First album new edition on Rhino Handmade

Here is the correspondence I have been getting from Rhino customer service.

My original letter:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to voice my deep disappointment in the Stooges first album Handmade reissue that I recently purchased. I was very excited about the release and couldn't wait to crack it open and give it a listen. My extreme displeasure is with the "original john cale mixes" that are on disc one, tracks 10-17. They are extremely slow and making that portion of the set completely unlistenable. The thing that really kills me is that the incomplete collection of the same john cale mixes released by Rhino just 5 years ago does not suffer the same problem. My only hope is that when the replacement discs arrive for the "mislabelling and wrong colors used" will also have that problem rectified as well. I have never purchased a "Handmade" set and if this type of attention is given to mastering the discs at a slower speed is how well attention is given to the releases, I will not be buying another product. I feel that a mistake of this nature is absolutely unprofessional and should never have happened if the releases are given the care that the Rhino Handmade line professes to show their releases.

Thanks for selling me a set of two, or possibly 4, $50 (not including shipping) coasters.



Rhino's reply:

Thank you for contacting Rhino Customer Service.

Firstly, we apologize for the inconvenience caused. To assist you further with the replacement process for Disc No 1 from The Stooges Collectors Edition we request you to provide us the customer order number for the purchase.

Please include all previous replies when/if responding to this message.

Best Regards,
Rathna S. at Rhino.com Support



My reply:

Hello,

My customer order number was... Will you be sending me a replacement disc that has tracks 10-17 at the correct speed, or will they have the same problem as the originals? This isn't just an isolated problem, it is on ALL the discs. There is a Stooges message board that talks about the incorrect speed problem and everyone is seems to be waiting to see if the color and labeling replacement discs will have the incorrect speed problem addressed ( https://stoogesforum.forumotion.com/jesus-loves-the-stooges-f1/first-album-new-edition-on-rhino-handmade-t2180.htm ). I sincerely hope that this can be fixed, because it is really a beautifully done box set.

Thanks for your response.



Rhino's final response:

Thank you for contacting Rhino Customer Service.

We thank you for the information provided. We would like to inform you that we are aware of this concern, and the replacement disc that is going to be sent will play fine.

We have forwarded your concern to our Management team. Once we receive an update, we will get back to you.

Please include all previous replies when/if responding to this message.

Best Regards,
Rathna S. at Rhino.com Support



My final response to hammer home the point:

I really appreciate that you will be sending me a replacement disc that will play the tracks at the right speed. Thanks for all your help and I can't wait to get the disc and hear it the way it was meant to be heard.



So we'll see if they have fixed the speed issue. It also seemed that they are treating the issue as a non-issue if you don't complain about it. I'd put money on them sending a CD-R that has the tracks at the correct speed, if they indeed stand behind the mistake.

liam studebaker wrote:

So we'll see if they have fixed the speed issue. It also seemed that they are treating the issue as a non-issue if you don't complain about it. I'd put money on them sending a CD-R that has the tracks at the correct speed, if they indeed stand behind the mistake.

Thank-you for your efforts in contacting Rhino and showing us your correspondence. All I can think to say at this stage is that they do seem to be acknowledging the problem and it gives me hope that they will rectify the problem. We're all probably very annoyed with Rhino over this but I don't think we can assume that they will fail to respond to the problem adequately, just yet

Has anyone heard from Dr . Rhino?

My Rhino set finally arrived. It's a beautiful thing to behold - the packaging is far superior to the RP deluxe in my opinion. Very classy. I presume a similar funhouse wallet-stripper in the works, so they'll form a nice set.

Also I seem to have escaped paying extra duty (though perhaps I'll have to pay double when they send me the replacement discs!) so the PO aren't being consistent on this it would appear?

Ian

Wow... this might end up being a five-cd package?!
The two cd set with bonus:
One wrong-speed wrong label
One wrong label
One wrong speed

I love rhino but this is ridiculous. I wonder what the hell happened that day in quality control. Nobody bother to listen to the test pressings? No one check the artwork? Maybe the key phrase is "no one" since Warners fired so many people in the last few years.

I dreamt my copy of Stooges 1st Boxset. Arrived today (which is strange as there's no post on Sundays in the UK). The AK-47 Kalashnikov wielding postman turned up on the back of a Galapagos Tortoise dragging a house sized chainmail postbag behind it. He asked for another £1000 pounds in duties, payable by cheque only, which I suspected was for beer money but I eagerly got out my cheque only to find I couldn't remember how to sign my name. I put a cross and he seemed satisfied leaving me with my well packaged boxset. Prizing open the teacrate revealed the boxset encased in pre-stressed concrete. After spending what seemed like an an age using some sheet metal cutters that had been thoughtfully included I finally cracked open the concrete to find my mangled CDs inside, glissening in the morning sun. Long story short I managed to cram the second warped disk inside my heavy Swedish CD player to finally hear the Cale mixes. Despite the fact that they vari-speeded anything between 5% and 501% of the alleged original speed they sounded strange and wonderful – a reminder of Cale's apparent avant-garde folk-noise tendencies in the early 60s. Sweating, I woke up and immediately put on a Philips C90 cassette holding an original recording of Tori Amos playing LA Blues on an electrified thumbscrew that had been remixed by a hopeful Angie Bowie to emphasise the macrame disco poetics of the Stooges original.

I hope the Rhino boxset lives up to my dreams when it finally arrives in the next few months.

still not got mine here in the uk though i pre-ordered it.

project manager is john hughes his email is....

johnhughes@rhino.com

this email address is on the back of promo copies

I just got the following response from Rhino customer service:

Thank you for contacting Rhino.

We have received the update from our management team.

We are sorry to inform you that, we have no plans to correct these mixes on the replacement discs.


We regret your inconvenience.

