Husker Du or Husker Don't? The Complete Spin Concert vinyl falls short on quality

 

[review by Rev. Keith A. Gordon]

HÜSKER DÜ: The Complete Spin Radio Concert (Radio Silence Records, Europe)

VENUE: The legendary First Avenue club, Minneapolis MN; August 28th, 1985.

SOUND QUALITY: Muddy, distant, hollow-sounding without much instrumental separation, the vocals all but buried in a miasma of droning sonic overkill. Plus, there’s a sort of buzzy effect on the vocals that tickles your eardrums like a shard of broken glass. The entire album sounds like it was sourced from second-or-third generation tape of the original radio broadcast or, worse-case scenario, from a previous vinyl release. Pretty shabby…

COVER: Colorful psych-drenched front cover with a photo of the band superimposed against a spotty, purple-tinted electric backdrop. Nice heavy cardboard, with a period photo of the band onstage at (presumably) the First Avenue club on the rear cover along with the track list. 

TRACKLIST: Side A: 1. Flip Your Wig • 2. Every Everything • 3. Makes No Sense At All • 4. The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill • 5. I Apologize • 6. If I Told You • 7. Folklore • 8. Don’t want To Know If You Are Lonely • 9. I Don’t Know For Sure • 10. Terms of Psychic Warfare Side B: 11. Powerline • 12. Books About UFOs • 13. Hardly Getting Over It • 14. Sorry Somehow • 15. You’re So Square/The Wit and the Wisdom • 16. Green Eyes • 17. Divide & Conquer

COMMENTS: Minneapolis rockers Hüsker Dü were anything but a household name in the mid-‘80s. The critically-acclaimed trio had three well-received albums under their belt, including bona fide classics in 1984’s Zen Arcade and 1985’s New Day Rising, and were poised to release what would be their final SST Records’ album, Flip Your Wig, before leaping from the indie world to a major league deal with Warner Bros. Records. This August 28th, 1985 hometown performance at the legendary First Avenue club was taped for the syndicated Spin Radio Concert series and was distributed to radio stations on a 12” double-LP set that remains quite collectible to this day, selling for $50 - $75 in VG/NM condition. 

On the First Avenue stage – which had hosted such talents as Prince, the Replacements, Soul Asylum, and the Jayhawks as well as appearing in Prince’s Purple Rain movie – Hüsker Dü roared through a 17-song setlist that mostly featured material from New Day Rising and the upcoming Flip Your Wig. The sequencing on this Radio Silence vinyl isn’t the same as on the original promotional release, which sprawled across three sides to make room for DJ chatter and national underwriting advertising. It also drops a song in “Celebrate Summer,” crams “You’re So Square” and “The Wit and the Wisdom” into a single track, and magically includes a pair of worthwhile tunes that don’t seem to have been included on the original acetate. 

What’s left is still pretty powerful stuff, even if the sound quality is so hollow, hidden, and horrible as to be offensive to your poor lil’ eardrums. Opening blast “Flip Your Wig” manages to scramble its way out of the deep canyon that is the album’s mix to grab you by the lobes, machinegun guitar and blistering vocals matched with turbocharged drumming to raise the roof from the first strummed note. The six-string assault continues unabated as Bob Mould and gang (esteemed bassist and drummer Greg Norton and Grant Hart, respectively…) roll right into “Every Everything” without a second’s break, the song a two-minute flash-bang that segues nicely into “Makes No Sense At All,” all three songs roaring out of the grooves of the soon-to-be-released Flip Your Wig. There’s a scrap of melody discernable in “Makes No Sense At All,” cowering in fear, perhaps, beneath the Panzer-like blitz of the thrashing, crashing instrumentation. 

The next flurry of kidney-punches comes courtesy of my personal fave Hüsker Dü flapjack, New Day Rising, “The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill,” “I Apologize,” “If I Told You,” and “Folklore” all offering squalls of soaring fretwork that dives at your skull like a hungry raptor while the rhythmic backdrop crushes your ears beneath an onslaught of thunderclaps and lightning-strike drumbeats. Oddly, neither “If I Told You” or “Folklore” are listed on the original Spin Radio Concert track listing, but they’re dancing around in these grooves nevertheless, even if “Folklore” seems to be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blur of sound and kinetic energy. By contrast, “Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely,” which wouldn’t actually appear on wax until 1986’s major label debut Candy Apple Grey, is built from the sort of gorgeous, melodic, guitar-driven wall-of-melancholy that could have made it college radio hit if WB hadn’t fumbled the ball.

The radio-ready “I Don’t Know For Sure” is another song from Candy Apple Grey (for those keeping track at home, Hüsker Dü are reaching forward across two future albums for songs, saying something about the band’s prolific songwriting chops). With a driving rhythm and engaging vocal harmonies rising above the din of Mould’s slashing guitar licks, the song could have been a contender! Flipping back to New Day Rising, “Terms of Psychic Warfare” is like a Blue Öyster Cult tune on amphetamines, a snarling, metal-slagged behemoth with counter-harmonies and stomping rhythms. Side two plugs in with another pair of molten gold NDR tracks in the stripped-down “Powerline,” with its mesmerizing guitar riff, and “Books About UFOs,” which is a surprisingly spry and up-tempo rager with clashing vocals and screeching guitar licks.

Hailing from the future (and Candy Apple Grey) come “Hardly Getting Over It” and “Sorry Somehow,” the former a lethargic dirge with wistful vocals and dense, droning instrumentation with an imaginative guitar solo while the latter offers angular guitars driven by emotional, apologetic vocals and another thick-as-mud musical mix. “(You’re So Square), Baby I Don’t Care” is a cover of the 1957 Elvis Presley hit penned by the legendary songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for the movie Jailhouse Rock. Suffice it to say that old ‘E’ never sang it quite like this, Hüsker Dü ripping through the song at like a buzzsaw with no little joi de vivre, grinding right into the plodding, dino-swagger of the guitar-crazed “The Wit and the Wisdom” before snapping back to the 1950s for an Elvis reprise. Hüsker Dü close out the side with a storm of mortar-fire, the yearning “Green Eyes” afforded a respectfully melodic arrangement and performance while “Divide & Conquer” is an up-tempo rocker with shouty vox and a barrage of wiry guitar and explosive rhythms.   

