{"id":24157,"date":"2021-03-17T08:33:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T12:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=24157"},"modified":"2021-03-17T08:33:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T12:33:41","slug":"what-do-you-mean-you-dont-like-live-albums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/what-do-you-mean-you-dont-like-live-albums\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do You Mean, You Don\u2019t Like Live Albums?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I remember a conversation I had at a record store with an owner that knew me well and when I was buying some music she said, \u201cYou really like live albums, don\u2019t you?\u201d\u00a0I said, \u201cI suppose, but doesn\u2019t everyone?\u201d She was emphatic when she said that so far as she could tell most people didn\u2019t like them at all.\u00a0Since I was thinking about it, I decided I\u2019d take a look when I got home and see how many live albums I really have.\u00a0If I include The Stones<\/strong>, it\u2019s a ton but I wasn\u2019t thinking specifically about them.\u00a0I was thinking more about everyone else.\u00a0She was right.\u00a0I seem to like live albums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, I\u2019m listening to one of the two AC\/DC<\/strong> albums I have. I have Back in Black<\/em> and If You Want Blood<\/em>. I haven\u2019t played Back in Black<\/em> in 25 years and I doubt I\u2019ve listened to If You Want Blood<\/em> in a long time, either. I didn\u2019t have to get far in my record collection to come across my first live album, and it wasn\u2019t even AC\/DC, that was the second one. While I\u2019m listening to it I remember why I bought it. When I was in school AC\/DC was one of the newer bands kids listened to, and I never really liked their sound. They sound so produced and artificially gigantic on their studio records. A friend had the ‘74 Jailbreak<\/em> record and I seem to remember that was hard to find or expensive, but I liked that one because they sounded like I thought they should. My friend told me this one was easier to find, and I\u2019d probably like it just as much. It\u2019s never been one of my most played records, but I definitely like this better than all their studio records. They sound like 5 guys blasting some decent rock ‘n roll and not some polished studio product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the first live album I ever bought was either Joe Walsh<\/strong>\u2019s You Can\u2019t Argue With a Sick Mind<\/em> or Bob Seger<\/strong>\u2019s Live Bullet<\/em>. We used to call that one Double Live Bullet<\/em> when we were kids. I don\u2019t know why the amount of records in the package was added, but we definitely called it that. That Joe Walsh album was one of my favorites when I was 14. I had it on 8-track and I took it everywhere with my Panasonic Dynamite 8. I seem to remember having Bob Seger on vinyl but it\u2019s definitely not the same copy I own now. Those were really huge records in Cleveland in the middle of the ’70s. I bet the Classic Rock station still plays songs from the Bob Seger album every day. Bob\u2019s Beautiful Loser<\/em> album was actually a thing in Cleveland but not half the thing those songs became when the live album came out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still buy live albums. If someone asks me what Rory Gallagher<\/strong> they should check out on Spotify I used to tell them Irish Tour ’74<\/em>, but now I tell them Check Shirt Wizard<\/em>, which is the same band he had in ’74, but it\u2019s recorded in 78 and Rory dissolved that band after this tour. It\u2019s some tight, loud Blues Rock that\u2019s probably a little faster than the more straight Blues from ’74. Then, Neil Young<\/strong> is releasing practically every concert he ever recorded lately. I stay clear of the ones with just Neil and an acoustic guitar and I had written Neil of well before Ragged Glory<\/em>, but the recent release with Crazy Horse, Way Down in the Rust Bucket<\/em>, has been getting a lot of attention from me since it came out. I liked his Tuscaloosa<\/em> album with the Stray Gators a lot, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I look at my records, I see I definitely have a lot from the ’70s. I suppose that\u2019s kind of the heyday for live albums. Some of them aren\u2019t really even all that \u201clive.\u201d\u00a0Get Your Ya-Ya\u2019s Out<\/em> has a lot of extra studio work to it. Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash<\/em> sounds completely reworked. It\u2019s a great record<\/em>, though. I don\u2019t really know why so many people don\u2019t seem to like live records. There\u2019s good ones coming out all the time. If you look for the Live at Third Man Records<\/em> series you can find some newer bands in that series and they sound real good and they\u2019re really inexpensive. I\u2019ve got Blitzen Trapper<\/strong> from 2016, and I play it pretty often. They have a ton of them, from Wanda Jackson<\/strong> to Waxahatchee<\/strong>. Then there\u2019s the New West Live From Austin City Limits<\/em> series. Man, these are great!\u00a0 I\u2019ve got Steve Earle<\/strong>, Neko Case<\/strong>, and Tony Joe White<\/strong> and I\u2019d definitely buy more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you like live albums? Does it matter if they have studio work done to make them \u201cbetter?\u201d If you don\u2019t like them, why not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember a conversation I had at a record store with an owner that knew me well and when I was buying some music she said, \u201cYou really like live albums, don\u2019t you?\u201d\u00a0I said, \u201cI suppose, but doesn\u2019t everyone?\u201d She was emphatic when she said that so far as she could tell most people didn\u2019t […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}