Dire Straits - When It Comes To You (Live in Nîmes, France / 1992 / Visualiser)

[dustyvalentino]

I guess I'm naive but I find it amazing that a musician that played on the bloody thing has to shell out to buy a copy, same goes for The Waterboys release.

Paul McCartney's office contacted me asking for my address before sending me the limited edition reissue of 'Flowers In The Dirt'. At another time they also sent me the very nice 'singles collection'. That was classy.
No one from Mark's team offered me 78/92 box set. Nor did they offer it to Chris White.
I fell out with Mike Scott after I left The Waterboys, so I wasn't surprised not to be offered a copy.

Great to hear! (About Macca, not so much about the falling out. Although the new Waterboys album about Dennis Hopper sounds interesting at least).

[dustyvalentino]

"The first time I ever heard 'Sultans Of Swing' and the day I first heard of the band 'Dire Straits' was on UK pop radio"

Great times when a radio presenter decided what song to play. Now computers do it with a playlist. Rotation, repetition and so on. 

Mmm, I seem to recall MK's story about Doris and the BBC Radio 1 playlist committee...

[ds1984]

Until recently I was among the people that though that nowaday popular (ie chart) music was not crappier than past music.

I insinst about the "chart" word.

There is still lot of talented people but the core question is about being played and listened.

In all fairness I admit that my opinion on the matter is now challenged.

I mean comparing creativity, complexity of charting songs today compared to the previous decadeS, if we listen to people doing research on that matter, yes we have lost in quality.

That being said, I know that I am OUT. Most of the artist that are charting the top 40 singles today are mostly unknown names for me.

The time have changed and the medium that kept me informed about the pop music have disappeared.

I am believing in the value of education in a wide sense, not only scholar education, but the way a society rely on leveling up culturaly. I don't know if the lowering of the top 40 has to be a real concern, I am not an expert. 

This is the paradox, with internet you can access almost every kind of music at no additionnal cost.
But in the same time, lower quality music is spreading.


 

[dustyvalentino]

The classical musicians and fans would have bemoaned the quality of jazz and blues music when that was popular.

The jazz and blues musicians and fans would have bemoaned the quality of rock and roll music when that was popular.

Now we old farts on the forum of an act that was called boring even at the height of it's popularity are bemoaning the quality of today's new music.

It was ever thus

[ds1984]

Yes. The debate is whether it's worth the effort and cost involved to release more material from the OES tour, or videos from John's POV etc...
The limited edition box set was cited as evidence for.
I'm highly sceptical.

Regarding OES I am also sceptical because it is not a single night and even the songs themselves are composite from different night.
I have no idea of the cost implied doing that work.
 
Still, Eric Clapton's Definitive 24tNights release is a signal that publishing that kind of material is still possible.
How big as a selling artist Eric now is compared to Dire Straits ?

Somewhere in the vault regarding Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler, there are live video already edited and coming from single nights, so a SD release of the NHB '90 or Live In '85 with premium stereo audio does not sound to me as highly improbable.

So If I could interview the man behind the live boxset project, I would be interested to have his view on these questions.

[ds1984]

The classical musicians and fans would have bemoaned the quality of jazz and blues music when that was popular.

The jazz and blues musicians and fans would have bemoaned the quality of rock and roll music when that was popular.

Now we old farts on the forum of an act that was called boring even at the height of it's popularity are bemoaning the quality of today's new music.

It was ever thus

I have a few Jazz musician scorn for Rock N roll example and it is laughable.

But from musical studies, some ABBA's song may be way more complex than they seem to be.

[Brunno Nunes]

You are saying that I am assuming that just one fan doing all the job. NODE.
There are real teams working on real work.

I agree 100% about Spotify/Youtube mediocre content. And I am not talking about the Spotify payments...
I know a bunch of great musicians that don't put their music on digital platforms or even put them on the streets because how music is consumed.

I'm saying that back in the day, teams of experienced professionals worked on 'On The Night' and 'Alchemy Live'.
Would you see something as good or better after giving that raw material to DS fans? I'm highly skeptical.
It would be interesting to know how long Guy spent working on the box set remixes. I'm gonna guess many months.

Yeah, but the term "raw material" is extremely vague. In this example, raw material simply means "uncut video tracks" that have already been color-graded, shot on location, and with already mixed audio because I highly doubt you can find truly raw material for any of these things. Even some of The Beatles' original masters ended up thrown away into a bin by Abbey Road Studio's janitor, let alone On The Night masters and tapes.