The Spin Radio Concert is probably the most often bootlegged Hüsker Dü performance in existence, and its widespread circulation among fans from day one only helped in the creation of dodgy titles like Lynndale’s Burning, Minneapolis Is Burning, or Psyche Power Pop that are sourced from poor-quality cassettes taped off the radio, other vinyl and CD releases and, infrequently, the actual master tapes. Because there is a distinct lack of decent Hüsker Dü live recordings, and this show is so readily available, some dodgy European labels have released albums with different dates and cities credited in an attempt to disguise the performance’s origins. The Complete Spin Radio Concert is up front about its source, and while the band righteously kicks out the jams with an A+ performance, the poor (albeit lively) sound quality drops the grade a couple of points. I’ve heard worse, but surely there’s a better-sounding recording hidden away that could be restored and reissued to the glory this performance deserves?

Grade: C+

Bonus view:

The Z-Files: Astonishing Zep Release On Vinyl. Killer Highlights - 2 Nights In Osaka

 

[review by Bill Glahn]

Led Zeppelin: Killer Highlights (2 LP, Retrorock records 2002)

Venue: Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan September 28* and September 29**, 1971

Sound Quality: Superb soundboard recording with well defined instruments and vocals for all tracks except the final two on side D, which are audience recordings (muddy with a lot of “audience participation”).

Cover: Exquisite double pocket gatefold with period photos throughout, track listing on back, and interesting liner notes inside. As stunning as anything the majors have come up with that wasn’t a box set.

Tracklist: (side A) Immigrant Song**/ Heartbreaker**/ Since I’ve Been Loving You* (side B) Bron-Y-Aur Stomp*/ That’s The Way**/ We Shall Overcome*/ Tangerine*/ Down By The Riverside*/ What Is and What Should Never Be* (side C) Heartbreaker Of A Solo*/ Smoke Gets In Your Eyes**/ Communication Breakdown**/ Rock n Roll**/ Please Please Me*/ From Me To You* (side D) Stairway To Heaven**/ C’mon Everybody (audience)*/ Hi Heeled Sneakers (audience)*

Comments: This is only the second release from Retrorock Records (no affiliation with the old Retrorock syndicated radio show), the first being the stunning The Byrds Across The Borderline, released in early 2020. Evidently Retrorock will not be one of those high production labels that knock out new titles by the truckload, regardless of quality.

In the CD era, the Japanese bootleggers were obsessive completists, several labels vying to issue every newly discovered tape source in an attempt to release every note ever played by Zep on stage. Often, tape sources were “blended” in multiple disc sets to present full concerts, whether the source was from soundboard or the most infuriatingly poor audience recordings. The 1971 Osaka soundboard recordings are infamously incomplete with the recordings ending in mid-song and other songs absent altogether. This didn’t seem to deter the Japanese CD specialists – they would simply splice the recordings with audience recordings, often in mid-song. While the edits were exemplary, and attempts were made to match the sound as closely as possible, the listening experience left something to be desired.

There is not a note on Killer Highlights that hasn’t appeared on a Japanese CD at sometime or another, but for much of it, there has never been a vinyl release. Retrorock has taken the old school approach of presenting an incomplete document, but one that is an enjoyable listening experience from beginning to (almost) end.

Unlike some of their contemporaries, Retrorock hasn’t simply made a transfer from CD, or worse yet, an MP3 download, but rather done an excellent mastering job (most likely from an analog source) which is evident from the get-go – mastered exclusively for vinyl which is different than CD mastering.

Side A starts off with Page hitting a few notes in a final soundcheck. The full crunch of his Hiwatt amplification is captured perfectly, no hiss, no digital noise, no digital compression that reduces everything to midrange. Then Bonham bangs his snare a bit followed by an off-mic shout of “Louder” in his midlands accent. A few more hits around the kit, followed by “Louder, louder, Zeppelin, Zeppelin” (again off-mic but more clearly than you will ever hear it elsewhere) – and they’re off delivering the full hammer of the gods.

After two bombastic rockers from the second night, the first side finishes off with a blistering rendition of “Since I’ve Been Loving You” from the first night. The transfer is seamless with no change in mix or atmosphere. At the end of “Since I’ve Been Loving You,” Plant announces the first unreleased song of the evening, “Black Dog” from their upcoming album, IV (ZOSO). But alas, it is not to be. “Black Dog” was one of the songs where the soundboard source ends before the song is completed.

Side B changes pace, featuring acoustic performances from both nights – and what an interesting song selection it is! Having spent the previous day touring Peace Park in Hiroshima, Plant had obviously been affected by the memorial for the victims of the atomic bomb that ended WW2. With another war raging in Asia, and peace talks going nowhere, Plant leads the boys through two anthems of the anti-war movement, “We Shall Overcome” and “Down By The Riverside.” The performances would never be repeated in any other Zep concert (not a band noted for political or social commentary). It’s quite moving, actually, that Plant would put image aside and the “hammer” would be laid down for a brief moment in time. Side B finishes off with a return to electric instruments, doing the appropriate “What Is and What Should Never Be.”

Side C picks up where side A left off. Or to quote John Bonham, “Louder, Louder! Zeppelin, Zeppelin.” “Heartbreaker” from the first night was another of those songs that were maddenly incomplete on the soundboard source. But with a blistering solo by Page, it just couldn’t be ignored. Retrorock has done the only sensible thing and picked things up in the quiet “Greensleeves” lead-in to the solo that follows the first part of the song. What you get are four minutes of the most fleet-fingered Page soloing on record. Guitar fanatics will love it! After a few seconds of Plant warbling “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” the fretworks continue with the band firing on all cylinders with a long and funky rendition of “Communication Breakdown.” The audience then gets a fine rendition of another, as yet, unreleased song, “Rock n Roll.” Plant serenades the crowd with a line from “Please Please Me” and then Page seems to want to go full throttle into “From Me To You.” But that song is abandoned after less than a minute as well.

