True Believers- 2002 Reunion Show

photo by Jason Perry

After posting the Beat Farmers show last week, I had a request for some True Believers, a band Alejandro Escovedo formed in 1982, in Austin, Texas. Escovedo was previously in the Nuns and played in Rank and File before inviting his brother, Javier to form the True Believers. The band released their self-titled album in 1986 and recorded a follow-up in 1987 that was pulled by their label two weeks before it was to ship. The unreleased record along with the first album was included in a retrospective of the band in 1994, called Hard Road. This is a fine collection of a band that deserved a much better fate. If their label had released the second album in 1987, who knows, we might have been able to enjoy the True Believers more often than their occasional reunion shows, regardless, their influence is undeniable.

I'm sure how many times the True Believers have reunited, but I do know they did a perform a mini-4 song set during Alejandro Escovedo's concert at SXSW in 2010 and the show I'm posting today. The 2002 reunion is a full length set with many cool covers (Velvet Underground 3 times!) and highlights from their two albums. The performance is inspired and the quality of this soundboard recording is excellent! This is a must listen for any fans of this band and Alejandro Escovedo and if your curious of this near-legendary band, buy Hard Road, then have a listen to this show...amazing!
Enjoy!

TRUE BELIEVERS
Continential Club
Austin, TX
April 3, 2002
Reunion gig!

sbd>dat>cdr>eac>flac>rar

DISC 1
01. She's Got
02. Rebel Kind
03. All Mixed Up Again
04. Please Don't Fade Away
05. Home
06. Just Like Tom Thumb Blues (Dylan)
07. Wild Eyed And Wound Up
08. Foggy Notion (V.U.)
09. Train Round The Bend (V.U.)
10. I Wanna Be Your Dog (Stooges)
11. Lucky Moon
12. One Moment To Another
13. 20th Century Boy (T.Rex)

DISC 2
01. Who Calls My Name
02. Nobody's Home
03. I Get Excited
04. So Blue About You
05. Rain Won't Help You When It's Over
06. Hard Road
07. Tell Her
08. Sweet Jane (V.U.)

Alejandro Escovedo- guitar
Javier Escovedo- guitar
Jon Dee Graham- pedal steel
Denny Degorio- bass
Hector Munoz- drums



TRUE BELIEVERS- 2002-04-03 FLAC. rar (disc 1)
TRUE BELIEVERS- 2002-04-03 FLAC. rar (disc 2)

Johnny Thunders- Sticks And Stones: The Lost Album

I've probably had more requests for Johnny Thunders (and the Heartbreakers) than anyone else and it prompted me to flip through boxes to find more and in doing so found this nice recording that I don't remember listening to much. It features some previously unheard studio recordings Thunders made around 1990, a year before his untimely death. The songs are interesting and worth a listen if only to hear that Johnny was interested in possibly putting out a future album around this time. The songs are heartfelt and show a depth that he hadn't shown in a while and it's a treat to hear what could have been. This collection was released as, Sticks and Stones with bonus material which includes an undated concert with some ex-Dolls, as well as four acoustic songs recorded in 1982. Unfortunately, the version I'm posting doesn't include the four songs from 82 and I'm not quite sure why. I downloaded this file from Dime years ago, so either the poster didn't include them because they were officially released (are they the same versions as on Hurt Me?) or this was compiled before this bootleg was released or their source just didn't include those tracks. Either way this is well worth a listen and it's release is one of the better posthumous Johnny Thunders collections. And yes, I did find more Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers shows in the boxes...stay tuned!
Enjoy!

JOHNNY THUNDERS
Sticks & Stones: The Lost Album (2009)

Tracks 1-8 Studio Demos
01. Help The Homeless
02. Disappointed
03. Children Are People
04. Night Lives
05. Glory, Glory
06. Familiarity Breeds Contempt
07. Some Hearts
08. Tell The Truth

Tracks 9-19 "The Night Of The Living Dead"
Live concert at Max's Kansas City (with David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain and Peter Perrett)
09. Ask Me No Questions/Wizard
10. Pipline
11. (I'm Not) Your Stepping Stone
12. Great Big Kiss
13. The 10 Commandments Of Love
14. These Boots Are Made For Walking
15. Like A Rolling Stone
16. Endless Party
17. Pills
18. Hootchie Coochie Man
19. Personality Crisis

JOHNNY THUNDERS- Sticks And Stones. rar

Beat Farmers- China Club 1986

Hey, it's Saturday night and if you need something to spice up your party, here's a great rockin' concert from 1986. This show was from around the time I first heard the Beat Farmers, first hearing the first album, Tales Of The New West and then buying, Van Go. What caught my attention was a couple of really good covers, There She Goes Again (Velvet Underground) and Powerfinger (Neil Young) from the first two albums. Both records received heavy rotation on my turntable at the time and their catchy country-rock sound led me to listen to other similar-named and sounding bands, Beat Rodeo, Blue Rodeo and later the Blue Shadows. They also turned me onto bands such as the Long Ryders, The Blasters, Jason and the Scorchers and E-I-E-I-O. Yes, the mid-eighties was a good time for country-esque college rock and even today listen to these bands quite often.

