Fartpants: The Legacy of Iain Burgess

Iain Burgess died on Thursday, February 11, 2010 from complications due to pancreatic cancer.



He left a lasting legacy behind in the fantastic body of work he engineered, recorded, or produced, as an "architect" of the 1980s "Chicago Sound" style of melodic post-punk.

Iain came to Chicago from his native Weymouth, England just in time to witness the birth of a scene, and have his own hand in shaping and defining it.

Striking a deal with the owner of the megacorporate Chicago Recording Company studio in Chicago's pricey River North neighborhood, he would record bands in lightning sessions from the close of business on a Friday night, vacating just in time by the following Monday morning for the studio's corporate ad agency clients. These bands defined a scene, a style, an ethos. The scene spawned Steve Albini, for starters - and to this day Albini credits Iain for jumpstarting his own engineering career.

Iain's characteristic sound was once defined as the sound of a tank driving into World War III. The guitars are amazingly loud and in-your face, and the drums are often massively powerful. Yet each instrument had its perfect place in the mix - the style of music Iain typically recorded could just as easily have been one muddy, anamorphic mess (see Spot's SST productions). But what often resulted from these "bash 'em out" breakneck weekend recording sessions are pictures of clarity. Many an engineer can learn plenty just by listening to Iain's resume.

Iain lived out his dreams by relocating to provincial France and built an amazing residential studio complex, called Black Box, in the mid 1990s. While not as active as he was in the 1980s/early 1990s, Iain still hosted bands and engineered the odd session at Black Box even through this past January.


Pond at Black Box, France

It's really something how so many of my very favorite, or very sentimental, records from my teenage years have Iain's name printed on the back. It almost became that if it had Iain's name anywhere in the credits, you just knew it was gonna be good.

So in the spirit of the blog, I've put together a bracing compilation of selected works from Iain's long resume. While nowhere near definitive - not even in definitive's city - this collection is as good as any of an introduction to Iain's amazing talent in capturing the sound of an era.

The majority of these tracks were recorded by Iain and produced by him as well. A couple of them, namely the Rapeman and Nina Nastasia tracks, were only engineered by him - yet his fingerprints are all over the tracks. Nina Nastasia's selection was recorded at Black Box with Iain and Albini handling the recording.

Why "Fartpants"? Because Albini gave him that name long ago. Better than "Rumbleknickers", I suppose, which Pegboy calls him in the liner notes to their Strong Reaction / Three-Chord Monte CD.

- - - - - -

FARTPANTS
The Legacy of Iain Burgess
a Power of Independent Trucking Special

01 RIFLE SPORT Exploding Man (1990)
02 EFFIGIES Fly On A Wire (1985)
03 BHOPAL STIFFS Bottle It Up (1987)
04 NAKED RAYGUN Soldiers Requiem (1988)
05 BREAKING CIRCUS Song Of The South (1986)
06 BIG BLACK Passing Complexion (1986)
07 DIDJITS Joliet (1988)
08 NAKED RAYGUN I Don't Know (1984)
09 BLOODSPORT Better and Best (1985)
10 POSTER CHILDREN Question (1989)
11 BIG BLACK Il Duce (1985)
12 NAKED RAYGUN Managua (1984)
13 PEGBOY Through My Fingers (1990)
14 TAR Les Paul Worries (1990)
15 BIG BLACK Bad Houses (1986)
16 DEFOLIANTS Mr. Spy (1987)
17 POSTER CHILDREN Jeremy Straight (1989)
18 NAKED RAYGUN Vanilla Blue (1988)
19 RAPEMAN Dutch Courage (1988)
20 JAWBOX Static (1992)
21 PEGBOY Revolver (1994)
22 POSTER CHILDREN She Walks (1989)
23 NINA NASTASIA Superstar (2003)
24 NAKED RAYGUN New Dreams (1985)

Split across two RAR files available here.

RIP Iain, may you live on in your legacy......

RIP Iain Burgess, legendary punk engineer

I've profiled him before on these pages and I will put together a more comprehensive "best-of" compilation of tracks he was involved in.



