Dire Straits Album: “Twisting by the Pool”

This disc is a 5 inch "CDV",with audio tracks playable on any CD player,and a video clip playable on machines for the now-defunct "Laserdisc" format.Be advised,that with the exception of the CDV included with the first pressing of David Bowie's "Sound + Vision" box,that all five inch CDV's ever released in the U.S.A.,UK or Europe were pressed by Philips-DuPont Optical(PDO) in Blackburn,England,and the discs have a high rate of rotting away to unplayabilty(two-thirds of the discs rot),because,in their early days,the PDO pressing plant used silver(instead of the more typical aluminum) as a reflective layer,and PDO sealed the edges of their discs less than perfectly.As a PDO spokesman later said,"As any housewife will tell you,silver tarnishes".I urge the seller of the disc to test it on a Laserdisc machine to see if it still plays normally.The rotting will eventually affect the audio-only tracks as well.The video clip is available elsewhere(on the Canada DVD "Dire Straits-Sultans of Swing,the best of"),though admittedly,this is the only CD format release for 2 of the 3 audio tracks.Caution is advised.

It was the right product, at the right time and the price was OK. Quality was OK, and now I have my Dire Straits complete. Thanks!

OK, somehow I lucked out. The version I have of "Twisting by the Pool" doesn't have disc rot. It sounds perfect and the video looks pretty good as well (although admittedly I haven't watched it in a couple of months). The point here is that this really needs to be reissued with the entire EP including the missing track from the original EP. Why Warner issued this with the live version of "If I Had You" (which is available on "Alchemy")instead of "Badges, Posters, Stickers and T-Shirts" is beyond me. Sound quality is extremely good considering that this was issued in the early days of CD (1987).

Here's an idea--contact Rhino since they are a division of what remains of Warner Music and suggest that they do a limited edition reissue of this release along with any previously unreleased live material from the same time frame to support this and "Love Over Gold" as a limited edition 2 CD set. Fans will be happy and Rhino might even sell out of this title.