On the new record, the band fine-tunes the winsome songwriting and profound earnestness that made previous albums—2009’s Real Estate, 2011’s Days, and 2014’s Atlas—so beloved, and pushes their songs in a variety of compelling new directions. Written primarily by guitarist and vocalist Martin Courtney at his home in Beacon—a quiet town in upstate New York—In Mind offers a shifting of the gears, positing a band engaged in the push/pull of burgeoning adulthood. Reflecting a change in lineup, changes in geography, and a general desire to move forward without looking back, the record casts the band in a new light—one that replaces the wistful ennui of teenage suburbia with an equally complicated adult version. The record not only showcases some of the band’s most sublime arrangements to date, it also presents a leap forward in terms of production, with the band utilizing the studio as a tool to broaden the sonic landscape of their music to stunning effect.
Posts Tagged ‘Live’
REAL ESTATE – ” Live At the Bowery Ballroom NYC ” November 23rd 2011 “
Posted: January 30, 2017 in MUSICTags: Bowery, Live, Real Estate
Just about the last thing we’d ever ask for in Seattle is “More Rain” – unless of course that’s the name of the latest album by M. Ward. On his eight studio LP, the Portland based musician doesn’t let the Pacific Northwest’s soggy gloom get him down, and dares the clouds away with his initially doo-wop inspired batch of brightly energetic boot-stompers and swooning lullabies. Dry off with M. Ward and his backing band of PDX all-stars – Adam Selzer and Mike Coykendall swapping spots on guitar and drums, Scott McCaughey on bass, and Alia Farah on keys – for one of our very first recorded sessions in the new live room.
M. Ward performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded January 12, 2016.
Songs:
I’m Listening (Child’s Theme)
Girl From Conejo Valley
Little Baby
Confession
Michelle
The GRATEFUL DEAD – ” Live Dead ” Recorded 26th January- 2nd March 1969 Classic Live Albums
Posted: January 26, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Classic Live Albums, Live, Live Dead, The Grateful Dead
Live/Dead may not have been the first instance of a band refinancing their studio bills with a relatively inexpensive live release, but it may have been the most successful. The Grateful Dead were $180,000 in debt to Warner Bros. — jacked into the first 16-track mobile facility in early 1969 Recorded over a series of concerts in early 1969 and released later the same year, it was rocks first 16-track live album.. “We were after a serious, long composition, musically and then a recording of it,” said Jerry Garcia. They were also interested in releasing an album more representative of their live performances and actual musicianship, as opposed to the in-studio experimentation of previous albums.
The double-vinyl Live/Dead opens with a side-long “Dark Star,” explores the cosmos further in “St. Stephen” and “The Eleven,” continues with Ron “Pigpen” McKernan’s lascivious side-long take on Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “Turn on Your Love Light,” and brings it all back home with a Rev. Gary Davis blues followed by “Feedback” and an a cappella “And We Bid You Goodnight.” On the greatest advertisement for a band’s in-concert capabilities recorded to date, the Dead proved themselves both serious avant-gardists and impeccable roots revisionists — and spent the rest of their career reaffirming it onstage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL-dUZJydcw
The tracks “Dark Star“, “St. Stephen”, “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”, “Feedback” and “We Bid You Goodnight” were later released (with their entire concerts) on the respective February 27th, 1969 and March 2nd, 1969 discs of the “Fillmore West 1969 The Complete Recordings” box set
- Grateful Dead
- Tom Constanten – organ
- Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals
- Mickey Hart – drums, percussion
- Bill Kreutzmann – drums, percussion
- Phil Lesh – electric bass, vocals
- Ron “Pigpen” McKernan – vocals, congas, organ on “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”
- Bob Weir – guitar, vocals
BOB MARLEY and the WAILERS – ” Live ” Released 5th December 1975 Classic Live Albums
Posted: January 15, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Bob Marley, Classic Live Albums, Live, London Lyceum Theatre, The Wailers
Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer are gone. This is completely Bob Marley’s show. And is it ever his show, a triumphant concert July 19th, 1975 at London’s Lyceum Theatre. The new format had been introduced on 1974’s Natty Dread album to great effect. But every note on the live album is as alive as Marley’s flying dreadlocks on the cover photo.
