TO GERMANY, THERE AND BACK

I can't believe how quickly the weeks are passing by! It seems like before I know it Friday comes around and the fun happens late in the evening. This Friday was especially enjoyable because I had lunch with another avid Echo & The Bunnymen fan, followed by a late afternoon cigar with a buddy close to home. The Parker Days Festival was happening only a block away, the sounds of live music drifting in the air as we sat smoking on his porch, watching the people streaming towards the music and carnival rides. A busy week of wild weather, thunder storms generating heavy hail and tornadoes.

Friday night saw me pull out a pair of what are becoming old favorites. First up was an FM radio broadcast of Nirvana playing live in Bremen, Germany on August 27, 1991. Although its an FM broadcast, the recording is in mono, but it's excellent quality. This particular show took place shortly before the September 24, 1991 release of Nevermind, their second studio album. That's why during the show Kurt proclaims "some new stuff". When Nevermind reached number one in January 1992, Billboard proclaimed, "Nirvana is that rare band that has everything: critical acclaim, industry respect, pop radio appeal, and a rock-solid college/alternative base." A great rock performance.

Tonight's performance was nearly ruined when thoughts of work intruded, the sense of frustration welling up inside me. A couple of haiku's and it was out of my system.

Feels it all at once

Bright sunlight on the counter

The essence of life

Signs begging for help
There on every street corner
People abandoned

Nothing we can do
Trapped behind their ignorance
Fire barely contained

Rule with such confidence
With supreme incompetence
The king has no clothes

Download it here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/109191456/Nirv.1991-08-27.Bremen.rar

Next up was Echo & The Bunnymen, their live performance at the Berlin Kantkino, also in Germany, on June 15, 1981. This show followed the release of Heaven Up Here, their second album, released in 30 May 1981. In June 1981, Heaven Up Here became Echo & the Bunnymen's first Top 10 release when it rocketed to number 10 on the UK Album charts. During the show Ian speaks very little, just matter of factly giving song titles before they perform. An excellent quality recording, although Show of Strength was messed up digitally. I need to check to see whether its my version or the one available for download off the web.

"Liverpool's finest continue to sing the blues, continue to devote themselves to the glossy celebration of existential sadness. Heaven Up Here offers an anatomy of melancholy, resplendent with the glamour of doom." - Record Mirror, 1981

The bands performance this evening was not particularly remarkable, Ian's in particular, and I question whether they may have had one too many "beveys" prior to the show.

Tossing and turning

A dream wanting to awake

Freed by saying "yes"

Standing in the rain

Night sky lit by white flashes

Mind so far away

Do we remember?

The gift lies over the wall

Climb to my rescue

His sound dominates

William rocks the house

He leads, we follow

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3U6PGRVK

D-DAY IN DONINGTON PARK

The summer home renovation season is in full swing, with both weekends and weekday nights spent to a greater or lesser degree measuring, cutting and nailing. This weekend was spent ripping off another section of old cedar siding around and above the main entryway, dry, cracked and warped wood, liberating three decades of accumulated dried bug parts from insects that considered my house to be just one more pine tree to live in. Design problems are exposed and must be fixed before I can put the new siding up, adding new studs here and there in corners and walls and adding better sheathing on parts where siding goes directly onto the concrete foundation. I spent part of an afternoon in a hot attic, crawling around in fiberglass, dragging a nail gun while adding new studs to the exterior wall, sweating profusely. Fun stuff. A storm brews overhead, thunder booming but only managing to release a few drops of rain. I heard on the news later in the evening that a tornado made an appearance somewhere in the Denver metro area, some areas receiving golf-ball sized hail. The season of finishing the day sitting in a lawn chair atop the roof has also arrived, to watch some of the best sunsets ever, a setting suns light playing on clouds drifting above the mountains and plains.

You will have noticed that I've reduced my concerts from two to only one per weekend. The drinking and late nights are taking its toll. Plus, with my working on the house I can't afford to sleep in too late. So the party happens Friday night.

