WHAT A TEMPER!

THE SNOW FALLS TO MUSIC

2012-02-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

What a pleasant surprise to return from the snowy north only to be blessed with more of it here at home. The TV and radio were blasting the news of the approaching storm on Wednesday, repeated more loudly on Thursday, its arrival forecast for Friday. So rather than deal with the snow packed roads and bad drivers, we took work with us and reviewed documents and responded to emails from home on Friday.

The snow began Thursday evening and did not let up until Saturday morning. A total of about 16 inches fell around the house. Late Friday afternoon I put on my ski gear and went for a hike through the woods behind the house, enjoying the quiet beauty of the snow covered landscape. I did manage to take the climbing skins off to make a few turns before putting them back on to continue my journey. Saturday was spent clearing the driveway enough to allow the vehicles to make it to the street, as well as shoveling a few other critical areas. Then it was back down into the basement to print off 5 block prints of Mt. Hope near Leadville. Sunday lounging around the house, with a break sledding on a nearby hill with my kids. Fun time. Some people dread the snow but I always welcome it.

Friday night started off with Cold Play performing at Austin City Limits in Texas on December 9, 2005. Great recording of an excellent sow with their best songs at the time on the set list. Michael Stipe joined the band for two songs; R.E.M.’s “Nightswimming” and Joseph Arthur’s “In The Sun“. What a beautiful performance to listen to while standing in the falling snow!

Someone in attendance at the show said:

Seeing Coldplay in the cozy confines of Studio 6-A was an incredible experience. I saw the band from a mile away at ACL Fest this summer and came away disappointed, but this time it proved impossible not to feed off Chris Martin and company's hyperkinetic energy.

Most of the set list was unsurprising, drawing heavily from X&Y ("Speed of Sound," "Talk," "Kingdom Come") but featuring a few earlier hits as well ("Yellow," "In My Place"). But there was one surprise — about a half-hour into the set, Coldplay brought Michael Stipe onto the stage to cover Joseph Arthur's "In the Sun" and REM's own "Nightswimming."

The music was good, but the banter was even better. Martin interacted with the 400 or so audience members between just about every song. He took special interest in a couple 10- and 11-year-old boys standing up front, dispensing advice for pre-adolescents, handing them lyrics sheets and occasionally self-censoring his cursing. He also jokingly called out a clearly embarrassed young man watching the band with arms crossed.

Read more: http://blogcritics.org/music/article/concert-review-coldplay-delivers-in-austin/#ixzz1lfBgDP8L

Download it here:
http://bootlegtunzworld.blogspot.com/2008/04/coldplay-live-at-austin-city-limits_1334.html

Next up was Nirvana's Unplugged, a live album that features an acoustic performance taped at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993 for the television series MTV Unplugged. The album is chock full of original songs and covers, all played in a mellow acoustic style (hence the name "Unplugged"). When Nirvana's Unplugged was released it topped out the Billboard 200 at # 1, as well as topping the charts in a ton of other countries. It sold over 300,000 copies in the first week, which was Nirvana's best first-week ever. It is widely respected and known as one of Nirvana's greatest accomplishments -- and it survives as a final gift and sentimental reminder of how great Nirvana was, being released after Kurt Cobain's suicide and the break-up of the band.

In Wikipedia it says:

Reviewer David Browne noted that listening to the music in light of Cobain's death was "unsettling"; Browne added, "Beyond inducing a sense of loss for Cobain himself, Unplugged elicits a feeling of musical loss, too: The delicacy and intimacy of these acoustic rearrangements hint at where Nirvana (or at least Cobain, who was said to be frustrated with the limitations of the band) could have gone."

Go out and buy the CD or DVD.

I ended the night by watching the Clint Eastwood movie (stars in and directs) "Unforgiven," the one and only western I actually own the DVD for. No clear lines drawn in this Western, where good and evil are intertwined. Rent it and enjoy.

Only one concert Saturday night, Echo and the Bunnymen, a show I recorded in San Francisco at the Warfield Theater on May 19, 2011. It is one of the best shows I taped, a fantastic recording of a great performance, Ian in top form and feeling very good about the city, the audience and the evening. Over two hours of pure joy! Read it here: http://whatatemper.blogspot.com/2011/05/bunnymen-play-san-francisco.html

Sorry its a Megauplaod link and I have yet to find a suitable substitute to post the music to for all to access.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC IN THE TETONS

2012-02-02T19:36:00.022-07:00

The long awaited week had arrived, the "mancation" to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Four of us flew in from Denver, one from Berkley, CA and another from Portland, OR. One day skiing the steep, leg burning runs at Jackson Hole mountain, three days skiing into and around the Baldy Knoll yurt on the backside of the Teton Range, half a day skiing Grand Targhee and another half day at Jackson Hole. What a blast! Our timing was perfect because about six feet of new snow had fallen in the week before our arrival, ensuring we'd have excellent snow wherever we went. The back country skiing near Baldy Knoll yurt was pure untracked powder, carving smooth turns down slopes and in and out of the trees. The consensus was we'd do something similar next year.

The three photos above were taken by professional photographer Jerry Patterson. Find others at :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wrtrekker/4032974227/in/photostream/

Millionaire Romney
Not concerned about the poor
Or the middle class

Lower your eyelids
Peace awaits in the darkness
To die with the sun

Many thanks Mark and Rick for the use of your photos!

Naturally, being in such a beautiful place is an invitation for some tequila, a cigar and good music while dancing in the evenings darkness under the stars! The first night in the yurt was celebrated with Morphine opening up the show, Bootleg Detroit, their only live authorized release from St. Andrew's Hall In Detroit, MI on March 7, 1994.

"Recorded live by an audience member during Morphine's 1994 tour, Bootleg Detroit is a fitting live album for a band that personified lo-fi indie rock. What's more lo-fi than two-string slide bass, baritone sax, and drums, and what more fitting method to make a live album than have someone in the crowd taping it?"

"At about forty minutes in length, the performance is much too short, but that's partly why Bootleg Detroit succeeds. Morphine's performance is taut, intense, and laid-back smooth all at once, and it's so enjoyable you can't believe it when it's over. Billy Conway's drumming propels the band at a better, quicker pace than the studio versions of the songs, Dana Colley's sax playing is brilliant as usual, but the real star, of course, is the late Mark Sandman. His delivery of his Beat-inspired poetic lyrics and especially his dry, cool between-song banter sets the mood, from the opening strains of 'Come Along', through the band's intense reworkings of 'Thursday' and 'Buena'. As an added treat, there are two high-quality cd-rom video tracks from 1995 that are great as well, 'Cure For Pain', and 'The Saddest Song'."

Download it here:
http://www.sakalli.info/morphine-bootleg-detroit-1994-192/

Morphine was followed by a little heroin, or at least Nirvana's live performance at Selina's in the Coogee Bay Hotel in Sydney on February 6, 1992.

The Nirvana Bootography Review says:

This is a great disc. The sound appears to have come from an open digital microphone. It's a very clear stereo recording.... It's a little overdriven and the crowd can be heard, but it doesn't interfere. Bass feedback interferes with Smells Like Teen Spirit, most likely because of sensitive microphones.

Kurt isn't very talkative, but the band still plays a great set with plenty of energy. An early "All Apologies" and Lounge Act are the highlights. Overall this CD contains a solid recording of a good performance. Like many Japanese bootlegs, this one is lacking in the artwork department and doesn't have a picture on the back of the cover. This disc will make most collectors happy.

After this show ended I had to quietly sneak back inside the yurt and climb up over someone else to get to my bunk. I'm surprised I did not create a ruckus considering my state of mind.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?wmjwatznmym

The second night began with another flaming sunset, an excellent dinner and then when everyone was thinking of going to sleep I snuck outside to listen to over two hours of music, dancing in the snow. The show was opened by the Pretenders, a live performance at the Universal Amphitheater on Los Angeles on March 7, 1984, shortly after their third album Learning To Crawl was released. An excellent sound board recording full of energy. Chrissie Hynde sounded just as good in 2009 as this 1984 recording, when I last saw them play here in Denver.

Download it here:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/PnUYUtp

Monday night at the yurt came to an end with Echo and the Bunnymen doing their show at the Rockpalast in Bochum, Germany on March 5, 1983. An excellent recording from the height of their musical career, performing many of the classic songs that make it onto their setlist even today.

Download it here:
OOPS! A deleted Megaupload file!

AMERICA BATTLES THE PIRATES

2012-01-22T20:03:00.002-07:00

"The US government dropped a nuclear bomb on "cyberlocker" site Megaupload today, seizing its domain names, grabbing $50 million in assets, and getting New Zealand police to arrest four of the site's key employees, including enigmatic founder Kim Dotcom. In a 72-page indictment unsealed in a Virginia federal court, prosecutors charged that the site earned more than $175 million since its founding in 2005, most of it based on copyright infringement."

"Then again, Megaupload's meteoric piracy blaze and Dotcom's obese materialism had been rolling for years. Why yesterday? We asked the DoJ's IP Task Force, and they haven't responded (yet). But CNET's Molly Wood has a conspiratorial-sounding theory that makes a hell of a lot of sense—and explains why that itch had grown so strong. It all came down to SOPA:

My sources tell me the timing of the Megaupload arrests was no accident. The federal government, they say, was spoiling for a fight after the apparent defeat of SOPA/PIPA and not a little humiliation at the hands of the Web. And what better way to bolster the cause for cyber-crackdown than by pointing to a massive display of cyber-terrorism at the hands of everyone's favorite Internet boogeyman: Anonymous?"

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet was a cosponser of S.968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act. Recent events suggest he had a change of heart, as he said in a email to me:

"The PROTECT IP Act received unanimous support from the Senate Judiciary Committee. It now awaits consideration by the full Senate. I initially cosponsored S.968 after noting the support of business groups such as Microsoft and the National Association of Manufacturers, worker organizations such as the AFL-CIO, and law enforcement organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Police. But upon hearing the legitimate and understandable concerns of Coloradans that this legislation could have unintended consequences — such as chilling Internet commerce, potentially leading to excessive litigation and running the risk of causing unexpected logistical problems online — I determined that the wisest course of action was to push the Senate to pull back, return t o the drawing board, reconvene stakeholders and start afresh."

I replied back to him:

"Thank you for the reply. The recent incident involving Megaupload proves my point and emphasizes the flaw of your proposed legislation. Instead of working with Megaupload to remove the offending, protected copyrighted material, you've taken down the whole site, including all my personal items that I've uploaded to Megaupload. As a consequence of your sledgehammer strike, I've lost everything that I've been sharing with friends and family. And that's how your legislation will work: destroy something for the purpose of serving someone else's interests, regardless of the collateral damage. That's like a person going to the doctor for a splinter in their finger, only to leave in a coffin with the doctor exclaiming "Cured!" You have good intentions but we now see how your Frankenstein creation will be used to terrorize the countryside in the name securing someone's profit. Shame on you."

Late Friday night I stand outside the truck with a stiff wind blowing. First up was Nirvana, performing live at the Estadio José Amalfitani in Buenos Aires, Argentina on October 30, 1992. This is what Michael Azerrad who wrote "Come As You Are, The Story of Nirvana" said about this show:

On October 3, four years to the day after Kurt first smashed a guitar at a modest dorm party at Evergreen State college, the band played a nearly sold-out show at the fifty-thousand-seat Velez Sarsfield Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They had hardly practiced, their enthusiasm was low, and they played badly. They had done it for the money and it showed. They vowed never to make the same mistake again.

Part of the agreement was that Nirvana could choose their opening act. They went with Calamity Jane, a virtually unknown all-female band from Portland, Oregon. The overwhelmingly male crowd hated them, From a seat in the highest tier at the far end of the stadium, Kurt watched in disgust as within a minute’s time, virtually the entire crowd was chanting “Puta madre!” at the band and throwing lighters, beer cans, dirt clods, coins and whatever else they could find onto the stage. “It was the largest display of sexism I’ve ever seen at once,” Kurt says.

Chris knew what Kurt was going to do and tried to calm him down. But Kurt was determined to sabotage the show. The first thing they played was an improvised jam, which deteriorated into a fifteen minute feedback fest from Kurt, with brief breaks when he would stop to glare at the crowd. Between songs, Kurt would tease the crowd by beginning to play “Teen Spirit” and then stopping. After a perfunctory set, they played a definitive version of “Endless, Nameless. “ It was so intense, “ Kurt says. “There was so much emotion in it and feedback was coming out of my guitar just perfectly. I was manipulating it better than I ever had. It was really a great experience. It was really fun.” They never did play “Teen Spirit.”

A great recording and the story behind it made it even more enjoyable. It was clear they were having fun on stage messing with the audience. Other things to note about this recording: for the first verse of "Come As You Are," Kurt just said "hey" over and over instead of singing the words; during "Polly," Dave played a toy drum kit; after "Polly," a fairly long, bass-driven jam was played.

This time like water
Summers flow by in the stream
To be washed away

A nation chooses
White haired old men with vision
Looking to the past

Tasked with a mission
His heart overrules the mind
That he can't complete

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ntywonyjjtv
http://www.mediafire.com/?e2zlkljz3zv

Late this same night I listened to Echo and the Bunnymen perform an excellent show at the London Royal Albert Hall on July 17, 1983, a second audience version of the show. At their peak in terms of performance while they were still rising in their career as artists.

I made it back into the house well after midnight. I always wonder when the neighbors are going to call the county sheriff on me.

Download it here:
SORRY! The megaupload link is dead!

Saturday night, a very mild winter evening, was spent with Public Image Limited, their show at the Brooklyn Zoo in New York on January 29, 1983. The audience seemed to be at a fever pitch and even though it was in the winter, John Lydon complained several times about the fact there was no air conditioning. Towards the end of the show he asked the audience to take a couple steps backward, calling in the bouncers, delaying the end of the show until they complied. Very good recording with a different set list.

Download it here:
SORRY! The megaupload link is dead!

FUGAZI RULES

2012-01-17T19:06:00.051-07:00

A short week, Friday arrives and I go see Jack at his bookstore/gallery/coffee shop, Mutiny Now! to say hello and find out what's happening in the neighborhood. Although I vowed to reduce unnecessary spending in 2012, I fell in love with his latest piece of art, hung up on the wall only a day earlier. As I finished paying and I was attempting to figure out how I would carry the painting back to the office on bicycle, he got a phone call telling him the time had come to put their aged dog Pinky to sleep. Saddened by the news, he locked up the store and departed.

