Update

[gr8gonzo]

Well, the live album is about 50% finished and sounding jolly good I must say considering it's my first attempt at a live album. There's about 1 hour 45 of material -

Intro
Hyperventilate
The Forget You Song
Falling Down
EIMA
Black Light Machine
Milliontown
Saline
No Me No You
Snowman
The Other Me
Pocket Sun
Wonderland
Dear Dead Days

Obviously only so much of this will fit on a CD so there'll be a limited edition CD for sale at the Dream Theater gigs much like we did with Spock's last year that will have the tracks that don't get on the main live album plus hopefully a couple of other goodies if there's time.

The main CD will also have a 45 minute Frost report on an accompanying DVD. There'll also be 4, possibly 5 extra Frost B-sides like The Forget You Song, 1976, New World and so on and will be available from Inside Out and all the usual places.

So all in all, it should be a properly Frosty summer!

Night all.

Let's not forget, people, this is technically a NON-Frost* year, so split your joviality with somberness.  

[EVP]

Yeah you can bet if there are any extra copies leftover, I'll be on that one ASAP.
I missed the show, I don't wanna missed the CD!

[ChrisX]

How about InsideOut making a package that has the proposed 1 cd live album + Frost Report dvd but has a space where you can store the additional EP (sounds more like a full cd if you ask me). When you buy the InsideOut release there should be a leaflet of some sorts in there that says you can order the EP directly from the band. And when you buy the EP at the gigs there should be a message that the rest of the package can be bought in / ordered from any decent recordstore (brick-and-mortar or online)

This would mean that:
a) the band can sell more of those ep's instead of just selling them to those who go the DT gigs and us nuts here on the board.
b) people would be directed to the bands online store and maybe pick up some more merchandise.
c) the ep advertises the existince of the Frost live album + dvd to those who buy the ep at the gigs

[Dave M]

Yeaaahhhh ... great news, Wonderland and BLM sound great on yourspace.

... Andys double bass drum roll is missing from the end of the JM solo    .. one of my personal high points of the song, but I'll live  

[gr8gonzo]

Nick wasn't trying to duplicate the album versions and I wouldn't have expected nor wanted him to, but if you saw him play you'd know the man played the hell out of that whole set.  Most impressive.

I'd be another one to want a 2CD fROSt*FEST set, but you just can't ever tell how enthusiastic a record label will be about such a thing.  One can only hope.

[Cynthia's Mallet]

Super - I love walking out of gig with a CD under my arm - roll on Southampton!

[ChrisX]

... Andys double bass drum roll is missing from the end of the JM solo    .. one of my personal high points of the song, but I'll live  

Same for me... that is just such a killer moment... I possible I always airdrum it when I play this song  :oops:

[xelerad]

That's great news!

And the packaging ChrisX suggested seems an optimal way of generating more sales and spread the Frostiness* even more.

Can't wait for all this music to be available. An the reports, ¡oh, the reports! 2008 wouldn't have been the same without Frost* Reports, for me.

[Trapezium Artist]

Nick wasn't trying to duplicate the album versions and I wouldn't have expected nor wanted him to, but if you saw him play you'd know the man played the hell out of that whole set.  Most impressive.

I'd be another one to want a 2CD fROSt*FEST set, but you just can't ever tell how enthusiastic a record label will be about such a thing.  One can only hope.

With some of the ideas floating around, it's not entirely obvious to me that a record label need be involved at all. For a live CD+DVD, I'd be absolutely fine with a high-bitrate MP3/AAC/FLAC download without associated physical media / packaging.

Although I freely admit that it lies way outside my domain of expertise. I'd have to think that that it might be possible to sell such a thing for real money without involving a label, or if a label is a sine qua non in music selling, at least without having them get their knickers in a twist about the investment involved in making physical copies.

For example, take the estimable Boomkat, a very interesting UK-based independent music website, who have an excellent download system for 320kbps MP3s and lossless FLACs at reasonable prices, including things not otherwise available on physical media. While not perhaps a perfect match genre-wise, there may be other similar options. (I admit I don't know about the DVD side of things; trickier given the total data volumes, I'd imagine).

(Actually, in passing, I thoroughly recommend browsing Boomkat if you're into ambient and other eclectic music: I bought Peter Broderick's "Float" from them recently and have a whole list of other things I intend to get in download form).

But again, even though I have read much of what Robert Fripp has written about such things, I know little about it in reality and would be happy to learn more about what's possible and what's not.

In the end though, I'll buy the RosFest stuff however Jem sees fit to release it, so the idea of "market forces" is a little redundant here ...  

[ChrisX]

With some of the ideas floating around, it's not entirely obvious to me that a record label need be involved at all. For a live CD+DVD, I'd be absolutely fine with a high-bitrate MP3/AAC/FLAC download without associated physical media / packaging.

