Thank goodness you give us the gracious heads up.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite albums. I have the standard stereo U.S. release and a late-90s import with the mono mix. I like the stereo mix, but it does sound like you're listening to it with socks over your ears - a lot of muffled highs. On the other hand, the mono mix I find to be a bit too tinny.

I always figured the original CD release was one of those 80s/early-90s quick-and-dirty CD transfers from a poor source tape, but perhaps it's the best they've got. The Byrds' albums were remastered in the 90s and sound very very clean compared to the original 80s CD transfers, but I think they had the multitrack tapes available for that.

The mono mix of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn is worth getting if you like that album. If I recall correctly, it was done by Mr. Barrett and has some significant differences besides just not being stereo.

The difference is just astounding.

ooh, I know what's going on my Xmas list this year! thanks!

:) My very first acid trip was at my buddy Joe's dad's apartment and we listened to this (on vinyl) obsessively for eight hours. Good times.

I love this record. I think I have the same version you do, D.C.

I'm hijacking this thread for a minute as it's yours, BP, and you'd asked about Battle Royale.

Watched it. It was good, though not quite as good as I was expecting. I wasn't all !OMG!Violence! over it like all the reviews I've read are. Apparently people have forgotten Lord of the Flies and Series 7. Some of the plot holes irked me (near-infinite bullets, clothes not torn from bullet hits, pulling a gun from the couch that wasn't established in any earlier shot, wanted for murder? but they lived! what!?).
It was obvious that this was from a manga due to the cards in the film "Do you know what this means?" was one of them, although they annoyed me as it's like the writer was talking to the characters. I'm usually not fond of breaking the fourth wall (except for Woody Allen films, Ferris Bueller and a few others) as I usually end up not paying attention to the characters and trying to figure out exactly what the writer/director is doing this for and how it relates to any current statement in the film. Which is why Funny Games pissed me off - I'm smart enough to know the whys and wherefores of what I'm watching and don't have to be reminded of it, thanks.
So, the typical Japanese fountain-of-blood, and people taking ages to die after getting ripped apart by bullets left it firmly in the realm of fantasy, and at least it had a few underlying messages; friendship, sticking together through difficult times although showing that you're nice and stable enough to do that isn't good enough for a society that's trying to weed out the nasty element. Much better than, say, Saw in which people who are 'bad' get tortured to death. And that's it - the only message there is "better not get kidnapped by a psycho because it'll suck lots."
So. It wasn't spectacular, but a good film nonetheless.

Cool, thanks for the review!

I kind of agree with ya on the plot holes and stuff. I looked at the whole thing as a fable, which made some of the unrealistic aspects easier to accept.

(Spoilers follow, for those who haven't seen this movie and might want to.) My two favorite scenes, though, both managed to be very emotionally effective (to me, anyway) in spite of the stylized nature of the whole movie: one was the girl, as were passing out the backpacks and telling them to start running, who grabbed her friend and was crying, "I'm still your friend!" before heading out. That just gut-punched me for some reason.

Then the whole extended scene in the lighthouse, where they seemed temporarily secure and were all trusting each other, and then how quickly it went to hell and everybody suspected everyone else, after the one got poisoned. That scene was really chilling to me.