The Doobie Brothers – What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits

Great reissue, sounds awesome. Very detailed, but it still manages to sound natural.
Of the Doobie Brothers releases done by MFSL, this is the best in my opinion.

Fun Album from a good time for rock. Good listening from start to end. Doobies at their best!

Fantastic sound quality. Black Water, Eyes of Silver and Another Park, Another Sunday have never sounded so good!

Mix of country soul R&B & boogie rock on a sonic palette of twin duelling guitars & drummers, dynamic harmonies, funky blasts from the Memphis Horns & the DB’s signature clean production.
Great fun rock n’ roll smokin’ weed kinda album.

I'd like to know what pressing this is if anyone knows.

Yes, this album is collectively "that strong." In fact, it's an astonishingly good album. Never heard it until today, and this one is a keeper. Also, the foidout poster is dope. Enjoy with a nice glass of scotch.

Contains the beautiful Balearic masterpiece that is Flying Cloud. Recommend buying two copies so that when spinning out on the beach at sunset you can roll the over and over.......

An album saved by a B-Side …

Though the album jacket featured a live concert scene, I can assure you that What Were Once Vices are Now Habits, was the fourth studio album from the Doobies.

While the songs “Another Park, Another Sunday” and “Eyes of Silver” were to be the first two hits drawn from the release, it didn’t take long for FM radio to dig a little deeper, discovering the B-side of “Another Park, Another Sunday, where the number “Black Water,” would inadvertently become the band’s first number one hit single. All in all, the album collectively is not that strong, but then the Doobies weren’t about making musical statements, they were about rock n’ roll, smokin’ a bit of weed and have a great deal of fun. This is borne out by the fact that the record is comprised nearly entirely of unfinished ideas, both individual and as a collective unit from other times and places. Those ideas were fleshed out in studio jam sessions, making it the most member integrated album they would ever release, with songs turning up by unexpected members.

The album does fly, a 70’s classic rock masterpiece from which Mobile Fidelity engineers sourced the original master tapes, reprocessing, cleaning up and re-vitalizing this album with clarity and brilliance, making it a sonic palette of faithful revision. Again, as on the other creations by Mobile Fidelity, one is immersed in the music, placed between the twin dueling guitars, the twin drumming, twin vocals, the expansive rhythm section that included those brassy ceiling lifting Memphis Horns and the dynamic harmonies that were signature to the Doobie Brothers, delivering a clean sound that is midrange, yet immediate, transparent and totally dynamic.

As to the band itself and their music, the Doobies stood at a strange crossroads, at a time when album oriented rock nearly defined FM radio, the Doobie Brothers were still very much a singles band. Vices & Habits more than anything encapsulated what so many loved about the Doobies pre-Michael McDonald, where the boys knocked back an accessible mix of country, soul, jazz, R&B and of course boogie rock. For this sort of mainstream band, a band who could never stand next to Pink Floyd, Steely Dan or Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors, the musicianship was far above par, varied and very strong. The music didn’t allow you to think, it inspired listeners to move and become part of the mix, where this mainstream rock band hit their stride with a gracious joy, and no one went home from a Doobie Brothers’ show without a mile wide smile on their upturned faces.

*** The Fun Facts: The album’s font had nothing to do with the art direction of the label, matter of fact, the attractive font was the new masthead of drummer John Hartman’s high school newspaper, which he co-opted.

As to the concert featured on the album jacket, that too was a real event, with the photo taken on the 4th of December 1973 at E.A. Diddle Arena in western Kentucky.

The Doobie Brothers began by accident when drummer John Hartman went to California in 1969, dead set on joining the 60’s cult band Moby Grape, but that never happened. What did happen was that Skip Spence (of Moby Grape) introduced John to Tom Johnston, where the two formed a concept called ‘Pud,’ and would eventually led to the Doobie Brothers.

Review by Jenell Kesler

It is too bad that the sound engineers weren't awake when they mastered all other issues of this album. The sound quality of the mass produced copies are very muddy. I finally found a Promotional copy that is so much better than the mass produced copies.

It is too bad that the sound engineers weren't awake when they mastered this album. The sound quality is very muddy. Don't waste your money on the mass produced copies. Get the Promo or 180 gram of this and you will be much happier.