Legendary architect of the 1980s "Chicago Sound" of punk rock, Iain Burgess died on Thursday of complications from pancreatic cancer.

Steve Albini wrote a beautiful post with stories about Iain's generosity here.

RIP Iain.

FOUL v2.0: the Jesus Lizard '89-'94, remastered

Sorry for the long delay folks, though I guess it's not THAT long.

As we wait for the Recycle blog to post the next installment of the Joy Division series (again, prepared by your humble blogger), I've decided to revisit a (fairly) popular previous post on this very blog.



About a year ago I presented a "best-of", or a taster package, what have you, of that very awesome Chicago band the Jesus Lizard. It was one of the more popular posts here, and suffered through a couple file deletions by the powers that be.

Since that post, the entire Jesus Lizard oeuvre - on legendary Chicago label Touch and Go, that is - has been remastered by none other than Bob Weston and Steve Albini themselves. This is fantastic because both are about as bullshit-free as it gets regarding audio engineering, and both think the modern brickwall mastering style is horseshit (see the "loudness war" links over there on the right).

So when the news came that the tJL catalog was getting the Weston treatment (essentially, all the tracks that the band recorded with Albini) by being remastered at Weston's own Chicago Mastering Service - with Albini overseeing the process, I nearly crapped my pants.

And the wait was very much well worth it.

One of the really fantastic things about this set of remasters is that it gave me the chance to reappraise the band's final Touch and Go album, 1994's Down. I had previously dismissed this record as the weakest one in the bunch - and barely gave it a fair shake. I included tracks from it in my last tJL post just to do so, not because I necessarily liked them all that much. On reappraisal, however - and the improved mastering certainly hasn't hurt - I really love this record. It's not their best record per-se, but it sounds FANTASTIC and there are some stellar songs that need to be heard.

So today I'm posting an updated and expanded version of my prior FOUL compilation - this time, with all tracks from the remastered albums, and expanded to include some of the critical-to-my-ears bonus tracks included with the reissues. Alas, this also necessitated the growth from one CD to two, but hey - who's going to complain when they have more Jesus Lizard to listen to?

So on with it!

the JESUS LIZARD
FOUL v2.0: the Jesus Lizard 89-94, compiled: the remastered editions

See the prior post for the complete illustrated discography.

01 Blockbuster (studio)
02 Chrome
03 One Evening
04 S.D.B.J.
05 My Own Urine
06 If You Had Lips
07 7 vs. 8
08 Waxeater
09 Tight 'N Shiny
10 Then Comes Dudley
11 Mouth Breather
12 Nub
13 Seasick
14 Monkey Trick
15 Lady Shoes
16 Pop Song
17 Wheelchair Epidemic
18 Dancing Naked Ladies (single version)
19 Blockbuster (live 4 Dec. 1992 9:30 Club, Washington DC)

- cd break here -

20 Boilermaker (Idful Studio Sessions demo)
21 Gladiator (Idful Studio Sessions demo)
22 Boilermaker
23 Gladiator
24 Puss
25 Whirl
26 Rope
27 Zachariah
28 Dancing Naked Ladies
29 Glamorous
30 Fly On The Wall
31 Countless Backs Of Sad Losers
32 The Associate
33 Destroy Before Reading
34 Low Rider
35 The Best Parts
36 Panic In Cicero

sources:

1-9 Head/Pure 2009 remastered reissue
10-16 Goat 2009 remastered reissue
19 bootleg soundboard recording
17-18, 20-28 Liar 2009 remastered reissue
29-36 Down 2009 remastered reissue

All tracks originally issued on Touch and Go Records except where noted

1 originally from the EP Pure (1989)
2 originally from 7" single (1990)
3-9 originally from the LP Head (1990)
10-15 originally from the LP Goat (1991)
16 originally from the Dope, Guns and Fucking #7 7" on Amphetamine Reptile (1991)
17-18 originally from 7" single (1992)
20-21 originally from Australian 7" on Insipid (1992)
22-28 originally from the LP Liar (1992)
29 originally from the EP Lash (1993)
30-35 originally from the LP Down (1994)
36 originally from the Clerks soundtrack LP on Sony (1994)

3 RAR files, 320kbps MP3, here!

enjoy!

