Just the other day, Mr. Mod posted a few tracks for the weekend download from a great and much bootlegged Elvis Costello show at the Hope and Anchor in 1980. This show is notable because it’s the only live document of the short-lived 2-guitar lineup. As you already know if you read the previous posts on this subject, Martin Belmont replaced Steve Nieve, who was in a serious car accident, and the result is an absolutely ripping set featuring material from his 1st 4 albums, a B-side (“Girls Talk”) and covers that he’d rarely, if ever, play again. I first heard this show on a bootleg Lp called “Something New”. A few years later, I found a cd-r called The Land of Hope and Anchor. It contains not only this entire show, but his appearance on the Tomorrow Show with Tom Synder in 1981 (performing 2 songs from Trust) as well as some BBC session tracks from 1978 and 1980. Thus I’ve decided to make it available for download. Enjoy!
2001: A Space Odyssey is playing on the tv. The scene pictured in this now-retro futuristic hotel lobby just passed. I’m dazzled every time I watch this movie. It’s so bold and futuristic that it still promises some peek into the future, even 7 years past its promised fruition, when we live in a hi-def world that still never seems as crisp and synthetic as the one Stanley Kubrick depicted. This feeling of wonder over the Look of a film makes sense to you, right? It doesn’t have to be this particular film for you.
I would imagine that there are recordings that have hit our ears in a similar way to what I describe with the visuals in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In your music-loving lifetime, has there been a recording that’s stayed fresh and “boldly futuristic” long after its debut, maybe even after it’s become part of the mainstream and used in Target commercials? The only thing I ask is that you keep it to recordings that have come out in your music-loving lifetime. If you were 3 when Sgt. Pepper’s came out, for instance, try something more in tune with the years when you consciously became a music lover. We all imagine how boldly futuristic some reissued record we’ve picked up at one time or another still sounds, but it’s not the same as hearing it for the first time with your own ears.
Here I go again, hoping to launch a discussion over a type of topic that is an anathema to many of you. I thank you in advance for your tolerance and, moreso, efforts in confronting the challenging relationships among form, content, and perception. It goes without saying that I do not expect you to thank me in advance for the surprising degree to which you might feel yourself caught up in this discussion.
Last March I did a little write-up of my favorite taped radio recording from my youth, a King Biscuit Flour Hour show featuring Elvis Costello & The Attractions with Martin Belmont guesting on lead guitar in place of an injured Steve Nieve. You can read what I wrote and hear the first batch of tracks I posted here.
Recently, Townsman snuh appeared in the Halls of Rock. He wrote me offlist to say how much he appreciated finding some of the tracks for this concert, which he also taped off the radio many moons ago. He lost his tape and asked if I had the rest of it. I do, but a couple of the tracks on the CD are not transferring properly. Until I find my original cassette and try re-burning those tracks, here are a few more tracks from that show. Stay tuned for a Pt. 3. Hopefully it won’t take me another 11 months to complete the sharing of this old cassette! Today, I’m also including a bonus track from another BBC bootleg during that same Get Happy!! period. Steve Nieve is back behind the keyboards for this one, while Martin Belmont was probably back getting dirty looks from Graham Parker.
Fellow Townsmen and Townswomen — I have long since resigned myself to the notion that my earnest contributions to this fine forum have disqualified me from any form of elective office… like, ever. The electronic paper trail I’ve left behind is long and eminently mis-quotable, unfortunately. But that can’t stop a man from dreaming!
As I ponder the upcoming election, I sometimes think: “Shit, man… if I were President, I’d be, like, the most full-on culture vulture Prez since Jack Kennedy. I’d have concerts and shit, showcasing the finest artists in the modern (and perhaps not so modern) American music canon… and shit.”
Then, of course, I stop myself, and think more realistically about what a President really can do with regard to showcasing talent in the White House for foreign and domestic dignitaries. Clearly, a performance by Iggy and the Stooges would be a waste of good talent, and would likely get me impeached for some damn reason or another. You gotta keep it real, but non-offensive, at the same time.
So who would make the White House concert schedule if you were Prexy? I have a short list, and it would be eminently do-able; quality American artists who wouldn’t offend anybody, but would provide a high-quality display of American musical talent. I wanna hear about yours!
Rock Town Hall surely hopes that readers do not rely on us for the latest in rock news items, especially rock deaths. I’d hate to think anyone Townsperson’s missed a rock viewing while I miss a link that’s been buried somewhere in the RTH Basement. My thanks to the “basement dwellers” for passing along this link to a nice write up on Pere Ubu guitarist Jim Jones, who died recently. You may also be interested in this nice piece, written by the leader of Cobra Verde, if my rock nerd powers are fully functioning.
Jones joined Pere Ubu in 1987, for the recording of and touring in support of the strong comeback album, The Tenement Year. Shortly thereafter, the band’s recordings would lose the spark that I’d come to love, but they stayed strong as a live act over the next half dozen tours that I’d caught. Beside his snakey guitar parts, Jones added an enthusiastic, open, friendly vibe to the band that did not seem to be part of their overall band vibe. Judging by these pieces on him, it sounds like these qualities were part of his everyday personality. He sounds like a guy who would have been at ease around our virtual turntable.
I don’t have The Tenement Year handy in digital form, but here are two tracks with Jones from the last Pere Ubu album I’ve liked in too many years to date, Raygun Suitcase. This album saw the band coming out of a stretch of relatively poppy, overproduced albums and returning to their special blend of black-humored, disjointed garage rock. The next couple of albums I bought just seemed to lack any interesting form. Stuff happens.
I’m no expert on the ’70s Cleveland/Akron scene, but because of my love for Pere Ubu I’ve done my share of reading and record buying around the extended Ubu family of musicians. In the early- to mid-70s, Jones played bass for The Mirrors, a “rival” band of Ubu predecessors Rocket From the Tombs. Here are a couple of tracks by The Mirrors, from a cool compilation of bands “left behind” from that fertile, mid-70s Cleveland/Akron scene, Those Were Different Times: Cleveland 1972-1976. (Both this album and Raygun Suitcase are available on eMusic.)
Finally, if you haven’t done so already, I suggest your read a lot more about the Cleveland/Akron proto-punk scene (as well as proto-punk scenes in Detroit and NYC), in Clinton Heylin‘s excellent From the Velvets to the Voidoids.
