Azimuth Coordinator (Box Set)
http://www.pf-roio.de/roio/roio-cd/azimuth_coordinator.cd.htmlFormat: 6CD
Catalog: Comfortably Cool Productions
Misc.: Hand-numbered edition of 1000; #56 taken, #274 taken
Produced: <no info>
Date: 750408
Matrix:
Disc 1: CDR 1
Disc 2: CDR 2
Disc 3: CDR 3
Disc 4: CDR 4
Disc 5: CDR 5
Disc 6: CDR 6
Cover: Individual disks stored together in black cardboard wallet which carries tracklist and source info. Also includes a 64-page illustrated book which tells the story of the WYWH, Animals and Wall albums, their genesis and the associated tours. The book and CD package are contained in a pink bubble-wrap pouch whose flap is sealed with a pink sticker bearing the legend: PINK FLOYD AZIMUTH COORDINATOR 1975-1980 The cover of the booklet consists of a pastiche of graphical motifs from the WYWH, Animals, and Wall albums, including a long and winding wall. At one point on this wall, written in indistinct script, are the words: "Syd was not here." ;-
Sources: 08 Apr 1975, 6Jul77, 7Feb80 CD1-2: 8 Apr 75; PNE Exhibition Park, Vancouver, BC CD3-4: 6 Jul 77; Olympic Stadium, Montreal, Quebec CD5-6: 7 Feb 80; Sports Arena, Los Angeles, California.
Band:
Roger Waters
Nick Mason
David Gilmour
Rick Wright
Xref: • Vancouver 1975
• The Azimuth Coordinator part 1
• The Azimuth Coordinator part 2
• The Azimuth Coordinator part 3
Quality: • VG+- - THE HEDONIST
• CD1-2: VG - THE HEDONIST
• CD3-4: VG+ - THE HEDONIST
• CD5-6: VG- - THE HEDONIST
Comments:
Drift Away-Blues on Disc 6 should be played with the '77 concert, at the end of Disc 4.
I'm not saying that your wrong, but I did puchase the Azimuth Coordinator 6 CD set and it was not numbered. This was in October 97. It was more than worth the money but I'd like to know if it's "legit".
It appears that this set continues to sell in a very similar package (by Front Row Center?) but is no longer a numbered limited edition. - DAve.
This set is comprised of the kick-off dates for the 1975 and 1980 (The Wall) tours, and also the final date of the Animals/In the Flesh 1977 tour where Roger loses his 'composure' with the rowdy audience. The inaugural Wall show is also of interest because of the fire which halted the show early on. There are sound problems with this recording, most notably an irritating electronic buzz during the latter part of ABITW2 on CD5 and an equally distracting fast metronomic beat during Comf'y Numb on CD6, although this fortunately disappears as Dave cranks up his solo. - THE HEDONIST
At long last, the much talked about Az. Coor. 6-CD set was finally released sometime earlier this month by some friendly folks at Comfortably Cool Productions (somewhere in the world). Glancing thru this "box set", its obvious that this is not your run-of-the-mill ROIO. The accompling book (65 pages, 20x20 cm) is bloody fantastic with a bizarre morphing of the three LPs imagery as the cover art. The book is chocked filled with relevant photos matched to the different tours (unlike Miles!) from each of the three live CD's time periods, some of which I haven't seen before. Love the pic of Rog in a Milwaukee Brewers T-shirt on p.9... musta taken it from the locker rooms on their '75 stop-over here? The book is worthy of a separate release, better than any of the recent offerings. Very nice narrative on the recording and art production of the three LPs of the later half of the 70's, and brief description of the diff. tours. The only thing lacking is a more detailed description of the '75 & '77 tours. The Wall show is described in detail for all of us whom failed to secure prized ducats to the shows on either coast.
