"Carpenters: An Illustrated Discography": New Book by Randy Schmidt

OK, @goodjeans @GDB2LV @Song4uman @Rick-An Ordinary Fool @Don Malcolm @Carl . . . and everybody interested in posters:

I was able to find a place to do bulk posters for a reasonable price. They will be 18" x 24" in size (which is slightly smaller than the window posters you saw in the pic I poster because these do not have the gold-colored border).

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The cost will be $20 plus $4 shipping in the U.S. and $15 for International. You can find it listed alongside the book in the bookstore at randylschmidt.com or you can go directly to the poster at this link:

18 x 24 POSTER - CARPENTERS: AN ILLUSTRATED DISCOGRAPHY

Thanks,
Randy
 
OK! Just adding my voice I've had the book for a month now, and I love it. I am one of the ones who loves listening to the live shows, and I would be so happy if I could hear the show represented on page 15. I really want to hear a live version of 'Another Song'. It is my Holy Grail.

Plus, I just might need that poster too!

My fave photo of Karen is the b & w one from the Horizon session just behind Randy's signature in the front of the book. My favorite album cover.
 
Okay Randy. All bought and paid for through the link you sent. I’m looking forward to receiving the poster when you get them. Any estimate of expected ship date? Maybe August 30th 2019 to coincide with the vinyl RPO.......?
 
Okay Randy. All bought and paid for through the link you sent. I’m looking forward to receiving the poster when you get them. Any estimate of expected ship date? Maybe August 30th 2019 to coincide with the vinyl RPO.......?

I should know more in the next week. I think it shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks in total. You will receive an email when the poster ships!

Randy
 
. I was able to find a place to do bulk posters for a reasonable price. They will be 18" x 24" in size (which is slightly smaller than the window posters you saw in the pic I poster because these do not have the gold-colored border).

1104735030.jpg


The cost will be $20 plus $4 shipping in the U.S. and $15 for International. You can find it listed alongside the book in the bookstore at randylschmidt.com or you can go directly to the poster at this link:

18 x 24 POSTER - CARPENTERS: AN ILLUSTRATED DISCOGRAPHY

Thanks,
Randy
Thanks for making the poster available, Randy. Also, congrats for pulling off the mammoth task of assembling all those people for your book, and for the great outcome!
 
An Interview with Randy July 18, 2019.
Here:https://www.albumism.com/interviews...carpenters-legacy-with-author-randy-l-schmidt

Excerpt:
Q: Out of all the Carpenters albums you cover in this project, which one do you think will benefit from
Carpenters: An Illustrated Discography most?
A:
Schmidt: Let me think on that…
"The first one that pops into my mind is Karen’s (eponymous) solo album (from 1980). Hopefully these discussions within the book will send people back—like I said—to listen to this record with new ears. There are some diehard Carpenters fans that cannot stand the album or act like it’s a musical stepchild or something. I think it’s so good in so many ways, even if it’s not meant to be the ultimate Karen Carpenter solo album.
It’s a springboard for what could have been, she could have gone in so many directions after that. I do feel that it’s overlooked."
 
An Interview with Randy July 18, 2019.
Here:https://www.albumism.com/interviews...carpenters-legacy-with-author-randy-l-schmidt

Excerpt:
Q: Out of all the Carpenters albums you cover in this project, which one do you think will benefit from
Carpenters: An Illustrated Discography most?
A:
Schmidt: Let me think on that…
"The first one that pops into my mind is Karen’s (eponymous) solo album (from 1980). Hopefully these discussions within the book will send people back—like I said—to listen to this record with new ears. There are some diehard Carpenters fans that cannot stand the album or act like it’s a musical stepchild or something. I think it’s so good in so many ways, even if it’s not meant to be the ultimate Karen Carpenter solo album.
It’s a springboard for what could have been, she could have gone in so many directions after that. I do feel that it’s overlooked."

"It’s a springboard for what could have been, she could have gone in so many directions after that."

So True!
 