Far more modest in its intentions is this document of Bob Marley & the Wailers’ two night stand (July 17th and 18th, 1975), at London’s The Lyceum. When Live! first arrived on vinyl, the edited version with seven cuts — all from the second evening barely broke 40 minutes. This appropriately subtitled “deluxe edition,” oddly only available on vinyl, leaves that in the dust.
The entire, previously unreleased first night is here, (14 tunes) along with more selections from the second show and full versions of those tunes once edited for time constraints have been restored. The result is a 22 track, beautifully and faithfully packaged triple vinyl package including the tour program, that clocks in at a never boring 2 ¼ hours.
But clearly his music was well known by this rowdy UK crowd who often boisterously sings along, and whose sheer energy helped push the already electrifying Marley to new heights. The band reinvigorates early tunes such as “Slave Driver,” “Trenchtown Rock” and “Stir it Up” in versions that make the already sturdy studio ones sound like cardboard cutouts. The closing “Get Up Stand Up,” here presented in its full 10 minute plus unedited glory, is alone worth the price of admission as Marley channels the positive vibrations that informed his best work, into a performance that feels as spiritual now as it did over four decades ago.
Must-hear tracks “No Woman, No Cry”, doubled in length from the ‘Natty Dread’ studio version, vividly brought the streets of Kingston to the stage of London via Memphis soul worthy of Otis himself.
Bob Marley and the Wailers’ 1975 Natty Dread tour began in America, where some 15,000 fans watched the reggae band perform in Central Park. By the time they crossed the Atlantic, the verdict was in: After two sold-out shows at London’s Lyceum, a Melody Maker cover story pronounced Bob Marley “possibly the greatest superstar to visit these shores since the days when Dylan conquered the concert halls of Britain.” Neither of these gigs were intended to be recorded, but when Island Records founder Chris Blackwell witnessed the madness of the first, he made sure that the Rolling Stones’ mobile studio was parked outside the venue for the second. The result was a song collection of pointed lyrics, political chants and funk grooves enlivened by new guitarist Al Anderson. The seven-minute “No Woman, No Cry” reached the U.K. Top 10 and remains the definitive version of the classic song, eventually appearing as track two of the 15-times-platinum Legend set. Even the mic feedback that echoes over the first verse has become imbued with emotion
The professional recording puts the listener in the audience, making this an essential addition to anyone’s collection and manna from heaven to existing Marley fans who had to suffice with dodgy bootlegged copies … until now.
There is plenty of terrific Marley concert material out there, including 1976’s Live at the Roxy, but this particular stand remains tougher, rawer and edgier. Let’s hope 1978’s phenomenal Babylon by Bus gigs get similar treatment too.
The long-planned deluxe edition with a fuller take on Marley’s two-day Lyceum .
There’s a moment on Mitski’s fourth LP that stands out as her most piercing yet. “You’re all I ever wanted/I think I’ll regret this” she croons on “Your Best American Girl” before a myriad of swirling, distorted guitars are hurled forwards, in equal parts deafening and life-affirming. As is often the case with Puberty 2, it’s utterly elevating. Quite simply, 2016 needed Mitski
Mitski performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded July 14th, 2016.
I really love this more stripped down, minimalist performance.
Carries some of the really heartfelt lyrics better.
