RUTS, ELECTRAFIXION, TELEVISION, BUNNYMEN, AMY

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

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

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