There's 6 Cds here, packaged in plastic slip cases boxed together in a cardboard box. The box is individually numbered, so it looks like there's only a 1000 of this things floating around. The price varies greatly between dealers. I think I paid $150 for the set.... I lose track of the green at swaps too easily these days.
Considering that double ROIO CDs go for $50- $60, a 6 CD set with a awesome book is easily worth this price. Sure this cuts deeply into the beer fund, but wot the 'ell! The entire "box set" is packaged together in a pink plastic bubble wrap. No clue why they did this?!
Onto the Cds: Disc 1&2 are the opener show of the '75 "World Tour" live in Vancouver, Can, 8 Apr 75. The Floyd seem to have a great love with the Seattle/Vancouver area because they've played there every tour since '68, sometimes several stops in both cities. The show happens to be the debut of HAC and the "split" Shine On, with an unusual intro to R&D. The sound is very clean, but has a slight hiss probably due to the generations, and taper's mic feedback during Shine On 6-9. Bloody fab show, easily the best of the Spring '75 tour shows, and one that hasn't been released in complete form to date. So nice to have the long version of DSOTM on disc. The OTR sequence is amazing, almost sounds like Boeing lent a hand. And there's Echoes, need I say more. The '75 versions of Echoes are always a treat. SQ is Ex-.
Disc 3&4 are the infamous Montreal 6 Jul 77 show in complete form. I always list this show in my top 5 fave shows. Seems that a copy of the rare clean version has made its way to the bakery. Oh well, I know we couldn't keep this gem hidden forever. As such the case, most Echoesian have never heard this ripping version of the show, and have suffered with the crappy LP version for years. I know Dave and Rog have said that they hated their performance that day, but they should hear the tape first!! It's a toss up between the Oakland '77 and Montreal '77 shows for the best of the Animals tour. You gotta to be crazy not to get this show! Take a listen to Dave's searing guitar work on Pigs-3DO, while Roger lets loose some wild "pig talk". Mindnumbing stuff. Gotta love the tirades that Roger lets fly for the firecracker wackos. Definitely the highlight of the box set. Now I can put away my tapes of the show before they wear out. Not a soundboard, but the closest we'll ever get to one. Yeah, PF taped all their '77 shows, never to see the light of day, no doubt. SQ is Ex.
Discs 5&6 are the debut performance piece of the Wall from LA, 2 Feb 80. Definitely not the best vesrion of the Wall live, in fact sounds more like a rehearsal! All sorts of problems plagued our boys on this night from inadvertent fires to Dave's mics. failing to off-key singing in spots by Roger. I bet Roger was really pleased after this show... For all its warts, its still an interesting show with the long extended ABIII jams (slow brickers) and surprised crowd reactions to the stage presentations. The crowd had little idea what to expect, and their joy is felt, esp. at the final brick being inserted. Yeah, I know others have wondered why this piece was chosen, but the better Wall shows have already been released on CD. Why duplicate them? The sound of these discs is a vast improvement over the crap I have on tape. This is actually listenable! Someone must of dug up a very low gen. of this baby or remastered it. Now, I can count along with Roger (Stop, stop, stop, .... stop the film!). The only annoying thing is the audio buzz that pops into trk 6 (ABII). SQ is Vg+
So, overall I'd give the AzCoor a four piggies rating (out of 5). (I hope the piggie rating isn't copywritten yet?) My only gripe is the odd plastic bubble wrap packaging. A nice hard cover box would be in order here.
