Talking Heads- Live At Max's, NYC 1976

 

One of the few pleasures from the last couple troubling years is that I've gotten back to the routine of going to the local library and checking out some books. I'm such a slow reader and I take out more than I can read, so I end up renewing them several times before returning them. One of my most recent returns I couldn't renew because there was a hold request so I only got halfway through it (I will eventually put in a hold request). Most of the books are usually art (instruction), graphic novels and music related. The book in question is David Byrne's, How Music Works, where Byrne analysis many aspects of music from it's influences to recording technology and part biography. A very smart intelligent book every musician and music fan should read and I appreciate it is in plain easy to understand language. He also talks about the early days of the Talking Heads and as you know, I'm fascinated by musician's biographies from their point of view. I'm looking forward to finishing the book (I didn't want to just skim ahead), but in the meantime I've been listening to some Talking Heads live recordings to keep the mood alive (I was listening to TH records while I was reading the book).

 

Reading this book has inspired me to actually write a post (sorry, for the slow 2022, so far) and appropriately some early Talking Heads. The band formed and started playing shows in 1975, so the show we have here is still relatively early, in October of 1976, when the band was still only a three-piece with David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz (Jerry Harrison wouldn't fully join the band until 1977, he was still in the Modern Lovers, Jonathan Richman's band). The Talking Heads played most of their shows during their first year at CBGB's as a residency, playing consecutive shoes in a week, then expanded to other venues in the New York City area. Max's Kansas City was another club the band played frequently, as both clubs nurtured many critical bands from the era (Blondie, The Ramones, Heartbreakers, Patti Smith Group, Television etc.) providing these bands with a venue to hone their craft. This recording at Max's sounds really good for an audience recording and for the time period and it's a pretty accurate documentation of the Talking Heads early in the career before their debut album was released.

Enjoy!

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Do NOT convert to lossy formats, except for personal use.

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TALKING HEADS
MAX'S KANSAS CITY, 

New York City, USA
OCTOBER 9, 1976
AUDIENCE RECORDING BY SKOTF
SKOTF ARCHIVE VOL. 33 (redux)

AUD>MASTER CASSETTE>STAND ALONE BURNER>WAV>AUDACITY (for tracking only)>FLAC

BAND: David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz

SETLIST:
01. artists only
02. 1-2-3 red light (1910 Fruitgum Co.)
03. happy day
04. don't worry about the government
05. psycho killer
06. love>building on fire
07. thank you for sending me an angel
08. with our love
09. pablo picasso
10. I'm not in love

TALKING HEADS- 1976-10-09 Max's Kansas City, NYC, NY FLAC. rar

 

The Damned- Live At The First International Punk Festival 1976

 

Last week I started reading Nick Lowe's biography, Cruel To Be Kind written by Will Birch and it's so interesting it's hard to put down. It follows Lowe from (pre-) infancy up until I'm present day, as in a couple years ago when he recorded and toured with Los Straitjackets. I was looking forward to reading about his career in the 1970's where a lot of the action took place that followed Lowe through his early band's, Kippington Lodge, Brinsley Schwarz and of course, the great, Rockpile. He even crafted a pretty successful solo career as well. He made a lot of great music with those bands and played a ton of live shows while battling, believe or not, addition problems. The book provides a rare look at Lowe's personal life and there's lot's of insight from fellow musicians Lowe worked with, including his ex-Carlene and the author who had connections with Lowe back in the day. Elvis Costello spoke highly of Lowe as a performer and a producer who produced Costello's first five albums as well as Blood and Chocolate from 1986. Lowe got behind the board and started producing when Stiff Records was launched and he became the "in-house" producer for the label for a number of up and coming bands. 

 

One of those bands was the Damned who were briefly known as Masters of the Backside with (believe it or not) Chrissie Hynde, who later formed the Pretenders. In 1976, the band released their first single, New Rose and followed it up the next year with their debut album, Damned Damned Damned. They became the first punk rock band from the UK to release a single, album and tour the U.S. Up until this weekend, I only owned the band's critically underappreciated second album, Music for Pleasure and had the first album on a cassette I made back in the mid-80's (backed with the Buzzcocks- Singles Going Steady!). This weekend, my sister was downsizing her records and I scooped up a vinyl copy of that first record (beautiful yellow vinyl!) and their third album, Machine Gun Etiquette which I'm enjoying a lot.

The live recording I'm posting is supposedly the Damned's 5th ever live show. It would still be another couple months until the band would release New Rose (October 22) and another six months until their debut album came out. The sound quality is definitely not great, but it was fortunate someone taped the show since they were still a fairly new band and it's a great setlist made up of most of the songs from Damned Damned Damned. I've had this for a while so it was nice to re-discover this recording again and any early Damned is worth sharing and a listen.

Enjoy!