More pictures from last weekend, including a shot of the only real "skiing" I did the whole time at the cabin.

Out there all alone
A place where no one listens
Stands against the world

Late Friday starts off with the second of three nights Fugazi performed at Irving Plaza, on April 4, 1995. "Fugazi have been around since 1988, currently on hiatus, and they rock. They have a very cool attitude to the business of music, sticking to their indie label when majors came-a-courting, as they felt they were selling enough albums without having money to promote them, and also treat their fans with great respect. They've always tried to keep tickets prices at a reasonable cost, $5 in the US, and have a no 'slam-dance' policy, a relic from the punk/hardcore days, 'cos these people just get in the way of an enjoyable gig."

Send them to invade
Armed boys in camouflage
Shoot at the shadows

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?378h41zyw3hq9fk

Canned speeches promise
Claim to be the masters, at
Not telling the truth

The first show up Saturday night was Nirvana on November 26, 1989 at Bloom in Mezzago, Italy. After "School," Chad had problems with the snare drum, prompting Krist and Kurt to improvise a jam and then jam on Led Zeppelin's "Dazed And Confused" with some vocals by Krist. "Ah, guess the snare drum broke." "I'm gonna fix it!" Another great show in a small venue before an Italian audience. "Por favor espanol?"

Their lying exposed
People who have grown tired
The party's over

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?nzmnynuumnt

Think like an arrow

They see light in the darkness

Kamikaze dreams

Here's Fugazi again, the third night at Irving Plaza back on April 5, 1995. Another superb recording and performance by the band. I ran across a poster of the bands performance at the Ogden Theater here in Denver. I must have been asleep in 1995.

On April 8, 1995 the New York Times wrote:

With integrity as important to alternative-rock as heartbreak is to country music, Fugazi should be king. The hard-core rock band, which grew out of the ashes of the influential Washington, D.C., band Minor Threat, sells concert tickets for no more than $5 (a third of what bands of their stature usually charge), refuses to make videos, declines to sell T-shirts and other merchandise at its performances, has not signed with a major record label, sells its self-pressed CD's for less than $9 and performs only at all-ages shows. At its sold-out performances at Irving Plaza on Tuesday and Wednesday, the band showed that even with a punk revival in full swing, it isn't afraid to chastise the fans to their faces ("Sir, do us a favor and don't roll on people's heads," the singer and guitarist Ian MacKaye said to one crowd-surfer on Tuesday) or to break down the boundaries of hard core.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?u6ley5k9aq3c4nd

Public Image Limited at the Coachella Music Festival on April 16, 2010. I was there in the crowd. After a fabulous show by Echo and the Bunnymen, followed by Vampire Weekend, I was blown away when John Lydon and his band were the last guys to take the stage that evening and upped the ante with their hypnotic performance.

This is an excellent audience recording from another source. See my earlier post of this concert, along with my recording of the event:
http://whatatemper.blogspot.com/2010/04/time-to-take-your-pil.html

I still get a thrill from this recording when at the very start of the show he calls out "Turn up the volume Walter!"

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dtqxjyyme5m

"Hey Ho Let's Go" Monday night with a cigar after dark. This bootleg was recorded at the Palladium in New York City on January 7, 1978 and has amazing sound quality. Originally recorded for a King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show and taken from a decent stereo board mix, this set chronicles The Ramones at their peak before an adoring home audience. The group had just returned from a triumphant European tour during which It's Alive had been recorded at the Rainbow Theatre on New Year's Eve just a week before. Tommy Ramone is the drummer on this recording. He left the band soon afterwards, although he continued to work with them as a producer and manager. This is his last album as the Ramones' drummer.
Here's a comment left by someone on another site that was offering the recording for sale:

Blazing through twenty-three cuts in under an hour, Live, January 7, 1978 at The Palladium, NYC documents The Ramones at the peak of their powers. Ask me who the greatest Rock and Roll band that ever took the stage, eight days of the week I’ll tell you it was The Ramones. Their peak as a live act - the late seventies through to the mid-eighties - scale heights most bands are not able to dream of reaching. This album is so penetrating it rips a hole through my skull every time. It’s similar to the It's Alive LP, recorded a week previous - excluding ‘Judy is a Punk’, the set list is identical – but the performance may be a tad more intense. I know, that doesn’t sound possible…

The Ramones are probably the most definitive Rock and Roll band the world will ever have the pleasure of knowing. So enjoy. This is all we have left.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?gb2w56hqdy63rwc

GETTING HIGH WITH FRANCES

2012-01-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

The first of several hut trips had arrived, this one being to Francie's Cabin just south of the ski town of Breckenridge. This trip set two records for me. The first was how easy the ski into the hut was, two miles and only an 800 foot climb. The second was how little snow there was, especially considering it was early January. This time last year we did Vance's hut during which the snow was coming down daily, the powder measured in feet. This time there was enough snow on the trail to get us up but very little in the way of being skiable without threat of hitting rocks. The majority of people seen up around the hut were either on snowshoes or simply walking in hiking boots.

Our party, including myself, consisted of 8 people, sharing the cabin with a slightly larger group of other visitors. No matter what the snow conditions are, hanging out with a fun group of people in such a scenic location beats any day down here in Denver. I had a great time. Watched the sunset from the flank of Peak 10 the first day. On the second day a group of us climbed up to the saddle below Peak 10, traveling mostly on foot across the brown grassy meadows and patches of snow. Very windy up on top, a quick lunch followed by taking a different route back to ski what appeared to be the best snow patch on the mountainside. A crusty sun baked and wind scoured snow patch yielded a few turns and falls. About a half inch of fresh snow fell over night, making for a smooth exit back to the parking lot Saturday morning.

The next ski trip happens in less than three weeks.

As always, nights were spent listening to music after most people head upstairs to bed, leaving me on the deck outside with headphones, cigar and flask of tequila. After a couple hours standing outside, the night's chill finally works its way through the several layers of clothing. The lightweight sleeping bag near the wood stove is all I need for a decent nights sleep.

Thought he gave it all
Things we're told mean happiness
Everything but love

Last rays of sunlight
Snatched by cold peaks of gray stone
Feel the sudden chill

Jets streak overhead
Its sunlit contrail curling
Hear the low rumble

Bull's angry red eye
Hunters shield up in defense
His happy dog jumps

Dirty politicians
Campaign words for votes to take
Lies they can't escape

Wednesday night was spent with the Sex Pistols, their show at the Brixton Academy in London on November 10, 2007. This was the same place I saw the Bunnymen a little over a year ago.

"Notorious punk legends the Sex Pistols are reuniting again, this time to play a solitary gig at London's Brixton Academy on November 8 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their incendiary debut album, Never Mind The Bollocks. While there may be whispers of discontent in Buckingham Palace and a smattering of irate Daily Mail readers may be moved to boot in their television screens in protest, the predominant reaction will no doubt be rapture as hordes of once spiky-haired but now bald old men dig out their bondage trousers for one last time."

Read it all here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2007/sep/18/memotothesexpistolsgetof

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zphsmidz2yw

Thursday night started off with Television doing a show at the Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles, CA on April 5, 1997.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O53RAEQ2

Television was followed by Echo and the Bunnymen performing their matinee show at the Stratford Royal Shakespeare Theater on October 23, 1983, and excellent recording.

The Ocean Rain entry in Wikipedia says:

Echo and the Bunnymen were booked to headline a two-week youth festival at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on the evening of 23 October 1983. Due to a high demand for tickets a matinee performance was added. The matinee concert at Stratford-upon-Avon saw the live debut of "The Killing Moon", "Seven Seas" and "Silver". With representatives from the band's record company and lead singer Ian McCulloch's mother in the audience, the performance was nervous and uncertain; although the evening performance, without the record company representatives and McCulloch's mother, was much improved.

Friday night was spent dancing in the snow with Nirvana, their show at the North Shore Surf Club in Olympia, WA on October 11, 1990, a good audience recording, if you disregard the two boobs, Alex and Byron, talking and making a number of disparaging remarks about the band during much of the recording.

After a succession of many Nirvana drummers, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic finally lured David Grohl to join the band in 1990. This was the first show with Dave Grohl on drums.

The power went out multiple times toward the beginning of the show, causing the band to stop playing in the middle of "Molly's Lips" and "D-7," without finishing either song. It also caused them to stop in the middle of "Blew," but they finished the song when the power came back on.

Download it here:
https://rs59l35.rapidshare.com/#!download|59l3|18401645|North_Shore_Surf_Club__Olympia__WA__US__10-11-91___Dave_Grohl_s_First_Show_.rar|72861|R~0|0|0

Saturday night back at home I listened to my recording of Echo and the Bunnymen up on stage at the O2 Academy in Liverpool on December 18, 2009. I'm really surprised at how good an audience recording it is, being only one row away from the barricade before the stage. At times I can hear myself straining against the pushing crowd, knowing what I had to do just to maintain my position in the face of very physical members of the audience. I certainly relived the moment as I stood in the cold outside, eyes closed, lost in the music.

See all the pictures here:
http://whatatemper.blogspot.com/2009/12/liverpool-second-show.html

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

2012-01-07T17:46:00.001-07:00

Did a little skiing earlier in the week, Loveland and the snow field and old ski area at St. Mary's. There is a sever lack of snow in the mountains and we are all praying for more to come in the next month before the Jackson Hole/Teton's trip. Gale force winds swept down off the Continental Divide at St. Mary's, ice crystals stinging the face. Got away without putting a few more deep gouges in the bottom of the skis.

White sheets on the bed
Antiseptic in the air
Beeping says there's life

Becoming a shadow
Remembers back to the start
Weep that we must part

Clouds before his eyes
White clad nurse like an angel
Comes to set him free

The dearest of friends
Loved our short time together
Handshake says goodbye

All the false alarms
Saved from what appears the brink
This time its over

Their campaign slogans
Give us what we want to hear
Serve up paradise

New Years Eve at home. The early part of the evening was spent outside listening to music, only to come inside and find Cold Play performing a live set on Austin City Limits on the television. Chris Martin counted down the arrival of the new year. Then it was onto fireworks outside and then more time in front of the television watching a new ski movie with superb photography I recently acquired.

THEM CROOKED VULTURES

What was special about this show was that Dave Grohl helped the band by playing the drums for this live performance at the Hoedern Pavilion in Sydney, Australia on January 26, 2010, an FM broadcast recording. This gig in Sydney was part of the extensive touring the trio did around the release of their excellent first album.

Download it here:

http://www.fileserve.com/file/JNf7cPZ/themcroo10fl.rar

IAN McCULLOCH

Ian at his best on NY Spin acoustic on January 5, 2009.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QSCO69CD

PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED

Public Image Limited at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Holland on May 28, 1986.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?5ahzmuuwfuw

COLD PLAY

Having enjoyed their New Years Eve performance, I was looking for more from them, choosing to listen to their live performance at the Glastonbury Festival on June 25, 2005, this being an excellent sounding recording.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?j0b5k12tabc6a20

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN

EATB perform an excellent show at the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim in Benicassim, Spain on July 21, 2001. Ian's voice still sounds beautiful!

Download it here:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/b319b4e/n/EcThBu.2006-07-21.Benicassim.rar

Continuing on the Irving Plaza NYC theme, I pulled up U2's excellent performance at this music venue on December 5, 2000.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?g435czmiazx

AMY WINEHOUSE

The holiday weekend was closed with my listening to Amy from atop the roof on the house as I watched the sunset, the lawn chair perched on the crest of the roof.

Download it here:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/tEvERVk/AMWINEHMod_Club_Theatre,_Toronto,_12_May_2007FL.rar

CHRISTMAS WITH THE BUNNYMEN

2011-12-26T20:08:00.003-07:00

Christmas 2011. Something was missing this year, waiting for the spirit to arrive. But it never did. One year anniversary of the death of John. Conflict. Money woes. A year of perpetual, bitter campaigning ahead. I tried to find the silver ling but all I saw were the dark storm clouds. This has to be the year of real New Years resolutions. But on the bright side, Van Halen announced they are going to release a new album in February and go on tour in 2012!

I had time Friday night for only one show, Green Day performing at Irving Plaza in NYC on September 21, 2004. An excellent soundboard recording of a show with a great setlist. This was "Irving Plaza" weekend, with all shows taped from that particular theater. I had plenty of good shows to choose from, limited primarily by available time.

Raised with such vision
Monuments rise in the sky
Crumble in the wind

Walking on the clouds
Weighed down by normality
Lost in the mooing herd

He's always fighting
Alone with the fire burning
So worn down inside

Download it here:
www.megaupload.com/es/?d=ZJSZT3SD

An unusual selection for me but I do admire the work of "The Man In Black," the iconic American singer-songwriter who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Johnny Cash opened up the show for me this Christmas Eve evening under a cold, star lit sky with his performance at Irving Plaza on September 7, 1996. Another excellent soundboard recording that got me pumped for this evenings headliner.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CSKSMU4M

I spent two nights with Echo and the Bunnymen in May of 2010 when they performed at Irving Plaza. Tonight's show was my excellent recording of that night on May 1, 2010 my last time with John before he passed away suddenly seven months later. Listening to it for the first time since that night brought back memories of that wonderful experience. Christmas Day arrived before it was all over.

Find all the pictures from that night here:
http://whatatemper.blogspot.com/2010/05/bunnymen-bounce-through-new-york.html

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4KZSFD8A

BIG BALLS AND BACK IN LIVERPOOL

2011-12-19T21:46:00.001-07:00

The holidays are upon us and this was the week of parties at the office. It's turning into an annual tradition for us to go bowling for at least one of those parties. For this special occasion Jack Jensen introduced me to a screen print artist who made a handful of T-shirts with an image I designed of all the team members, done in Shepard Fairey style, reminiscent of the famed 2008 Obama presidential campaign poster. What was great is that the 10th frame of the very last game I got three strikes in a row, achieving the XXX that our team was named after. Pure luck!

This weekend Echo and the Bunnymen were playing the O2 Academy in Liverpool, this time without me. I had neither the time nor money to make this particular journey, and perhaps a good thing because the reviews of the two shows suggested Mac was not having a good weekend, behaved badly to the disappointment of his fans. I guess I lucked out. As a consolation prize I picked up tickets to see Ian perform two nights in Chicago. I have yet to commit by making all other necessary travel arrangements.