Wack.

rubber legs wrote:

I just got the following response from Rhino customer service:

Thank you for contacting Rhino.

We have received the update from our management team.

We are sorry to inform you that, we have no plans to correct these mixes on the replacement discs.


We regret your inconvenience.

Wack.

Sounds like time to send a load of emails to John Hughes to let him know what we think. And we might as well cc in the Rhino Media Relations rep : jason.elzy@rhino.com

Wack indeed!

*********SPOILER ALERT******************************************
*********DONT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT YOUR COPY YET*********

Finally got the Cd box today. My observations.

1. The packaging is solid except for one thing – the booklet can fall out once you have removed the shrink-wrap. No slot for the booklet! Ok, a minor annoyance.

2. The Cale tracks sound so wrong that it's a wonder whether anyone at Rhino even bothered to listen to the master.

3. Disk 2 track 3 – 'I wanna be your dog (alt vocal)' cuts out before the end!!! Can someone please confirm this???

4. Why are the Cale tracks in a different order to the original release? If there's a reason I'd like to be told why.

5. No information about who mastered the new Cale mixes. Are the ones already released in 2005 from the same source?

All in all a shoddy exercise and with the Cale tracks being the wrong speed it feels like a waste of money. Even Asthma Attack doesn't save it. At this point it feels like there is nothing that justifies the cost of buying it over the 2005 CD.

gazatthebop wrote:

still not got mine here in the uk though i pre-ordered it.

project manager is john hughes his email is....

johnhughes@rhino.com

this email address is on the back of promo copies

He's not mentioned in the booklet and the email bounced. It says Mason Williams produced the reissue. I'm not sure that it will help but I wrote to dr.rhino instead.

Is it worth writing to the music press if Rhino fail to promise to make good?

I'm not sure if point 3 is a flaw, really; this is the longest version of "Dog" I've ever heard. They could have faded it out, but this way, we get a few seconds more of the guitar solo. I guess this is why we've never heard a full version; the tape runs out, this is all there is.

... but IF they have a complete version they're saving for the next reissue, they are bad!

still not got my copy.....

Triskell wrote:

I'm not sure if point 3 is a flaw, really; this is the longest version of "Dog" I've ever heard. They could have faded it out, but this way, we get a few seconds more of the guitar solo. I guess this is why we've never heard a full version; the tape runs out, this is all there is.

... but IF they have a complete version they're saving for the next reissue, they are bad!

I'd accept your explanation but there is five seconds of silence before the end of the CD track and when the next tracks starts. Sounds like a mistake even if it's not.

rubber legs wrote:

I just got the following response from Rhino customer service:

Thank you for contacting Rhino.

We have received the update from our management team.

We are sorry to inform you that, we have no plans to correct these mixes on the replacement discs.


We regret your inconvenience.

Wack.

All I can say is that if this is indeed the case, I will be pushing hard for a refund. There is absolutely no reason for a fuck up this big be made by a label owned by Warner Brothers. I can see it happening on a bootleg, but for this mistake to be made on an expanded set of another reissue that didn't have the same problem is incredibly sloppy.

Thats very strange, i wonder why they wont even make the correction, maybe there was no money left to correct it, but if theres a fault then it should be corrected, for posterity if nothing else, seems odd that they wont even look into it, maybe it didnt sell as well as they'd thought

or maybe they're doing a four CD super deluxe boxset with the contents of this release, funhouse remastered and unganos!

warner bros. has never given a shit about any thing. their sub-label of rhino handmade is no different. i am not surprised by this. it's so sad considering what people pay for multiple reissues of the band's material in the first place.

I'm sure someone will post a corrected version on a website to burn soon.

The least they should do is correct those, and make them available for download for free as loosless tracks on their site. If they don't, someone will and the pirate sites will get all the traffic not them.

Ever had the feeling you've been cheated?

57 quid(!) delivered to the UK and Cale tracks borderline unlistenable. It was sent in a jiffy bag, so the odd minor dint too. Grrr.

Funhouse/Unganos is going to have to come with a free foot massage or I'm hitting the torrent sites.

Now, go and complain at the Rhino site.

I wasn't expecting this kind of fuck-up from Rhino Handmade. Especially not after the great Funhouse Box set.

I bet they'll release Ungano's coupled with the exact previous reissue of Funhouse with the tracks playing at wrong speed, the songs in wrong order and with 3 second gaps between the live tracks. Of course the longest track will be divided into two sides and released as a 7" vinyl single.

Garageman wrote:

I wasn't expecting this kind of fuck-up from Rhino Handmade. Especially not after the great Funhouse Box set.

It has been eleven years - and one retail music industry collapse - since the Funhouse box

ggriffin wrote:

Garageman wrote:

I wasn't expecting this kind of fuck-up from Rhino Handmade. Especially not after the great Funhouse Box set.

It has been eleven years - and one retail music industry collapse - since the Funhouse box

True. Still, the downfall has been steep. I've ordered stuff from them fairly recently, and I've never been let down like this.

Thanks for the memories, Wino Handjob.

I just got this reply from Rhino when I asked them to explicitly state one way or another if the John Cale mixes would be corrected on the replacement discs:

Dear Mr. ______,

Thank you for contacting Rhino Customer Service.

We would like to inform you that the replacement discs that are going to be sent will not have any reasserting issues, and the John Cale mixes will play at the right speed.

There's no excuse for Rhino messing up.
However... I can't really say I miss the Cale mixes. The previously released ones were interesting in a historical sense, but not satisfying listening.
With all of the things that are appearing (including **Asthma Attack** for christ's sake), I can live without a Cale mix of We Will Fall that plays at the correct speed.

I'm still waiting for mine to arrive even though I preordered in April...Hmmmm maybe someone will correct the speed on the Cale tracks and post the whole thing on a torrent