With this definition of raw material, I think it's pretty safe to assume you don't need to be a Hollywood-level professional to stitch it together.

One of my favorite pictures is the one with a table full of crap like video cameras, photo cameras, music players, books, alarm clocks, phones, flashlights, gaming consoles, notebooks, radios, calculators, newspapers, audio recorders, TVs, navigators, compasses and photo albums, and a smartphone on another empty table that replaced it all.

Teams of experienced professionals used to work on great many things, even elevators used to have lift attendants, but progress is progress.

Exactly, that's my point, it's possible, you don't need to be a Hollywood film professional to achieve something relevant and satisfactory, especially because, being produced by a group of capable fans, I have no doubt that the result would be much better than what happened with Alchemy and On The Night, the vision is different when it's fan to fan.

As I mentioned in a private conversation with my friend Rolo, the big truth is that things are the way they are for a very specific reason, this happened in 1996. I'll explain right after this data:

DS's official YT channel.

2.4M subscribers

Mark Knopfler's YT channel. 1M subscribers.

But look at the contrast:

Queen. 18M subscribers.

Bohenian Rhapsody - 1.9 Billion plays

Led Zeppelin - 4M

Pink Floyd - 4.5M

Beatles - 8.8M

So far, MK has worked hard to bury the band DS, everything possible to remove the band from any media evidence was concentrated effort, anything that makes the band relevant today loses strength because of years and years of this type of politics. I'm still really surprised that the DS YouTube channel has 2.4M subscribers, given the circumstances I mentioned.

Anyway, Box Live 78/92 was a pleasant surprise, an outlier, but that doesn't change the past of modest releases and questionable direction and production of material like Alchemy and On The Night. The main person responsible is probably the person who most wanted to bury the band and its legacy.

[dustyvalentino]

The classical musicians and fans would have bemoaned the quality of jazz and blues music when that was popular.

The jazz and blues musicians and fans would have bemoaned the quality of rock and roll music when that was popular.

Now we old farts on the forum of an act that was called boring even at the height of it's popularity are bemoaning the quality of today's new music.

It was ever thus

I have a few Jazz musician scorn for Rock N roll example and it is laughable.

But from musical studies, some ABBA's song may be way more complex than they seem to be.

I was in a band in the 1990s and the drummer was a jazz snob. He was FURIOUS that the Notting Hillbillies were being allowed to play "country and festering music" in the hallowed grounds of Ronnie Scott's ha ha.

ABBA as you say is complex, and The Beatles' chord sequences were much more intersting than other bands at the time... but who says complex is better? Anyone think that any Dire Straits' music will be around longer than Sugar Sugar by The Archies?

Queen's people have done a quite incredible job promoting the act since Freddie Mercury died.

[rmarques821]

You are saying that I am assuming that just one fan doing all the job. NODE.
There are real teams working on real work.

I agree 100% about Spotify/Youtube mediocre content. And I am not talking about the Spotify payments...
I know a bunch of great musicians that don't put their music on digital platforms or even put them on the streets because how music is consumed.

I'm saying that back in the day, teams of experienced professionals worked on 'On The Night' and 'Alchemy Live'.
Would you see something as good or better after giving that raw material to DS fans? I'm highly skeptical.
It would be interesting to know how long Guy spent working on the box set remixes. I'm gonna guess many months.

Yeah, but the term "raw material" is extremely vague. In this example, raw material simply means "uncut video tracks" that have already been color-graded, shot on location, and with already mixed audio because I highly doubt you can find truly raw material for any of these things. Even some of The Beatles' original masters ended up thrown away into a bin by Abbey Road Studio's janitor, let alone On The Night masters and tapes.

With this definition of raw material, I think it's pretty safe to assume you don't need to be a Hollywood-level professional to stitch it together.

One of my favorite pictures is the one with a table full of crap like video cameras, photo cameras, music players, books, alarm clocks, phones, flashlights, gaming consoles, notebooks, radios, calculators, newspapers, audio recorders, TVs, navigators, compasses and photo albums, and a smartphone on another empty table that replaced it all.

Teams of experienced professionals used to work on great many things, even elevators used to have lift attendants, but progress is progress.

The main person responsible is probably the person who most wanted to bury the band and its legacy.