Mr. Gorbachev
Tear down this wall and build it
In Arizona

New faces in town
Mocha brown, black and yellow
Start building the wall

They cross the border
Travel from a distant land
Joseph and Mary

Blame them for coming
To satisfy our demand
For Walmart prices

Jesus says a prayer
Mourns for other peoples loss
All their gods are dead

Friday night started off with an excellent recording of Echo and the Bunnymen performing a show on November 18, 1980 in Paris, probably a radio broadcast based on the fact some Frenchman spoke between most of the songs. Ian sounds so good back in the day!

Download it here:
http://theultimatebootlegexperience2.blogspot.com/2010/09/echo-and-bunnymen-1980-11-18-paris_9948.html

The headlining act of the evening were the Sex Pistols performing at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan on November 16, 1996. This was part of the Filthy Lucre Tour, the 1996 reunion tour of the pioneering British Punk rock band Sex Pistols. The 78-date world tour lasted for almost six months.

Considering the language barrier, Uncle Johnny was not very talkative with the audience, most of his effort spent trying to coax more enthusiasm from the crowd, at one time calling them "Fucking limp dicks" when the response was less than adequate. A great show, what I presume is a soundboard recording.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XJWO9NPL

Saturday night started off with Fugazi performing a show at Irving Plaza in NYC on April 3, 1995, the first night of a three night run at this theater. Excellent soundboard recording. Ian Mackaye once again cautions the audience about getting too crazy, under threat of setting up the barricades in front of the stage. He goes into his experience meeting a ticket scalper before the show, a big wad of tickets being sold above their original asking price. Lots of banter with the audience. Loved the show!

Download the show here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zt4s5mm2njatli7

It was Saturday night, December 17th so what better way to spent the night celebrating the fact the Bunnymen were performing across an ocean in Liverpool than by playing their December 17, 2009 show I recorded at the O2 Academy? An excellent recording if I don't say so myself! I was stoked for this occasion and danced outside in the frigid night air until midnight. Listening to the recording brought back memories of the evening, the people I met on that trip and the after party where Will DJ'ed at a club across town.. See the pictures here:

http://whatatemper.blogspot.com/2009/12/liverpool-first-show.html

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=E8X8J30K

FROM 1984 STRAIGHT TO 1990

2011-12-11T18:03:00.001-07:00

With Christmas approaching, the time has come to get serious about preparing for the holiday. The focus this weekend was getting the hand printed Christmas cards ready for mailing early next week: writing, trimming and creating custom envelopes. I also began the process of designing the next block print which I hope to commence carving next weekend. These tend to be bigger and often better than the Christmas print.

This Friday night I was in the mood for old favorites, wanting a couple from 1984 when these two bands were in their prime. First up was Public Image Limited doing a live show at the Pier Hotel in Melbourne, Australia on December 20, 1984. Johnny complains again about the spitting. After yet another encore, the band returns to the stage to close the show with a fast and loud rendition of the Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the UK." A very good audience recording.

So filled with anger
Fearful of all the changes
Their lost white power

Uncompromising
The righteous firmly believe
Taking us all down

Download it here, a gift from Pilhead:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YYYDEO7V

What followed next was Echo and The Bunnymen performing in New Orleans on the SS President Riverboat on August 28, 1984, a very good to excellent audience recording of this show in a most unusual location.

Download it here, a gift from Steve:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/mXf5WdC/EATB280884.zip

A couple weeks ago I heard a story on National Public Radio, an interview with Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye. "Joey started to travel with us as a sound man," MacKaye says. "He just started to record the shows out of habit. We didn't really plan on recording all the shows, but after we had 50 or 75 or 100, it seemed like, 'Well, we might as well keep doing

"We were trying to figure out how to get all this music out there," MacKaye says. Now that technology has caught up with Fugazi, the band has done just that: Fifteen years of shows will be made available to buy off the Internet, warts and all.it.' And we ended up with 850."

"These tapes are not all good," MacKaye says. "I certainly cringe at some of the stuff I hear, especially sometimes when I'm talking to the crowd. I think sometimes my humor is extremely dry, and a lot of times I would say things that I thought were very funny but ... I have a reputation of — people think of me as a very fundamentalist, humorless fellow."

Fugazi is employing a pay-what-you-want strategy for this enormous library, so listeners can decide how much these hyper-authentic recordings are worth to them.

"They have to pay us at least a dollar — there's no free on this one," MacKaye says. But with their purchase, listeners get a true oral history of the band, riddled with moments that would have otherwise been lost.

Read it all here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/01/142998596/steady-diet-of-everything-the-fugazi-live-vault

Saturday night started off with a download from this expanding vault of recordings, for which I paid their asking price, all in an effort to support the band. I chose their March 10, 1990 show at the Atlantic Beach Theater in Virginia Beach. It was listed as being "very good" quality, but to my ears it was excellent. The band stops on one occasion to scold the audience for getting carried away to the point where it looked like somone might be hurt. It was a great performance, the first of their live shows I've listened to that may be the start of a trend downloading and listening to more shows., like in "kicked in the head." Where was Ian MacKaye the night I got smacked in the head at the Social Distortion show?

"Fugazi, formed in Washington, D. C. in 1987, is Ian MacKaye (guitar and vocals, b. 16 April 1962), Joe Lally (bass, b. 3 December 1963), Brendan Canty (drums, b. 9 March 1966) and Guy Picciotto (guitar, b. 17 September 1965). They recorded several records on their own label, Dischord Records, and their straight-ahead, punk-inspired rock and dedication to touring earned them a national audience by the end of the 1980s. Fugazi is equally well-known for their anti-corporate politics, and for their steadfast refusal to charge big money for their performances."

"During their existence, the four-piece created some of the most intelligent, invigorating, and undeniably musical post-hardcore rock & roll. Along with their stridently underground ethics -- which were more out of pragmatism and modesty than anything else -- they gained an extremely loyal and numerous global following."

Download it here from the Fugazi Live website:
http://www.dischord.com/fugazi_live_series

Saturday night closed with a very good audience recording by Nirvana performing at the Cattle Club in Sacramento, CA on February 12, 1990. Between Nirvana, Fugazi and other bands and all the touring they did in 1990, I wonder what it was that I was doing to miss out on such great sounds of the time!

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?7h182342tl9nthx

SOCIAL DISTORTION KNOCKS OUT DENVER

2011-12-07T18:30:00.003-07:00

Saturday night and it was time for some live music with Social Distortion up there on the stage, the second of their three nights in town this weekend. Suedehead opened the show followed by Chuck Ragan.

Wikipedia says this about Social D:

Social Distortion (sometimes referred to simply as Social D or SxDx) is an American punk rock band formed in 1978 in Fullerton, California. The band currently consists of Mike Ness (vocals, guitars), Jonny Wickersham (guitars), Brent Harding (bass) and David Hidalgo, Jr. (drums).

Social Distortion temporarily disbanded in 1985, due to frontman Ness' drug addiction and troubles with the law, which resulted in extended stints in various rehabilitation centers, that lasted for two years. However, the band reformed around 1986 and have continued being active today, even after the death of longtime guitarist Dennis Danell, who succumbed to a brain aneurysm in 2000. Since its inception the band lineup has been a virtual revolving-door of talent, with many members coming and going – Ness has been the only constant member.

Westword wrote:

Early on in Social Distortion's Friday night show at the Ogden, the first of a three-night stand, frontman Mike Ness thanked the crowd for coming to the show and said, "I know you had choices tonight. There's the Christmas light parade downtown. You could have stayed at home and watched Sons of Anarchy, but you came to see Social D. I think you made the right choice, homeboy."

Most of the folks in the near-capacity Ogden would have probably agreed that they did in fact the right choice. After walking on to a darkened stage while Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy" played over the house system, Social Distortion launched into "Road Zombie," the burning instrumental that opens the band's latest effort, Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes. A back-to-back pair of tunes from 1992's Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell -- "Bad Luck" and "King of Fools" -- fired up the crowd early on while a fiery take on "Another State of Mind" took things up a notch.

"I'm looking out and seeing some scary looking criminals," Ness said after "Bakersfield." It ain't all women either. Aw, fellas I'm just fucking with ya. When I gauge a person, I don't care about how many tattoos you got. They got tattoo shops on every corner. Kids going right to the neck -- instant bad-ass. So I don't look at your appearance. I don't care about that. I look in your eyes and I see the crazy motherfuckers. You know what I'm talking about. This one's for you."

Read it all here:
http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2011/12/social-distortion-denver-review-photos.php

More pictures from the Saturday night show here:
http://www.heyreverb.com/2011/12/05/social-distortion-ogden-denver-photos-review/

Someone posted a comment on the review of the second nights show: "Wonder how many boneheads showed up? I quit going to Social Distortion shows years ago due to the numbers of neoNazis who showed up and caused trouble."

Well I must have run into one of those people, Mr. Baldy and his girl. I was juiced and gyrating to the music all night long, while all the stiffs around me stood with hands in pocket. How can you go to a high energy show and just stand there. Does a dancing man humiliate all the macho guys around him? Well midway through SD this guy pushes me away, backward through the crowd. I let it go because I was enjoying the music too much, standing right back where I was before. During the third to last song of the night he and his girl turned to the back of the theater, looking like they were leaving. Wanting to make a point, I shoved him, but that set him off. He shoved me backwards through the crowd again, I grabbing his coat and we both tumble, he throws one good punch causing injury. All I could think of is protect the recording equipment and camera! My glasses fell off in the scuffle and I made sure he didn't leave with his either.

The crowd separated us, he immediately departed, and security was summoned. They would not listen to my pleas to watch the rest of the show, the blood running down my face looking far worse than it really was. The theater medic cleaned me up and patched the wound. He said stiches but the doctor I saw Monday morning said "too late" but that the wound looked good and not to worry. I returned to the crowd in the back of the theater for the last song of the show. It's surprising how many pairs of glasses are lost during a typical show, several crushed pair being found, including mine and his. I even ran into the keyboard player from the first band who was looking for a pair he lost in the crowd.

What an exciting punk experience night! Excellent recording of the show, capturing the event with his statement “You made a mistake b*tch!”, calls for security and their trying to get me to see the medic. I learned this morning that some people from the office attended that same show and had their jackets stolen, one guy being chased and observed dumping the contents of the pockets on the ground in search of any valuables.

Download the show here. The scuffle happens during "Can't Take It With You," the last two song absent from the recording for obvious reasons. Too bad because I wanted to enjoy them from up close to the stage.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=94FZUXM0

KURT, LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO FLORENCE

2011-12-06T19:45:00.005-07:00

Several days of snow this past week, with more due to arrive on Saturday. But it wasn't nearly as deep as the blizzard of words flying around the office with the news of the "toxic goo." But on Friday night the sky had cleared and I was outside enjoying the music in the frigid cold.

I wanted to try something and chose Florence and the Machine, a soft spoken woman who sings beautifully, someone I had been hearing on the radio for the last several months. Here was my chance to get to know her. It was a relatively short show from the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge Special on November 25, 2011. Naturally the sound quality was excellent.

Wikipedia says:

Florence and the Machine (stylised as Florence + the Machine) is the recording name of English musician Florence Welch and a collaboration of other artists who provide music for her voice. Florence and the Machine's sound has been described as a combination of various genres, including rock and soul.

The UK's Sunday Times described Welch as "the most peculiar and most highly acclaimed female singer of the moment" and "the latest in a line of great English pop eccentrics".

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MUCQTOUA

The main attraction this evening, as it is every night they're playing, was Nirvana performing live at Lee's Palace in Toronto, Canada on April 16, 1990. A classic Bleach set list, a high quality audience recording from within a relatively small venue, before they skyrocketed to super stardom with the release of Nevermind at the end of the year. The people in the audience chatter while this Kurt, Krist and Chad pour it out on stage. At the end of the show, Kurt started throwing bottles at the wall behind Chad, then the audience started doing the same. Krist had to be carried off stage because he was barefoot.

Someone says (Kurt?): Mr. Sound man, the drummer can't hear the guitar. Turn the guitar up a little bit for the drummer. Thank you

Audience: Turn the guitar way up.

Audience: Yeah, towards the ceiling.

An interview from that evening:

In the spring of 1990, April 16th to be exact, on the stairs leading up to The Dance Cave above Lee's Palace, I had the chance to meet up with the trio who call themselves Nirvana. At the time the lineup consisted of vocalist and "Dark Star" Kurdt Kobain, outspoken and eccentric bassist Chris Novoselic, and since departed drummer Chad Channing. (He has been replaced by former Scream drummer Dave Grohl). The club had approximately 90 people inside. For the bulk of the session, however, it was just Chris rifling off crude comments and dreams.

PEACE: Give me a brief history.

Chris: "We crawled out of the sea. We were amoebas and we crawled out of the sea and slowly evolved into legs and arms and hands and picked up guitars and started playing."

Chad: And then we were born. No wait, we were reborn first

Chris: We were reborn Christians. We're going to talk to you about the Lord and God and your personal relationship with Jesus Christ

PEACE: It has been rumoured that the only reason you were signed is that Kurdt is a Robin Zander lookalike?

Chris: Yeah. See, there was an intense bidding war. It was sign with Sub Pop or sign with K-Tel

Kurdt: Or Buddah Records.

Chris: They put us up because of the Cheap Trick Dream Police album cover.

Kurdt: Made us pose and dress up in exactly the same costumes.

Chris: (singing) Police, Police.

Chris: Yeah. We're gonna do a Cheap Trick cover tonight. We're gonna do "The Flame."

PEACE: Is it true that Kurdt had an accident at a K-mart perfume counter.

Kurdt: Well I wanted a scent that would reflect me so we put together some spices, Ginseng…

Chad: And dirty socks.

Kurdt: Dirty socks. Well actually its not true. You don't have to go by that

PEACE: Tell me about your new material, (which became Nevermind).

Chris: It's a lot more melodic. There's a lot more melody. There's driving songs. There's gonna be melodic songs. There's not gonna be anything real slow or grungy on it.

Chad: There's boating songs and airplane songs.

Kurdt: We're every category you could think of, like Reggae.