#14yearsoftrouble

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy format (except for personal use)

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THE DAMNED
1st International Punk Festival
Mont De Marsan, France
August 21, 1976

source: unknown gen. audience recording

01. 1 Of The 2
02. New Rose
03. Help
04. Fan Club
05. I Feel Alright
06. Feel The Pain
07. Fish
08. See Her Tonite
09. I Fall
10. So Messed Up

THE DAMNED- 1976-08-21 Mont de Marsan, France FLAC. rar 

The Clash- 5 Go Mad In The Roundhouse

 

 

This past week would have been Joe Strummer's 68th birthday had he not passed away in 2002, when the world lost a great musical talent. The band Strummer co-fronted with Mick Jones, The Clash have been referred to as the definitive British punk rockers and their use of incorporating genres of rockabilly, reggae, dub and R & B has influenced a whole generation of future punk rockers. According to Strummer, manager Bernie Rhodes would say, "An issue, an issue. Don't write about love, write about what's affecting you, what's important." Politics often entered in the band's lyrics and ideals that set the band apart. I didn't know this (until i read it on wiki) but, the band's political principles extended to the resistance of the music industries profit motivation and fought to keep ticket prices and merchandise reasonably priced. The band informed CBS they wanted their double album (London Calling) and triple album (Sandinista!) sold for the price of a single album. London Calling was and as a compromise for Sandinista! the band gave up performance royalties for the first 200,000 sales. This meant the band was in debt most of the time or barely breaking even with CBS.

 

I don't often post known bootlegs, but the historical significance of these recordings are hard to pass up. The first half of the disc is a very early show in their career live from the Roundhouse and it is a rare recording that features the Clash with five band members. As noted in the review below, guitarist, Keith Levene was still in the band in early September 1976, but is gone from the band by the October gig in Birmingham. I hadn't listened to this disc in a while, but had a listen last week and the sound quality isn't as bad as I remembered and what sold me was the number of unreleased songs and how energetic these early shows were. You are hearing the Clash in their formative stage, working it out in clubs opening or playing alongside bands such as the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks and developing a following (not through "social media" or hype) through hard work and solid live performances. If you're a fan of the Clash, especially their early work, these recordings are a must-hear! 

Enjoy!

#14yearsoftrouble

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy formats (except for personal use)

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The Clash
5 Go Mad In The Roundhouse (1996)

Tracks 1 - 15 live at The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London, 5th September, 1976.
Tracks 16 - 28 live at Barbarella's, Birmingham, 26th October, 1976.

Track listing
01. Deny
02. 1-2 Crush On You
03. I Know What I Think About You
04. I Never Did It
05. How Can I Understand The Flies
06. Protex Blue
07. Janie Jones
08. Mark Me Absent
09. Deadly Serious
10. 48 Hours
11. I'm So Bored With You
12. Sitting At My Party
13. London's Burning
14. What's My Name
15. 1977

16. White Riot
17. Birmingham's Burning
18. I'm So Bored With The U.S.A.
19. How Can I Understand The Flies
20. Protex Blue
21. Deadly Serious
22. Deny
23. Career Opportunities
24. 48 Hours
25. What's My Name
26. Janie Jones
27. 1977
28. 1-2 Crush On You

Track 03 is labeled "Know What You Do".
Track 04 is labeled "I Don't Want Your Money".
Tracks 05 & 19 are labeled "I Can't Understand The Flies".
Tracks 09 & 21 are labeled "Going To The Disco".
Track 11 is an early version of "I'm So Bored With The USA".
Track 12 is labeled "Work".
Track 17 is an alternate version of "London's Burning".

Review:
This is a very 'historic' bootleg you could say. The Clash lineup for the Roundhouse gig is the five man outfit - Joe on vocals, Paul on bass, Keith Levene and Mick on guitars, and Terry Chimes on drums. The band is rough 'n' ready, and very energetic. The sound quality is pretty good. It's a tiny bit muffled
throughout, the first two tracks more than most, but after those it improves significantly.

There are lots of songs that you won't find anywhere else, as you can see from the songlist. These unreleased ones are pretty good, and the band is very energetic. There are a fair number of breaks in the show during which Joe addresses a less than friendly audience. My favourite moment being when Joe says "So you got five A-Levels, what do I care? That's just a dirty trick!" during a long break in the set. What's admirable is the strength of the performance when the crowd obviously didn't 'dig' The Clash that much. The applause after some of the songs comes across as a bit half-hearted, and quite a few morons in the crowd recommend the band get off the stage.

The Birmingham gig is much the same. Rough and fast performances of early songs, this time with Mick on lead guitar and Joe on rhythm since Keith had left by this stage. (Birmingham's Burning, as you probably guessed, is just London's Burning with the altered lyric.) This is an essential CD to have, being one of the earliest shows, it has the rare tracks and Keith 'The Phantom Guitar Player' Levene features on it (he's only on the Roundhouse gig). A blistering two shows. The performance this early on shows how great they were, and it's interesting to hear early versions of the songs before they got put down in the studio and probably while they were still being worked on.

Rated: 8 / 10

 

THE CLASH- 5 Go Mad At The Roundhouse FLAC. rar