Side D provides one last unreleased (at the time) song from IV, the spectacular “Stairway to Heaven.” Imagine the delight of the Osaka crowd, at hearing so many gems before the rest of the world! The final two tracks on Killer Highlights are, to put it mildly, lesser in sound quality than everything that preceded them – two audience recordings of encores from the first night in Osaka, included for their rarity, no doubt. “C’mon Everybody” is somewhat rare, but other versions exist. “Hi-Heeled Sneakers” is unique to this show.

Killer Highlights follows in the tradition of early vinyl bootleggers, such as TMOQ, (Live on Blueberry Hill, Going To California, Hiawatha Express, Bonzo’s Birthday Party) by avoiding the expensive box set route for the sake of completeness, and opting, instead, for a two-LP set that can be enjoyed from beginning to end. No points deducted for the last two tracks this time. You can always lift the needle without missing any of the good stuff.

Grade: A

Bonus view, opening night in Tokyo 1971

: 

 

The Saints: The Most Primitive Band In The World - vinyl release with more minuses than pluses

 

[review by Rev. Keith A. Gordon]

THE SAINTS

The Most Primitive Band In the World

(Radiation Reissues, Italy)

VENUE: According to Saints guitarist Ed Kuepper, these tracks were recorded in his parents’ garage (a/k/a “The Twilight Zone”) in Brisbane, Australia sometime in 1974.

SOUND QUALITY: Like rubbing your eardrums with coarse-grit sandpaper. Literally recorded as low-fi as one could possibly achieve, the album sounding like somebody snuck a tape recorder hidden in a suitcase and padded with newspaper into the band’s practice space and let it roll. Muddy, distant, hollow, noisy, raw…pick your adjective, you won’t be wrong…   

COVER: Very cool blue-tinted photo of the band with their name scrawled in white against a black background and the album title in blue type that mimics handwriting. Back cover offers more blueish band photos, track listing and credits and, because this is a sorta, kinda semi-legit release, liner notes by Saints’ guitarist Ed Kuepper.

TRACKLIST: 

Side One: 1. Wild About You • 2. Do the Robot • 3. One Way Street • 4. Knock On Wood • 5. Erotic Neurotic  

 

Side Two: 6. River Deep, Mountain High • 7. Lies • 8. (I’m) Stranded • 9. Messin’ With the Kid • 10. (I’m) Misunderstood

COMMENTS: Hailing from the unlikely starting point of Brisbane, Australia, the Saints were the first punk rockers of note to hail from “down under.” Formed in 1973 as Kid Galahad and the Eternals by singer Chris Bailey (from Ireland), Ed Kuepper (from Germany), and bassist/drummer Ivor Hay (the only native Aussie here), they found early inspiration in bands like the Stooges and MC5 as well as original rockers like Elvis Presley and Little Richard. They renamed themselves the Saints in 1974 and made a name by revving up and over-amping cover tunes from artists like Del Shannon and Ike and Tina Turner before they started writing their own material. The Saints would become notorious in their homeland – police would often close down their gigs, arrests of the band members for “disturbing the peace” were frequent, and they ended up converting the band house into a makeshift venue they called ‘The 76 Club’ to play in because nobody else would book ‘em…until authorities put the hammer down, that is...

In June of 1976, the band recorded two of its original songs, “(I’m) Stranded” and “No Time” and, unable to find any label interest, formed their own Fatal Records label and released the songs on a 7” vinyl single. They mailed out copies to radio stations and magazines in both Australia and the United Kingdom, where an indie label – Power Exchange – reissued the single to almost universal critical acclaim from the British rock press. EMI Records, afraid to be left behind in the race to exploit the bourgeoning punk rock scene, offered the band a three-album deal. In December 1976, the band recorded their debut album, (I’m) Stranded, over the course of two days with Rod Coe producing. Featuring eight original songs along with covers of the Missing Links’ “Wild About You” and the Elvis song “Kissin’ Cousins,” the band subsequently moved to Sidney and went out on tour with AC/DC to promote the album. 

Relocating from Australia to the U.K. in late 1977, the band’s self-produced second album, Eternally Yours, was released in May 1978. Moving Hay over to drums, and adding bassist Algy Ward (who would later form the NWOBHM band Tank), the album found the Saints pursuing a more R&B-driven sound complete with horn section. Gone were the cover tunes, the album’s 13 original tracks penned by Bailey and/or Kuepper. Sadly, without the forward-leaning raw punk energy of the debut, Eternally Yours sold poorly. The band released its third album, Prehistoric Sounds, in late 1978. Forging forward with a soul-influenced sound, the album made no waves commercially and EMI dropped the band. Additionally, a difference in musical opinion between Bailey (who wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll) and Kuepper (who preferred a more avant-garde direction) broke up the band. 

Bailey put together a new version of the Saints for 1981’s The Monkey Puzzle, and has forged an eclectic career for the band ever since, releasing ten albums to date and featuring various line-ups with musicians like guitarists Brian James (The Damned, Lords of the New Church) and Marty Willson-Piper (The Church). Kuepper has pursued his own muse as both a solo artist and with bands like the Aints and Laughing Clowns, releasing better than 20 albums since 1985. All of which brings us back around to The Most Primitive Band In the World, a collection of poorly-recorded, live-to-tape performances that pre-date the band’s debut album and were literally recorded in Kuepper’s parents’ garage. 

