Indeed I did spend alot of time compiling all that information from the site, although much of it did come from this site's discography, I just arranged it all and filled in alot of the pieces that were missing to make it look neat. I'm not sure if you noticed but it seems Buffett News copied alot of my discography into their pages where the text appearance even looks the same... Not like I'm upset about that because the copyright isn't mine, it's Buffett and the record co.s and anyone could really do that I guess, but it's obvious. If there were liner notes I didn't get around to typing out, they are missing on there too! But still Buffett World was the first too to scan all the packaging and I used alot of their scans as I was far from having the resources to do so at the time. Now I have a scanner as well as complete copies of all the albums, sans Down to Earth.

I'm certainly not giving up here but I'm just wondering where to go next. When I bring the site back up it's going to look different because while it serves it's purpose I think it looks outdated now. Believe me, I know all you guys are out there that really care about this and I am very thankful to have that. But those who wave the flag of indifference are quite the large crowd, and that includes the executives in the Universal and Buffett camps.

I was thinking You Had To Be There would be a perfect additon to Universal's Deluxe Edition line. They could augment it by raiding the tapes from the two source shows and expanding the album to two full CDs, plus the packaging would replicate nicely in that format, even a mini poster!

I was also toying with the notion of adding vinyl LP pressings to the petitioning, such as vinyl editons of Fruitcakes, Barometer Soup and Banana Wind etc... But that's probably really bizzare and getting ahead of things! But I think it would be cool.

Thanks for the update.

That doesn't surprise me at all about BuffettNews but it doesn't excuse Peckerhead Jim's behavior either.

As to "where to go from here", personally I'd just love to see the site back up so I'll have a place to direct folks that are interested in the possibility of reissues but I understand life has it's priorities so I'm sure you will get to it as time allows.

You have a good idea about the vinyl releases of later albums and it isn't bizarre at all. In case you haven't noticed there is a vinyl revival going on. It may be relatively minor at this point but it's proof positive that there are people out there that prefer their music on vinyl, not in the form of a digital download. The Drive-By Truckers have just released their entire catalog (save Alabama Ass Whuppin' and their newest, Brighter Than Creation's Dark) on vinyl. These are albums that have never been released on vinyl period so it shows there is a demand out there. There are also other artists that continue to release records on vinyl such as Tift Merritt, Ryan Adams, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Neil Young and many others. Elvis Costello even released his new album digitally and on vinyl with a compact disc version to follow at a later date.

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Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor
From "Cartoon Gold" by the Drive-By Truckers from the album Go-Go Boots

Not a surprise about buffettnews.com. He had taken the back images of the albums that I spent many hours scanning and piecing together and putting online and then put them in his discography section without nary a mention of BuffettWorld. It was obvious they were mine too because certain ones had ring wear and small imperfections that matched right up with mine .

Count me as one that is also appreciative of your hard work. If there is anything I can do to assist you please let me know.

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Follow me on Twitter! @joshdmartin

Not to beat an already dead horse but it's important to remember this is the same asshole that wouldn't allow anyone to make changes to the Buffett Wikipedia entry unless you were somehow affiliated with BuffettNews (at least that's how I remember it). I wouldn't wanna be around when karma finally catches up with him 'cause it ain't gonna be pretty.

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Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor
From "Cartoon Gold" by the Drive-By Truckers from the album Go-Go Boots

Yea, I found it sad that he would append things like "Copyright buffettnews, you must mention buffettnews as the source of this info" to some of the news posts there, but would then turn right around and steal someone else's stuff and pass it off as his own.

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Follow me on Twitter! @joshdmartin

I didn't see any album art on Buffettnews besides the front cover stock images that appear to be front Amazon.com. I used the scans from here but made sure I gave the credit and made sure I made my own contributions. It is worth saying in his defense that it does say at the bottom of the pages "liner notes courtesy of buffettremasters.com"... But still it was weird seeing it all there!

The webmaster there displayed arrogance to me when a thread mysterously disappeared and nobody knew why as far as the moderating team. I messaged him a nice thought out message asking what happened and he responded simply "I deleted it because it was way off topic!!" which to me has "I don't owe you an explanation" written all over it. And then I see all the notes on there.. heh...