Chris: Funk. I do some of the most amazing slap bass on this one song. You should see it. I just break the string right off. I keep on playin' and while I'm playing I tune guitar strings around the broken strings so I can still play while I'm still playing (not a typo) because I am such an accomplished bass player. While we're talking about my bass playing, also, I practice about seven hours a day. You see my talent and the way I play you'd know that it would take dedication. It takes…

Kurdt: A lot of reading Guitar World

Chad: And no drugs.

Chris: I know every John Entwhistle lick and every Emerson, Lake and Palmer like and while we're talking about mmmeeeeee…

Unknown person listening in: But can you slap like Sly Stone? (Editors note: You fool, Larry Graham played bass for Sly.)

Chris: Sure I can slap him. I slap him upside the head. I slap him. I slap him. Let me talk about me again. I'm a pretty nice person. I get along with… I'm insecure. I can't function socially. See. I'm breaking down in public now. Do you like me? What's wrong with me?

PEACE: I don't know. What is?

Chris: What do I look like? A Goddamn psychoanalysis schiz or something?

Unknown person still listening in: I told you we shouldn't have given them the five per cent beer. These Americans can't handle it.

The show which took place following the interview was a rock spectacle which has yet to be matched for both intensity and excitement. It all began when Chris climbed on top of his bass cabinet with his bass head. Towering 12 feet above the stage he began to balance the head on his own and before you could blink threw it across the stage and tumbled into the drums. Chad began to furiously drum all over including on the legs of Chris. Not to be outdone, Kurdt entered the crowd and began to throw beer bottles at the pair. Excited members of the audience joined in. Promoter Elliot Lefko quickly hopped onstage and, dodging bottles, beseeched the audience to stop.

Read it all here:
http://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9004rw/index.html

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?js4y8nbj628qv99

PETER MURPHY AND SHE WANTS REVENGE

2011-12-03T12:37:00.001-07:00

A Monday night show with the plan to bike to and from it, as is becoming the custom as long as the weather holds out. What caught my eye about this show was wanting to see She Wants Revenge, the second time they came through Denver this year. But I got double the pleasure with Peter Murphy, a Brit who's best known as the lead vocalist for Bauhaus, the pioneering post-punk goth rock band of the early '80s. He later went on to release a number of solo albums, such as Deep and Love Hysteria. "Thin, with prominent cheekbones, a baritone voice, and a penchant for gloomy poetics, Murphy is often called the 'Godfather of Goth'."

Pleasant evening temperatures made for a fun ride, having dinner in the bar across the street from the theater. I arrived early enough to get a spot one person from the stage, this individual being relatively short, giving me an unobstructed view of the stage. During the shows I could have reached out and polished the shoes of the performers.

Hussle Club opened the show followed by She Wants Revenge and then Peter Murphy. Peter Murphy spent much of the show having the sound guy adjust tone, instrument emphasis and volume, even stopping the music shortly into "Cuts You Up" during the encore, wanting to get it right for the audience. The first person standing in line outside the theater was a woman who was dressed up like Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, being serenaded face to face by Peter during one song, pulled up on stage by him to show off how beautiful she was and returned to the stage for his closing number, "Ziggy Stardust." Wow, I wonder what extra special treatment she would be getting after the show!

Westword's review:

The highlight of last night's show came during the encore, when Peter Murphy came back on stage wearing a short fuzzy hat that looked like a Fez, playing a twelve-string acoustic. After creating an impressionistic soundscape, all four members of the band went into a haunting and powerful rendition of "Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem," a delicately beautiful song that served as the perfect segue.

The show started with no preamble. When one of the stage hands flashed his flashlight at the sound board, Peter Murphy and his bandmates took the stage and immediately went into "All Night Long." Throughout the show, Murphy displayed his mastery of subtle theatrical gestures as though he got his training to star in German expressionist films--slightly exaggerated moves done with graceful gestures.

The band didn't really play material from Murphy's previous two albums, but it did play liberally from Ninth, which has more of a rock feel on songs like "Velocity Bird." During "Strange Kind of Love," incensed by the incidental chatter, one person shouted for people to shut up.

You could see Murphy taking mental note of this, and as a private joke perhaps, he switched to the lyrics to "Bela Lugosi's Dead" to kind of nudge some of the crowd back into the show, and it actually worked -- a stroke of genius, if ever there was one, that required no overt and melodramatic act.
Murphy and company also played some Bauhaus material with fairly well reworked versions of "Silent Hedges" and "Too Much 21st Century." But it was Murphy's originals that got the crowd singing along with classic Deep cuts like "Deep Ocean Vast Sea." Right before that song, the guys played a newer song called "Gaslit," and it was an atmospherically rich song with minimal instrumentation that was smoky and gorgeous like a fog-accented sunset.
The main set ended with "Uneven & Brittle," and the foursome came returned for a four song encore. At one point, Murphy spotted a girl in the audience who was dressed up like the character Darryl Hannah played in Blade Runner and brought her up on stage. For a few songs, she stood in the wings before Murphy brought her back up for the final number, a rousing cover of "Ziggy Stardust." As he ended the set, Murphy prowled the stage like Mick Jagger, displaying more poise than machismo as he jumped up and down in spinning circles. The guy's still got it, and his newest material proved he's not out of ideas.

Read it all here:
http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2011/11/review_peter_murphy_denver.php

Download the complete show here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ESFHN78N

Download the complete show here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LAB1BN46

GIVING THANKS FOR THE MUSIC

2011-11-27T14:05:00.001-07:00

The Thanksgiving Day holiday had arrived, the family driving up to grandma's house while I worked in the basement, inking and hand pressing block prints for this years Christmas card and newsletter. The boredom of standing in one place for seven or eight hours, broken only by listening to the radio and later the television. After printing, my dinner was a foot long turkey sandwich made by Subway. At that point I was so happy having finished the printing, for at least that day. The process was repeated on Saturday with one more weekend being needed to make more prints before I can say I'm truly done. Friday was spent in the office, one of the few people to show up. I biked down to Jack Jensen's just to say hello, learning that he was selling a few different and very interesting works of art from the early 1990's, stashed away in his studio.

Considering it was a midweek evening, I only chose to listen to one show the night before Thanksgiving Day. Coldplay, an incomplete soundboard recording of their live show at the Glastonbury Festival in Pilton, England on June 25, 2005. I was looking to listen to something slower paced than the normal high energy shows I've been listening to.

Scholars they are not
We glorify their rudness
National disgrace

Fast years have gone by
The vessel has been broken
Crys, his time has come

The disembodied voice
A sound of childhood friendship
And the phone goes silent

Download it and another live performance by them here:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/kayPNbz/Coldp.2005-10-30.Copenhaen.by.T.U.B.E.rar

Friday night began with an early performance by the Pretenders, their performance at the Heatwave Festival in Mosport, Ontario on August 8, 1980.

Canada's legendary 1980 Heatwave Festival was the brainchild of concert promoter John Brower, who was based in Toronto. Brower established his reputation a decade prior, as the man behind the 1969 Rock and Roll Revival concert at Varsity Stadium (AKA "Live Peace In Toronto," which featured John Lennon's debut live performance outside The Beatles) and the three-day Woodstock-esque Strawberry Fields Festival held at Ontario's Mosport Park the following summer. For Canadians, as well as thousands of Americans and Europeans who traveled to this event, Brower's Heatwave Festival would become one of Canada's most memorable musical events.

This 1980 Heatwave Festival performance literally captures The Pretenders at that breakthrough moment, just as their debut album began climbing the North American charts and their first American single, the soulful and sensual "Brass In Pocket" had become a bona fide hit. That same week, the New York Times began coverage on the band in anticipation of The Pretenders' upcoming Central Park performance (also available here in The Concert Vault) a week after the Heatwave Festival.

Performing in the afternoon between Rockpile and the B-52's, The Pretenders performed during the major influx of the 15,000 ticketless radio listeners descending on Mosport Park. With a take-no-prisoners approach, they kick things off with a lacerating "Precious," signaling to the audience that this is a band with plenty of attitude and swagger. This pummeling opener is followed by the taunting and playful "The Adultress," a full year prior to its release. Destined for the lead off spot on The Pretenders' second album the following August, this features one of Hynde's most immortal couplets of "I'm the adultress I didn't want to be" with "But I'm convenient and I make good tea." These two challenging openers are next counterbalanced by the sweet vibrato purr of "Kid," displaying the two extremes of Hynde's songwriting.

Read it all here:
http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/the-pretenders/concerts/heatwave-festival-august-23-1980.html

Find it here (note the need for a password):
http://bootlegtunzworld.blogspot.com/2010/04/pretenders-heatwave-festival-1980.html

Nirvana blasted their music late into the night, performing in the East Ballroom in the Husky Union Building at the University of Washington in Seattle WA on January 6, 1990. An excellent soundboard recording. Kurt and Krist were banned for life from all University of Washington venues for destroying so much gear at this show.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?8aod51vlazpqu#undefined

Saturday night began slow with Vampire Weekend, live at the French television show De La Semanine. An excellent recording of course, if you don't mind the talking at the beginning and end of the show.

Download it here:
http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=3a744a7

Late Saturday night was spent with Echo and the Bunnymen, listening to their last release Do It Clean. There were a few things about it that sounded familiar because of a few comments made by Ian and coming from the audience. The woman calling out for "Steve-o" about whom Ian commented on the recording was the one who thought I was Larry (yeah, she and I met the previous year). The guy always calling out for Broke My Neck stood next to me that night. I did not realize it but it turned out to be the December 11, 2010 show at the Olympia theater in Liverpool, a show I also recorded. There was a lot they edited out to make this clean version of the show. Listening to it made me wish I were going to Liverpool in a couple weeks to see them on their home turf again.

But it here:
http://www.bunnymen.com/Test/?p=952

NIRVANA'S BACK!

2011-11-21T21:01:00.003-07:00

Thursday night was spent at the annual Warren Miller ski movie shown at the Paramount Theater with the guys, really the one time of year we get together to catch up on news and have some beers. This year's movie was a classic, with phenomenal mountain scenes down which skiers would plunge fearlessly, all accompanied by loud, fast music. It was hard not to contain oneself. After the show I hopped on the bicycle and peddled back to a location near the office where I camped outside under the leafless cottonwood trees along Cherry Creek. I slept well, aided by a good pair of earplugs. I woke up in the morning with a light ice buildup between the bivy sack and sleeping bag. I'm beginning to really enjoy these camping trips on the edge of downtown Denver.

The Sound of Dentage was the premier website to download close to probably every bootleg recording by Nirvana, sometimes with multiple variations of a show, offering set lists and notes on the show and recording. A fantastic resource for the Nirvana enthusiast. A few months ago, very suddenly it was pulled off the air. Although I had already downloaded a few dozen shows, I panicked, fearing my enjoyment of the music would come to a premature end. But then this weekend while doing a search I came across it again, on a new server with a changed format, but with all the same information and links to several hundred recordings in lossy and lossless format. I applaud the efforts of these people to share the music!

Fecal Matter was a short-lived punk band from Aberdeen, Washington, that formed in late 1985. It was the first band conceived by Kurt Cobain. The band recorded only one demo tape, Illiteracy Will Prevail, which remains officially unreleased with the exception of the song "Spank Thru". In February 1986, Fecal Matter disbanded and the Melvins recorded their debut EP.

After Fecal Matter disbanded, Cobain began passing the demo tape around to friends and peers in hopes of starting a new band. Cobain was particularly proud of the tape. To him, the tape showed that he did have talent. He had wanted to start a band with acquaintance Krist Novoselic for some time. After hearing the tape (and particularly liking "Spank Thru") Novoselic agreed to form a band in mid-1986. That band would become Nirvana.

"Sound Of Dentage" is one of the songs off that Fecal Matter demo.

Although I was somewhat tired from having stayed out the previous evening, Friday night was somewhat ambitious with three shows selected. First up was Public Image Limited, live at Theater 140 in Brussels, Belgium on December 20, 1978. Sounds like a small theater with a drunk and therefore overly enthusiastic crowd who was continually shouting at the band. Long waits between each song as PIL waited for the audience to settle down. Calling the people in the audience "fascists" didn't help.

This was the first EVER PiL gig. I think it's fair to say the audience didn't quite know what to expect, or probably did the band... Due to popular demand the promoters arranged two shows on the same night, one scheduled for 6pm, the other 7:30pm.

It was said about the show:

They made contact with Lisa Robinson at Virgin Records to get authorisation to organise the concert. The gig took place at the Theatre 140 but the demand for tickets was so high that Clean X had to ask Virgin for permission to add a second show the same day.

The second gig started about 20h30 or 21h30 (bad memory). The opening band was Mad Virgins (punk from Brussels). They played a good gig and the audience was okay. About 60 minutes after the end of the Mad Virgins set, PiL came on stage. Johnny went on with two personal heavy rasta body guards that pushed the first few rows away from him (there was no bouncers in the venue). The trouble started when one of the bodyguards took a drum stick and hit a punk that was too excited! The show was between 45' and 60' minutes long with several very long interruptions when the band left the stage. During this show they didn't play a lot of numbers. PiL ended the show without Johnny, doing instrumental versions. After the gig, all the Belgian audience and promoters were furious that the band that didn't care a lot. Like in Paris, most of the people were waiting for a Sex Pistols show. They took the reality right in the mouth...

Read it all here:
http://www.fodderstompf.com/GIG%20LIST/brussels78.html

The second act was Nirvana playing at a house party at 17 Nussbaum Road in Raymond, WA in March of 1987. This is a rare recording of the first ever live show that Nirvana played, at that time the band was known as "ted ed fred". While the quality is not the highest possible, it is a treat to listen to the band play live at such an early stage in their career – as unpolished and rough as it gets.

"This was the band's first show. "Heartbreaker" and "How Many More Times" are Led Zeppelin jams. Tony Poukkula, who lived in the house, plays second guitar for part of the show. The circulating recording may be incomplete. "Downer" is slightly cut into. This is the kind of disc that makes people collect bootlegs. The sound quality is not for everyone, but if you appreciate an incredibly rare and early performance, First Live Show is a "must have" CD. At the time of this writing, this is the ONLY commercially available title with this show.The performance that is listed as March 7th, 1987 is mentioned in the Charles Cross Kurt Cobain biography "Heavier Then Heaven". Mr. Cross does a good job describing the events before, during, and after the show and transcribes some of the banter that can be heard as the band runs through nine of Nirvana's earliest songs. The show takes place at a house party in Raymond Washington. Throughout the performance you can hear partygoers and the band chat back and forth. The band receives little to no applause. They are surprisingly tight (Aaron Burkhardt is on drums) and it's easy to tell the band had spent some time rehearsing. As Mr. Cross notes in the book, it's simply amazing that a tape like this exists. The sound is as good or better than anyone could expect. Interestingly, Kris Sproul of the Nirvana Live Guide was able to confirm that this CD was taken from the remaster he circulated - he made an edit after the soundcheck that is present in the commercial title. You won't find a document like this for many bands, this is something very special."