The band’s youthful energy and enthusiasm lift the material on The Most Primitive Band In the World above the horrible low-fi recording, songs like “Wild About You,” “One Way Street,” the Velvet Underground doppelganger “Erotic Neurotic,” the lengthy, Stones-ish “Messin’ With the Kid,” and punk classic “(I’m) Stranded” emerging fully-formed and sounding every bit as electrifying and impactful as the versions found on the band’s groundbreaking debut album. Other tracks, like the rockabilly-tinged “Do the Robot” or the bass-heavy, soul-drenched “Lies” (both of which would be included as bonus tracks on the 2007 CD reissue of (I’m) Stranded) showcase a band still experimenting musically and lyrically to achieve its signature sound. 

Inspired livewire cover of Eddie Floyd’s Stax Records hit “Knock On Wood” and Ike and Tina Turner’s classic “River Deep, Mountain High” display the band’s interpretive ability in reimagining classic R&B tunes with punkish ferocity, the former song imbued with loads of soul and performed with reckless abandon, the latter with Bailey’s rapid-fire vocals and Hay’s impressive, fluid bass playing. The album’s final track, “(I’m) Misunderstood,” was recorded on mono cassette at Queensland Uni studios with short-time drummer Laurie Mysterio banging the cans. The song would reappear on Eternally Yours, but it’s recorded here as a charging, guitar-tortured rhino with crashing cymbals and galloping drumbeats.    

    

The Most Primitive Band In the World was originally released on vinyl and CD in 1995 by Hot Records in the U.K. while this 2021 version was licensed by Italy’s Radiation Records for their reissue vinyl series. Saints’ guitarist Ed Kuepper was the source of the recording, creating even further friction between him and vocalist Chris Bailey. In his excellent 2020 book Another Tuneless Racket: Punk and New Wave In the Seventies*, former zine publisher and music historian Steve H. Gardner quotes Bailey talking about the album stating, “in fact, neither Ivor nor I were consulted on that thing, and it was after the fact that we discovered that it was out. I think it’s atrocious…also there’s quite a bit of tension between his record company and management and mine because we weren’t notified and it is kind of an illegal thing that they’ve done.”

As for the album’s sonic quality, Gardner refers to it as “a crude recording for sure, but one that shows that in 1974 the Saints were already performing songs that would be recognized as punk classics…and playing them with the same full-on sonic assault that the rest of the world wouldn’t get to hear for another two to four years. Does anyone still think punk started only in CBGBs or the 100 Club?” Still, despite its historic importance, Gardner admits that “because of its raw sound,” the album is “not one to enjoy through repeated listenings” and that while “the band has energy and spunk,” if he was a member of the band, he “wouldn’t necessarily want anyone else listening to it.” 

So, you’ve been forewarned, buckaroos…The Most Primitive Band In the World is one for the rabidly fanatical, the obsessive completist, or the historically curious. I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anybody (go dig up a copy of (I’m) Stranded instead), and the generous grade is due mostly to respect for the band’s status as punk pioneers than any sort of kind listening experience. Grade: C- (Review by Rev. Keith A. Gordon)

* Buy a copy of Gardner’s Another Tuneless Racket if you’re a fan of 1970s-era rockers and proto-punks like the Saints, Dr. Feelgood, Television, Blondie, the Stranglers, the Damned, et al…

 Bonus view: 

Jo Jo Gunne unauthorized CD: On Your Radio (Echoes CD2054) sucks. Read on.

 

[Review by Bill Glahn] 

Jo Jo Gunne: On Your Radio (Echoes CD2054)

Venue: Ultrasonic Studios, Hempstead, New York, 1973, exact date unknown. This was a promotional broadcast for Bite Down Hard, released on June 5, 1973, so best guess is mid to late June.

Sound Quality: maybe the worst quality of any radio broadcast on CD that I’ve ever heard. Layers of hiss and distortion that drown out the band. Pathetic. Better recordings of this show abound.

Cover: 8 page booklet and tray card in traditional jewel case. Liner notes.

Tracklist: Roll Over Me/ Babylon/ intro – 99 Days – Run Run Run/ Rock Around The Symbol/ Special Situations/ Rhoda/ Take Me Down Easy/ Shake That Fat/ Broken Down Man/ DJ outro

Comments: After Spirit’s magnificent album, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, the band split with Randy California opting for a (short-lived) solo departure and members Jay Ferguson and Mark Andes leaving to form Jo Jo Gunne. Ed Cassidy would carry on the Spirit name with a fine album, Feedback, but clearly missing the talents of Randy California. California released a weird album called Kapt. Kopter and the (Fabulous) Twirly Birds, long on improvisation and short on actual songs. It died a quick death in the cutout bins. Only Jo Jo Gunne experienced a level of public success when their more pop-oriented self-titled debut yielded the Top 40 hit, “Run, Run, Run.” But by their second album, Bite Down Hard, the musical ideas were already fading and the band was nearing generic boogie (which is where they ended up).

This is where On Your Radio picks up the story.

Six of the tracks featured on On Your Radio come from their current record, while the remaining four are highlights from their first. Future lineup changes in the band would only exasperate the problem of not being able to differentiate themselves from a hundred other bands of the era. Jay Ferguson would recapture the rock/pop magic displayed on the first album with his second solo lp, “Thunder Island” release. Besides the title track, a huge 1978 hit, the album revisited the fabulous “Babylon” from Jo Jo Gunne’s first album. Perhaps that is the direction that Jo Jo Gunne should have followed.

On Your Radio presents a picture of Jo Jo Gunne before their final crash into mediocrity and could have been a fine release. But the aural presentation lacks any credibility.

Grade: F

Bonus view: 

Television's One Of A Kind Musical Alchemy: Live At The Waldorf On Vinyl

 

[review by Rev. Keith A. Gordon]

TELEVISION

Live At the Waldorf In San Francisco

(Radio LoopLoop, UK)

VENUE: The Old Waldorf, 444 Battery Street, San Francisco CA; June 29th, 1978.

