’t hearing them. People are hearing more music than ever before in the history of planet earth. Everyone walks around plugged into their MP3 player or their Smartphone, or they’re listening in the car, or whatever it is. People are listening to music in a different way. It’s something that surrounds them as a kind of comfort; it filters out the headaches of life to have some favorite music just pulsing away in the background. You’re not really listening to it; you’re just hearing it. It’s an aural comfort zone that you create for yourself to de-stress your daily life.

So people hear more music than ever before. It’s extremely convenient; it’s just around you everywhere. It’s so, so easy to find.

But to listen to it in the sense of actually sitting down in a darkened room with your headphones on, or a couple of stereo speakers and your best buds by your side as you listen and marvel to the new Jimi Hendrix release? That’s in the past. I don’t think people do that anymore. And even when Thick as a Brick 1 and 2 are released in their vinyl edition later this year, there’ll be some people who go out and buy that, and there may even be some who sit and play it. But I think most of them will never put it on a turntable. They’ll simply want to have it, just because it’s [all about] having a piece of pristine, shiny plastic that’s never been played. And, frankly, a week ago I would have said, “Bloody idiots, wasting their money on a bit of black plastic! Total rubbish, sand and vinyl, blah-blah-blah.”

But in fact I cut the vinyl just last Monday [i.e. the 12th of March, 2012] at Abbey Road Studios in London. And I have to say that, 40 years down the line it’s the best vinyl cut I have ever heard. I AD’d it next to the 24-bit master, and I thought, “This is unbelievably good!” The only thing that ever gave it away was the tiny, little bit of dust or whatever in the grooves. The occasional little click or noise artifact that you would hear that, I guess, just serves to remind you that you really are listening to a vinyl record. But, in terms of dynamics, in terms of low end/ high end frequency response, the transience, the almost complete lack of any distortion, I just couldn’t believe it.

And it’s 53 minutes and 40-odd seconds long. It’s one of the longest vinyl albums to be cut. And it’s unbelievably good, and it’s only about a decibel and a half down on normal operating level. I mean, amazingly good job, actually done on the same old lathes that were used to cut the Beatles records. But, with today’s digital technology, and the better understanding of how to do these things—plus, cutting it on a copper master, rather than into soft lacquer—you can do this job really pretty well these days.

I mean, it’s taken me 40 years to get a vinyl record that I actually thought, “Wow, that’s pretty good!” [Laughs] Bit of a surprise, but it made me actually rethink the whole scenario of vinyl in this day and age. But whether it’s enough to send me out to where every specialist suppliers might be able to sell me an up-to-date fantastic quality turntable, I’m not sure that it would.

I think I still have one, somewhere. I was told that my old Shure V15 cartridges and styluses that I’ve had since the '70s, today avid collectors will pay up to five, six thousand dollars for one of those cartridges. Add to that the SME tone arm, and the Techniques turntable and all the rest of it, you’ve probably got eight to ten thousand dollars of kit just on your turntable alone. [Laughs]

So, yeah, it’s an expensive habit being an audiophile. It’s probably cheaper to seriously get into crack cocaine—just as enjoyable and half the cost. [Laughs]
Jethro Tull Band in studio-large.jpg

No wonder it’s all kept in the original wrapper. After putting that much into a system, you almost can’t afford to risk that investment by playing anything on it. [Laughs]

Exactly, kept in its record sleeve, and never taken out. Yeah, I kind of like the idea that you have something, and you just don’t use it. It’s like having guns—they’re really nice things to have and to hold, and to dismantle and put together again, and clean—really great things to have. But just try not to use them.

I’m serious. I love my guns. I love my automatic pistols and rifles, when I was allowed to have them in the UK, before all the draconian firearm laws prevented civilian ownership of automatic weapons. But, I love my guns.

But, God forbid that I ever have to use them.

We’re still allowed to have our hunting rifles and our shotguns. We’re just not allowed to have military or police hardware in the sense of automatic weapons, pistols, assault rifles, whatever.

But what I’m getting at with all of this is that you don’t actually have to use things. I mean, it’s really nice having a penis. That doesn’t mean you have to run around using it all the time. [Laughs]

My wife’s on the other side of the office, going, “Rrrrrrrrrr!” [Laughs again] I’m only doing it to see if she ever actually listens to what I’m saying when I do interviews. It’s the odd word like, “penis,” that will suddenly cause her to, dare I say, prick up her ears.

Look for the second part of this extended interview with Ian Anderson later this week, only here on TMR.
 
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