“Live & Dangerous” is good but, overdubs aside, it’s so like the studio recordings I don’t really get the point of it except as a souvenir of the gig, or as a ‘greatest hits’ package. But an 8CD box set + book reissue is fucking preposterous, what a waste of resources.
Here are some of mine. No Throbbing Gristle or ragga clashes, or I’ll be here all night.
JOY DIVISION - Ajanta Cinema, Derby 1980: Ajanta Cinema’s become this mythical entertainment complex in my mind (I have a bootleg of TG playing here too). Apparently, it was very run-down and used to put on Bollywood and Eurosmut flicks whenever post-punk acts weren’t making a din on stage. I still have a fascination with those sorts of places. Audience recording, good atmospheric gig just a month before he ended the joke. On a related note, it’s insane to me that New Order never officially released their NYC Taras Shevchenko set as a live album.
SUICIDE – 23 Minutes Over Brussels: some inspired booing on this…you can hear the crowd’s disdain for Suicide intensify as the set goes on, nearly drowning out the band with what sounds like a coordinated football chant at one point. Wonder where that microphone ended up.
EIRE OG – Live At The Brazen Head: can see the wall of Celtic shirts through the haze of cigarette smoke right now. Recorded in Glasgow but could so easily have been mid-90s Kilburn. Not much point pushing this one on Dissensus, you’ll hate it. Similarly…
TOMMY MAKEM AND THE CLANCY BROTHERS – Freedom’s Sons / In Concert / Live At Carnegie Hall: inherited all 3 from my parents, this is unashamed childhood nostalgia. The Clancys were at their best live, making Irish Republican dad jokes and arseing around in front of the audience one minute, before launching into tearjerker ballads that sound like ghosts are serenading you in the snug of an old pub (they are now).
WHITEHOUSE – Live Action 22 / Live Action 23 / Tokyo Halogen: the live action tapes have their moments, most memorably the cops bursting in during LA22 (“Turn the noise down, lads!”) and some of Kevin Tomkins’ unhinged vocal performances on the first US tour. Unfortunately, the band meet their match when they come up against the jobsworth soundman (LA23) who refuses to turn up the volume (“You’re gonna go deaf…it’s a medical fact!”) despite the band’s desperate pleas (don’t think snapping “Did she pay to get in?” about one of the complaining bar staff was ever going to work). Also, great comment from the pub guv’nor: “Would it sound any better if they turned it up?”
VAGINA DENTATA ORGAN – Triumph Of The Flesh: subtitled The Pagan Drums of Calanda as The Catholic Drums of Calanda probably wasn’t edgy enough for Psychic TV fans. Two sides of live Semana Santa drumming, sadly without the spectacle of flagellants, priests togged up like the KKK and a giant statue of the Blessed Virgin trundling down the street on a Carnival float. I used to play this a lot when I went to the gym, to drown out that fucking “Like A G6” song.
THE GEROGERIGEGEGE – Greatest Hits Live: old Japanese man wanks to a Poundstretcher drum machine and whips audience into a frenzy, what else do you need really?
SHAM 69 – Tell Us The Truth: the live side’s the birth of Oi! (Cock Sparrer and Skrewdriver would disagree) The bit where Jimmy Pursey announces “You’re gonna go on the LP with us – cos you’re us!” and the crowd explodes into cheers is one of the greatest moments in musical history. You can hear Lou Reed sobbing into a bottle of wine and whimpering “It’s over”.
DAVID TOOP/PAUL BURWELL – Wounds: any time I’m unlucky enough to end up in Café Oto, I find myself wishing I was watching these goofballs instead of whoever’s on. Arty improv racket. From ‘Eurock’ magazine: “In early 1979, Burwell believed he was being stalked by the Greek god Pan. For the LMC performance, he surprised the audience by emerging from a curtain in a furry chicken outfit, complete with an extra-large, soiled diaper. Toop, meanwhile, was obsessed with his hair loss and sporting an increasingly bizarre assortment of unrealistic wigs, while reportedly studing ‘chaos magic’ to ‘meet pretty ladies’. The performance (so bad that Iancu Dumitrescu shouted “Shit!” and attempted to punch a hole in the wall, only to wind up in St Guy’s Hospital with a broken thumb and cracked knuckles) saw Burwell and Toop manipulate squeaky bird toys while up-ending several dozen boxes of cookware over the stage and pushing buckets of tacks around with the floor with their foreheads. Later that night, Burwell was sectioned.”