"Hey, who's got all the pot?"
"Alcohol, all night long, that's all you need."
"Acid!"
"We're just going to drink alcohol."
"Acid, acid!"
"All I want is pot."
"Some in that little room over there."
"I'm going to pot you in about five minutes."

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yfjrzz5xzz5

I closed the evening with Echo and the Bunnymen, a recording that was mislabeled as having been recorded on May 24, 2002, but turned out to be the official 2002 release entitled Live in Liverpool, recorded at live shows in 2001-2002. Naturally an excellent recording. Buy this late hour, after a couple cigars and some tequila, upon hearing this recording I felt as though I was tripping out, being so lost into the music. Who knows what time it was when I entered the house to sleep.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yhzbnelkmzy

Television started off Saturday night, "Ticket That Exploded," at the Earth Tavern in Portland Oregon on July 2, 1978. An excellent recording of this performance. The took nearly an hour to play eight of their songs, just jamming away up there on stage.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=08OR3GD7

Nirvana closed out the weekend's shows, their show at Duffy's Tavern in Lincoln, Nebraska on May 13, 1990, before they skyrocketed in popularity. The recording starts off with a scream followed by "Oh yeah, we're going to have a party tonight! You folks out there like tequila?" Launching right into "School." That was the invitation I needed to get serious tonight!

"Live At Duffy's is a recording of two of their shows emanating from Duffy's bar in Nebraska, one in 1990, and the other in 1991. A spirited playing of 'School' starts the show, and the recording is actually pretty good. Floyd the barber follows, then Spank Thru, and it's pretty obvious that at this point their set was rather limited. Following Scoff, Krist announces that we've got a new album coming out in September, and this is gonna be on the album. This segues into Dive, which is still embryonic, and features the same verse over and over. About a girl follows, and then we have another embryonic track Breed. It"s decent. Big Cheese and Love Buzz get good responses from the crowd as does the velvet underground cover "here she comes now". A developing Polly is next, and its good. The rest of the 90' show is pretty decent, however it is missing Blew, and that's enough to put the rating down. A good show, with a lot of energy. Recommended."

About Duffy's:

In its early years, Duffy’s drew a number of acts that went on to great fame, such as The Flaming Lips and most notably Nirvana, which played the tiny club twice.

Dave Rabe took over the booking duties at Duffy’s in 1991, just after Nirvana’s second appearance there. He intended for show No. 3 to be part of the tour supporting the band’s major label debut, “Nevermind.”

“I did book Nirvana,” Rabe said. “Then they got huge in five seconds and their guarantee was way more than we could handle. They canceled on us.”

There was a strong wind blowing this night/morning, a deep rushing sound through the pines. It was such a pleasant sound that I decided to go to sleep in the back of the truck right there in the driveway. With the sleeping bag in the house, I instead went to sleep under a thin blanket, only to wake up cold a few hours later, ending this adventure when I enterd the house to find my bed.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mzzx3m3zm1m
http://www.mediafire.com/?g2rmz3y2nm4

OUT OF THE STUDIO, SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

2011-11-13T20:48:00.005-07:00

This was a short but busy week, both at work and at play. Tuesday night was spent with David Sedaris at the Paramount Theater in Denver, a hilarious Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor. A friend picked up the tickets while I picked up dinner at Earl's, our seats in the second row right in front of the podium. He's a great story teller, his disdainfully mocking wit and incisive social critiques brought the audience to tears with laughter. Great show.

This was followed by a trip to Bent Gate in Golden on Thursday with two others to see the 2011 Powderwhore film, Breaking Trail, with Jonah Howell and his wife running the whole affair. Another great visual experience, with skiers flying down mountainsides and riding through clouds of power. One can't go to Bent Gate without buying something!

A holiday weekend meant an extra day lounging at home, doing long neglected chores and sleeping in late, but only after staying up late the night before, outside with the truck whose stereo cranked. This time I wanted to try something different, going instead for the studio releases of several artists, listening to them in crystal clarity that you can only get when listening to official releases.

The Fall - Bingo-Master's Break-Out

Friday night was devoted to something old, listening to some classics out of the late 1970's, early 1980's. First up was The Fall, an English post-punk band from Manchester in 1976. In 1978, The Fall made their vinyl debut with the release of Bingo-Master's Break-Out!, a three song EP featuring "Bingo-Master's Break-Out", "Psycho Mafia", and "Repetition". Wiki says: Despite an ever changing line up, the group essentially consists of its founder and only constant member, Mark E. Smith, who has said "If it's me and your granny on bongos, then it's [the] Fall". First associated with the late 1970s punk movement, the band's music has evolved through numerous stylistic changes, often concurrently with changes in the group's membership. The Fall's music is often characterised by repetition, an abrasive guitar-driven sound, and is always underpinned by Smith's often cryptic lyrics, described by critic Steve Huey as "abstract poetry filled with complicated wordplay, bone-dry wit, cutting social observations, and general misanthropy.

Guitarist and one of the founding members, Martin Bramah spoke about their song "Repetition":

It wasn't punk. It didn't have structure - it was just a riff and a beat. Live it was usually a lot longer than it was on the record. [But] it became a war of attrition against the audience. If we were feeling particularly abused, we'd just play 'Repetition' till the audience either walked away or got really violent...It was like, 'If you can take this...' In the early Fall, confrontation with the audience was sort of the lifeblood.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S8SZ2MZL

Killing Joke - The Peel Sessions 1979–1981

Next up was the Killing Joke, the Peel Sessions 1979–1981, a compilation that collects the first four sessions they did for the legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel plus a bonus session recorded for Richard Skinner's program. Songs have been previously circulating on bootlegs, but are presented here in pristine sound quality.

Download it here:
http://www.filestube.com/45f7d4e01a1d6e9103e9,g/killing-joke-peel-sessions.html

Nevermind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols

Wanting to get the sound just as it was when released in all its glory back on October 27, 1977, I cranked up the stereo a couple notches higher and listened to Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols, "the only studio album by the highly influential and controversial British punk rock band The Sex Pistols. Fans and critics alike generally regard it as an extremely important album in the history of rock music, citing the lasting influence it has had on subsequent punk rock musicians, as well as other musical genres that were influenced by such punk rock artists. In 2003, Rolling Stone rated it #41 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time."

The Rolling Stone said:

If the sessions had gone the way I wanted, it would have been unlistenable for most people," Johnny Rotten said. "I guess it's the very nature of music; if you want people to listen, you're going to have to compromise." But few heard it that way at the time. Packed with disgust, nihilism and raw guitar, the Pistols' only studio album sounds like a rejection of everything rock & roll, and the world itself, had to offer. True, the music was less shocking than Rotten himself, who sang about abortions, anarchy and hatred in general on "Bodies" and "Anarchy in the U.K." But Never Mind . . . is the Sermon on the Mount of English punk — and the echoes are everywhere.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JOTFB60H

Tom Waits - Bad As Me

Saturday night was devoted to something new. The show started at 11 PM so I was limited to two albums. First up was Tom Waits Bad As Me, his first studio album in seven years. I'm not a Tom Waits fan but when I heard a few of the songs sampled on the radio, I immediately put it on my list of albums I had to listen to.

"...Waits’s singing is the true surprise. His voice is often restrained on Bad As Me and mostly avoids the self-mimicking, high-in-the-mix growl that hurt past albums.

"But for anyone who misses the more avant-garde Waits, there's the penultimate "Hell Broke Luce," a stunning four-minute encapsulation of the modern soldier's lot, framed as a stream-of-consciousness marching chant with otherworldly percussion and occasional bursts of Metallica-style guitar. Its abrasiveness doesn't quite fit with the rest of the album, but it's tour de force enough to be worth the price of admission."

Go out and buy it!

Pretty Lights - Spilling Over Every Side EP

One of the great things about watching ski porn is that they usually include a lot of good music to accompany scenes of ripping down deep powder covered mountains. That was the case with Breaking Trail, a lot of good music from bands I had never heard of before. I had bought the video (autographed by Jonah! This is another way for me to support their efforts to shoot gorgeous mountain scenes that bring us like minded skiers together) from which I pulled the names of bands off the credits. The Fort Collins band Pretty Lights was the one I wanted to hear more about.
Their Facebook page says:

"Pretty Lights is the musical vision of the ultra-versatile Colorado based producer Derek Vincent Smith. At a time when music lovers from almost all subcultures and genres are finding common ground in the basic form of bangin' beats, Pretty Lights is giving the people what they want: electro organic cutting-edge party rocking beats that fill venues with energy and emotion and send dance floors into frenzies."

They are scheduled to play at the Paramount Theater in late December. I may decide to check it out, assuming its general admission, unlike the David Sedaris show at the same local, as this post began.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?x6u0uzabbishp4h

1979 ALL OVER AGAIN

2011-11-08T21:11:00.005-07:00

A couple of downloads I was wanting to listen to lead to the concept of making a theme out of this weekends music collection of virtual concerts, going back to some great bands that were on the rise in 1979. That was the year I finished my first year of graduate school in Oregon, spending the summer running around the Cascade Mountains mapping the geology of 100+ square miles of rugged, forest covered terrain in support of my Masters thesis. Alone, camping out every day, the wild beauty with views of the snow capped volcanic peaks from the meadows atop the ridges I crested before turning around and plunging back into the forest. It was one of my favorite summers in life. I try not to think what would have happened had I been as focused on the music back them as I am now, more interested in attending concerts than studying. Life could have turned out very differently.

Story in a book
Salvation from the darkness
Needing to believe

Man from long ago
A prophet, one of many
Promises he can't keep

In the robes embrace
Words that make them fall in line
Fear the consequence

First up was Public Image Limited, one of their early shows at the Russel Club in Manchester, UK on June 18, 1979. An excellent soundboard (?) recording. Back in Oregon on that day I was running around the forest with backpack, rock hammer in hand jotting down notes with every opportunity at finding exposed rock on the steep sloped forest floor.

During this show they had a new drummer and it showed in this "rehearsal" performance, especially when they played "Public Image," the beat out of sync but the band members trying to make it work. They stop early into the song and the crowd expresses its displeasure: "Shut up, I told you it was a fucking rehearsal." "Oi, this drummer only joined us three days ago, a big round of applause for him right now, because he's game." Johnny then asks around whether anyone has a light after calling someone else a "wanker." Then there was a second false start. "We admit our mistakes and we know we got many." At the end Johnny introduces the band members. "On drums, on drums we have Richard Dudanski!"

Richrad was one of many early drummers, who played with PiL mid-1979. He left soon after the Leeds show disillusioned with PiL's working ethos. Even going to the extent of sending a letter to the editor of 'NME' to explain his actions. PiL simply blamed his departure on his inability to keep time; due to nerves live on stage. Levene also claimed he became increasingly difficult to deal with due to an amphetamine habit; a claim which Dudanski venomously denies: "I never had, and was never near to having, an amphetamine habit! (which doesn't mean to say that I've never taken the stuff). People can say what they like about why "I left/was thrown out" of PIL, ie not being able to keep time, but it is a bit ironic having the drugs bit thrown at me, when in fact the effects of a much more insidious drug on another member were in fact from my point of view the main reason for the band's stagnation at that point, and the reason for my leaving"...

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9RLDAWRI

Church every Sunday
He's following all the rules
Does not stop the pain

Next up was Gang of Four performing a live show at Mothers in Chicago (mistakenly identified as NYC) on September 9, 1979. It’s a great recording that captures the fire and energy of the times when it was still all evolving. Mothers is a bar/nightclub off Division in Chicago. "While they are most well-known for being an upscale, trendy, singles bar with a very strict dress code, Mothers' basement was the home of a number of punk shows during 1979. This "Summer of Punk" lasted from about July to October of 1979 and only played punk shows during the week."
By this date while in Oregon I was wrapping up the summer field mapping season, probably back in Eugene preparing to resume another semester at the university.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ynyh4wykyoo

Lets get back to basics! I ended the night and rolled over into the following morning listening to Van Halen, a very good recording of a show they played in Osaka, Japan on September 10, 1979. Classic Van Halen: big sound, Eddie's burning guitar, Dave tring to connect with his foreign audience with his banter between song, telling they were the best audience ever! The World Vacation Tour was a 1979 concert tour by hard rock band Van Halen to support their second album Van Halen II. It was the band's first world tour as a headliner, previously having been a support act for Black Sabbath for that band's 1978 Never Say Die! 10th Anniversary World Tour.

A fan writes of a March 1979 show they did in Logan, Utah:

"I have never stood on the tarmac behind a 747 when it takes off, but it can’t be unlike the experience of seeing Van Halen open a concert. The sheer power of “Light Up the Sky” erupting from the amplifiers as Van Halen took the stage was an experience to behold. What a complete rush! It was a show unlike anything I had ever seen prior to that. There was the technical wizardry of Eddie Van Halen on guitar, offset by the exaggerated macho posing, high-pitched wails and animated song intros of frontman David Lee Roth. There was action all over the stage, augmented by Michael Anthony pounding on his bass and Alex Van Halen

Read it all here:
http://theeditingroomfloor.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-introduction-to-mighty-van-halen.html

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PETFDKZ0

Saturday night opened up with a short show by Echo and The Bunnymen, made up of Ian, Will, Les and the drum machine! It was August 2, 1979, the first of the 4 night alternative rock festival at the YMCA, Prince of Wales Conference Centre in London, the same night the Joy Division and the Teardrop Explodes also performed. This was Echo and the Bunnymen's 10th ever gig and their first in London before they were signed (The A&R man that signed them was watching them at this gig).

"In his teens the singer, Ian “Mac” McCulloch, was a lanky, short-sighted Bowie-worshipper, already a pop star in his own mind. Will Sergeant, the brooding guitar boffin, and Les Pattinson, the amiable bass-player who built boats for a living, had been at school together."