If you're a hardcore Floyd collector (and who isn't on Echoes?), then I heartly recommend searching out this fine treasure. It doesn't appear to be readily available in most cookie stores. Definitely worth your Floyd dollars/pounds/lira/kroners/D-marks. - ANON
The sound quality is fantastic and the shows are definitely well chosen. Partiuclarly nice is Dave's guitar work on Pigs (Three Different Kinds) and on Shine On Parts VI-IX. Although the box is flimsy and the bubble wrap kind of silly, the book is a great read and full of interesting notes on the albums. If the soundboard tapes could have been used for this set, this would without doubt be the best set of live Pink Floyd ever released. - JASON
Well, I bought a copy of this set and was very impressed. While the packaging isn't great (I'm going to the record store later this week to buy jewel cases for the CD's) I do think this is an awesome set. Vancouver 75 is a fantastic show, with excellent versions of all songs played. The versions of Money, Any Colour You Like and Echoes rank as easily amongst the best ever. I particularly like the way Gilmour takes the first solo after the second chorus on Echoes, then Dick Parry plays a sax solo. I also like they way Dave, Rick and Dick sort of interwined their instruments on the ending. An excellent show, a bit hissy sounding, but hey, if that bothered me I probably wouldn't be listening to and collectiong ROIO's!
Montreal 77 is another winner! I don't care what anyone in the band says, this is a great show! It's worth it just to hear Roger yell "For fuck's sake!!!!" in the middle of Pigs On The Wing pt.2, but then on top of it, the band really tears it up and plays a fantastic show. Particular highlights include Pigs (3 Different Ones) and Shine On pt.9 (love the guitar and piano candenza at the end before the rest of the band rejoins). I do have one issue about the Montreal show: is there anyway of verifying that Drift Away Blues is from this show. See, the story that circulates is that Dave didn't want to come back onstage, so Snowy White was left as the solo guitarist onstage for this blues jam. OK, fine, but it seems every picture or video clip I've seen of him shows him either playing a Gibson Les Paul (usually a gold top, but one photo in the booklet with this set shows him playing a black LP Custom) a Carvin LP style guitar or a Yamaha (the latter two I noted in a couple Thin Lizzy videos). On Drift Away Blues, the guitarist is definitely playing a Strat, you can hear it not only in the guitar tone, but also in the use of the tremelo arm (good Les Pauls don't have trem arms, and neither do the Carvin or Yamaha guitars I've seen Snowy playing). Or to be more to the point, it doesn't sound like Snowy on guitar! I do recognise the Hammond organ tone used in some of the keyboard solos as Rick's, and that does sound like Rog yelling out "DRIFT AWAY!!!", but is this from the Montreal 77 show? I do have a possible theory: Maybe, Snowy, not wanting people to realise that he wasn't Dave, strapped on one of Dave's Strats, and tried to play in a fashion that would sound like Dave, and that's what we are hearing here. Now, we know that the Montreal show had a lot to do with inspiring certain things that came to fruition in The Wall, so maybe this is one of them (perhaps this was the germ of the idea for the Surrogate Band????). Anyway, it's a great jam, irregardless of what show or when it came from.
LA 80 is an interesting show. This is the first The Wall show I've ever heard. I particularly like the version of ABITW2, with it's extra solos (presumably the first guitar solo is Dave, while the second is Snowy, but who's playing the organ solo? Rick or Peter Woods?) and the extended conclusion of ABITW3, starting off with a sort of overture/overview of instrumental bits from earlier songs in the show, and then growing into what sounds to me like Any Colour You Like during which the band really jams it's hearts out until it's time for Rog to step forward and sing Goodbye Cruel World and insert the final brick (which the audience seems to enjoy seeing). And the whole business of the fire is also interesting, from a historical perspective. There are two drawbacks to this show, though: 1. Roger's voice doesn't sound dramatic enough when doing the Judge's part on The Trial. Presumably, they couldn't quite recreate the effect that was used in the studio. 2. Dave's second solo during Comfortably Numb is way too short (but then I'm used to versions from 87-94!).
Oh and one last thing, the ticking sound during Comfortably Numb, I suspect that's a click track, which apparently a sound engineer accidentally switched into the PA audio path. The click track was probably being used to keep the band in sync with one another and with the film that was being used (assuming that there was a film used for this song). Notice that click coincides with the tempo of the song. - ANON
After having a successful run with Great Dane Records, I felt a deep satisfaction in retiring, leaving a legacy of highly regarded Pink Floyd releases in my wake. I had accomplished just about what I had set out to do concerning the great "Pink Floyd Project," and with the Gat Treaty passing in 1996, the world of legal RoIO's was silenced.
