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Boston Wally Traugott Pressing

Aerobat

Aerobat

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I just picked up an orange label Epic pressing of Boston's first album. I was wondering if any of the deadwax experts can tell me about it?

Side one is stamped with AL 34188-2B
Side 2 has PBL-34188 1-E and Wly hand written, and MASTERED BY CAPITOL stamped.

I understand the ones with "Wly" on both sides are more desirable. Why is this?

Thanks :thmbsp:
 
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I can't help with the Wally bit because my copies of the first two Boston albums are Canadian pressings and don't have "wly" on either side even though they both say they were mastered by Wally Traugott on the covers.

I was in Toronto for business in 1978 and the second album was released the day I got there. The next day, I went into a record store and they had a deal where if you bought both the first and second albums together, they were $4.99 apiece marked down from $6.99 and $8.99 respectively. I hadn't bought the first one yet so...

My business was audio related too in that the company I worked for made 8-track stereo and quad decks for Ford Motor Company and the quad decks were put into radios in Toronto (actually the suburb of Don Mills). I was a technical rep. and went there if any problems cropped up. It really ended up being more schmoozing than anything else because the perceived problems were just differences in testing methods or tapes.

Those were the days when we could spend a few hundred dollars on a night out as long as we had Ford employees with us and the company didn't even need to see receipts for reimbursement. That was how much money we made on that arrangement.

So, there's my career-Boston connection. \:^)

Brad Delp (RIP) had one of the greatest voices ever in rock.

Doug
 
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The "Wly/Wly" pressings are more desirable to audiophiles due to Wally Traugott's superb mastering, but do not confuse "desirable" with "valuable." Epic/Columbia pressed millions of them in the '70s. I found my dead mint copy in a thrift store for a buck!

It looks like yours is a later '70s pressing. The stamper for side one had worn out (due to so many millions of records pressed), and had to be re-cut. That side was mastered by a different engineer at Capitol, not Wally. (Yes, Capitol sometimes did the mastering for other labels.)

I saw the original Boston line-up in concert (at Boston Garden) in November 1978, right after the second album came out. It was my first-ever concert (age 14), and the opening act was somebody named Sammy Hagar. I wonder whatever became of him?
 
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Doug G. said:
My business was audio related too in that the company I worked for made 8-track stereo and quad decks for Ford Motor Company and the quad decks were put into radios in Toronto (actually the suburb of Don Mills). I was a technical rep. and went there if any problems cropped up. It really ended up being more schmoozing than anything else because the perceived problems were just differences in testing methods or tapes.

Doug
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Funny, my Dad was a Ford/L/M man, and he had a Town Car in the 70s with a quad 8-track player. I remember listening to the demo tape with drums doing a circle around the interior :music:

Brad Delp had a great voice, what a sad story.
 
beatcomber said:
It looks like yours is a later '70s pressing. The stamper for side one had worn out (due to so many millions of records pressed), and had to be re-cut. That side was mastered by a different engineer at Capitol, not Wally. (Yes, Capitol sometimes did the mastering for other labels.)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'm playing it right now, and I'll have do some comparisons to the 180g Friday Music version.
 
Mastering is superior on the Wly copies. Hard to find in VG++ or better condition. This was a very popular lp :).
 
Tough to find 'round these parts except in beat up condition.

Not only was this LP popular, it was played lots.
 
I also found my VG++ "Wly" Boston-s/t lp at GW for $1.99. In fact i'd say at least 1/3rd of my vinyl collection came from local GW's/antique malls/thrifts.
 
Friday Music sounds lacking, the Mastersound likewise. The Wally or wly and "Mastered By Capitol" is the version to have. Best sounding you can find. Not rare, millions were pressed. And often findable for $5 or even cheaper in NM. My VG Plus cover, NM record with Wally on both sides cost me the staggering sum of $.50.
 
A have a NM promo Wally of "Don't Look Back" but have yet to find a really clean first album. I'm very picky.
 
I found mine for $3. I also have a non-WLY orange-label that I paid the same amount for. In the last year I've come across three or four WLY pressings in the used bins for $3-6, but I've left them for someone else, of course.
 
Here's a funny Boston story...

Back in 1978, when I was in 8th grade in Marblehead, MA, some kid in my class was telling us a BS story about how he was friends with Tom Scholz. According to this kid, Scholz was from Swampscott (the town next to us), which isn't true (he's from Ohio and lived in Watertown). At this time, the world was eagerly awaiting the second Boston album. The kid made up a story explaining the delay, telling us that the album had been done and completed, and then Scholz' basement flooded, ruining the tapes and forcing them to re-record the whole thing. Of course, that doesn't explain how the tapes were ruined but the recording gear and instruments were spared!
 
Aerobat said:
Funny, my Dad was a Ford/L/M man, and he had a Town Car in the 70s with a quad 8-track player. I remember listening to the demo tape with drums doing a circle around the interior :music:

Brad Delp had a great voice, what a sad story.
Click to expand...

Yup, your dad's Town Car would have had one of our decks in it since we were the exclusive supplier throughout the seventies.

In about 1979, Panasonic tried to win the bid and submitted some sample decks. It was well constructed but had way more screws than necessary. For instance, there were about 8 screws holding the tape head/track switching cam bracket to the chassis and ours had three tab/slots and one screw.

Ford didn't like all the screws since that could be a reliability issue. We again won the bid.

Ford wanted us to design a cassette deck when it was obvious 8-tracks were to be supplanted by them.

The automotive engineers began to design one and even sent a sample down to Rochester for our evaluation but then never followed through with a completed design or production plans. Very stupid management.

Anyway back to Boston. On the release date of the second album, I arrived in Toronto and a local FM station played the new album in its entirety. My coworker and I listened to it in a local watering hole (he also happened to be the brother of a childhood girlfriend of mine) and John proceeded to show off how he could drink a lot of those Canadian litre bottles of Molson.

I, of course, showed better PRaT. :D

The next day, John had to go back to the hotel room to recover after being at work for about an hour. After work, I drove to the record shop that had the special deal on the first two albums.

Doug
 
Yea, I remember the Penn State radio station playing the first album straight through shortly after it was released.
 
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