Read more here:
http://www.pauldunoyer.com/pages/journalism/journalism_item.asp?journalismID=280

In this Ian recording sounds really young and in need of additional practice, his voice still trying to find that smoothness that that characterized his later performances. Even back then he was directing technicians from the stage: "Ollie, this mike stand isn't any good." "Harry, less echo on the vocals, and more drum machine."

Buy this time during the summer of 1979 I had covered a lot of ground in the Cascades, have a pretty good idea what was going on geologically: successive episodes of volcanism, commencing 15 million years ago and ending in the fresh lava that flowed down to the shores of the swift flowing McKenzie River, the earth's crust cracking and settling as magma chambers deep below inflated the mountain range.

DownloaD IT HERE:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5DIYDHS6

The Bunnymen were followed by the Joy Division, a collection of live performances between March 4, 1979 and April 3, 1980. Another excellent recording.

"If I had a flair for understatement, I could say that Joy Division were good too. The truth is they were phenomenal - the most physical hard rock group I've seen since Gang Of Four. This Manchester band have been allowed to grow at their own pace, uncramped by commercial pressures. The result is that they've created a totally distinctive, cohesive sound over the last two years...They have the spirit and the feeling." - Adrian Thrills, NME review 11th August 1979.

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VRYNZBW8

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0DCWNHOS

Saturday night closed with my listening to Public Image Limited's Metal Box, their second album released on November 23, 1979. The title refers to the album's original packaging, which consists of a metal 16mm film canister embossed with the band's logo and containing three 12" 45rpm records. It is ranked at 469 out of 500 of the greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine:

"After the Sex Pistols exploded, Johnny Rotten reclaimed his real name — John Lydon — and started his bold new band. PIL played eerie, futuristic art punk with dub bass and slashing guitar. The U.K. release Metal Box (retitled Second Edition in the U.S.) originally came as three vinyl discs in a metal film canister."

Julian Cope writes:

This sprawling and austere album is worth noting in its original release as it is probably one of the most sonically soaring albums of the seventies. All titles are brevity itself as the numbers are free-form musical expressions pushed through an extreme dub production. Released as a three 12 inch single set in a metal film can completely anonymous save an embossed PIL logo, the cutting of the grooves themselves were so widely separated from each other that they’re visible to the naked eye. This encourages the tracks to boom out in analogue warmth and fullness; deemed necessary by bassist Jah Wobble’s domineering and lush contributions in the low end department (For further evidence of 12” sonic booming, check out The Cramps’ “The Crusher” or Joy Division’s “Novelty.”) It’s a pity this version of the later released “Second Edition” can get pretty cost prohibitive. But for most, the quickest admission into this huge, avant rock structure is “Second Edition.”

“Metal Box” is hard, abrasive, rhythm-dominated and sonically all-there. The opening cut “Albatross” sees Lydon more quietly venomous than before. The oblique lyrics leave no clues, but he’s obviously cut all ties with his past and has moved on, if a bit wearily. “Slow motion…” are the first sung lines, and “Albatross” is just that: a sedate dub groove that sets the tone, hanging every splintery Keith Levene riff, drum and cymbal crash on Jah Wobble’s lumbering and relaxed bass lines are powerful enough to shoulder the whole track for its ten minute duration. “Memories” is all Leslie-f(r)ied guitar, magnetic pull dub bass and tinny hi-hat compressed into a metallic Joe Meek-out. Volume and tempo shift abruptly when a purposefully nasty editing job cues into Lydon’s sung “I could be wrong/It could be hate/As far as I can see/Clinging desperately” lines, The Sex Pistols an already an ever-distancing bad dream. “Swanlake” is about as unflinchingly terrifying a track as P.I.L. ever recorded: a tribute from a son to his recently departed mother. The tempo builds into a bonfire of scrap metal guitar, hi-hatted rhythms with a coursing, zooming bass line and insanely catchy Wobble bass hook to hang the whole thing on. Levene’s glacial synthesizer appear on the horizon, and by the ending everything else is starting to fade like the wilted flowers by the hospital bedside while the synth lines jut further and further out, getting louder and louder until you realise it’s a locked groove (On “Second Edition” it cuts off brutally, but here on the massively cut 12”) repeating forever after.

Read it all here:
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/164/
Lydon himself verges on the unrecognizable. While he sometimes wanders into the same nasally, Pistols-era vocals, his voice generally remains in a substantially lower register. In exploring the lower regions of his range, Lydon never lets go of the anger that made the Pistols so electric. While other post-punkers would sometimes sound so depressing they were maudlin, Lydon keeps the vitriol flowing all throughout Metal Box. Lydon also evolved as a lyricist. No longer content to rely on his No Future mantra of yore, he expands his lyrical repertoire, touching on themes of his mother's death, murder and the corporate grind. Metal Box is an avenue for Lydon to unleash his inner audiophile out.

Read it all here:
http://forthedishwasher.blogspot.com/2010/07/public-image-ltd-metal-box-1979-45rpm.html

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=H35UWRYS

GBGB NIGHT AT THE HI-DIVE

2011-11-02T17:23:00.006-07:00

Saturday night, I drive part way into Denver and ditch the truck in a park alongside the Cherry Creek bike path where I hop on the bike and peddle the remaining distance into downtown. Once again it is a mild evening and the ride is pleasant. It's Halloween weekend so there are many people roaming the street dressed up in costume. The doors open at 8 so I have time for a cigar before going in and waiting at the foot of the stage for the music to begin at 9pm.

It was CBGB night at the Hi-Dive. According to Jack Jensen who's store is just across the street, the owner of the Hi-Dive and adjoining Sputniks was from New York and he's trying to create a similar atmosphere with his club/bar/restaurant. Bar and musical performance venue, CBGB opened at 315 Bowery in 1973. Founder Hilly Kristal intended the club to provide an outlet for its namesake genres: Country, Bluegrass and Blues. However, the club became notorious for birthing the American Punk Rock movement. London musicians originally founded the genre, but Punk eventually rooted itself in New York. These roots grew during the 1970s and 80s with the help of musical acts like The Ramones, Misfits, and Blondie who frequently played shows at the club affectionately dubbed "CBGB." The venue became well known not only for the musical acts that played there, but also for its embodiment of everything that the rebellious punk movement stood for. Old posters, graffiti and general grime covered the walls of this punk rock haven. This grungy mystique helped the club establish an atmosphere fitting of a haven of the subversive musical movement.

So on this night, Denver Does CBGB’s with SAUNA as Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Accordion Crimes as Blondie, Kissing Party as The Ramones, Wire Faces as Television, and Hindershot as Talking Heads. The music was loud and although I was standing right at the stage, the vocals were low in their mix making it hard to hear the singers. SAUNA and Wire Faces did the best job, while Debbie Harry was blown away by the hurricane of sound from the other band members once they saw she, who was new to the band, was weak in her performance. But still a very good night of rocking music. It was an opportunity for the younger people in the crowd to hear some real music from the days it really rocked. Recorded for your listening pleasure.

The Cherry Creek bike path was all mine well after midnight. Back to the truck where I jumped in the back and went to sleep some time after 2:30am.

SAUNA

Accordion Crimes

Kissing Party

Wire Faces

Hindershot

Download all five shows here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0O5WMUQR

HALLOWEEN IN SEATTLE

2011-10-31T21:10:00.001-07:00

Friday night was spent with Nirvana on Halloween night in Seattle, Monday's Halloween Day was spent here in the office in Denver. I received a surprise when I was given a Jack Jensen style painting that day in the office, a prop for a coworker who was trying to imitate me, but looked too much like Johnny Depp to be convincing, at least to me. Even Jack Jensen was impressed by the quality of the artist's work. "Everybody steals from Jack!"

But Friday night was spent somewhere very far away. First up was a very good recording of Public Image Limited performing in Kings Hall in Manchester, UK on February 23, 1979. This was less than a year since John Lydon pulled together some friends to form a new band after the Sex Pistols came to a sudden end at the beginning of 1978. "We ain't that bad after one night's rehearsal." "If that's your attitude we'll keep you fucking waiting." The audience called out for Sex Pistols tunes. This recording captures that evening beautifully.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z3QXHYWI

Next up late Friday was Nirvana performing at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, WA on October 31, 1991. Excellent recording, a "JWB Remaster." There are so many versions out there of this show that it's hard to say which one I've got, but its really, really good. The quality of these bootleg recordings is phenomenal, equal to anything issued by the record companies. I probably listened to this one before, but considering the fact it was nearly Halloween I felt I had to try it on again.

"The level of excitement on this recording is audible. This is Nirvana's first big homecoming show after releasing Nevermind and their last American show before leaving for a European tour. It was recorded Halloween night 1991 one month after the release of Nevermind. At the end of "School" you can hear Krist Novoselic yelling at the audience for being too punk rock to dress up on Halloween."
"This show starts off with a very early cover of Jesus Wants Me for A Sunbeam(2 years before they performed it on Unplugged in New York.) They play most of the songs from Nevermind, a few from Bleach, and an early performance of "Rape Me" which wouldn't get released until In Utero."

Read it all here, along with this persons version of the show, a smaller sized file from the one I provide:
http://ahistoryofundergroundrecording.blogspot.com/2011/06/nirvana-live-at-paramount-theatre.html

Download it here:
http://www.filestube.com/d9mfFVeQl1wXKlz81tSWmJ/Nirvana-1991-10-31-Paramount-Theatre-Seattle-JWB-REMASTER.html

JACK'S MANNEQUIN DOES DENVER

2011-10-26T19:27:00.005-07:00

Monday night, work ends and I jump on the bicycle and peddle to downtown Denver where I enjoy a dinner at a table overlooking Colfax Avenue, watching all the diverse people walk by, as though these oddities were put there to entertain me. It is unusual to see such a varied collection of people, found no where else in the entire state of Colorado.

A short walk down the street to see Jack's Mannequin perform a show at the Ogden Theater. They are an American pop rock band formed in 2004, originally hailing from Orange County, California. The band began as a side project of Andrew McMahon, the frontman for Something Corporate, and is composed of guitarist Bobby Anderson, bassist Mikey "The Kid" Wagner, and drummer Jay McMillan. I liked their debut album, Everything In Transit enough to have bought it sometime after its release in 2005, added to my "must play" list on long road trips. It was a really good show with a very enthusiastic audience, most people being around/under 25 years of age, many women present swooning for Andrew. He was definitely the star of the show, putting his heart into every song they played.

“I love the energy in here,” McMahon acknowledged the crowd as the nearly packed house sang, danced and most of all cut loose during the 90-minute set. As the crowd hung on every note, the band went through a pretty standard set of hit songs from their three records. The crowd was at its best when the band played “The Mix Tape,” “Holiday for Real” and “Dark Blue” off their “Everything in Transit” record. The set provided very few surprises with regard to song selection, but the band kept their energy up as McMahon bounded all over the stage and jumped into the crowd a few times. “Swim” and “Glass Passenger” were the only slow-tempo songs from the set.

Read it all here:
http://www.heyreverb.com/2011/10/25/jacks-mannequin-ogden-theatre/

Out there on parade
Watch all the broken people
My cracks they don't see

Talking to themselves
Muttering as he takes a drag
Voices we can't hear

Cruising on Colfax

All the odd people strutting

He's just a step away

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VUYUVB4Z

I peddled all the way back to the office where I picked up the sleeping bag I had stashed nearby then rode a short distance where I found a darkened section of Cherry Creek beneath the cottonwood trees with a nice flat spot. I initially had difficulty going to sleep only because of the city noise, but I remembered my ear plugs and that solved the problem. It was a mild night so I was comfortably warm, bordering on hot. I'll probably do it again.

RUTS, ELECTRAFIXION, TELEVISION, BUNNYMEN, AMY

2011-10-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

Friday night starts off with an excellent quality show by The Ruts, live at The Marquee Club in London on July 19, 1979.

Download it here:

http://sharebee.com/f5799cb6

The main act late this evening was Electrafixion, an alternative rock band, formed by former Echo & the Bunnymen members Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant in 1994, joined by bass guitarist Leon de Sylva and drummer Tony McGuigan. They were at the La Route du Rock Festival in St. Malo France on August 14 in 1994, the day after my birthday. It was broadcast over the radio because the announcer would come on periodically and speak in French, interuppting the flow of the show.

Download it here:
http://sharebee.com/9228be2b

Saturday night staterd off with Television, their second night at the Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles, CA on April 14, 1977.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=109FO28Q

Steve the Bunnymen bootleg archivest released a recording of his of a very recent show of theirs. Echo and the Bunnymen at the London Palladium on September 26, 2011. The band is tight and Ian is chatty with the audience who willing provides him with suggestions or comments that invariably bring on a witty reply. At least when you can understand what he's saying, a difficulty for us folks over here in the states. I still enjoyed the show of their clasic numbers, although I was stunned when they performed "The Fountain" from beginning to end. I had commented to Will last May in Anaheim that Ian should do this, avoiding the usuals lame response when he beckons the audience to finish a line in the song, his way of gauging our interest in a particular number.

"If these whole-album playbacks are all about bloodless nostalgia, no one has told Ian McCulloch. During a lull in the title track of tonight's offering, Ocean Rain, he orders the bouncers to turf out a pair of chatty punters for disturbing the contemplative atmosphere."

"A jarring reminder, then, that Echo and the Bunnymen's frontman remains the bristling autodidact who brought swagger to an early-Eighties new-wave scene in Liverpool that already brimmed with characters. His band arguably reached their peak with the escapism and aching romance of this, their fourth album."

"Having already revisited Ocean Rain three years ago, and after recently playing earlier works Crocodiles and Heaven up Here, the band should now be about ready to disinter 1999's misfiring What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? Instead, they play two sets, opening with a mixed bag that takes in both ends of their career. Of more recent material, though, only a driving "Stormy Weather" can hold its own with an impassioned "Rescue", Macca's wracked vocal sounding better than his attempts at smooth crooning."

Read it all here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/echo-amp-the-bunnymen-london-palladium-2365487.html

Download it here:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/2X85EqY/EATB26SEP2011.zip
Thank you Steve!

Sunday night was spent with Amy on the overlook with the mountain view at sunset. The show was from the Astoria in London, UK from February 19, 2007.