RECYCLE: Joy Division 01 An Ideal For Living

The Power of Independent Trucking is proud to link up with the folks at the Recycle blog (well, £50 Note at least) to present the Joy Division chapter of RECYCLE - £50 Note's yeoman effort at doing the box set that should have happened all along.

The mind behind the PoIT curtain - your own Analog Loyalist - is overseeing and handling the mastering work of the raw audio tracks. £50 Note is managing the general presentation and the artwork. Occasionally I will host over here differences, or oddities, I've come across while restoring the audio.



Today we feature the premier release of the nascent Joy Division, the EP recorded in December 1977 that became the highly-sought-after An Ideal For Living 7"/12". While the tracks themselves ultimately saw wide release on 1988's Substance, and then 1997's box set Heart and Soul, the quality of both issues was just so-so. Furthermore, the box set versions sounded *worse* than the 1988 release! Why, I have no idea. It's almost as if the box set used a cassette dub of the tracks as its source, while 1988's Substance went back to the masters.

Anyhow, oddly enough, the original vinyl pressings themselves, and all subsequent digital reissues (which I have confirmed by comparing to raw transfers from the actual original 7" and 12" releases) were mastered a bit fast, perhaps to be more punk? I don't know, and all I do know is that the recordings were not in concert pitch. It could simply have been a mastering error, or perhaps the band themselves didn't own any tuning equipment.

So of course I corrected it, for this post at least. £50 Note is posting the pitch-accurate-to-original-release version, as he should. If you want the pitch-accurate-to-a-tuning-fork, however, you're at the right place.

Lossless FLAC, remastered from the original Japanese CD pressing of Substance - the best digital source I've been able to locate. Grab them here!

JOY DIVISION
RECYCLE 01: An Ideal For Living
7" debut release, Enigma PSS139 (June 1978)
12" reissue, Anonymous ANON1 (October 1978)

01 Warsaw
02 No Love Lost
03 Leaders Of Men
04 Failures
05 At A Later Date (bonus, from the Virgin CD issue of Short Circuit)

See the post over at the Recycle blog for more details, and my original mastering notes.

Enjoy!

Wilco: 2 Nov 02 Tampa FL *mastered soundboard*

Unlike New Order or Joy Division, I don't have nearly as much to say about Wilco. Which is a bit odd seeing as how I believe they're the best band in America today, a position they've held since R.E.M. lost drummer Bill Berry in 1997.



Part of this was the amazing guitar firepower the band had in the late Jay Bennett, responsible for much of the guitar "crunch" Wilco had from 1995-2001. Yet Bennett also caused the supremely talented guitarwork of founder/frontman Jeff Tweedy to become subsumed in the mix - an outcome Tweedy perhaps encouraged for a time, but at the eventual detriment to the growth of the band.

Tweedy, already extremely talented, began taking guitar lessons in the early part of the decade from Television maestro Richard Lloyd. So it was no surprise that after the trainwreck that was the making of their 2002 record Yankee Hotel Foxtrot had ended, Tweedy took the chance to start afresh. Re-establishing himself as frontman and taking control of the Wilco reins, Tweedy fired Bennett in late-summer 2001, then shortly after the tragedies of 9/11/01 took the band on the road as a 4-piece.

It's this arrangement of Wilco that we find ourselves enjoying in this latest installment on the blog. With ultradrummer Glenn Kotche on drums and percussion, John Stirratt on bass and harmonies, Leroy Bach on keyboards and additional guitar, and Jeff Tweedy on lead guitars and vocals, this incarnation of Wilco is neither the bombastic all-guitar-assault of the Jay Bennett era, and nor the studied technical brilliance of the band post-2004 (with the admittedly-brilliant Nels Cline taking over on lead guitar).

Rather, this period of Wilco I find fascinating for its frailty. Tweedy is obviously finding his place in the mix, there's no bombast to hide behind, and nobody in the band wants to step out and take control. The performances are obvious exercises in dynamics, with simple man-with-an-acoustic-guitar songs coalescing out of chaos and noise.