SOUND QUALITY: Not too bad, really, with some cavernous quality to the sound and a little hollowness to the overall mix. Still, although Tom Verlaine’s vocals are a bit muddy, his and Richard Lloyd’s guitars are quite distinctive, as is Fred Smith’s underrated bass playing. Billy Ficca’s drums are minimal, with really only the high tones crashing above the instrumental drone. Eh, I’ve heard worse…

COVER: Up-close-and-personal B&W photo of the band in all of its Lower East Side junkie chic below a black banner with the band’s name and the album title in what has to be the worst use of the Helvetica font in existence. Back cover sports a more relaxed color pic of Television (actually credited to photog Lynn Goldsmith!), band credits, and track listing with more should-be-a-crime use of Helvetica. 

TRACKLIST: Side A: 1. The Dream’s Dream • 2. Friction • 3. Marquee Moon • 4. Careful Side B: 5. Venus de Milo • 6. Foxhole • 7. Ain’t That Nothin’ • 8. Little Johnny Jewel

COMMENTS: Television is notable not only for its revolutionary, guitar-driven sound, but also for their status as one of the punk pioneers that took up stations at New York City’s infamous C.B.G.B.’s club. Originally formed in 1972 as the Neon Boys by Verlaine and his longtime friend Richard Hell along with drummer Ficca, they would add Richard Lloyd as a second guitarist in 1973 and change their name to Television. Their unique blend of psychedelic-rock, punky garage-rock, and avant-garde musical experimentation quickly earned the band a cult following at C.B.G.B.’s and Max’s Kansas City. 

There was only room for one alpha dog in the ranks, however, and Hell quit to first form the Heartbreakers with former New York Dolls member Johnny Thunder and, later, the Voidoids, which rode their song “Blank Generation” to punk-rock infamy. Hell was replaced by the more talented, if less charismatic Fred Smith (no relation to the MC5/Sonic’s Rendezvous Band axe-mangler Fred “Sonic” Smith) and the band was signed to the major label deal that resulted in the classic, groundbreaking Marquee Moon and Adventure albums. Although both albums received widespread critical acclaim, their meager stateside sales, along with inner-band tensions, seemed to have doomed the Television experiment before it could really take wings (although, interestingly, both of the band’s albums charted in the U.K.).  

After a warm-up show at the familiar My Father’s Place in Roslyn NY, Television launched its 1978 tour in support of Adventure in April with a string of dates in the U.K. Returning home in late May, they tooled around NYC and the East Coast before heading out to the West Coast for a mere four dates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. San Francisco’s Old Waldorf was a legendary Bay Area venue that, although it was only open a short while (roughly seven years), nevertheless hosted a number of impressive shows by folks like Spirit, Metallica, the Dead Kennedys, Rory Gallagher, Poco, and R.E.M. The June 1978 performance documented by Live At the Waldorf came at the tail end of the tour and would be the band’s last North American road run until reforming in 1992. Adventure was released just months prior to this concert and the album’s eight-song set list is split roughly 60/40 between tracks from Adventure and the band’s 1977 debut, Marquee Moon. 

I’ll leave it up to Television fanatics to debate the merits of this particular set list but, to this fan, the swirling, oddly-syncopated, angular psychedelia of “The Dream’s Dream” provides a great showcase for the band members’ myriad instrumental talents – the guitars chime like a thousand bells, the bass riffs are hearty and jump lustily out of the grooves, and while the aforementioned shoddy mix underplays Ficca’s talents, he makes his presence felt nonetheless. Verlaine’s vocals take getting used to – a sort of deep, nasal, NYC patois – but they’re effective and haunting riding above his and Lloyd’s mesmerizing guitar lines. The sound quality nosedives a bit for “Friction,” from Marquee Moon, but the song’s cascading guitar licks, Verlaine’s strident vocals, and percussive rhythms rise above the fuzzy, distorted mix to create a staggering slab of raucous city slang. 

The title track from their debut LP is afforded extended instrumentation beyond even the original version’s generous ten-minute sonic devastation, the live track running half-again as long and featuring lengthy passages of electroshock guitar, crashing drums, and funky circular bass lines sounding like a klaxon horn beneath Verlaine’s tortured vox. Adventure’s “Careful” sounds pedestrian by contrast, the song’s relatively-brief three-minute-plus running time and jaunty, up-tempo sound and vocal harmonies a shock after the mind-bending “Marquee Moon.” Side two kicks off with “Venus” (incorrectly titled “Venus De Milo” here), a Marquee Moon track that rumbles and roams across a more traditional rock ‘n’ roll soundscape, but still features the band’s jagged trademark fretwork, here paired with the vaguest vestige of a melody that made it a natural to release as a single (if only in Japan, it seems!). 

Adventure’s “Foxhole” was released as a single in the U.K. (where the band had found a more receptive audience) and is a similar up-tempo rocker but with no melodic hook, just jugular-crushing rhythms, razor-blade guitars, and muscular drumbeats that hit your ears like mortar-fire. Another Adventure track, “Ain’t That Nothin’,” was an odd choice for a U.S. single, the song’s cross-cutting instrumentation, odd time changes, wall-of-sonic-overkill arrangement, and overall intriguing, albeit challenging sound not particularly suited for battle in the rock arenas of the day, much less friendly enough for the era’s timid, strictly-formatted FM radio playlists. 

Live At the Waldorf closes out with an eleven-minute extended workout on what was the band’s actual first single, the transcendent “Little Johnny Jewel.” Originally split into two parts and released as a (highly collectible*) 7” single by their manager Terry Ork’s legendary indie Ork Records label, the song wasn’t included on Television’s debut album (although it was later added to the 2003 CD reissue of Marquee Moon). An enchanting, almost magical performance that runs through several sonic textures, light and dark, and quiet passages blown-up by shards of expansive instrumentation, the song suggests the sophisticated song structure and experimentation the band would make the cornerstone of Marquee Moon.

