After Larz from Chicagoland Radio and Media ran a piece on Tuesday about
the missing footage from the "Cornerstones Of Rock" DVD, as first profiled here
in Forgotten Hits (by way of several emails received from disgruntled PBS
contributors who felt that they had received less than they were expecting ...
or led to believe they should be expecting), he heard back from the COO of
WTTW.
You can get the full report here:
After seeing our initial olumn spotlighting emails from disappointed fans
who made hefty donations to the station in the hopes of getting commemorative
copies of the program they saw and more (in the way of bonus features) and prior
to going to print with his findings, Larz told us ...
Hi Kent:
This is a huge shame (and a bit of a sham). I will
certainly give this a write-up tomorrow. I will reach out to WTTW for comment in
the morning, although I doubt I'll hear anything. If I do hear something, my
hunch is that they will blame the musical omissions on licensing fees.
Regardless, WTTW screwed up, since I know there were a couple hours of
interviews recorded which they could have included as a bonus feature --
licensing cost free. The fact is, the company took the cheap way out and
screwed-over loyal viewers who donated large amounts of
money.Larz
And then, post-conversation (and explanation) ...
I talked with the COO of WTTW. He had a fairly
logical explanation.
In a nutshell:
- PBS can broadcast all the music they want without worrying about solidifying the rights.- When it came to the DVD / CD, they could not get confirmation of the rights to "Gloria."
In a nutshell:
- PBS can broadcast all the music they want without worrying about solidifying the rights.- When it came to the DVD / CD, they could not get confirmation of the rights to "Gloria."
-
"Louie Louie" was (and I'm quoting him) a "hot mess." The sound quality was
wrecked and they could not fix it.
- None
of this was on purpose. They had truly hoped to release the full broadcast on
DVD.
Personally, I think this should have been noted
on the packaging in fine print somewhere, but I'm guessing they hoped few would
notice. Based on the mail that you've received, obviously that wasn't the
case.
Larz
From the CRM website update:
Executives with WTTW-TV have responded.
There were a few reasons behind the changes with the
DVD and CD releases that were beyond WTTW-TV's control.
When airing the television special, PBS had a blanket
rights plan to broadcast music performances. In December when WTTW-TV began to
solicit donations for the to-be-created DVDs and CDs, they thought they would be
including every song from the "Cornerstones of Rock" special on the perks for
donors. However, when it came time to creating the discs, a question arose over
the rights to the song "Gloria." Rather than delaying the discs any longer or
risking a legal challenge, a decision was made to simply remove "Gloria" and any
mention of the song from the DVD and CD releases.
With "Louie Louie," the problem was with the audio quality. While it was fun for the TV broadcast and for those in the audience, the fact is that the impromptu jam on the garage rock classic did not have the sound quality that the rest of the evening's performances had. Attempts at bettering the sound quality were unsuccessful. Once again, a decision was made to simply remove the song from the DVD and CD release, instead of delivering a sub-par track.
"Get It On," the one hit from Chicago group Chase was included on the DVD, but not on the television airing, making it a bonus for those who donated to Chicago's PBS station for the perks.
With "Louie Louie," the problem was with the audio quality. While it was fun for the TV broadcast and for those in the audience, the fact is that the impromptu jam on the garage rock classic did not have the sound quality that the rest of the evening's performances had. Attempts at bettering the sound quality were unsuccessful. Once again, a decision was made to simply remove the song from the DVD and CD release, instead of delivering a sub-par track.
"Get It On," the one hit from Chicago group Chase was included on the DVD, but not on the television airing, making it a bonus for those who donated to Chicago's PBS station for the perks.
Already running late in getting the DVD's and CD's to
the public who had paid for them, my hunch is WTTW played it safe (and perhaps
jumped the gun just little bit), rather than waiting it out to see if the rights
to "Gloria" could be secured. (As stated several times here already, "Gloria"
is a KEY track to ANY profile of Garage Band Rock.)