The roots of modern Wilco are in these performances. Tweedy's Television-esque guitar skronk (ref: the latter third of "Not For The Season") plays out here, a sound carried to fruition on Wilco's 2004 LP A Ghost Is Born - a confidence on his instrument that only emerged with Jay Bennett's dismissal. Furthermore, Tweedy's ongoing involvement with confidante Jim O'Rourke - in their collaboration Loose Fur (Tweedy/O'Rourke/Kotche), as well as O'Rourke's production efforts on the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Ghost LPs - is very much on display in the loose experimentation, weirdness and clarity of these performances.

I've chosen to feature the band's November 2, 2002 performance - in stunning, crystalline soundboard clarity, mastered for this presentation by your humble blogger - because of all the 2002-era Wilco soundboard recordings available (and there are many), very few are mixed well. Which is understandable - these recordings often take PA mixes meant for the hall, as evidenced by many with Stirratt's bass mixed so low as to be inconsequential (hall PA mixes for small-to-midsize venues often rely on the onstage bass amp to provide all the bass needed for the audience, therefore there is often little-to-no bass in the resulting hall PA mix used for a lot of soundboard recordings).

This performance is well-mixed (including Stirratt's bass), features a GREAT setlist, and it's perhaps my favorite recording of this band from this era. My only niggling complaint is that this was one of the nights they didn't perform "Spiders (kidsmoke)" - the song was in a continuous metamorphosis during this period, and it was performed completely different to that which features on the Ghost LP.

Lossless FLAC files here - split across multiple RAR files.

WILCO
2 November 2002
Tampa Theatre, Tampa, Florida

01 intro ("Animals of Africa")
02 Hesitating Beauty
03 One By One
04 Sunken Treasure
05 Less Than You Think
06 I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
07 War On War
08 Kamera
09 A Shot In The Arm
10 How To Fight Loneliness
11 Not For The Season
12 Jesus, etc.
13 (audience instructions for the next song)
14 Heavy Metal Drummer
15 I'm The Man Who Loves You
16 Poor Places
17 Reservations
18 Misunderstood
19 Far, Far Away
20 Monday
21 Outtasight (Outta Mind)
22 Red-Eyed and Blue
23 I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
24 California Stars (with Damon & Naomi from the opening act)

enjoy!

paradiso: Joy Division 11 Jan. 1980 *best ever version*

It was 30 years ago today that Joy Division performed one of their most famous gigs.

Famous in that it's probably spawned the most bootlegs of any Joy Division gig, that is.

At least this post isn't contributing to the glut. Or perhaps it is.



Featured today is the band's 11 January 1980 Paradiso, Amsterdam gig, in best-ever quality (though it has to be said that the high end on the meat of the gig could use some touchups, but that's a post/project for another day). Assembled with care from a multitude of sources (bootleg, private CD-R from an uncirculated low-if-not-master copy of the soundboard recording, FM broadcast, etc), this version pretty much is the last word on this gig. All tracks pitch-accurate to boot! (Common bootleg versions were often at the incorrect speed.)

Supposedly this gig was actually two sets because the support band didn't play, but some have their doubts because the majority of gigs on this winter 1980 European tour are about this long. Why, nobody knows...

So enjoy!

Lossless FLAC as is our custom on the PoIT...


JOY DIVISION
11 January 1980
The Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands

01 Passover
02 Wilderness
03 Digital
04 Day Of The Lords
05 Insight
06 New Dawn Fades
07 Disorder
08 Transmission
09 Love Will Tear Us Apart
10 These Days
11 A Means To An End
12 24 Hours
13 Shadowplay
14 She's Lost Control
15 Atrocity Exhibition
16 Atmosphere
17 Interzone
18 Atmosphere (again) ("Black Rain" FM broadcast)

Get it here!

dub: New Order 22 June 1982 Milan (2010 remaster)

And the gravy train continues.

As I clean up my hard drives, and poke through the big pile of CD/DVD-R's, I come across stuff. Sometimes I refile it, sometimes I put it in the "interesting, needs further thought" pile, and sometimes it goes straight into the blogpile, occasionally after some further audio mastering work.