But why would Mark continue to promote and market a band that is effectively dead and while having a very successful solo career? I can understand that some people want to see more Dire Straits, but I think it's just a case of people being stuck in the past.
For myself, I would be much more excited about seeing the Henrik Hansen documentary than a Wembley '85 release.

[Brunno Nunes]

I had mentioned a real video of the song WICTY on OTN (instead of this childish joke that they posted on the official channel) because theoretically it is more likely that the raw material that was used to select what would make it to the VHS release in 1993 exists, since OTN was an initiative of the band itself, unlike the songs that are missing from the video broadcast at Wembley arena 85, songs like Ride Acros The River, Romeo and Juliet... Since the latter was an external production, made for a TV show, TUBE, if I'm not mistaken. So, it could be that this material really existed in a place similar to where the Rainbow Theatre 79 archives and the extra songs from Alchemy and OTN were.

Unfortunately, there is no official information on whether or not such material exists (the full Alchemy video, videos of the shows used for OTN, two nights in Nimes and two in Rotterdam. There is also no official information about audio or video for Paris 83...). They probably no longer exist, have been lost or damaged. On the other hand, it was a great surprise to see a show like Rainbow Theatre 79 being released in the box, as well as the previously unreleased tracks on the other CDs. This was a good sign that there must be more unreleased material than previously thought. It would be amazing if there were a survey of data on this, to know what exists and what has been lost.

Who knows, if one day the DS copyrights are sold, something more consistent will happen through a change in the band's release policy. Who knows, maybe everything can be measured with a vision at least (inspired by) the releases of Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Beatles... I said inspired.🤌🏻

[Brunno Nunes]

You are saying that I am assuming that just one fan doing all the job. NODE.
There are real teams working on real work.

I agree 100% about Spotify/Youtube mediocre content. And I am not talking about the Spotify payments...
I know a bunch of great musicians that don't put their music on digital platforms or even put them on the streets because how music is consumed.

I'm saying that back in the day, teams of experienced professionals worked on 'On The Night' and 'Alchemy Live'.
Would you see something as good or better after giving that raw material to DS fans? I'm highly skeptical.
It would be interesting to know how long Guy spent working on the box set remixes. I'm gonna guess many months.

Yeah, but the term "raw material" is extremely vague. In this example, raw material simply means "uncut video tracks" that have already been color-graded, shot on location, and with already mixed audio because I highly doubt you can find truly raw material for any of these things. Even some of The Beatles' original masters ended up thrown away into a bin by Abbey Road Studio's janitor, let alone On The Night masters and tapes.

With this definition of raw material, I think it's pretty safe to assume you don't need to be a Hollywood-level professional to stitch it together.

One of my favorite pictures is the one with a table full of crap like video cameras, photo cameras, music players, books, alarm clocks, phones, flashlights, gaming consoles, notebooks, radios, calculators, newspapers, audio recorders, TVs, navigators, compasses and photo albums, and a smartphone on another empty table that replaced it all.

Teams of experienced professionals used to work on great many things, even elevators used to have lift attendants, but progress is progress.

The main person responsible is probably the person who most wanted to bury the band and its legacy.

But why would Mark continue to promote and market a band that is effectively dead and while having a very successful solo career? I can understand that some people want to see more Dire Straits, but I think it's just a case of people being stuck in the past.
For myself, I would be much more excited about seeing the Henrik Hansen documentary than a Wembley '85 release.

Take a look at the number of subscribers on Dire Straits' official channel and then see how many subscribers there are on MK's solo channel. Then look at the sales figures for DS and MK, and you should be able to find some practical answers. When you do, if you can, post your thoughts here.

Do you know how many people would make the same choice as you? I won't mention it so as not to scare you. 👽

[ds1984]

DS's official YT channel.

2.4M subscribers

Mark Knopfler's YT channel. 1M subscribers.

But look at the contrast:

Queen. 18M subscribers.

Bohenian Rhapsody - 1.9 Billion plays

Led Zeppelin - 4M

Pink Floyd - 4.5M

Beatles - 8.8M

Interesting to add a few other big britts names of rock music :

Eric Clapton - 1.54 M

TheRollingStones - 3.4 M

U2official - 3.13 M

EltonJohn - 4.79 M

DeepPurpleOfficial - 1.37 M

And from the other side of the Atlantic :

BobDylan - 1.5 M

[rmarques821]

You are saying that I am assuming that just one fan doing all the job. NODE.
There are real teams working on real work.