Songs:
Once More To See You
Your Best American Girl
My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars
A Burning Hill
WARREN ZEVON – ” Stand in the Fire ” Classic Live Albums
Posted: December 29, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Boulder, Classic Live Albums, Live, Run Out Groove Records, Stand In The Fire, Warren Zevon
Get ready to howl! Run Out Groove has announced its latest fan-voted release, and it’s from the late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon. The label will press a limited and numbered Deluxe Edition of Zevon’s live album “Stand in the Fire – Recorded Live at The Roxy” in a generously expanded format. The original LP was originally released at the tail end of 1980 and was recorded over a five-night stand in August of that year at the famed West Hollywood venue. It boasted ten tracks – including mordant favourites “Werewolves of London,” “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,” “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” and “Excitable Boy” – and the 2007 CD reissue added four more including “Hasten Down the Wind.” Now, RUG will not only carry over those four additional cuts in their vinyl debut but will also add six previously unreleased bonus tracks including “Roland, The Headless Thompson Gunner,” “Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School,” “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado,” “Night Time in the Switching Yard,” an alternate version of “The Sin,” and a cover of Allen Toussaint’s “A Certain Girl.”
The double-vinyl set will be cut to lacquer and will feature previously unseen photos and deluxe packaging in the Run Out Groove tradition; it will be pressed on 180-gram heavyweight black vinyl. Stand in the Fire is available for pre-order until October 8th, at which time it will be pressed to the quantity ordered. Members of the band Boulder (signed to Elektra Records, sister imprint of Zevon’s home of Asylum Records) supported the iconoclastic, much-missed songwriter on a strong setlist (which boasted new songs “The Sin” and the title track). Stand in the Fire has always been an integral part of the Zevon discography; with these six new cuts, this release should prove definitive.
As always, with the announcement of a new ROG title comes the opportunity to vote for the next one. These are your choices, and voting is open now at Run Out Groove’s website. All descriptions below have been provided by the label.
For much of his career, Warren Zevon particular brand of genius relied on A-list Los Angeles session pros and friends like Jackson Browne Linda Rondstadt and Neil Young to help out on his records. But for his first live album, 1980’s “Stand in the Fire”, he called in a group comprised mostly of comparative amateurs.
He enlisted Boulder, a Colorado bar band that had been signed to Zevon’s record label, Elektra Records, and whose debut included a cover of his “Join Me in L.A.” Boulder—who already did some of his songs. After auditioning them solely by running them through Chuck Berry’s classic “Johnny B. Goode,” Zevon hired them and brought along studio ace David Landau to play lead guitar. They then hit the road together for the Dog Ate the Part We Didn’t Like tour.
Released on December. 26th, 1980, Stand in the Fire was culled from performances recorded during a multi-night stand at Los Angeles’ Roxy in West Hollywood. It’s the most full-blooded rock ‘n’ roll Zevon ever released fully capturing the bar-band flavor of the performances, with two strong new songs “Stand In The Fire” and “The Sin” joining Zevon’s mix of sentimental and sardonic tunes . His earlier albums — great as they are — suffer from the genteel production techniques of the day, but he’s positively unleashed here. The whole thing threatens to come apart on a few occasions, but Zevon manages to hold it all together. “Excitable Boy, Werewolves Of London” with an aside about Brian DePalma, and a powerful version of “Mohammed Radio”. It helps that he’s egged on by Boulder, who bring out the savage wit of such Zevon favorites as “Excitable Boy,” “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” and, especially, “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” with a rewritten verse to reflect the Iranian hostage situation — is particularly powerful, and “Jeannie Needs a Shooter” and “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” are beautifully bludgeoned within an inch of their lives.
Must-hear tracks are the medley of Bo Diddleys A Gunslinger and Bo Diddley , which closed the original vinyl version, let Zevon get downright guttural in his homage to a rock ‘n’ roll hero.
Zevon throws no small degree of spontaneity into the equation. He ad libs some new lyrics in “Werewolves of London” to take jabs at friends (“And he’s looking for James Taylor,” “I saw Jackson Browne walking slow down the avenue / You know, his heart is perfect”) and, at the end of “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” calls out his road manager and best friend George “Gorilla” Gruel: “Gorilla, get up and dance. Get up and dance or I’ll kill you. And I got the means!”