Unfortunately, it's the
customers making donations who got cheated in this process. (Another track
missing from the DVD was Jim Peterik playing around with "Eye Of The Tiger" in
the dressing room ... I suppose maybe they weren't sure they could get the
rights to that one either?!?! Kinda hard to believe since Jim Peterik was one
of the organizers of the whole event.)
The REAL shame is that several entire performances of
songs performed by these artists that night were cut that COULD have been
included as "bonus footage" had somebody been a bit more creative on the editing
end of things. Brand new interviews could have been interwoven with vintage
television clips of all of the artists performing from back in the day. This
collection could have been SO much more than it is had just a little bit of
thought been put into the overall project. They had dozens and dozens of hours of additional footage that could have been culled together to turn this into a much more memorable (and fan-friendly) pieces ... they just chose not to use any of it. (Larz feels that some sort of disclaimer should be placed on the WTTW website warning fans interested in purchasing this set that it contains and "edited version" of the PBS concert special ... and he's probably right ... otherwise we're just going to continue to receive letters from disappointed fans who were expecting the whole show ... and then some.
That being said, it IS a GREAT concert video of our
Local Heroes, circa 2015.all of whom did a GREAT job of bringing back a key part
of our lives up on that stage that night. The importance of seeing them all
together again brought home that message so much stronger thanks to the recent
developments of '60's artists like Gary Loizzo, Jimy Sohns and Marty Grebb (who,
I'm told, was NOT asked to participate in the taping, despite a HUGE turn-out
for his own benefit concert earlier that same year.)
The tribute to Chase was excellent ... a truly smokin'
performance of a great seldom-heard classic. Despite being included in the end
credits during the original broadcast, this segment was NOT shown when
"Cornerstones Of Rock" first aired. As such it becomes the ONLY "bonus" feature
offered to the public who shelled out big bucks to preserve this special piece
of history ... and it comes at the expense of other footage previously aired as
part of the original broadcast that all of us were expecting to see.)
A word to the wise ... if you're a fan of this music and
these great artists, catch the show live at The Arcada Theatre on September 3rd,
before all of the tickets are gone. This has turned into a VERY hot, in-demand
series of shows ... all the more reason we feel it deserved a better fate when
being marketed as a keepsake to a very devoted audience. Hopefully each
group is allowed to expand their set a little bit to feature more than what had
to be edited down to fit the time restraints of a television
broadcast. (kk)
I did break down and watch one of my copies of the
Cornerstones dvd.
Basically what they did, from the edited televised
version, was delete the group Louie Louie finale and insert the Chase Tribute in
its place. I am now surprised they didn’t leave in the pledge drive breaks.
That’s it. It is still very well done, but a huge disappointment. I was really
looking forward to Sunshine Psalm, Up on the Roof and Sometimes Good Guys Don’t
Wear White. When that 45 came out most of the good bands in our area covered
Good Guys and not Dirty Water. Most people only listen to the “A” side, so if
you cover the “B” side everyone thinks it’s your original song. These three
songs, although performed that night, are nowhere on the DVD.
Robert Campbell
No, I think we've
already got all that we'll be getting. As I stated earlier, I would have LOVED
to have been able to purchase a 2-DVD set featuring the entire COMPLETE
performance as it aired on WTTW as well as a "bonus disc" featuring performances
trimmed for editing purposes along with interviews with these artists about what
it was like having all these hit records back in the day and how it feels now,
some fifty years later, to still see the loyal fans turn out for all these
shows. That, interspersed with original television footage from back in the day
and this could have been one hell of a package, marketable to fans outside the
Chicagoland area as well.
But at this point, I'm ready to put this one to
bed. We got what we're getting ... disappointing yet, but still a great show
that I know I'll watch many times again. Now I wanna see the whole thing live
... so Ron, put me down for two tickets to the September 3rd show at The Arcada
Theatre! (kk)