Of late New Order soundboards keep edgeing their way into the blogpile. I push them out but you know, they're persistent little fuckers.

Perhaps it's to counterbalance Steve Albini. Hey! Albini's first real band recorded a session with legendary Joy Division and early New Order producer Martin Hannett, so the connection's not that far removed (although it has to be said that Hannett recorded Stations, Albini's band before Big Black, shortly after Albini left the band....).



Like an earworm, this particular gig featured today can't get out of my head.

One of the band's most legendary bootlegs, this June 22, 1982 soundboard recording from the Rolling Stone in Milan, Italy finds the band at perhaps their dubbiest (if that's a word, if not, I'm inventing it!). The dub effects are all over the map here, as if their sound guy had Lee "Scratch" Perry in one ear and the band's output in another - while on a load of draw on top of it all. About the only thing missing is Jah Wobble's throbbing deep lowfield bass. It's simply incredible. Not to mention the song selection is nothing short of stellar as well.

The highlight is their only known take on Sparks' "When I'm With You", featuring sequencers going haywire at the end (and more dub!) and Bernard moaning about their choice of encores.

Lyrical highlights: 2:04 "Thought this was in C!"; 2:20 "Never feel like feedback when I'm with you" to the sounds of howling feedback in the mix; 3:37 "This is why we don't do encores"; 3:55 "This is a bad idea". Then we get sequenced snippets of "The Village" and, at 10:45 as things drunkenly stumble to a close, a blast of Hooky playing the "Ceremony" bassline.

This also features one of the band's rare three-song segues, a stunning electroacoustic workout through 586->Temptation->Everything's Gone Green lasting nearly 18:35, all nonstop. Amazing.

Punters out there who have this gig may recall that "Everything's Gone Green" has a dropout at around 2:30 or thereabouts, losing nearly an entire vocal line (which would be about where the tape flip would be if it were recorded on a C-90 cassette). That has been fixed on this version. Punters may also recall that "When I'm With You" was missing the first couple seconds at the intro, which has also been fixed here.

This is the definitive version of this gig, so I highly suggest everyone - even if you only remotely care for New Order - download it. It's probably my favorite gig of this era as it's so transitional and clearly the band is struggling with their direction (do we continue the Joy Division sound, or branch out even further into this 586/Temptation/Everything's Gone Green electro motif, or scratch it all and listen to PiL's Metal Box for inspiration?). Of course we know how it would resolve, but it's a fascinating document of a band clearly struggling with their identity.

And as is becoming our trademark, it's featured in lossless FLAC for her pleasure ;)

NEW ORDER
22 June 1982
The Rolling Stone, Milan, Italy
special to thepowerofindependenttrucking.blogspot.com

01 Truth (fades in)
02 Dreams Never End
03 Chosen Time
04 ICB
05 Leave Me Alone
06 Denial
07 Procession
08 586 ->
09 <- Temptation ->
10 <- Everything's Gone Green
11 When I'm With You

Grab it here!

credit for artwork: Species

anniversary! One year of the PoIT!

One year ago, give or take a few days, we began with the record that gave the blog its name: Big Black's Songs About Fucking.



That record was also one of the first links deleted by the hosting service - apparently Touch and Go didn't take too kindly to me linking it. So I'll do it again.

Harsh, brutal, in-your-face, piledriving machinery. From Chicago's finest forges, Big Black at their best doing what they do. It was the best record and their pre-announced swan song. They toured out the record and then went off their own separate ways, Steve Albini into production, Rapeman and global mouthpiece; Santiago Durango into his Arsenal project and then a well-respected entertainment lawyer; Dave Riley to wherever punk bass players (with a bit of funk) go to rest.

So this time, if it sticks, enjoy. One of my all-time favorite records, and still a very difficult listen.

From the opening blog post:

Steve Albini, in the liner notes to this album, stated:

Every good Vegas act has an opening theme, some appropriately triumphant fanfare to welcome the delight of the audience. It helps convince them the show was worth their thirty bucks or so.