The minute Frost goes all download they will lose at least one customer: me. If music would go all download, which I very much don't think it will, I might actually start buying vinyl again. And that has seen some kind of a resurgence in the past few years.

[Trapezium Artist]

With some of the ideas floating around, it's not entirely obvious to me that a record label need be involved at all. For a live CD+DVD, I'd be absolutely fine with a high-bitrate MP3/AAC/FLAC download without associated physical media / packaging.

The minute Frost goes all download they will lose at least one customer: me. If music would go all download, which I very much don't think it will, I might actually start buying vinyl again. And that has seen some kind of a resurgence in the past few years.

Well, I half agree with you, but I don't see it in quite such an absolutist way. What are your concerns exactly? Crappy sound delivered by compressed digital files, the lack of a physical backup, or the lack of associated physical packaging (pictures etc.)?

I would have thought (naively perhaps with respect to music, but with a strong background in image and signal processing) that lossless formats such as FLAC and Apple Lossless might render the first issue (relatively) moot. Of course, since you've raised vinyl as an alternative, you may be more broadly concerned that even lossless digital sound is (relatively) poor, but despite owning many LPs from when I was a student (pre-CD days  :shock: ), they're simply not an option in my two-kids-at-home, iPod-around-the-world life.

On the physical packaging side, I can sympathise: I like owning the real things, testified by my >500 CDs, and there's always a slight hesitation when I buy music purely digitally (as I just did), thinking I should have the physical disc too. But I find I listen to more when I buy things digitally and get instant gratification to boot. I generally burn a CD copy for backup purposes though.

All said and done though, I would say that in this case we're "only" talking about a live album (sorry, Jem   ), where the production will be inevitably somewhat compromised (albeit in very exciting ways) by the very nature of a live performance. In that regard, I'd say it's not such a big deal to own it just digitally lossless or even at 320kbps (but 96kbps ripped from MySpace certainly doesn't cut it). YMMV.

[Pajter]

You make some valid points Trapezium Artist.

[ChrisX]

Well, I half agree with you, but I don't see it in quite such an absolutist way. What are your concerns exactly? Crappy sound delivered by compressed digital files, the lack of a physical backup, or the lack of associated physical packaging (pictures etc.)?.

I know FLAC or any other lossless format sound good enough for my ears so sound is not an issue.

What I sense, and this might be a personal issue, is that I value a physical product much more, have a much higher regard for it. A digital folder with some music files just doesn't cut it IMHO. I grow attached to albums that I love and sometimes (and this might seem weird to some of you) I like looking at my cd's and I remember that I bought the Jellyfish album 'Spilt Milk' in this great little recordshop in Baltimore or that I was so lucky to find a copy of no-man's Lovesighs - An Entertainment ep (cd) in a basement recordshop in Soho.

It's the difference between having a very nice framed lithograph hanging on your wall or having the same image as your desktop image on your computer.

[weezul]

excellent! see you in Leeds!

[Trapezium Artist]

Well, I half agree with you, but I don't see it in quite such an absolutist way. What are your concerns exactly? Crappy sound delivered by compressed digital files, the lack of a physical backup, or the lack of associated physical packaging (pictures etc.)?.

I know FLAC or any other lossless format sound good enough for my ears so sound is not an issue.

What I sense, and this might be a personal issue, is that I value a physical product much more, have a much higher regard for it. A digital folder with some music files just doesn't cut it IMHO. I grow attached to albums that I love and sometimes (and this might seem weird to some of you) I like looking at my cd's and I remember that I bought the Jellyfish album 'Spilt Milk' in this great little recordshop in Baltimore or that I was so lucky to find a copy of no-man's Lovesighs - An Entertainment ep (cd) in a basement recordshop in Soho.

It's the difference between having a very nice framed lithograph hanging on your wall or having the same image as your desktop image on your computer.

No, I completely agree that it's nice to have the physical object to look at and, err, feel. All of those LPs I referred to were immediately swaddled in dust jackets and the paper inner sleeves replaced with higher quality plastic lined ones before the albums were even played. That's how anal retentive I was back then ...   And there's no way of emulating my yellow vinyl YMO LP or the translucent dark red of my original copy of Going For The One (anyone else have one of those?)

But I guess I've long since been less in love with CDs, in part because of the crappy design of jewel cases which crack or break as soon as you sneeze at them, in part because CDs and the booklets are too small, and more recently in part because I can copy the music off onto my iPod at pretty decent fidelity and put the discs into storage (in principle; in practice, they sit in my lounge in their Ikea shelf units staring at me balefully, almost reproachfully, since they rarely get taken out once ripped   )

Speaking of great little recordshops in Baltimore, do you mean The Sound Garden on Thames St down on Fell's Point near the harbour? Great place; I bought Joanna Newsom's "Ys" (as a CD!  :lol: ) there last year on a business trip ...