"Amy Winehouse- brilliant rock and roll star, a voice like gloopy syrup and an bunch of songs that makes you weep with pleasure. Her jazz-tastic 8 piece band brought the songs from ‘Back To Black’ to life- the Brit award winning singer played to a packed house, closing the set with a surprise cover of The Zutons ‘Valerie’."

And:

"Her eight-piece band are all suited and booted. Two jiving male backing vocalists keep up terrific dance moves to the right of the stage. A couple of brass players honk atmospherically on the left. The set is studded with red lampshades and ruched curtains, like some Prohibition-era jazz club. Winehouse arrives into this vintage set-up without fanfare and just opens her mouth and starts to sing."

"Her voice is a thing of wonder. Unlike all the ghastly, ululating soul manglers out there, Winehouse doesn't care about showing off her range. She just chews up syllables to suit her mood, reducing 'Addicted', her playful weed ode, to a kind of soulful Klingon tonight. Her rich, murky, weathered voice follows her instincts without effort or obvious manipulation. She is offhand, almost unpremeditated, crooning out 'Wake up Alone' in a waltz-time blur of words."

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/feb/25/popandrock.features3)

"Never the most salubrious of venues, the Astoria seems to have been transformed into a brothel for the night. Pearly-grey satin hangs in swags down the back of the stage, illuminated by red velvet lamps. It's a glorious setting for Amy Winehouse's impeccably suited backing band, who could have arrived here from the 1965 Motown UK tour. In fact, the only person who hasn't dressed up for the occasion is Winehouse herself. Beneath a vertiginous beehive she wears a greying T-shirt, faded jeans and trainers. Maxine Powell, head of Motown's finishing school, would be horrified."

"Still, Winehouse can afford to be blasé. It apparently requires no effort whatsoever to produce the seductive, furious vocals that last week won her the best solo female artist award at the Brits. Between songs, she scampers about the stage like a child; singing, she sounds decades older, reminiscent of Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin, yet entirely herself."

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/feb/21/popandrock.amywinehouse)

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WJCZIG9I

ROIT!

2011-10-16T12:42:00.006-07:00

Another beautiful weekend here in Colorado, especially since I no longer have to worry about home renovation projects. Evenings are very pleasant, the cool, clear nights making for especially nice virtual concerts. Since the evening temps are dropping, I assume peoples windows are closed, allowing me to crank it up in the driveway instead of driving the truck behind the house into the trees. No trip to Jack Jensen this week since, well, I have no more room to hang up his paintings!

Pushed under the waves
Of responsibility
Drowns under its weight

There on deaths cold bed
And with that final exhale
Forgets what to say

Clock that's stopped ticking
Darkened room feels so empty
Left there all alone

Friday at 10 PM I stepped outside for a two hour long show with Uncle Johnny, Public Image Limited performing a live show at The Corporation in Sheffield, UK on June 6, 2011. A very good audience recording, suffering only from the loud chatter in the vicinity of the taper. I love the recent recordings of PIL, Lydon's voice having been tempered over the years to something I find very pleasing. By midnight I had no energy to continue on with another show.

"I fucking love me brandy! So much too, cause it's what gets this voice [unintelligible] what it tis."

The doors are closing
White coats out of cheap options
Lead him to the exit

Mind tortured with pain
Wind rushing through her white hair
Suddenly forgets

A glimpse of that child
Standing there so far away
Across the river

Put on priestly robes
Politicians masquerade
No heaven down here

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JCPO5YKV

Saturday night saw me doing the same thing out on the driveway, but this time starting off with Morphine, Live Morning Becomes Eclectic, a recording of a radio broadcast out of Santa Monica, CA on January 14, 1993, the band scheduled to appear in a local club at 10 PM that evening. Excellent sound and the interview of Mark Sandman only added to the enjoyment of listening to it.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zuzinkyt3te
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AK8RY5I0

I was waiting a long time for this next one. Public Image Limited's infamous show at The Ritz in NYC on May 15, 1981, substituting for another band that had backed out of the show. The show is planned, not be a rock n roll gig, but to be a "video performance", PiL playing behind a large screen, on which pre-taped video footage is projected. But the audience doesn't get it and after being goaded long enough, riots. Great sounding show, lots of laughs from Johnny's provocative humor, listen to the bottles smashing!

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?wyzjtntflyj

Keith Levine: I told [the venue]...'We'll do the gig if we can use all the equipment and do a video gig.' They said, 'What's a video gig?' - I was making this up as I was going along - and I said...'You should advertise it as a Public Image Ltd Video Appearance Live.' They said it didn't make sense - 'You can't appear on video live.' I told them, 'You watch us do it.'...It turned out the Ritz was a 'Bridge and Tunnel' club. I had no idea - I was expecting a New York audience. So I had an audience that had more or less come to see the Sex Pistols...[Lydon, though,] sussed out the demographic of the audience, [and] he started playing whatever would piss them off, just to get a response.

Clinton Heylin says:

Lydon, Levine and their co-opted drummer, Sam, had no intention of performing any kind of ordinary set. Having set up behind a video screen, they began banging the odd drum and hitting an occasional guitar string, while Lydon persistently goaded the crowd. After a perfunctory attempt at 'Banging The Door', Lydon - still behind the screen - asked 'Did you like that? Is that what you want? Are you getting your money's worth Isn't this what rock & roll's all about, maaan?' The audience finally did what it was being provoked to do, and PiL's 'performance' broke Suicide's previous record, instigating a full-scale riot barely fifteen minutes after Lydon sauntered behind the screen.

Ed Carabello, who arranged the gig wrote:

The whole band's behind the screen and Keith starts playing and the drummer's playing this celtic rhythm to start the show. Then Keith starts playing the record 'Flowers of Romance.' He cranked it up and took all the equalization out of it- it sounded so cacaphonous. I started pulsating the parcan lights. It was really eerie and screechy. The crowd just loved it- they fell silent. You just saw the glow and the lights flashing. Keith's guitar was feeding back, playing off the record that was on and John was just silent throughout this whole thing. He just stood next to Keith. You could only see the silhouettes of them and the projections of them on the screen. The crowd is just loving this, thinking 'what a great introduction.'

The first song ends and John starts to talk to the audience for the first time. He says 'sil-ly fuck-ing aud-ience, sil-ly fuck-ing aud-i-ence...' He's slowly taunting the audience. Now the crowd's not quiet anymore. They start chanting 'raise the screen, raise the screen, raise the screen!' John's never been one who likes to be told what to do so he's chiding the audience. He says what fuckers they were to pay 12 dollars to see this, just taunting the audience. The more they say 'raise the screen,' he says 'we're not going to raise the fucking screen!'

So the band goes into another song that was this kind of improvisational kind of thing. It seemed to be directed by the drummer! John and Keith were just doing their thing. John made those sounds with his voice, almost like a yodelling type of thing. Keith is doing this screechy, primal sounding thing with his guitar, almost like a jazz number. They go through this and it's a ten minute number. The crowd is kind of liking it but you could hear them add their two cents by syncopating the rhythm with 'raise the screen! raise the screen!' At the end of this, John is really being abusive. So the audience starts pelting the screen with beer bottles. Even in the balconies, they were throwing bottles and some of it was hitting the audience down below. The more that they threw bottles, the more that John would chide them.

The manager of the Ritz comes to me then as I'm the only member of the band that was accessible- everyone else is behind the screen. Jerry says 'you gotta raise the screen! There's a riot happening right before our eyes!' I felt like Nero watching Rome burn, seeing these bottles all over and I never realized how abusive John was to his audience. So I tell Jerry 'No, I'm not raising it. You should have advertised and said that this wasn't a concert. It's a performance art show. That is what it is, that's what they paid for and that's what we're putting on.' I was guarding the remote control switch, not letting anyone touch it. Jerry kept yelling at me to raise it and I'd yell at him that I wasn't going to do it.

Then Jerry turns to the crowd and sees something going on as they let out a collective 'aaah.' The front of the crowd started pulling on the tarp and I start getting scared because the instruments and amplifier were moving forward like they were going to go into the audience. So Jerry says 'Are you crazy? Look at that!' I said 'you're probably right.' So I raised the screen just a little bit, enough to put on the parcans full blast so that we're blinding the audience with light. For a minute, they shrink back from this huge flash of light. It looked like the screen from 'Wizard of Oz' where everyone sees the magical workings of the Wizard, like 'pay no attention to the PIL behind the screen!'

The stage hands started scrambling to get the equipment off the tarp as the audience was still pulling at it. The poor drummer was freaking out as his kit was moving. One of the stage hands grabs the mike out of John's hand and starts screaming 'THE SHOW'S OVER! THE SHOW'S OVER!' They bring the house lights on but the audience is still pulling the tarp towards them. It was like 'we want our money's worth no matter how we get it out of you!' The stage hands rushed John and Keith off the stage for safety's reasons. My camera people got out of there. The management of the Ritz took over, saying 'the show's over. That was the show. Thanks for coming.' It was kind of funny because the crowd just slowly said 'oh...OK.'

Read it all here:
http://www.furious.com/perfect/pil.html

Michael Millet wrote:

Finally PiL came out and the only member they set up you could see was this old guy 60 years+ who I later read they met in a music store that day to play drums. Now there was images of them on the screen they were playing behind and that was fine by me. After the first song people booed and started yelling to raise the screen. So johnny started making fun of them and egging them on. "oh I can't see them.". "I'm not getting my monies worth". ect ect. People got madder as the the show went on and bottles of Molson went flying at and over the screen. Not to mention at the senior citizen drummers head. It was obvious something worse was going to take place. Some of my friends left but I decided to stay. There were a couple of more tunes. I think it was a total of 15 minutes of music. Bottles were flying and the $10,000.00 Ritz video screen was within grabbing distance of the audience who had camped out 9 hours to experience this. The band could tell the screen was being pulled on so they started saying "You destroy that screen, we'll destroy you" and other threats. Not likely.

Keith Levene came out from behind the screen to maybe say something and it got suddenly quiet. He was tackled (later found out by a bouncer) as a torrent of bottles hit the screen where he'd been standing a moment before.

A white cloth covering on the floor got pulled into the audience. All the band gear was on this covering and was knocked over as the roadies ran to keep it from going into the audience and getting stolen. The screen went along with it into the crowd. The club security almost saved it. But it was ripped down and stretched about 20 feet in a tug of war between the bouncers and the kids. I will say here the fabric was surprisingly strong yet light! :)

At this point the bouncers started hitting people with truncheons. I saw a guy on the floor and he was bleeding from a head wound. I helped him walk to the stage right door and banged on it. They opened the door and security took him in. They asked me if he was hit by a bottle or a bouncer's truncheon. Seems they all had rubber covered plastic or metal clubs about 6 - 8 inches long. I said I didn't know. It was a head wound with a lot of blood so they thought it was probably a bouncer! They said to me he'd be OK!

Right behind this guy 3 feet away I was surprised to see the whole band.... Johnny, Keith and Jeanette Lee. They all looked very white no color. Maybe they always looked like that I don't know. I did look Johnny right in the eye and my first thought was this guy is scared to death. Then the door slammed shut so, I went to sit upstairs a bit. They were playing disco music to get people to leave. On my way out there was a line of people trying to get refunds. The bouncers chased them away. I read later a Johnny Rotten clone got beaten up outside.

Read it all here:
http://www.fodderstompf.com/GIG%20LIST/rit81.html

Saturday night was closed with a very good audience recording of Echo and The Bunnymen's live performance at Loggiato Degli Uffizi in Firenze, Italy on June 29, 1981. A classic performance of songs off Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here. Great show!

Download it here:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/Y57CceP/E%25C%25H%25O%25B%25U%25N%25Y%25Uffizi%2C%20Firenze%2C%20Italy%2C%2029%20June%201981.rar

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

2011-10-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

I wished it were Saturday but it was really Monday night, but no matter, because it was spent with The Smashing Pumpkins at the sold out show at the Ogden Theater. Joining me this time were wife and daughter, where they took the high ground on the balcony while I made my way up front. This band could fill Red Rocks, but tonight they were performing for the relatively small crowd in the theater. The reason being they are on a 12 city US tour this October, as a warm-up to a big year of touring in 2012.

I don't believe anyone in the crowd knew who the two warm-up bands were. The first on stage were not so bad and managed to wake the place up. However, the following band (Fancy Space People?), dressed in silver spandex suits was a bit too much for the anxious audience, with shouts of "Go back to outer space!" coming from the crowd. Needless to say it was a short set.

Everyone came to see frontman Billy Corgan. What a performance, lasting a solid 2 hours and 20 minutes. Not being familiar with their new stuff, it was hard for me at times to even recognize when one song gave way to another, especially since there were times the beat put me into a distant voodo dance state of mind. Great show and the crowd did not hesitate to show their enthusiasm.

This is what was written in Westword:

If you are attending a Smashing Pumpkins show at which Billy Corgan is the sole survivor in 2011, you have undoubtedly already formulated an answer to the question that divides the band's modern fans: How many members does it take to maintain relevance? Your answer is not just "one," but "Billy Corgan," and you know better than to even think about "Disarm" or "1979." The rules of the game the band has run for years seemed to escape only one gentleman, who, like some Lone Masochistic Ranger, shouted in vain for "Tonight, Tonight" in the front row until he must have gone hoarse. If you are a Smashing Pumpkins fan in 2011, you either don't care or you have resigned yourself.

You've moved on to concept albums. Oceania, what Corgan has called "an album within an album," has rotated through several scheduled release dates at this point, and the band, always focused on new material, played four of its tracks in the sound spaces not occupied by "Muzzle" and "Cherub Rock." Immediately after the jarring emotion of "Siva" came "Oceania," a stunning but melancholy spiral that finds Corgan on the keyboard. The songs, particularly the title track, are lovely, flexible melodies less derivative of the band's font of undiluted agony than previous work.

In the meantime, it's hard to pick the correct verb for what Corgan does with his mouth. To say he wails would be at times too kind, at others too generous, and at others still even unfair -- but it's the closest approximation of the action that creates his wild but timid tone. Between songs, always tied together by a series of almost overwhelming instrumentation, the pace changes so quickly it's as if it was responding to emotion. Corgan is endlessly earnest, even in the strange moment in which he recited the alliterative lines of "Peter Piper" and "Sally Sells Seashells." "If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," he asked the crowd, waiting for some sort of response, "where the fuck are the peppers?"