My poster just arrived this morning 7/29. It’s very well packaged. It took a staple puller, flat head screwdriver and pliers to remove the staples on the tube cap. lol. It’s a beautiful petite wall poster that can fit most anywhere you have a small space to grace, with this awesome picture of our favorite duo. Thanks again Randy.
 
My poster also arrive today. I agree above ^ had to get my toolbox out to get the cap off lol
It's very beautiful, looks better in person.
There's flash on this pic and it's from an old iPhone 6 so not the best camera. It also started to curl a bit at the top.

Thanks again Randy for making this available..now can you get over here and sign it before I frame it. LOL

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Now that many of us have or have seen Randy's book, why would you recommend it to someone else? Is it just for die-hard Carpenters fans?
Share your favorite moments in the book. Does this tie up loose ends for you?
 
Liking all the photos in this fabulous book. Especially, page 81 lower right. Karen looking slightly PO'd. I find it a very sexy photo of her - My God, was she beautiful! There, I said it!!


Yes, I like that photo too. Maybe the photographer was in dire need of an angry Karen look and said something mean to her on purpose. Then he must have got this great photo. It's from 1976, so she must have been dead exhausted with her everlasting tour on the road. In between shows, she must have been busy taking a nap to recover from her accumulated fatigue too.

That photo is particularly interesting in contrast with the one showing her dazzling, oh so adorable picture of her just over it. And Richard's smiling, perhaps because of the silly give-and-take between the photographer and Karen.
 
I got a copy of this Carpenters: An Illustrated Discography on June 30, 2019. It must have been much later than the typical dates you guys in the United States would have received your copies.

I'm from Japan, and Amazon Japan had said it could deliver the book only one week behind Amazon America's delivery date, and at a far higher price (about 42 dollars at the time), too.

I had also checked it with Amazon America, and I found that it proposed to make sure I would get a copy at a far lower price (about 29 dollars). With shipping (which cost about 9.3 dollars or so), however, I had to pay a total of about 38.3 dollars.

Even with shipping which I had to pay extra, however, I managed to get my copy about four dollars cheaper from Amazon America than from Amazon Japan, and maybe one week earlier than from Amazon Japan, too.

In any case, Japan is far away from the US. It's at the edge of the other corner of the earth from you, so to speak. So, getting any book from there takes a lot of money and a long time. (But things are far better than until, say, 30 years ago. Books from the West were three times as expensive in those days, when I was young, because perhaps of very high export charges and shipping and importers and exporters having to write letters to one another, and so on.) What's more, customers from Japan are rejected by many online secondhand book sellers, probably because of its long distance. So, as a customer from Japan, I usually have to settle with book sale offers on the rather expensive side. Sigh.

Not only that, books from the West are not designed for the climate in Japan. The climate there is far drier than in Japan, which is hot and extremely humid. Books from the West therefore absorb a lot of moisture if not contained in a glass-paned, hermetically enclosed bookcase. So, as a collector of numerous books from the West, I have to own many such bookcases (nine of them currently), all of which are very expensive for me.

But I hope they will pay off some day, if I diligently read them and become very versed in Western languages and cultures.

In any case, I read through this Randy book once. And every time any question arises, I resort to the book and enjoy it. Although the experts' comments look a bit short at a glance, they're all very rich in substance and deserve to be read over and over again and to be savored. Of course they do, huh? After all, every one of the panelists in the book is a professional in music or other form of art who has been absolutey crazy about Carpenters, savoring their music for the past several decades.

Not only the comments in the book but the photos are just stunning! If anyone publishes a collection of Carpenters photos that is, say, 1,000 pages long, then I don't think I would mind paying even 100 or 200 dollars a copy. Carpenters certainly deserve such treatment.
 
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By the way, the discussion participants in Carpenters: An Illustrated Discography are all very enthusiastic about Carpenters, so much so that one of them even seems to be a bit harsh. Mr. Matt Wallace is the harshest one, at least on page 90. But I don't mind his intense tone because his hard-liner attitude is evidence that he's really, really serious about his own profession and about Carpenters.
 
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