Despite its standing among Zevon fans, Stand in the Fire wasn’t released on CD when the rest of his catalog hit the format. Instead, it was delayed until 2007. But it was worth the wait: Four additional songs from the shows (“Johnny Strikes Up the Band,” “Play It All Night Long” and solo piano renditions of “Frank and Jesse James” and “Hasten Down the Wind”) were added to the mix.
The album was originally dedicated to Martin Scorsese, and it’s a bit ironic considering the live record basically disappeared but around half a decade later Scorsese’s use of the original studio version of “Werewolves of London” in The Color of Money (one of the masters all-time great music in film moments) added some needed bite to Zevon’s name .
BOB DYLAN – ” Hard Rain ” Released 13th September 1976 Best Live Albums
Posted: December 29, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Best Live Albums, Bob Dylan, Hard Rain, Live, The Rolling Thunder Revue
The Rolling Thunder Revue started off 40 years ago on October 30th, 1975, and continued into the middle of 1976. Even by Bob Dylan standards, there was a lot of shape shifting in the mid-’70s. His 1975-76 Rolling Thunder Revue cavalcade tour teamed him with such come-and-go fellow travelers as Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Roger McGuinn, Mick Ronson and a young T Bone Burnett, among many others. (See the oddball film ‘Renaldo & Clara,’ preferably the full four-hour version, to get some sense of it.)
Other artists involved in The Rolling Thunder Revue 1975 1976 Bob Dylan Joan Baez Roger McGuinn Ramblin’ Jack Elliott Joni Mitchell Mick Ronson Allen Ginsberg Gordon Lightfoot Mimi Fariña T-Bone Burnett Rob Stoner Ronee Blakley
The 3 best all time Bob Dylan live officially released concert albums are obviously “Hard Rain”, “Bob Dylan Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert” & “Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue”. They are all brilliant. Today “Hard Rain” is among the best of the lot.
Hard Rain is a live album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 13th, 1976 by Columbia Records. The album was recorded during the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue.
The album was partly recorded on May 23rd, 1976, during a concert at Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins, Colorado; the penultimate show of the tour, the concert was also filmed and later broadcast by NBC as a one-hour television special in September. (Hard Rain’s release coincided with this broadcast). Four tracks from the album (“I Threw It All Away,” “Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” “Oh, Sister,” and “Lay, Lady, Lay”) were recorded on May 16th, 1976 in Fort Worth, Texas. Neither the album nor the television special was well received at the time. It was outdoors, it rained, and when it aired in September of that year, much-hyped, it was not so well received. Though it had its moments, it was kind of glum. But the concurrent album of the same title? What was glum on TV was raging on vinyl.
“Although the band has been playing together longer, the charm has gone out of their exchanges,” writes music critic Tim Riley. “Hard Rain…seemed to come at a time when the Rolling Thunder Revue, so joyful and electrifying in its first performances, had just plain run out of steam,” wrote Janet Maslin, then a music critic for Rolling Stone. In his mixed review for Hard Rain, Robert Christgau criticized the Rolling Thunder Revue as “folkies whose idea of rock and roll is rock and roll clichés.”
The album received an awful lot bad criticism upon its release, and surprisingly still does. To my ears it has always sounded amazing. Listening to other bootlegs from Rolling thunder 2 & watching the Hard Rain movie (and outtakes), one could easily wish that more songs had been included, and he’d put out a double album. But it is what it is, and it’s incredible. it still sounds fresh & wonderful today.
Hindsight shows that this album introduces the ragged, postmodern Bob Dylan, right from the grungy instrumental ground-pawing ahead of the start of the first number. Moreover the running order now seems surprisingly well thought out. It represents, too, the late phase of the historic Rolling Thunder Revue tour and captures the distinctive, bare-wired sound of Dylan’s existential gypsy band. Stand-out track is ‘Idiot Wind’, which, as Dylan grows ever more engaged, bursts open and pours out its brilliant venom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rby8rXUBADU
Some ’60s faves like “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” and newer songs “Shelter From The Storm” all get some rough treatment—-gaining fierce intensity amid what sounds like some stormy conditions involving not just the weather, but the participants. Think of it as Dylan’s punk album.
