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Although they never broke through in the U.S. like
the other British Invasion Bands, The Move were a pivotal
and important link in rock 'n' roll. The band ultimately
morphed (with the addition of former Idle Race singer/songwriter/gutarist
Jeff Lynne) into ELO with Wood leaving the ELO after a brief
power struggle over control of the group with Lynne. Lynne
had been recruited from Wood's old band Mike Sheridan and
The Nightriders which had changed its name to The Idle Race.
Lynne wrote the bulk of the material recorded by The Idle
Race turning down one opportunity to join The Move but when
Wood called a second time Lynne accepted his offer. Although
the Wood/Lynne version of The Move only lasted two albums
(and a handful of singles) it set the stage for ELO (interestingly,
the debut album by ELO was recorded BEFORE the final Move
album "Message to the Country"). ***
This set from Salvo packages some terrific rarities,
previously unreleased tracks and stereo remixes of key Move
tracks. I'm going to rate each disc, the packaging and booklet
separately. While this is far from a perfect set, it has
enough unusual material to make it essential for fans. ***
The sound quality for a modern CD master is good. It's
a bit loud at times. Some tracks suffered from post-production
compression more than others but the overall this is a fine
if far from definitive boxed set. I did notice a bit of
digital clipping on a couple of tracks but most folks probably
won't notice it. Overall, Salvo has done a pretty good job
on the remastering of these tracks. ***
Disc 1 opens with a bang--four previously unreleased
early radio performances from the band and one Roy Wood
song recorded before their first album was completed. The
last track is from the only known surviving acetate of the
song. All four sound quite good here and have been restored
for their presentation. We also get an alternate version
of "Night of Fear" and a longer version of "I Can Hear the
Grass Grow" as well as an early mix of "Fire Brigade" and
a handful of "enhanced stereo" tracks some of which sound
good while others are so-so. There are other alternate and
rough mixes of a variety of classic tracks by the band the
most notable of which is the acoustic version of "Flowers
in the Rain" with just Roy Wood and Carl Wayne. Overall,
disc 1 deserves 4 stars. ***
Disc 2 is the REAL keeper here. 5 stars for the "Live
at the Marquee" tracks that made up "Something Else". The
original lead vocals (which were replaced by overdubs in
many cases) plus unreleased performances from the recordings
done over two nights in 1968 are a gem. A total of 12 songs
but some of them are extended workouts (jams)of these classic
tunes. ***
Disc 3 includes far too many previously released tracks
but we do get the 1969 Filmore West performances of Todd
Rundgren's "Open My Eyes" and "I Can Hear the Grass Grow"
(we should have gotten the whole performance but I suspect
that will show up sooner than later if the tapes are still
in decent shape overall). We also get demos for "She's Too
Good For Me" called "Second Class" here(which eventually
showed up on Roy Wood's solo album "Boulders"). The only
other notable track is the piano version of "A Certain Something".
3 stars for the third disc seems fair. ***
Disc 4 has the Filmore East Performance previously
mentioned, the promo edit for "Brontosaurus", "Turkish Tram
Conductor Blues" in a rough mix, the U.S. single edits of
"Tonight" and "Do Ya" closing out with "The Duke of Edinburgh's
Lettuce" a joke tune by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood recorded
for "Looking On". Again, too many previously available tracks
are here for the hardcore fan but for the casual fan it
will give you a taste of the Roy Wood-Jeff Lynne Move. Curiously,
there's nothing from "Message to the Country" included here
(although there were some rarities that did show up on the
Peter Mew remastered edition of "Message to the Country")but,
perhaps, that's just as well since that is a terrific Move
album and should be owned by every move fan. I'd give the
4th disc three stars as well since almost everything on
this disc is available somewhere else. That said, the Lynne
era is woefully under represented but I suspect that there
were less in the way of alternate versions, demos, rough
mixes and also issues with licensing since EMI owns "Message
to the Country" and the singles that were also issued in
the same time frame. ***
The packaging--the book style packging is nice but the
holders for the CDs can scratch the CDs if you're not careful
(two of mine were scratched in a brand new set although
they still played fine). I like the concept just not the
execution. I feel that the design should have been closer
to that for the Faces Rhino boxed set. ---
Sound & Packaging: As mentioned previously these are
louder than the Westside boxed set released a decade ago
to coincide with the 30th Anniversary of the band with different
EQ choices for most of the songs included here. Occasionally
you'll notice that noise reduction has been used but it
has been used sparingly compared to many other sets/albums
I've heard. Luckily, the original masters were used in every
possible case to give listeners as much depth and clarity
for each track as possible. ***
The only negative side is that there are some new stereo
remixes included here for tracks that were never mixed for
stereo release and, in some cases, "enhanced" stereo, i.e.,
the old Capitol trick of putting each channel slightly out
of phase with each other to create a stereo effect. That's
unnecessary and should have been avoided focusing on the
purity of the original mono tracks instead. ***
The 70 plus page booklet is a terrific overview on the
band's career and is pretty honest about why members left.
It's well written and has terrific annotation for each track.
There are also postcards with promo photos of the original
line up included on them and a poster. ---
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