But my reputation had caught the eye of some enthusiastic entrepreneur, who wanted to bake his own cookies and wanted to enlist my services to coodinate certain projects. This person was a smooth talker with big ideas. He wanted to produce elaborate box sets which would include posters, stickers, special collectable items, and would be uniquely presented. He had me sold on the idea that this project would be done for "the fans," and that his vision would not be compromised.
I didn't want to release any recordings that had been widely circulated, and had some relavance to the performance or gig. Vancouver 1975 was the first stop on the US tour and sounded just as good as the better 1975 shows. It was the first time "Shine On" was bridged with "Have a Cigar," and also the first time the US had heard the new material.
The Montreal show is legendary for the "spitting" incident. It was also the last stop on a grueling stadium tour, to which the band claimed to have played horribly. On the contrary, this was one of the Floyd's best performances faithfully captured by a competent taper (which differs from the widely circulated higher generation and poorer quality recording). "Pigs (3 Different One's)" also inspired his "Pig Talk" during the "In The Flesh" segments of "The Wall" concerts. Absolutely the last great Pink Floyd show!
"The Wall" show was harder to pick, and I listened to every gig! I could have easily opted for the great sounding Nassau Coliseum show that has been reissued to death, but instead opted for a more important show...opening night. Although the sound quality was far from up to par with the other 2 shows, some inivated studio engineering pushed this recording into a more listenable realm. The fire incident and the extended "ABITW Part 3," are also unique to this performance. The only sacrifice was that '"Drift Away Blues" could not fit on the Montreal CD's and had to be put at the end of The Wall set.
With the liner notes prepared, photos ready, and recordings remastered, this baby was ready to be put into the oven. But probelms kept coming up and every time I asked what was going on, I got some sob story about production problems. I got to see a "proof" of the book, and honestly I wasn't too impressed. I had supplied alot more interesting photos and artwork that could have been used, and the few changes I wanted to make were out of the question. My tapes were held onto for over 9 months before they were finally remastered, and in all that time no work was done on refining the book (which in fact didn't go into production until much later on in the project).
Over a year later, and dozens of bogus promises, I received a copy of the AzCo packaged in a cheezy bubble wrap. No hard cover on the book, no reproduced original stickers or postcards, poor silk screening on the disks, and just plain unprofessional. My outrage prompted the manufacturer to repackage it in a boxed format, but unfortunately the quality of the box is thin and cheap.
Not only was I dissapointed with the product, but this manufacturer took orders from people and spent the money covering his bills and expensive overhead. Folks have been waiting for months for either a refund or their product, while this person's arrogant attitude seems to be, "they'll get it when I have the money."
Although I think that the recordings alone are worth the price you're bound to pay, you gotta admit that even with the flimsy box, the book is a very nice bonus. In fact, the manufacturer is sitting on about a few thousand books and boxes ready to go...he just needs the CD's. You see, another ironic thing is that all of the CD's were pressed and ready to go, they just had to be paid for. And, with all the cash received from pre-orders, that shouldn't have been a problem. But, because the CD's weren't paid for, they are now being sold as individual 2 CD sets of each concert with no frills. These CD's are not rip-off's of the original AzCo. These are the actual original disks that were never properly paid for.
So, if you can find one of the currently circulating copies, I say go for it. It's well worth the cash, I just hoped it could have looked alot nicer. And being so rare is another great reason for hunting it down. And who knows, maybe the manufacturer will get his shit together and throw out some more copies to the public because in the meantime, Comfortably Cool productions is being uncomforably uncool!
Well, I guess it's back to retirement...unless perhaps I get some very encouraging comments contributed to this website.
Never say never - ANON
Complete Booklet In PDF