Less than a month after this performance, Television would break up, ostensibly due to Lloyd’s drug abuse but mostly because Verlaine’s uncompromising artistic vision prevented the other guys from getting a musical word in edgewise. Verlaine and Lloyd both launched solo careers with varying degrees of success; Billy Ficca took his skills to new wavers the Waitresses (“I Know What Boys Like”) and Smith played with folks like the Roches and Willie Nile through the 1980s. Television reformed in 1992 and released one last, self-titled album and continues to perform sporadically with three of the four original members (Lloyd leaving the band in 2007 due to health concerns). 

This show was originally released by the esteemed Trademark of Quality bootleg label as Ain’t That Nothing and duplicated through the years by titles like Live Adventures (Chapter One Records), Live In San Francisco (Four Aces Records), and Live At the Old Waldorf (Russian label DOL). It acquired a semblance of legitimacy when Rhino Records released the full performance on CD in 2003 as Live At the Old Waldorf as part of its “Rhino Handmade” limited edition series. The set was reissued again on vinyl in 2017 by Warner affiliate Elektra Records, so the major label has definitely laid claim to this particular performance for their own exploitation. What Radio LoopLoop has done is take a timeworn performance, dropped a song from the track list (in this case, a cover of the Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”), and shoehorned the remaining set onto a single disc (Elektra’s version was stretched thin across four sides). 

My half-assed Internet research unearthed a comment by legendary rock critic Lester Bangs that he heard a lot of the influence of Quicksilver Messenger Service and its guitarist John Cipollina on Verlaine’s playing in particular. The mercurial bandleader downplayed this comparison, citing the Venture as a more appropriate influence but, in truth, I can hear both bands here as well as the ever-looming Velvet Underground, all influencing the unique (and seldom-duplicated) Television sound. Verlaine and Lloyd eschewed the traditional lead/rhythm guitar dynamic, blurring the lines and redefining musical roles in favor of interlocking guitars that were allowed to improvise, almost jazzlike, on their own wavelength (something that Smith also does with his bass guitar, albeit to a lesser extent). 

You can hear a lot of this exciting instrumental interplay in the band’s live set, and Live At the Waldorf is a great example of Television’s one-of-a-kind musical alchemy. Grade: A

* A near mint condition copy of “Little Johnny Jewel” on Ork Records will set you back a hefty $40-$50 according to Discogs as of this writing…

Bonus view: 

Loudon Wainwright III:: Clockwork Chartreuse... Live (unauthorized live CD)

[Review by Bill Glahn]

 Wainwright III: Clockwork Chartreuse… Live (Echoes CD2056)

Venue: Liberty Hall, Houston, TX, November 3, 1973

Cover: 8-page booklet including liner notes and photos with tray card in traditional jewel case

Sound Quality: very good to excellent, clean with a little digital residue. In pre-digital days, it would be the equivalent of being on normal bias tape vs. high bias. The liner notes state that this was broadcast on KPFT-FM (a community station which the KKK had already tried to bomb out of existence twice by this time), but more likely a soundboard or a KLOL-FM broadcast (a commercial station which already had a working relationship with Columbia artists for live broadcasts).

Tracklist: Down Drinking At The Bar (fades in)/ In Am The Way (New York Town)/ Have You Ever Been To Pittsburgh?/ New Paint/ Nocturnal Stumblebutt/ Bell Bottom Pants/ Clockwork Chartreuse/ Liza/ AM World/ Muse Blues/ Be Careful, There’s A Baby In The House/ Unrequited To The 9^th Degree/ Lullabye/ You Hurt Me Mantra/ The Man Who Couldn’t Cry/ I Know I’m Unhappy-Suicide Song (cut)

Comments: “Crossing the highway late last night…” – I was 17 in the fall of 1972, travelling through rural Mississippi or Arkansas late on a Friday night, when I first heard those words coming on KAAY, a powerhouse AM station with Beaker Street providing an FM-style mixed format show for the Midwest when there were few of those type stations in the heartland. KAAY broadcast at 50,000 watts making its late-night programming influential throughout the Midwest. Beaker Street introduced America to such diverse acts as Loudon Wainright III and Black Oak Arkansas. (So influential was Beaker Street in breaking the first BOA album that the band recorded a couple of promotional songs to be played exclusively on the program). Six months later, you couldn’t play a Top 40 station anywhere without hearing “Dead Skunk.” It would take Black Oak Arkansas a little longer.

Loudon Wainwright III released two albums on Atlantic that featured just him, his guitar, and his songs. Although a few critics lauded his unusual approach to folk songwriting, for the most part there was little of note to appear in the music journals of the day. Add the complete lack of radio play and both albums stiffed. Atlantic dropped him and Columbia picked him up. Encouraged by the great response to the song on Beaker Street, who’s format was half picks by DJ Clive Clifford and the other half chosen by listener call-ins, Columbia would issue it as a single in the summer of 1973 and then a fourth album, Attempted Mustache, later in the year. Back in New Jersey by this time, I couldn’t listen to Philly or New York radio without hearing the song. And apparently, neither could prople anywhere else. With the added elements of banjo, fiddle and drums, - absent from the Atlantic albums, “Dead Skunk” shot up to #16 on the national Top 40 (#12 in Cashbox). I bought the single that summer. I bought Attempted Mustache later that year. Filled with tragicomic songs where structure didn’t seem to matter or rhyming either, Wainwright seemed to never find it in his thought process to throw out a good joke or a good turn of a phrase. Everything fit, even when it didn’t. I had to backtrack for the rest. I imagine that was the path for a whole lot of other fans as well, because Wainwright ended up developing a hard-core following that exists to this day. That rarely happens for “one hit wonders” who hit the charts with a novelty song.

“Dead Skunk,” being a novelty tune with conventional song structure, is the kind of song an artist can tire of performing rather quickly. And audiences can tire of hearing with overexposure. With Attempted Mustache now in the record racks, Wainwright already had removed the song from his setlist in late 1973. His audiences didn’t seem to mind.

