New Wave Outpost Forum

Courtesy of The Second Disc, The Waitresses complete output on Polydir is being released as a 2cd set in September:

http://theseconddisc.com/2013/08/09/was ... aitresses/

This set is served on September 24; the full track list and Amazon link is after the jump!


Just Desserts: The Complete Waitresses (Omnivore OVCD-73, 2013)

Disc 1: Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?, I Could Rule the World If I Could Only Get the Parts and bonus track

No Guilt
Wise Up
Quit
It’s My Car
Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?
I Know What Boys Like
Heat Night
Redland
Pussy Strut
Go On
Jimmy Tomorrow
Christmas Wrapping
Bread and Butter
Square Pegs
The Smartest Person I Know
I Could Rule the World If I Could Only Get the Parts
Hangover 1/1/83
Disc 2: Bruiseology and bonus tracks

A Girl’s Gotta Do
Make the Weather
Everything’s Wrong
Luxury
Open City
Thinking About Sex Again
Bruiseology
Pleasure
Spin
They’re All Out of Liquor, Let’s Find Another Party
Bruiseology (Alternate)
Bread and Butter (Re-Mix)
Bread and Butter (Dub Mix)
Disc 1, Tracks 1-11 released as Polydor LP PD-1-6346, 1982
Disc 1, Tracks 12-16 released as Polydor EP PX-1-507, 1983
Disc 1, Track 17 released on ZE Records 12#8243; 12WIP 6821 (U.K.), 1983
Disc 2, Tracks 1-10 released as Polydor LP 422 810 980-1 Y-1, 1983
Disc 2, Track 11 previously unreleased
Disc 2, Tracks 12-13 released as Polydor 12#8243; promo single PRO 196, 1983

Ahhh!!! Yayyy!!!!! It's about time. Omnivore did a great job on their recent Three O'Clock compilation (master tapes and no brickwalled sound), so I can only hope this will be the same. Looking very forward to this!

I emailed Omnivore to inquire about the remastering of this set. Here's part of their response. Purchase with confidence:

Unless stated otherwise, all of our projects of this nature are derived from the original master tapes and are remastered. Whether they are part of the "loudness war" well, you'll have to figure out for yourself whether or not you like our mastering job, we don't believe we are a party to that in any way. If you've liked what we've done in the past, you'll like this very much.

It would be easy for us to be offended at the assertion that we might use vinyl to save money (it's actually really expensive to derive proper transfers from vinyl sources), but we can understand the inquiry. It would be more correct to say that many indie labels use CD sources to cut their vinyl to save money - that would be true and that would also not be the way that Omnivore conducts its business of mastering.

There may be cases where all that exists may be a vinyl source, but a) we would note that that vinyl was the source of origin and the only audio source available to us, and b) that's not the situation in this release. The masters are derived from the vaults at Universal and we worked closely with Chris Butler from the band who approved the mastering from the original sources.

Thanks. Not a high priority for me, but good news on the remastering front makes this a likely buy.

a review from the Television mailing list:

"The long long LONG awaited Waitresses compilation, "Just Desserts: The Complete Recordings", was released yesterday. I got my copy today. I'm really enjoying it.

(As a reminder, the drummer for the Waitresses was Billy Ficca -- originally recruited to re-record drums on "I Know What Boys Like" after the one-off track Chris Butler did became a hit).

Here's the quick review I just posted elsewhere:

"I got my copy today. A really nice set. Sound is good throughout; a side-by-side comparison of tracks with the 1990 best-of CD makes the two look pretty even. (Though the debut is a big step-up from the digital version you can buy on Amazon.com right now, which is not only sourced from vinyl but -- as I realized today -- has the stereo image flipped).
The alternate, previously unreleased "Bruiseology" has vocals by Tracy Wormworth; seems like this was done when it wasn't clear that Patty Donahue would return to record her own vocals for the track (which she did). The booklet, while unfortunately not including lyrics, has lengthy notes on the story of the band and new interview content with Chris Butler. Like the liners to the 1990 best-of (or most interviews with Butler on the topic of the Waitresses), it's a bit poignant and sad; Butler mentions that he had demo'd a whole album of material right after BRUISEOLOGY for the final entry in a Waitresses "trilogy" that would never get made.

One new detail (to me): Butler attributes part of the band's disintegration to the fact that lead singer Patty Donahue became romantically involved with drummer Billy Ficca.

If I have any gripes about the set, it's that the liners commit one my irritants in compilations: Talking about tracks that aren't included on the set. In this case, it's several early recordings the band made before signing to Ze (and later Polydor). In fact, while the set is subtitled "The Complete Recordings", the sticker affixed to the shrinkwrap more accurately refers to it as "The Complete Polydor Recordings". Anyway -- this is as much Waitresses (probably more) than most people will ever need -- both albums, their sole EP, and a few b-sides/remixes -- but seems like there are a few rarities out there that would make a good single disc. Maybe in another 30 years?

I know the debut album and subsequent EP well, but not so much the second record. For example, I just today noticed the "Aladdin Sane"-esque piano solo in "Everything's Wrong If My Hair Is Wrong"! Clearly, the second album was encouraging some real experimentation. Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing this whole lots in coming weeks/months/years. An unjustly forgotten band finally given decent catalog treatment."


Sugoi !!!

I've had the set for about a week. The mastering is pretty good, though not perfect. The volume is a little compressed but nothing too bad, but everything is from studio master tapes. The main problem is that the bass has been increased. This works great for 'Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful?', but is way overdone on some of the 'Bruiseology' tracks. 'A Girl's Gotta Do' and 'Spin', for example, are VERY thumpy and rumbly. And there has been some distortion introduced on the left channel of the intros to 'A Girl's Gotta Do' and 'Luxury'. That being said, I wouldn't suggest anyone avoid purchasing because of this. They are fairly minor gripes, most of which I was able to resolve before I uploaded to my iPod.

The booklet is very nice and informative. Plus, we get full page reproductions of the album and ep covers, but unfortunately no lyrics. So this set covers all the Waitresses material that I was interested in, so I guess I can mark these albums off my wish list.

Scott