I agree 100% about Spotify/Youtube mediocre content. And I am not talking about the Spotify payments...
I know a bunch of great musicians that don't put their music on digital platforms or even put them on the streets because how music is consumed.

I'm saying that back in the day, teams of experienced professionals worked on 'On The Night' and 'Alchemy Live'.
Would you see something as good or better after giving that raw material to DS fans? I'm highly skeptical.
It would be interesting to know how long Guy spent working on the box set remixes. I'm gonna guess many months.

Yeah, but the term "raw material" is extremely vague. In this example, raw material simply means "uncut video tracks" that have already been color-graded, shot on location, and with already mixed audio because I highly doubt you can find truly raw material for any of these things. Even some of The Beatles' original masters ended up thrown away into a bin by Abbey Road Studio's janitor, let alone On The Night masters and tapes.

With this definition of raw material, I think it's pretty safe to assume you don't need to be a Hollywood-level professional to stitch it together.

One of my favorite pictures is the one with a table full of crap like video cameras, photo cameras, music players, books, alarm clocks, phones, flashlights, gaming consoles, notebooks, radios, calculators, newspapers, audio recorders, TVs, navigators, compasses and photo albums, and a smartphone on another empty table that replaced it all.

Teams of experienced professionals used to work on great many things, even elevators used to have lift attendants, but progress is progress.

The main person responsible is probably the person who most wanted to bury the band and its legacy.

But why would Mark continue to promote and market a band that is effectively dead and while having a very successful solo career? I can understand that some people want to see more Dire Straits, but I think it's just a case of people being stuck in the past.
For myself, I would be much more excited about seeing the Henrik Hansen documentary than a Wembley '85 release.

Take a look at the number of subscribers on Dire Straits' official channel and then see how many subscribers there are on MK's solo channel. Then look at the sales figures for DS and MK, and you should be able to find some practical answers. When you do, if you can, post your thoughts here.

Do you know how many people would make the same choice as you? I won't mention it so as not to scare you. 👽

I couldn't give a donkey's dong about the number of subscribers of whatever, really.

In the real world, not the virtual one, Mark got fed up of Dire Straits and all that's associated with it, started a successful solo career and never looked back. Some fans moved on with him, others stayed behind with DS and that's okay. But all this crying about there not existing more DS releases and that the band isn't popular on social media is quite childish, I think.

[quizzaciously]

DS's official YT channel.

2.4M subscribers

Mark Knopfler's YT channel. 1M subscribers.

But look at the contrast:

Queen. 18M subscribers.

Bohenian Rhapsody - 1.9 Billion plays

Led Zeppelin - 4M

Pink Floyd - 4.5M

Beatles - 8.8M

Interesting to add a few other big britts names of rock music :

Eric Clapton - 1.54 M

TheRollingStones - 3.4 M

U2official - 3.13 M

EltonJohn - 4.79 M

DeepPurpleOfficial - 1.37 M

And from the other side of the Atlantic :

BobDylan - 1.5 M

Haha! I've already had quite a lot of battles with Dusty here, discussing the popularity of artists and comparing the numbers. What I learned is that you do not perceive popularity by looking at numbers as much as you "feel" popularity. Bob Dylan is all over my X feed, especially after the movie about him came out, and when he started writing his own posts, it had the effect of a nuclear weapon. Bob Dylan is as popular as he ever was, what a guy.

You feel the popularity of someone. You feel the popularity of Taylor Swift, you see videos about her on YouTube all the time, you see the billboards, you see her name in the news. If she feels popular, she's popular. Now, when it comes to Mark Knopfler, obviously, this man doesn't feel popular at all. People barely talk about him, there are not a lot of interviews, he's not touring anymore, and the numbers are pretty modest, too.

When I was mentioned in Mark's social media 3 times, it wasn't nuclear at all. Yes, I got a few weeks' worth of views and comments, but it wasn't like my inbox was filled to the top and then some. I actually managed to answer every single comment and email in a couple of days. If someone with John Mayer and Bob Dylan's scale mentioned me in a tweet, I'd be drinking my favourite pineapple juice in the Maldives now.

[Robson]

Sometimes I don't care, and sometimes I'm annoyed why MK is overlooked and rarely quoted. It's unfair and incomprehensible.