 Lloyd Maines tells a story about producing Terry Allen. When producing Terry Allen for the first time, Maines mentioned that not all verses were of equal measure, in some cases partial measures. Allen replied, “It’s a song, not a math problem.” Mains says that it changed his way of hearing music forever. That revelation came to me a few years earlier through Loudon Wainwright III albums.

1973 found Columbia Records in the unenviable position of losing their greatest artist, Bob Dylan, who had one foot out the door, heading for Asylum Records. They were eager to promote “the new Bob Dylan,” of which they had two potential candidates on the roster already, Loudon Wainwright III and Bruce Springsteen. Neither, of course, entirely fit the bill, but both were uniquely talented songwriters with a “folkish” (not folk) pedigree. Springsteen seemed to offer a greater potential for a mass audience and the label threw their support behind Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ. Wainwright was kept on as a “backup plan,” so to speak. Once again, no advance singles were released and Columbia waited until the following year, once two songs from Attempted Mustache, “Down Drinking At The Bar” and “I Am The Way” gained favor on the FM airwaves. In 1974, both were released as a double a-side.

Those are the two songs that Wainwright starts off this set with. Unfortunately, Clockwork Chartreuse… Live only includes the last minute of “Down Drinking At The Bar,” a fact not noted on the track listing. That’s unfortunate, because you miss his penchant for twisting a phrase in his own unique way – “Tear jerkers are jerking your tears.” Instead, the CD enters with a taste of Wainwright at his accusative and vindictive worst. No worry. The first full song on the CD captures Wainwright at his comical best, the rewrite of Woody Guthrie’s “New York Town,” reset in Jerusalem with new lyrics, “I Am The Way.” It was an instant crowd favorite and one that receives more requests these days than “Dead Skunk.”

Wainwright is clearly focused on promoting his latest release with this performance. 10 of the 12 tracks on Attempted Mustache are included in the setlist. Only “Muse Blues” (III), ”Be Careful, There’s a Baby In The House (II),” and “I Know I’m Unhappy-Suicide Song” (II) are from previous albums. “Unrequited to the Nth Degree” and “You Hurt Me Mantra” were works in progress, and “Have You Ever Been To Pittsburgh?” is an off-the-cuff ditty with no connection to his 1^st album’s “Ode To Pittsburgh.”

Attempted Mustache is probably the best example of Wainwright’s overall approach to writing at a time when he was comical, self-focused, engaged in new responsibilities and in possession of an unusual ability to write entertaining songs about everyday occurrences (for example, raising children). Emotional maturity would come later.

Unfortunately, as accurate a portrait as this disc is of Wainwright’s live act during this period, it exits the way it entered – with a clipped final track. No mention of that, either, on the tracklist.

Grade: B (docked a full point for the incomplete tracks)

Bonus concert: 

New York Dolls: Radio Luxembourg - On Vinyl, A Well Traveled Recording

 

[review by Rev. Keith A. Gordon]

NEW YORK DOLLS

Live At Radio Luxembourg

(Radiation Reissues, Italy)

VENUE: Radio Luxembourg studios live-to-air broadcast, Paris France; December 1st, 1973.

SOUND QUALITY: Not too bad overall, possibly taken from the original radio station tapes. Tinny sound, and a little hollow, with an odd separation of vocals and instruments that sound like they’re sunk into a sonic cavern. Side two clatters a bit and the frequent interjections by the DJ mess up the overall EQ. Quite listenable, though, the album capturing the band’s anarchic energy and young, loud, and snotty attitude. Turn it up!

COVER: Front cover features the electric-pink New York Dolls “lipstick” logo above a hazy photo of the band against a black backdrop with “Live At Radio Luxembourg” superimposed in yellow, looking like an old rubber stamping. Back cover has track list and band credits; the album sporting nice thick vinyl with simple black labels with the pink type. In other words, nuthin’ fancy…and virtually identical to the 2010 Lilith Records vinyl release of the show. 

TRACKLIST: Side A: 1. Intro • 2. Personality Crisis • 3. Bad Girl • 4. Looking For A Kiss • 5. Give Her A Great Big Kiss • 6. Stranded In the Jungle  Side B: 7. Pills • 8. Vietnamese Baby • 9. Trash • 10. Chatterbox • 11. Jet Boy

COMMENTS: While in high school during the early ‘70s, I was fanatical about getting every issue of Creem magazine as soon as it hit the newsstand. I lived and died by what Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh (and later, my rockcrit mentor Rick Johnson) would write about, and I’d buy a lot of records by unknown bands just because of the reviews in Creem. That was my introduction to the New York Dolls, whose debut LP I bought because somebody raved about it in my favorite rock rag. The Dolls’ audacious rock ‘n’ roll sound and campy proclivities (including the front cover’s controversial drag photo of the band) may have been polarizing to others, but songs like “Personality Crisis,” “Frankenstein,” and “Lonely Planet Boy” tickled brain cells I didn’t even know existed within my skullspace.

The earliest incarnation of the Dolls was formed in 1971 by guitarists Johnny Thunders (who doubled on vocals) and Rick Rivets, bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, and drummer Billy Murcia. They added vocalist David Johansen when Thunders decided to concentrate on guitar; Murcia’s childhood friend Sylvain Sylvain would replace Rivets on rhythm guitar. They initially made a name for themselves by playing regularly at NYC venues like the Mercer Arts Center and Max’s Kansas City, but the band’s momentum took a hit when Murcia accidentally overdosed during a brief 1972 European tour. After auditioning a number of drummers, including Marc Bell (who would later play with the Voidoids and the Ramones) and Peter Criscuola (née Peter Criss of Kiss), they enlisted Jerry Nolan, a friend of the band, to fill the empty drum seat.

It was this line-up that was signed to Mercury Records and put into the studio to record their self-titled 1973 debut album under the aegis of musician/producer Todd Rundgren. Although the set received overall a modicum of critical acclaim, sales were nothing to write home about, and not everybody was on board – a writer for Stereo Review notably compared the Dolls’ guitar sound to that of a lawnmower – but rock critics like Ira Robbins of Trouser Press considered it “an innovative record, and brilliantly chaotic” while Robert Christgau in Newsday called the Dolls “the best hard rock band in the country and maybe the world right now.” Although it was widely overlooked at the time, and the label put little (if any) resources into promoting it, the Dolls’ debut would prove to be a major influence on bands like the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Smiths, the Ramones, and Redd Kross, among many others. 