Must-hear: The album opens with “Maggies Farm” as if influenced by the New York Dolls, roaring and messy, powered by Mick Ronson’s strutting glam-metal guitar lines. And a 10-plus minute “Idiot Wind” closes it on an even messier note, compellingly so.
The last three songs on the album (“You’re a Big Girl Now,” “I Threw It All Away,” and “Idiot Wind”) are as powerful and exciting as anything Dylan has done (comparable, for instance, to the May 1966 versions of “Ballad of a Thin Man” and “Like a Rolling Stone”). As phenomenal as every aspect of each of these performances is, the unique orchestration of guitars, keyboards, violin, drums and voice on “Big Girl” must be singled out for particular praise. Stoner’s bass-playing while Dylan sings “Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstacy” on “Idiot Wind” will have a special place in my heart as long as I live.
Track listing
Side one
“Maggie’s Farm” – 5:23
“One Too Many Mornings” – 3:47
“Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” – 6:01
“Oh, Sister” (Dylan, Jacques Levy) – 5:08
“Lay Lady Lay” – 4:47
Side two
“Shelter from the Storm” – 5:29
“You’re a Big Girl Now” – 7:01
“I Threw It All Away” – 3:18
“Idiot Wind” – 10:21
Personnel
Bob Dylan – vocals, guitar, production
Additional musicians
Gary Burke – drums
T-Bone Burnett – guitar, piano
David Mansfield – guitar
Scarlet Rivera – strings
Mick Ronson – guitar
Steven Soles – guitar, background vocals
Rob Stoner – Bass, background vocals
Howard Wyeth – drums, piano
DREAM WIFE – ” Live On KEXP “
Posted: December 27, 2016 in MUSICTags: Dream Wife, Enfer Records, KEXP Session, Live
Dream Wife are named after a 1953 romantic comedy starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. It’s a movie from the golden age of Hollywood, the pre-countercultural era, with a surprisingly feminist bent. That notion of getting something more, or different, than what you expected appeals to the members of the band, who love the subversive quality of David Lynch’s work and estimated, probably rightly.
They comprise three musicians, two British and one (singer Rakel Mjöll) Icelandic. Actually, “musician” does them a disservice: they’re artists, and music just happens to be the vehicle for their ideas right now. They were studying, variously, fine art and visual art at college in Brighton a year ago when they had the concept of forming a “fake girl band” as an art project for a gallery exhibition. So they wrote a few songs, recorded them, made a mockumentary inspired by Spinal Tap, and performed at the opening of the exhibition. It went so well, the fake/fantasy outfit became a reality. They started getting booked for gigs around England, even playing a festival, wrote some more songs, toured Canada and signed to Enfer Records.
The lineup: Rakel Mjöll (lead vocals), Alice Go (guitar, vocals), Bella Podpadec (bass, vocals).
Dream Wife performing live at Kex Hostel in Reykjavik during Iceland Airwaves. Recorded November 6, 2016.
Songs:
Lolita
Fire
Take It Back
Kids
Somebody
FUU
Hey Heartbreaker
FLEETWOOD MAC – ” Gold Dust Radio 1975-1988 ” The Legendary Broadcasts (6 CD Set)
Posted: December 25, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Fleetwood Mac, Live, TV Gems
anyone give me info on this set please
Disc 1, WFLR FM Broadcast Trod Nossel , Wallingford 23rd September 1975 , show performed in 75 by the Mac-McVie-McVie- Buckingham-Nicks line up, three months after the release of their first album together, is an early illustration of the new Fleetwood Mac in their initial phase. Their eponymously titled album had not at this point charted and the single Over My Head had only reached No. 20 on Billboard. However, listening to this broadcast concert today it is not difficult to understand how it was that within another year Fleetwood Mac would be among the biggest rock bands on the planet.I love the way that Buckingham & Nicks integrate with Christine McVie.As ever,the rock solid rhythm section of McVie & Fleetwood give the music real guts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tq9vEQQemM
No,the sound isn’t perfect,it’s an FM (sic) recording over 40 years ago but it’s well worth fans adding.