It certainly dosen't help that all the moderators and most members there treat him like a god of some sort... When anyone really could just set some money aside for webspace and work on such a thing gradually in their spare time if you think about it. I never saw what was THAT great about buffettnews in the first place... Their message boards just happened to be the most busy for whatever reason... Just in the past year or so he started adding all the other pages and caught up to sites like Buffett World.

He took down the back images after I raised a little hell about it. Not sure how long they were there. That was several months ago though. I appreciate you crediting Buffett World on your site .

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Follow me on Twitter! @joshdmartin

Yeah, no problem. You were the one who scanned the majority of the album pieces and got the first (and only so far) flat images of all the artwork out there for all to see, which is essential for people to know what's missing. (But of course looking at the CD cases it's rather obvious that SOMETHING is missing, even if people have never seen the original art).

So he just had the back covers, not the gatefolds or inners up there?

Yea there is a lot of artwork missing out there in the new issued CD's of the old albums.

Correct. The gatefolds and inners would have been real obvious because those were too big for my scanner and I had to scan different sections and then piece them together in Photoshop. Because of that process you can see lines and color changes in some places where I joined the images.

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Follow me on Twitter! @joshdmartin

mmm, I see. Yeah, I have a scanner now that an album can just fit on width wise, but hangs out a bit at the bottom. It takes me four scans to aquire all the pieces I need for one LP pannel (which I believe is around 12"), and then I have to stich those together and hope the program likes me at the moment to make it look good!

I have no idea how to go about a gatefold yet and was always wondering how you did that!

I really wonder too how many people would buy something like a 180g, double LP copy of Fruitcakes?

And am I the only one who thinks the Boats, Beachs, Bars and Ballads box set is overrated? They could have put all those resources and attention into 12 + seperate CD reissues with remastering and all the artwork. I mean, they keep printing that 65 page booklet to this day (which is neat, don't get me wrong) and ignore the original art. I know what's on the set is great stuff, but look at what's not from '73-'89... Not exactly below par stuff either.

I don't know that the Buffett box is "overrated" but compared to box sets by other artists I feel like it definitely could have been more comprehensive. Yeah, there's some rare stuff on there but I was expecting some true rarities such 15 Year Old Girlfriend, hard to find soundtrack/compilation cuts, that sort of thing. Otherwise, it's not a bad place to start if you have no Buffett on CD. I still haven't purchased any of the pre-Off to See the Lizard albums on CD (other than Back to the Beach, Rancho Deluxe and the Down To Earth/High Cumberland Jubilee twofer). Maybe I should. Sure as shit the Buffett remasters would come out then.

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Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor
From "Cartoon Gold" by the Drive-By Truckers from the album Go-Go Boots

Not overrated per se, but I just never got all the hype about it. I for sure can enjoy it for what it is there and all the themes on it (bought it for the rarities of course), but so much is missing. Meet Me In Margaritaville picked up some of those pieces (Migration, Cowboy in the Jungle, Last Mango), but I still feel there are even more greats after that...

If I were a Buffett executive I would put the box set out of print, put remasters in and put those 8 rarities on their own collection with additional rare material, such as Drunkin Girlfriend, Train to Dixieland, Turning Around etc...

I don't really see any need to take the current box set out of print but I would be all for a newly updated one. Either that or reissues that include a second disc full of bonus tracks. I would also be all for an expanded edition of You Had To Be There.

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Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor
From "Cartoon Gold" by the Drive-By Truckers from the album Go-Go Boots

What did you think of Meet Me In Margaritaville?

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Follow me on Twitter! @joshdmartin

I think more of it than Songs You Know By Heart but I think that album has a bad rap because of the diehard "Parrothead" crowd. Funny, when most of them mention their first Buffett album, that's the one they list. The only thing I don't like about Meet Me In Margaritaville are some of the cover tunes and remakes that were tacked on just to help sell the album. I would have rather seen some more deep cuts (like Cowboy In the Jungle) added instead.

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Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor
From "Cartoon Gold" by the Drive-By Truckers from the album Go-Go Boots