Touring in support of their debut album, which was released in July 1973, the New York Dolls made their way to Europe in late November of that year, playing a handful of U.K. dates before landing in France. They would perform live in the studios of Radio Luxembourg in Paris on December 1st for an on-air broadcast that has since become the stuff of legend. Frequently-bootlegged, the performance would become the “Holy Grail” of Dolls collectors, as it captures the band at their drunken, anarchic best. This version of the show comes from the Italian-based Radiation Records label, which is connected to the Radiation Record Store in Rome and has released a number of interesting recordings by an eclectic bunch of artists like Joy Division, Toy Dolls, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and the Gun Club as well as a bunch of vintage reggae sides from legends like Max Romeo, Derrick Morgan, and Augustus Pablo.

Live At Radio Luxembourg opens with brief introduction by the station DJ (spoken entirely in French) in front of a studio audience, the band then ripping into “Personality Crisis” with reckless aplomb, Johansen’s vocals roaring above a din that is dominated by Thunders’ stinging fretwork and Jerry Nolan’s bombastic drumbeats. “Bad Girl” continues at a galloping pace, Nolan’s machine-gun percussion outrunning Kane’s sonorous bass licks, Johansen doing his best vocal gymnastics above the roiling, turbulent soundtrack. The band meshes well on “Looking For A Kiss,” the instrumental attack perfectly blending proto-punk and primal metal in creating the chaotic Sturm und Drang that was the band’s trademark. 

“Give Her A Great Big Kiss” is a reworked version of the 1961 Shadow Morton hit by the Shangri-Las (interestingly, Morton would produce the Dolls’ Too Much, Too Soon album). The band delivers it as an over-amped, frat-rock jam with call-and-response vocals between Johansen, Thunders, and Sylvan while the rhythm section choogles on gleefully behind the hambone frontmen. It’s an enthusiastic and exciting performance that makes one wonder why they didn’t include it on one of their two 1970-era albums (the song demoed but never properly recorded). Side one closes out with “Stranded In the Jungle,” a cover of the 1956 hit by doo-wop group the Jayhawks. It seems to have been tailor-made for the Dolls, offering a tale of love and betrayal with brilliant, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and whiplash time changes that challenged the band’s instrumental prowess.

Side two of Live At Radio Luxembourg cranks the amps with the band’s larger-than-life cover of Bo Diddley’s “Pills.” The Dolls imbue the song with the crackling energy that would inspire a thousand and one punk bands to follow, Johansen’s lead vox battling with skewed harmonies from Thunders and Sylvain while the band bangs away in the background. “Vietnamese Baby” remains one of my fave Dolls songs, maybe the closest they ever came artistically to the Stooges, Thunders’ low-slung flamethrower guitar and Johansen’s growling, sneering vocals rising above a complex instrumental wall-of-sound that crushes any expectations of the band, offering a glimpse at the magic the band was capable of creating onstage.

There are far too many unintelligible DJ introductions on side two, disrupting the livewire electrical current of the album’s first side. “Trash” would be considered a throwaway by any other band, but Johansen’s gatling-gun vocals and emotional shading, combined with the band’s reckless instrumentation, elevate what is essentially a parody love song to the level of great rock ‘n’ roll. Thunders’ “Chatterbox” features the wayward guitarist acquitting himself nicely on the microphone and shining with his scalpel-sharp, pre-Tommy Peter Townshend-styled six-string pyrotechnics. The album closes out with the ear-banging roar of “Jet Boy,” the band teetering down the tracks like a runaway locomotive with snotty Johansen vocals, Sylvain’s hypnotic rhythm guitar riff, and Thunders’ tornado-strength solos.  

Live At Radio Luxembourg straddles the line between the Dolls’ critically-acclaimed self-titled debut album and their soon-to-come sophomore effort, offering seven tunes from the former and a pair of scorching rockers from the latter, with a welcome outlier in the middle. The performance is wonderfully reckless and engaging, bursting with energy and charisma. Reviewing a different vinyl version of this show, Will Pinfold writes for Spectrum Culture, “the chances of ever hearing the band at its absolute best would seem to be pretty slight, but in fact it’s a relief to find that, for every moment on this album – and there are a few – where the show sounds like drunks fighting in a guitar shop, there are many more where the band meshes perfectly and delivers glam trash rock at its most sublime.”

This specific NY Dolls’ performance has seen a number of semi-legit CD and vinyl releases through the years, including French label Skydog’s 1993 CD Paris’ Burning and former Dolls’ manager Marty Thau’s 1999 Red Star Records’ LP Live In Concert – Paris ’74 [sic]. Other versions include Paris Le Trash (Triple X Records), If It’s Saturday This Must Be Paris (Rokarola Records), and From Paris With Luv (L.U.V.) (Sympathy For The Record Industry). The Russian label Lilith Records released the show in 2010 on vinyl and included a full-length CD as a bonus! 

By comparison, this Radiation Reissues wax is kinda chintzy, dropping a live version of Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man” that seems to appear on every single other version of the show that I’ve found. The Dolls’ classic “Puss ‘n’ Boots” is also absent, although it too can be found on other CD and vinyl reissues of the same show. Because of this short-sheeting of the set list, I’m docking Live At Radio Luxembourg a full grade, the performance worth an ‘A’ but the presentation falling short of perfection. Grade: B (Review by Rev. Keith A. Gordon)

Another perspective on the show: https://spectrumculture.com/2021/06/13/new-york-dolls-live-at-radio-luxembourg-paris-dec-1973-review/

For more information on the New York Dolls, check out https://www.fromthearchives.com/nyd/chronology.html