Read it all here:
http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2011/10/review_smashing_pumpkins_denver.php

Another review and more pictures here:
http://www.heyreverb.com/2011/10/11/smashing-pumpkins-ogden-denver-photos-review/

Download the 2:20:00 show here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UPULMUU3

If anyone really wants Fancy Space People, please let me know and I'll post it.

WINTER ARRIVES, OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

2011-10-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

Jack Jensen had another painting waiting for me when I showed up at his gallery/bookstore this past Friday over lunch. If its Sid, it's a sure sale.

Snow began falling in the mountains, enough to allow the Wolf Creek Pass ski area to open up this weekend with three feet of fresh snow. They blew A Basin and Loveland out of the water, both of which are scheduled to open up late in October.

But the snow was not limited to the mountains. A light rain fell off and on Friday night as I was listening to my music outside past 10 PM. It was still just rain at 4 AM, but when I awoke at 8 AM I was surprised to see that three inches had already accumulated on the roof outside my window with it coming down steady most of the day. It was a winter wonderland, tree limbs with there summer's leaves bending under the weight.

This weekend essentially brought the summer home renovation project to an end, with the last of the hardware being put up, all fixtures being fully functional. I can now move onto other fun projects, number one being the design, carving and printing of the holiday block print. It's fun, at least up until I spent hours carving individual blocks, also a mind numbing process.

Wanting another taste of The Ruts, I started Friday night off with recordings from their time with John Peel, English BBC disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. This is a high quality recording of their 1979-1981 Peel Sessions. They got be pumped up for the act to follow.

Download it here:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/PnUYUtp

Less than two weeks earlier, Echo and The Bunnymen performed at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham, UK on September 25, 2011. I was surprised with the speed at which they posted this excellent audience recording onto the net of the two hour UK Ocean Rain tour show. Released in 1984, Ocean Rain was Echo and the Bunnymen’s fourth album and is widely considered to be their masterpiece. It mesmerized Bunnymen fans and broke them to a much wider audience on the strength of such towering songs as “Silver”, “Seven Seas” and the unforgettable “The Killing Moon.” “Ocean Rain” was played in its entirety accompanied by strings.

Ian does an extraordinary amount of talking between each and every song. It wouldn't be so bad had I been able to understand at least a quarter of what he said in his heavy Liverpudlian accent. It was almost as though the songs were secondary to his chatty stand up routine. Otherwise, a great performance. I could find nothing in the Birmingham paper with their review of the show.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7FKFPWC8

A cold Saturday night started off with the Sex Pistols show at the Kingfish Club, Baton Rouge, LA on January 9, 1978, only three show away from their demise as a band. The audience was wild! This is what was written about that night:

the kingfish was only suppose to hold 600 people, but the limit was exceeded by at least another 300. the sweat and humidity dripped off the walls like a waterfall, even tho it was early january, and the smell of almost a thousand black leather clad punk rockers from all points south was almost gagging. and mixed amongst the punks were cowboy hats and boots, fonzy wanna-bes, disco girls and the usual assortment of freaks and trannys from the quarter.

i pushed and needled my way to the front of stage right, clutching my trusty sony 224 recorder and staked a claim. as i started yakking to my new neighbors in this debachary i found myself next to annie leibovitz and richard aaron, (photogs of rolling stone and time respectivley). well, that got me going, asking annie to take my pic coz it would make her famous and doing an interview w/ her on my 224 . . . taking pics of aaron w/ his own camera, just being silly from the intoxicating moment.

when the pistols hit the stage it was as though a bomb went off. the pistols were covered with talcum powder, (for some un-godly reason), and it hovered around them like smokey halos. sid was shirtless with'gimme a fix' carved in his chest, a huge bandage on his left arm and a lock and chain from a peterbilt around his neck. and amid all this sweltry heat johnny was wearing blue plaid gaberdine suit.
drinks and spit hit the stage, while coins and bottles pelted the backwall, the minute they came out and sid was picking up change and sticking it in his mouth mumbling, 'gimme a hunnerd', into the mic.

when they kicked into 'god save the queen', i thought the building would take off. it was like a 747 of rock and roll, all the hype was out the door. how did these guys get so good? they shouldn't have been. paul cook was unrelenting, he just drove it into the dirt. between him and jones, it held together. johhny and sid were just clowns on the midway. but it was so good.

the lsu stage goons copped my 224 just into the second song and left it running on the side of the stage, that was ok, i knew a.g. was taping in the back . . . i was guranteed a copy of the show at least.

at one point the goon squad went after aaron's camera. he went down fighting but they got the cam and kicked him out screaming and waving his press pass. annie took less pics after that. . . oh well.

when someone threw a pair of those kiddie western sunglasses on the stage, sid put them on, played about a song and a half, until they fell off his face and back into the throng, then he started to whine about his 'fookin' glasses', (which promted another barrage of debris).

so it was, they played their whole cataloge, i guess about 40 mins but what a show! it was a hurricane of a rock show, the likes of which i had never seen, and probably never will again.

Read it all here:
http://thewreckroom.blogspot.com/2005/03/kingfish-1-8-78.html

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SE2R6LY8
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3ZSO2BR3

Still on the Nevermind kick, I pulled out Nirvana's live show at the Aladin in Bremen, Germany on August 27, 1991, an evening during which Sonic Youth also took the stage. After one song Kurt says "Thank you!' "We like to thank the alcohol." Another excellent JWB remastered recording of the standard 1991 set list, only a month before Nevermind was released, with six of the fourteen songs played this evening being off that new album.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1BS9IJSH

FESTIVAL OF FIVE

2011-10-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

Another weekend of working on the bathroom, another weekend of virtual concerts. The work on the bathroom largely consists of reassembly which I thought I would have completed this weekend, but everything takes so much longer than expected, especially when there is no motivation. The worst was climbing up into the attic to replace the exhaust fan and vent pipe, working amidst fiberglass insulation that gets into your skin and clothing. This only makes me party even harder when 10 PM rolls around.

The only thing to break up the monotony of the daytime chores was a bike ride on Sunday morning down to Parker and beyond, a grueling experience because I am so out of shape. My ass still hurts.

Friday night started off with something new, The Ruts and their very first album, The Crack, released in 1979. The Ruts were a reggae-influenced British punk rock band, notable for the 1979 Top 10 hit "Babylon's Burning", and an earlier single "In a Rut", which was not a hit but was much played and highly regarded by the UK BBC Radio 1 disc jockey, John Peel. In his book Babylon's Burning, Clinton Heylin said of them:"The Ruts had risen on a groundswell of concert converts from eighteen months of solid gigging. Turn-screw tight, The Ruts were the best musicians to play hard and fast since the proto-typical Pistols imploded."

"The Crack" was, and still is, a masterpiece of the period. Opening with a screaming police siren which leads into "Babylon Burning" it highlights the sheer diversity and depth of the band. Sure the early punk basic Punk numbers like "Criminal Mind"", "out of Order" and the chaotic live version of "Human Punk" were there to keep the hardcore following happy but it was the lyrical and musical progression which made the most impression. "Jah Wars" saw that love of Reggae taken even further, seven passion filled minutes based around the Sothfall riots set to a biting Reaggae back beat that Misty themselves would relish. The LP received it's fair share of critical acclaim and today is still essential purchase.

Read it all here:
http://punkmodpop.free.fr/ruts_pic.htm

I would agree with what was said above that it was a really good album that will cause to to hunt down more of their music, particularly the live shows.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jykjnwfxojm

The main act this Friday night was The Pretenders performing a really good show at the Norwegian Wood Festival at Frognerbadet in Oslo, Norway on June 13, 2009. Chrissie sounds just as good now as she did 30 years ago when I saw her at Stony Brook University. Sound board recording, but I think its not the complete show. Still enjoyed it.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C4ZPPSZS

The Gang of Four's first two singles released kicked off Saturday night. The Gang's debut single, "Damaged Goods" backed with "(Love Like) Anthrax" and "Armalite Rifle", was recorded in June 1978 and released on 10 December 1978, on Edinburgh's Fast Product label. "At Home He's a Tourist" followed in 1979. Comparing these two recordings with the Peel Sessions that followed, you can clearly hear an improvement in their performance.

Hugo Burnham: The Buzzcocks were playing [somewhere] and we [decided], "Lets do what the Pistols did , turn up and say, hello, we're the support act."And we just said , "Hi, we're..." "No, you're no." "[Well], can we be?" Richard Boon was rather taken by our [nerve], and said, "All right, then." And they loved us. So literally two or three weeks later [he called us up and said], "We're going on tour. Do you want to come with us? You can be an opening act [before] The Slits, who are on tour with us."...We did Leeds University, opening for The Slits and Buzzcocks on stage where Live at Leeds was recorded. We ended up at the Lyceum [in London] - one of those great nights. It was Buzzcocks, The Slits, John Cooper Clarke, The Fall and us. It was unreal...We were enveloped in the ruck, 'cause it was very exciting. We were on the road. We were a rock band!

Download them here:
http://www.multiupload.com/MU_YPX382S94Z
http://www.multiupload.com/MU_EOM3SNPBB0

I couldn't resist continuing to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of Nirvana’s Nevermind, pulling out their live show, “Playing at the Moon” recorded at a small club in New Haven, CT on September 26, 1991, almost exactly 20 years ago to the day.

The audience again almost steals the show, chatting with the band in between songs. "Anybody here go to Yale?" Loud "No" response from the audience. "Yeah, you look too stupid." Several cryptic references were made to "two weeks", perhaps implying that Nevermind, released only two days earlier would be reaching record stores in that time? "Free bird!" "Rock and roll!" After "Sliver," the band started playing "Blew," but ended up jamming on the song for a while because Kurt had guitar problems, as he did the entire night. Once Kurt got his guitar working again, the band played all of "Blew" from the beginning.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?n37nu3msyeouh69

Sunday night relaxing with a cigar outside after sunset, listening to Amy Winehouse, "Absolutely Live" at the Tempodrom in Berlin on October 15, 2007. Great soundboard recording.

"The good news for fans is that after a string of no-shows, the troubled star turned up at Berlin's Tempodrom to kick off her first proper gigs since her drug overdose in August."

"And, true to form, the night was marked with the same thrills and wine spills that became a constant feature of her live performances before her demons forced her to take a break."

"But after a slow start she showed moments of sheer brilliance that confirmed she is one of the most talented artists of her generation."

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7FKFPWC8

NEVERMIND

2011-09-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago this month, Nirvana released its Teen Spirit-anchored major-label debut, Nevermind. Expectations were modest; only 45,000 copies were pressed. To date, 30 million have sold worldwide.

"Nobody saw it coming," says Dave Grohl, 42, who founded Foo Fighters after drumming in Nirvana. "Not the label, the band, the management. Some of our friends said, 'You're going to be huge.' We said, 'Like Sonic Youth? Awesome! Woo!'"

With a sonic vibe and video look that few expected to go mainstream, Nevermind ushered in a grungy era that saw rock's creative envelope pushed to new extremes. "You can hear where we come from, American hard-core music," says bassist Krist Novoselic, 46. "On Nevermind, we were promoting bands we liked."

When Nevermind exploded into earshot in the autumn of 1991, it was startling: a grenade detonating in your car radio. It sounded like the end of something (the 1980s? hair metal?), or maybe the beginning of something ("alternative rock"? "Generation X"?). Today, the album has become so encrusted with myth, that it's hard to wrap your ears around it, to really hear it. In 2005, the Library of Congress added Nevermind to its roll call of the world's most significant recordings.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/nevermind-20th-anniversary-20110927

Wikipedia says:

Nevermind is the second studio album by the US rock band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind was the group's first release on DGC Records. Frontman Kurt Cobain sought to make music outside the restrictive confines of the Seattle grunge scene, drawing influence from groups such as the Pixies and their use of song volume dynamics.

Despite low commercial expectations by the band and its record label, Nevermind became a surprise success in late 1991, largely due to the popularity of its first single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit". By January 1992, it had replaced Michael Jackson's album Dangerous at number one on the Billboard charts. The Recording Industry Association of America has certified the album Diamond (over 10 million copies shipped), and the album has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. Nevermind was responsible for bringing alternative rock to a large mainstream audience, and critics subsequently regard it as one of the best rock albums of all time.

As the band revealed, the recording of the album was similarly scrappy with a strong work ethic throughout; with Kurt Cobain, they rehearsed the album uninterrupted for three months and then decamped to the shabby Sound City studios in Van Nuys, California, for 16 days. They recorded live in the same room and only one studio altercation occurred when Cobain became so frustrated during the recording of "Lithium," he launched into the deranged jam that became Nevermind's secret track ("Endless, Nameless") and then smashed his guitar. "Kurt could be really mellow and sweet, and then he would flip and be really intense. That's what a lot of Nevermind and Nirvana's music is: Kurt's intensity captured," Novoselic explained.

The Nevermind sessions were rigidly focused and the downtime was inversely giddy: each night, the band hit the beach, frequented one liquor store with a sinister clown on its sign and goofed off constantly in the studio complex. "There's a popular misconception that the band traveled with this black cloud over our heads all the time, and it was so not that way," Grohl said.

Recalled Vig of one mixing session, "We were enamored with the fact that Ozzy Osbourne was in the studio next to us. We would stand outside the studio and listen to him while he sang –"

Grohl finished: "So one time, we got trashed at our hotel and wrote OZZY on our fingers. I was playing pool with Kurt when Ozzy walked in, gave us this dirty look and walked out, and we realized we all had OZZY on our fingers. It was so fucking embarrassing."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jon-stewart-talks-nirvana-with-krist-novoselic-dave-grohl-and-butch-vig-20110926

This Saturday evening I had to hang out with Nirvana, playing their live performance at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago, IL on October 12, 1991, two and a half weeks after the album was released. As always the recording is excellent, Kurt's performance phenomonal. We can only wonder what music he would be producing today. But his star burned brightly for the short time he produced some really great music.

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?y1mxzhda1ki

Hand prints on cave walls
Longing for some permanance
Gods that disappoint

Rules to be followed
Feeling like we must obey
Wearing the handcuffs

Love that has no bounds
Friendship that lasts forever
Buried underground

Public Image Limited started off the evening, with a rousing performance at the Provinssrock Festival in Finland on June 6, 1992. More songs from their last album released in 1992, That What Is Not. Sounds like an incomplete recording of the show, but still well worth a listen. It certainly put me in a good mood for what followed.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WIMCJM1R