Lets get back to basics. The first show was Van Halen, recorded live on Saturday August 18th, 1984 when they appeared before an audience of 80,000 people in Donington Park in Leicestershire, England. A decent audience recording, my version of which is missing the encore. Classic Van Halen, with Dave tossing out his usual stories and one liners and including the jets passing overhead into the act. Looks like this bootleg recording came off of a 2 album set that was pressed sometime after the show. A very good show from the Monsters of Rock tour.

Screens glow in the dark

Quick death by remote control

Push of the button

Faces fill the screen

Bellowing venomous views

A talk show nation

Count down is delayed

Reality won't depart

Takes another swig

Ultra bass solo

Echo's deep within our core

Mike goes on too long

Goes in seeking help

Entranced by fair skins freckles

Forgets the disease

Part two of the evening was listening to Echo & The Bunnymen's second studio album, Heaven Up Here, originally released on May 30, 1981. The remastered version I had was released in 2003 and included a number of bonus tracks. The album starts off with the three strongest songs, "Show of Strength", "With A Hip" and my favorite "Over The Wall".

According to guitarist Will Sergeant, McCulloch considers Heaven Up Here to be Sergeant's album because he was bossy and a control freak during the recording. Will's psychedelic guitar sound permeates the entire album, and I love it.

I'm not sure how I managed to do it, but I dropped into bed around 3:30 AM. I suspect I hit the "repeat" button for "Over The Wall" one too many times.

From some random description of the album off the web:

A dark record, chilling in its detached dissection of love and life, Heaven Up Here is the product of a troubled psyche. It took a long time for me to appreciate this record; little on here jumps out at the listener like the single "A Promise." However, calling this a case of the sophomore slump misses the point. Far too much thought and care went into this music to dismiss it out of hand. In fact, the songs demand your attention: "Turquoise Days," "It Was A Pleasure," "Show of Strength" are arresting. Difficult to recall on command, sure, but the songs exist in a middleworld between the conscious and the subconscious anyway. You're supposed to feel music like "All My Colours," not go home humming it. The reference points are again Gang of Four, U2, The Cure, bands that managed to make more memorable music than what you'll find on Heaven Up Here. And little on this album sparkles the way those bands did, as Ian McCulloch sings just below the surface of the music. Words slip in and out, when you catch hold of a lyric it's usually very clever, but years later I still can't tell you what most of these songs are about. What does emerge is Will Sergeant's sonic artistry, extending his guitar into realms that Andy Gill and The Edge merely hinted at. With McCulloch and Sergeant occupying their own musical limbos, it falls to Pete De Freitas and Les Pattinson to provide a lifeline back to reality, often employing a vaguely tribal pattern to underscore the urgency of whatever McCulloch is mumbling about at the moment. Echo fans won't be scared off by Heaven's dark designs, but newcomers attracted by the band's more accessible work may find this unduly harsh.

Monkey on his back

Stranglehold that won't let go

Singing in his ear

Life left all behind

Whirlpool becomes a black hole

Won't ever escape

Reaches the limit

Toes stand over the dark edge

Leans and falls forward

SEATTLE TO SAN DIEGO IN ONE NIGHT

Another week slips by. The wife's in Wyoming, I'm in charge of the kids. Last week of school for them, summer vacation begins. My enslavement to the house renovation project persists, trying to squeeze in an hour or more of work time after dinners on weekdays. I now look forward to the weekends for two reasons: to get in some good hours working on the siding project and the Friday night concerts. Friday night and its time to play.

Dressed in three piece suits
Sadists have something to share
Our gift of torture

We learned from the best
The Spanish Inquisition
Modern day Middle Age

First up is Nirvana, Aqua Seafoam Shame, a live recording of their December 14, 1993 show at the Center Arena in Seattle, WA. This show was part of Nirvana's first American tour in two years to promote their third and final studio album, In Utero. An excellent soundboard recording. You listen to this stuff and you can't help but rock to the beat. Although I enjoyed it, this show seemed to be a bit over produced, lacking the "crispness" of the 1991 show I listened to last weekend. As a result, I've found and downloaded several other earlier shows, hoping to capture their sound when they were on a fast rise to national stardom.