I never saw the Beat Farmers live, but from I've read and heard they were an amazing live band. The next best thing is this live recording which was a radio broadcast so it boasts outstanding sound as the band plows through this set of circa, Van Go and pre-Pursuit of Happiness songs. Loud and plowed and...an excellent soundtrack for Saturday night!
Enjoy!

BEAT FARMERS
China Club, NYC, NY
September 30, 1986
WNEW-FM Broadcast

01. Death Train
02. There She Goes Again
03. This Broken Heart Of Mine
04. Ridin
05. Deceiver
06. The Future Today
07. Lonesome Bunny Call
08. Happy Boy
09. Big Ugly Wheels
10. Bigger Stones
11. Powderfinger
12. Selfish Heart
13. Texas
14. Beat Generation
15. Be Here By Me
16. Reason To Believe
17. God Is Here Tonight
18. Riverside
19. California Kid
Encore:
20. Revenuer Man



BEAT FARMERS- 1986-09-30 China Club, NYC FLAC. rar

Rock For Democracy 2004

photo by Mockstar

 I didn't quite time this properly, the U.S. election was last week and this concert actually took place back in 2004 when George W. Bush was running for re-election against John Kerry. Leading up to that election a series of Rock for Democracy benefit concerts were held to gather up supporters to get rid of Bush. One such show took place in Minneapolis with a who's who of Twin Cities bands lending their support for this worthy cause.

Bands that night were: The Flops, Iffy, Honeydogs, Jessy Greene, David Poe, Kraig Johnson & The Program, Dana Thompson, Sideways, Ike Reilly Assassination, Martin Devaney, The Jayhawks, Golden Smog and Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy from Soul Asylum. A review of the show can be found here and a song by song analysis of the Jayhawks and Golden Smog sets can be found here.

I'm not sure if the other bands were recorded, but fortunately someone did capture the Dave and Dan, Jayhawks and Golden Smog sets and posted it on Dime after the concert in 04. The sets are short, but sweet and one of the highlights has to be when a guy interrupted the Jayhawks during the start of their first song to loudly encourage voters to vote out Bush (click the second link above to read more) because his brother's being sent to Iraq. The Golden Smog set sounds fun with a bunch of covers and a couple of false starts. Even Dave Pirner joined the band for some songs. I didn't hear about as many similar concerts this election compared to 2004 and 2008, except for the usual Bruce Springsteen tour to boost Obama's profile. Unfortunately, the American people had to put up with Republican related concerts with the likes of Kid Rock, Meatloaf and pretty much every country singer/band in the States...yikes!
Yay, 4 more years!
Enjoy!

ROCK FOR DEMOCRACY
First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN
July 18, 2004
AUD recording

Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum
01. Intro
02. Black Gold
03. Crazy Mixed Up World
04. Lately
05. Outro

The Jayhawks (Gary Louris/Marc Perlman/Tim O'Reagan/Karen Grotberg)
06. Intro
07. One Man's Problem (aborted due to audience member climbing onstage)
08. One Man's Problem
09. Pray For Me
10. He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother (Tim-lead vocal)
11. Tailspin
12. Outro

Golden Smog (Gary Louris/Marc Perlman/Dan Murphy/Kraig Johnson/Peter Anderson)
13. intro
14. Starman (Gary- lead vocal)
15. That's When I Reach For My Revolver (Dan-lead vocal)
16. Powderfinger (Kraig-lead vocal)
17. Do Anything You Wanna Do (Dan-lead vocal)
18. The Dream Is Never Over (false starts) (Gary and Dave-lead vocals)
19. The Dream Is Never Over (Gary and Dave Pirner-lead vocals)
20. I'm Eighteen (false starts) (Dave- lead vocal)
21. I'm Eighteen (Dave- lead vocal)
22. Shooting Star (Dave-lead vocal)
23. Outro

