Aerosmith – Access To Excess 1975 (Archive Master Series)

Access To Excess 1975 (Archive Master Series) 

Schaeffer Music Festival, Wollman Rink, Central Park, New York, NY – August 29, 1975 

(68:54) S.O.S. (Too Bad), Somebody, Dream On, Write Me, Walk This Way, Sweet Emotion, No More No More, Same Old Song And Dance, Toys In The Attic, Train Kept A Rollin’, Bonus tracks – KRQ Studios, Cincinnati, OH, 9/23/73 – One Way Street, Pandora’s Box, Mama Kin

Access To Excess from Archive Master Series collects two Aerosmith performances from early in the band’s career. The bulk of the disc is from the Schaeffer Music Festival in 1975 with filler from Cincinnati 1973.   

Aerosmith’s performance in Central Park 1975 was part of the Schaeffer Music Festival and was the source for a King Biscuit Flower Hour FM broadcast. This is probably the most booted show from this era and for good reason. It is no doubt the best sounding document to surface from the early years and comes before their performances were marred by the excesses of their lifestyle. The band delivers an incredible performance all around and are supporting their latest LP Toys In The Attic, released in April.

The many previous releases contained a variety of different selections from the performance and all issues to CD and vinyl were incomplete. The show first surfaced on the vinyl releases Look Homeward Angel (ZAP 7868 and its reissue on Fantasy Disco P7868) and Rock This Way (TKRWM 1812) and were all largely incomplete.

Early releases to CD include Sweet Emotions (Viva CCD 7520), Live Emotions (Main Events ME-CD 020) and disc two of Boston Stranglers (Beech Martin BM 021/022) which are more complete than the vinyl issues but were still missing “Walking The Dog”, “Big Ten Inch Record”, and “Train Kept A Rollin”.

From The Attic Of ’75 (Polar Bear PB-073) contains “Sweet Emotion”, “No More No More”, “Same Old Song And Dance”, and “Toys In The Attic” as bonus tracks and sounds rather lifeless. Last True Document (Polar Bear PB-109/110) has “S.O.S.”, “Somebody”, “Dream On”, “Write Me”, “Walk This Way”, “Train” with an edited drum solo, and “Toys” as bonus tracks and is listed from an unknown location. While it sounds better than the bonus tracks on From The Attic Of ’75 there is a slight echo added to the recording which causes some loss of detail.

Central Park ’75 Master (no label) was released in 2008 and appears to be sourced from Wolfgang’s Vault. It is complete for the first time adding “Walking The Dog” and “Big Ten Inch Record” and has the songs in the proper running order. The sound quality is much better and cleaner and is certainly an upgrade to all previous versions. 

Access To Excess was obviously not sourced from Wolfgang’s Vault or the no label Central Park ‘75 Master as it is missing the opening track “Walkin’ The Dog” and “Big Ten Inch Record”.

This more than likely comes from older sources and appears to collect the tracks from the two Polar Bear titles (including the edit in the drum solo in “Train”). In comparison the no label definitely sounds dryer with a more pronounced stereo separation while the Archive Master Series has the advantage of a nicer, fuller sounding low end. Both do sound excellent so it really comes down to one’s personal taste. 

The KRQ Studio tracks are also excellent quality and are the first time these have been released on silver CD. They are the same source found on Pandora’s Studios, a CDR on the Lost And Found label, credited to Counterpart Creative Studios from October 10, 1973.

The sound on Archive Master Series is much cleaner and is vastly superior in quality to the Lost And Found CDR. It would be great to hear the entire recording in this quality if the label were sitting on this. Early Aerosmith performances like this are unparalleled with the band being on top of their game. The back cover lists “Make It” and “Write Me” but aren’t on the disc. It is a shame since I was really looking forward to hearing these in this quality.

Access To Excess comes packaged in a bi-fold digipack with some cool era photos and a brief early history of the band up until 1980 on the inside. Overall this is a nice looking production that could have been much better if the entire Central Park show was present but most Aerosmith collectors will still want this one for the upgraded Cincinnati tracks.