The following was clipped from "GOONIES BE DAMAGED" (http://gooniesbedamaged.blogspot.com/2007/09/band-of-day-92507.html):

In Utero was released in September of 1993 to positive reviews and strong initial sales, debuting at the top of the U.S. and U.K. charts. Nirvana supported it with a fall American tour, hiring former Germs member Pat Smear as an auxiliary guitarist. While the album and the tour were both successful, sales weren't quite as strong as expected, with several shows not selling out until the week of the concert. As a result, the group agreed to play MTV's acoustic Unplugged show at the end of the year, and sales of In Utero picked up after its December airing. After wrapping up the U.S. tour on January 8, 1994, with a show at Center Arena in Seattle, Nirvana embarked on a European tour in February. Following a concert in Munich on February 29, Cobain stayed in Rome to vacation with Love. On March 4, she awakened to find that Cobain had attempted suicide by overdosing on the tranquilizer Rohypnol and drinking champagne. While the attempt was initially reported as an accidental overdose, it was known within the Nirvana camp that the vocalist had left behind a suicide note.

Cobain returned to Seattle within a week of his hospitalization and his mental illness began to grow. On March 18, the police had to again talk the singer out of suicide after he locked himself in a room threatening to kill himself. Love and Nirvana's management organized an intervention program that resulted in Cobain's admission to the Exodus Recovery Center in L.A. on March 30, but he escaped from the clinic on April 1, returning to Seattle. His mother filed a missing persons report on April 4. The following day, Cobain shot himself in the head at his Seattle home. His body wasn't discovered until April 8, when an electrician contracted to install an alarm system at the Cobain house stumbled upon the body. After his death, Kurt Cobain was quickly anointed as a spokesman for Generation X, as well as a symbol of its tortured angst.

Drawn out of thin air

The sound of inspiration

Put into our heads

Cool spring evening

Scent of lilac in the air

Clouds vail on the moon

Eyes are upon them

Intense pressure to produce

Successes failure

A rapid ascent

To touch the high pinnacle

Only to fall down

Fills the nighttime air

Distant cosmic static and

Organized chaos

Barriers are down

He has been set free to fly

Drifts among the stars

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5YL7GKGM

The highlight of the evening was Echo & The Bunnymen, their live performance in San Diego, CA on December 9, 2005 September. This is the fourth live "House of Blues" album they released, recordings of shows performed in California in December 2005. Naturally, a great quality recording. Ian's voice is a bit rough sounding, the smooth crooning probably lost to the ever present cigarette.

This show was part of their world tour in support of their studio album, Siberia, released on September 19, 2005. They started the tour in Europe before embarking on a 16-date North American leg. "The band we've got around us now are the closest to the old Bunnymen we've ever had," frontman Ian McCulloch said in a statement to press. "Not that we've intentionally set out to capture the past in any way. I think I'd been trying to get away from the approach of 'Heaven Up Here' or 'Porcupine' where a lot of the songs were based on a single note, or a pulse even."

Friday night's twilight

Heavily lubricated

Slips into the zone

Plastic in his hand

Loose fingers unscrew the cap

Taken far away

Exclaim victory

Their distant voices singing

Coyote pack howling

JONES BEACH 1995

A busy Saturday, getting serious about the house siding project. Rebuilt the deck off the TV room, getting rid of the ancient stained redwood and replacing it with a recycled plastic/wood product. Very nice. A cool wet day that slowed the pace that I could work on the house. Went with the family to see the new Star Trek movie in the early evening. Considering we went to see Terminator Salvation the night before, I've been to the theater in one weekend the same number of times I probably went all of last year.

After the movie I decided to listen to some music in the darkness outside the house. Cool wet evening, cool enough that after nearly two hours standing outside I had to switch to a down jacket. The show of choice was Van Halen at Jones Beach Theater, in Wantagh, NY on August 23, 1995. An obvious audience recording, B quality, but still enjoyable, especially considering it was a familiar location, having gone swimming there often as a child. Sound gets a little "wobbly" in spots, apparently due to the wind that kicked up this evening, as noted by Sammy several times. This was the second night of three they played at this location. A classic Balance tour show, just wish the quality were a little better.

