Bitch Magnet redux: 22 December 1990 Jugendhaus, Ravensburg Germany

Here's yet another reason why I love the Internets.

In response to my earlier post seeking out random records, a kind follower of this blog offered up to me, without asking, a few random live sets by bands I'd blogged previously.  Out of the blue.  Now I've not heard many live sets of this band previously, just the few scattered here and there on the Internet, and they were all of (relative) poor quality.  So I was not expecting much, honestly.

Lo and behold, this Bitch Magnet tape from 22 December 1990 at the Jugendhaus in Ravensburg, Germany blew my mind.  It is *awesome*.  Clear, powerful, nearly flawless.  I'm not sure if it's a well-positioned audience recording, or a soundboard with a prominent room mic in the mix.  There are very few (read: I can't recall any, off hand) audience recordings that I've heard, of any band, that can be easily misconstrued as a mixing desk tape - but this could be it.

According to BM guitarist Jon Fine, this set was opened by the terrible "proto-emo" Utah band Bad Yodelers, apparently the less said about them the better.  The players here were Sooyoung Park - bass/vocals, Jon Fine - guitar, and Pete Pollack - drums.  Or, as the band would have it according to the "let's introduce the band" segment, "King Edward van Roeser" - bass/vocals, "Brian Baker" formerly of Minor Threat/Dag Nasty - guitars, and "Dr. Rock, Ben Daughtrey" - drums.  Haha.

A few oddities:  Here and there there is a very prominent and off-putting reverb effect on the drums, which I can imagine being added by some home remasterer (hey!) upstream of me.  But I don't think so, I think it was part of the live sound that night, and it's just odd to hear.  But I quickly got over it.

The actual mix isn't the greatest, but I can't really complain, as we are not talking a 2" 24-track mobile recording either.  Just an amazing band in a tiny space, with a boisterous crowd (that apparently consists entirely of American expats, based on the chatter), playing their songs.

Let's roll the tapes, err, lossless FLACs...

BITCH MAGNET
22 December 1990 Jugendhaus, Ravensburg, Germany

taper: Who knows!
lineage: I don't really care! But low-generation.
Soundboard/audience: Can't really tell!

photo: Lexi Mitchell

setlist:

01 Dragoon
02 Punch and Judy
03 Big Pining
04 Lookin' At The Devil
05 Mesentery
06 Ducks and Drakes
07 Sea Of Pearls
08 Sadie

A short set, but Sooyoung says they ran out of songs they knew.  Perhaps this tape is not entirely complete, as there were several edit points between random tracks, but unless the taper him/herself surfaces, we'll never know.  And I'm not complaining.

I took the raw tape capture provided to me, worked all sorts of the Analog Loyalist magic on it, and now it's yours.

grab it here and enjoy!

Now let's see this band get their long overdue due, with their upcoming reunion dates in December 2011 in England, and let's see the catalog reissues come with all tracks from all releases compiled!