ROCK FOR DEMOCRACY 2004-07-18 First Avenue, Mpls, MN FLAC. rar

Mary Lou Lord- CBC 1998

On this blog I try to post music that is hard to find, out of print or live recordings that I have recorded or in most cases shows I've downloaded or received in a trade. I have on occasion received copyright infringement take down warnings which I have abided by and respected and I have been careful not to post anything that could jeopardize this blog's existence. In the past year, many excellent blogs (many with large readership) have fallen by the waste side either from being banned and locked out of their online storage that links to the music or taken down by Blogger or whatever platform they use. Often they are reported by a band, a record label or music copyright owner. In the past year, I have removed links to albums from the Volcano Suns, the Crust Brothers and Best Kissers In the World (because it was finally being officially released, buy it here!) As I have stated in the past, please contact me if you would like a link removed or if I haven't given credit where credit is due, thanks!

I was recently informed by reader DW that the Mary Lou Lord EP that I posted a while back is still in print and suggested it wasn't appropriate to offer a download for it. This is the type of feedback I seek and in this case I assumed the CD wasn't still available and after a quick Internet search for the EP/CD I still couldn't find physical CD's for sale (please correct me if I'm wrong), but it is available as a digital download on iTunes and Amazon. In the future when I post an album I will double check that it isn't available for sale (except for eBay etc...), especially if the artist will be deprived of a sale. I do have some vinyl LP's I would like to post in the near future, so from now on I will be more careful with what I post. With this in mind, I will remove the links for the MLL EP and possibly the unreleased Neil Young album, Chrome Dreams (which has caused grief for some ex-blogs in the past) in the next 24 hours.

Here's a radio broadcast from the good ol' CBC on a show that aired on Saturday nights called, Radiosonic that featured live concerts and "in-studio" sessions and sometimes an interview. I sourced a lot of good recordings from this program that I captured on my tape deck or gretto-blaster-type cassette player/recorder. I am in the process of transferring other concerts from tape to digital. This might have been my first exposure to MLL and she instantly appealed to me not only because I loved the songs, but because she's such a sweet and unpretentious performer. I have to warn you I didn't get great reception on my radio and there is some static. My fault, as I was trying to fine tune to the station better, otherwise it's a great mini-set of fine tunes.
Enjoy!

MARY LOU LORD
CBC Studio
Toronto, ON
May 20, 1998
FM Master
FM> cassette> wav> FLAC> rar

01. Intro
02. She Had You
03. Book
04. That Kind Of Girl
05. His N.D. World
06. I Figured You Out

MARY LOU LORD- 1998-05-20, CBC, Toronto FLAC. rar

Fastbacks- San Francisco 2011

Here's a show that I thought would be appropriate to post this week. It took place in San Francisco just over a year ago, another rare reunion show for The Fastbacks since they disbanded in 2002 when they played their last show at (the same venue) The Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco. On Sunday (28th), the city of San Fran celebrated the Giants who won the World Series. As well, fellow blog(ger) (from my corner of the world), Music Ruined My Life has been posting some live and studio Fastbacks this past week (and earlier). A reader from this blog commented they had attended this show, so in case they or anyone hasn't heard it yet, here's the recording that someone upped to Dime last year.

photo by Yokokikuchi

It's a nice sounding show, the band still sounds pretty good and gives me hope that I might be able to see them live in the future. Kurt's been busy lately with some Fellows gigs as well as in Peter Buck's new band, Richard M. Nixon. Thanks to whoever recorded and originally posted this show (let me know so I can give due credit) on Dime.
Enjoy!

THE FASTBACKS
October 29, 2011
Bottom of the Hill
San Francisco, CA

AK40 >> LC3 >> KM100 >> R-09 >> WAV @ 24bit/44.1KHz
Adobe Audition 3.0 >> Ozone 4 VST >> stereo image >> loudness maximizer >> dither to 16 bit (MBIT+ algorithm)

01 Kurt Bloch banter
02 Out Of The Charts > No Information (@1:08)
03 In The Summer
04 Apologies
05 Trouble Sleeping
06 On Your Hands > Went For A Swim (@2:38) > Old Address Of The Unknown (@4:29)
07 Like Today
08 Goodbye, Bird > It's Your Birthday (@2:44)
09 Stay At Home
10 Gone To The Moon
11 They Don't Care > K Street (@2:21)
12 I Was Stolen > 2:45 of banter/applause
13 Come On, Come On [Cheap Trick]
14 In America
15 One More Hour > Set Me Free [Sweet] (@2:39)

THE FASTBACKS- 2011-10-29 FLAC. rar