The following was from an unpublished book allegedly written by Sammy, explaining where the band was shortly before the break up the following year:

As the "Balance" bandwagon headed into the fall, Van Halen was on course to perform more dates during one single tour, than they'd ever done in their entire career. The wear and tear on the musicians was starting to show. Alex still wore the neck brace to protect his fragile neck. Eddie was limping around with a cane and taking pain killers for his aching leg. His battle to control his liquor intake was also unsuccessful, according to Hagar. For maybe half the tour, the guitarist imbibed heavily, despite his constant denials that drinking was a thing of the past for him. Unfortunately, after years of sobriety, brother Al also began to partake in alcoholic beverages. He was separated from his wife and, despite his attempts at reconciliation, his marriage was falling apart. The marital discord was devastating him, and periodic doses of booze were his way of coping with the grief. "Listen," Sammy chided, "Eddie really became a horrible person when he tried to quit drinking. Throughout the tour, he was constantly battling his addiction. Every time Eddie got drunk, he ended up hating himself. The guy was one miserable bastard to be around,because the more he drank, the worse his guilty conscious got to him.Often after shows, Ed would walk straight off the stage into a waiting limousine. He wouldn't change his clothes, shower or even eat any food. For some reason, all the cat wanted to do was head back to his hotel room and be by himself. Eddie did drugs too, but I'm not going to sit here and make him out to be a drug addict. Within a year or two after I joined the band, he started cleaning that up a lot. He just became a closet user,like myself. I don't smoke dope religiously, but I do light up three or four times a year. I'll do cocaine three or four times a year as well. I'm not saying Eddie was that sparse with it, but his main problem was alcohol. When he would drink, his emotions would swing wildly. He would cry and almost have breakdowns. I don't want to say he necessarily had them, but you would certainly assume that it was going to happen if he didn't get his shit together. He had extremely bad mood swings and used to get in a lot of trouble, as we well know, with chicks and all that other shit.

Stage on Fire Island

Feels the sand between his toes

Ocean surf breaking

They know the answer

To the question they don't know

Chanting for Eddie

Tomorrows promise

Knows nothing lasts forever

He just wants it now

Calling the faithful

Travels to a holy land

Gods up on the stage

I'VE FOUND NIRVANA!

Friday night and its time to party. This is probably the 7th or 8th weekend in a row where the weather turns cloudy, cool and damp after gorgeous days during the work week. I've got to get serious about the house residing project. Sitting here to type this post is just another delay.

Sometime after 10PM the party started, the opening act being Nirvana's October 30, 1991 show at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, BC. An excellent quality sounboard recording of a fantastic concert during which Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl rocked the house. You can't listen to this music without having to move. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the show was, fearing it would out perform The Bunnymen who were to follow. This show took place shortly after Nirvana released their second studio album Nevermind on September 24, 1991, and just before they began their European tour.

Excerpts from Wikipedia:

Nevermind was responsible for bringing alternative rock to a large mainstream audience, and would subsequently be regarded by critics as one of the best rock albums of all time.

Guitar World wrote, "Kurt Cobain's guitar sound on Nirvana's Nevermind set the tone for Nineties rock music."

Rolling Stone wrote in its entry for Nevermind on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, "No album in recent history had such an overpowering impact on a generation -- a nation of teens suddenly turned punk -- and such a catastrophic effect on its main creator."

Clouds fill the night sky

Lit by city's orange glow

A light rain falling

Poured out on the stage

They play for their audience

Hearts tied together

Drawn up from within

Wealth of creativity

Offered to our souls

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4HVGU2DL

I was afraid no one could follow that opening act, but Echo & The Bunnymen succeeded, and even managed to take it up a notch. Up next was their March 18, 1983 show at the Rotterdam Arena, what also sounded like a high quality, crystal clear soundboard recording. This show took place shortly after the release of their third studio album, Porcupine on February 4, 1983. All four band members performed beautifully making this another in a string of many great concerts of theirs that I've had the pleasure of listening to. Rock solid music from a time when they were riding a wave of popularity. This is the stuff I crave.

What a way to end the night. Who knows what time it was when I dropped into bed.

A decade apart

Both exist within the past

Here in the present

Always beholden

For opening the eyes wide

Swept right off his feet

Flask that overflows

Poison floods his bloodstream

Opens the locked door

Raindrops on his skin

Connected to the present

Dancing in the past

Heard in the present

William's guitar is singing
Pulled into the past