A nice touch, Bob Welch who’d left in December 1974
Disc Two , The Budokhan Theatre Tokyo, 5th December 1977,
Disc Three, The Checkerdrome St Louis, 11th June 1979
Disc Four, The Forum Inglewood CA, 21st October 1982.
Filmed in Los Angeles, California at the fabulous Forum and broadcast over MTV at Christmas time. That show started with “The Chain” Other Fleetwood Mac classics such as “Dreams” and “I’m So Afraid” were highlights of a great show in front of The Mac’s hometown family and friends. That night somebody gave Stevie Nicks a huge Bouquet of flowers that was almost as big as she was. Tunes from Mirage such as “Love in Store” “Hold Me” & “Wish You Were Here” were standout songs from a really great performance and the band looked stunning on television and they all seemed prone to go on and conquer the world at this point in their career.
This CD isn’t on par with that excellent video tape and this is almost a cut-and-paste job as we can find a much more exciting version of “The Chain” on “Fleetwood Mac Live” the double LP that came forth after the huge 1979-1980 world tour that supported “Tusk.” The track selection of this CD is an issue as songs like: “Not That Funny” that crept outta “Tusk” just ain’t that good and do we need another live version of “Rhiannon” when we could have heard a live version of “Book of Love” that was only performed in front of audiences on this tour? This show had enough material to stuff two CD’s instead this single.
Over half of this CD is about Lindsey Buckingham. Lindsey penned five songs that are featured on this disc and co-wrote The Chain with the rest of the band. Lindsey also sings: “Blue Letter” and less than equal billing is given to Christine and Stevie when you are hoping for more from them. Again, a double CD set would have fixed this problem and I wish I were here to review that instead. Found herein is almost 74 minutes from a classic Fleetwood Mac tour of 1982. The sound quality needs a boost and a whole show needs to be documented..
Disc Five, Nurburgring, Nurburg 5th June 1988,
Fleetwood Mac, this time at the Rock am Ring concert in Germany in 1988, where the group was promoting their Tango In The Night album. pressure was being placed on Lindsey Buckingham to keep the project focused and moving forward, and things came to a head shortly after the release of the album when the guitarist announced his departure from the band on the eve of the Tango In The Night Tour in 1987. Rick Vito and Billy Burnette were then roped in for the Tango tour;
PINKSHINYULTRABLAST – ” Live At The Shackwell Arms ” 1st May 2015
Posted: December 24, 2016 in MUSICTags: Grandfeathered, Live, Pinkshinyultrablast, Russia
After releasing the exquisite Everything Else Matters last year, Russian group Pinkshinyultrablast return with Grandfeathered. A very prog rock return from the band with a mixture of twinkling guitar harmonies in a much heavier approach. They have named their style “thunder pop,” and on the basis of this 11 track album, you would have to agree.check out these live tracks.
Typically then, the Russian 5-piece hurtled through their first 3 songs uninterrupted before anyone could blink, retaining an unwavering energy throughout a blistering set. Equal parts shoegaze, post-rock and math-rock, the music had the crowd happily hypnotised from the beginning, with angelic lead vocals piercing through thick layers of guitar and synth, undercut by taut, expressive bass lines.
The band took the radiant sound of their studio work to a stadium-sized level, commanding an inventive live set-up that included more effects pedals than I could count. Their set went by as quickly as it arrived, leaving the crowd suitably spaced-out and desperate for more.
The Fat Angel Sings 