I met up with Brian May yesterday. As always he was a gentleman and took his time to talk.... I was after a couple of autographs so I brought along the pink stormtroopers 7" and the US release of KYA 40th annniversary. When I presented them to him, he said "oh what are these?", I thought this is odd and proceded to explain they are the 2011 anniversary releases. He took the US KYA and said "this is the first one of these I've seen", he then slowly examined the front and back cover. He was also intergued with the track listing of the stormtroopers release..!
As Brian is a collector of his own material I assumed he'd have already been sent a copy of these for his collection.
Anyway it's great I've got the first BM signed copy of KYA.... 2011 ;-)
Brian and Roger signed my copy of No One But You 7" Picture Disc for me back in 2003.
They both commented to each other "how nice they ended up".
It was like they hadn't ever seen the finished article. They had a quick chat with each other about how they remembered signing off the artwork.
I guess so much stuff gets released they don't keep track of it. Makes sense.
It's just a shame they don't take more care in the important releases where sound quality is important.
I was listening to an interview the other day with Dale Crover of the Melvins. I didn't really know who they were, but they've been around for ages and have a significant enough loyal following apparently. They're credited with being major influences for Nirvana and others. Anyway, the Dale person who was the drummer was struggling and failing to indentify songs the interviewer was playing by his own band and on which he was drumming. He sounded perfectly together, his explanation was "I just really don't listen to our music that much". So not knowing the finer points of releases doesn't seem too bad compared to that. We probably think far more and on some levels even know far more about Queen music and it's attendant details than Brian and Roger do.
I've read several sources that say back in '75, Roger was only band member who knew the KYA US re-issue was happening (which, if you followed the earlier threads, was what the Long Lost Re-take was recorded for, before it was dropped for reasons unknown in favour of putting out the US Edit of the standard version again).
More recently, Brian mentioned once when he and his crew found the multi-tracks of "God Save The Save," someone produced a copy of the KYA 1975 US re-issue 7" single, Brian saw it on the mixing desk and hand't known it existed. I imagine whoever brought it in did so to compare the version on the single to the multi-tracks, since the single had a unique mix on it.
My guess is that, as mentioned above, so much is going on around the band, first back when they were recording and touring a lot and now when there are other projects on the go, that their direct involvement in anything other than new material and big projects varies. That's why they have a staff who sign off on the different worldwide releases. If they micromanaged on that level, they'd never get anything else done, like producing or recording.
The same thing happened to me when he signed my copy of Starfleet. Well it wasn't exactly the same. He was getting into his Lexus when I approached from the sidewalk, calling out "Brian! Please, a signature if you will??". He stopped what he was doing and came to look at what I was holding, grudgingly. After starting his signature (he got as far as BR-) he clutched the album cover in his hands and said in a bewildered tone, "Where did you get this??".
After explaining that I'd had it for a number of years, he nodded slowly. Looking nervously up and down the road, he pinched the thing off me and grunted "I'll be needing this. Sorry". With that he leapt into his Lexus and sped down the street.
I still couldn't figure out what the hell Kerry Ellis was doing, in her underwear, splayed over the back seat of his car.