Translated: Every blog needs an opening post, something to convince the teeming hordes that their mouse-clicking was worth the effort and to feed the expectations of terrific material to come. Though had Albini written those words today, I don't think he'd be stating thirty bucks or so. Try hundreds...

I discovered this record in high school in 1987 or 1988, about a year or two after their scheduled 1987 breakup. Founder/guitarist/singer/songwriter Steve Albini says they broke up at the right time, they were getting to the point where their popularity was exceeding the amount of energy and effort it would have required to maintain it. Guitarist Santiago Durango also was about to start law school so all things just fell in line to call it a day after this record - an ending which the band pre-announced. There's another school that states this record took Big Black about as far as they could within their framework, and some think it didn't better their previous LP Atomizer - it wasn't a progression, it was just a continuation of the themes and attitudes brought forward with terrific impact by Atomizer.

This LP still sounds as jarring and "ugly" as it did twenty years ago. Not many bands can you say that about today - what seemed earth-shaking then might be commonplace today. I figured it was an excellent way to lead off the blog - and the first song having bequeathed its title to the blog, why the hell not?

BIG BLACK
Songs about Fucking

Albini's song-by-song blurbs from the liners, after each track name....

01 The Power Of Independent Trucking

Oh, you think that was a nice piece there, eh? I'll tell you something. I got an exit book here, shows the best steak on any mile of interstate in the whole pig-friggin' country. Shows every decent motel and a few indecent ones. Shows where to get a new axle at four in the morning. Fucking bible. Well, I got another little book I wrote up myself. Sort of an exit and entrance book, if you get me. Shows me where every piece of ass I ever picked up is. I can get laid inside ten minutes just about anywhere in the fucking world. It's all in the book. This one chick though, I'll never forget it. Moved her ass like a blender. Bitch simply could NOT get enough. Buck and scream like a wild animal. Every time I go through Jersey I stop in for a taste. The one thing I can't stand is when they get emotional about it. Want you to call 'em and write 'em. When I'm gone, I'm gone. I'll take 'em with me for a while, we ride, then fuck, then ride. I've burned out three mattresses in the cab-over up there. That one, though. She was wild.

02 The Model

Boy, don't we all look SMASHING in red.

03 Bad Penny

What's really IMPRESSIVE is that some of these guys last so long, you'd think more of them would get killed, since all they do is burn their bridges.

04 L-Dopa

Daisy went to sleep at 15 and woke up many years later. She, being perfectly sensible, decided she ought to die, since she had literally slept away her entire productive life. The medical profession had, in her absence, decided that all life must be preserved, regardless of worth to its owner, and prevented her from performing the only NOBLE act she was capable of.

05 Precious Thing

In general, someone is a thing of value if and only if he or she is willing to SUBMIT to whatever degradation and abuse is required to preserve that position. Anything less betrays a lack of commitment.

06 Colombian Necktie

The necktie, a particularly HUMILIATING way to die, involves having your throat slit from ear to ear, so your tongue can flop out on your neck.

07 Kitty Empire

Ever since that fellow there moved in, there's been some mighty strange goings on over there. He's up until all hours, he's got that crazy music, noisy all the time. There's some sort of CAT ARMY there, too. They live under that porch. Someone saw him out there jaybird naked one time hopping like an Indian out in the weeds. The smell is just ferocious sometimes. Like he does his own number twos out there in the yard. I SWEAR.

08 Ergot

Psychedelic fungus infestation of European grain, not divine inspiration, as responsible for many of the "visions" so lovingly portrayed in the Christian paintings of antiquity. How many people were pressed under stones or drowned or burned for Satanism while those of faith were quietly tripping their brains out on BAD BREAD?

09 Kasimir S. Pulaski Day

The Mafia still knows how to throw a good killing when it needs to. The more COLORFUL ones get the most attention. A bomb, for instance, doesn't need to be in the victim's car. It can be in a stalled vehicle on the roadway, waiting to go bang until the victim happens to be driving by. Other people may be driving by as well. Life's rough.

10 Fish Fry

It went like this, near as anybody can tell. He went to her family's fish fry, took her to the drive-in, porked her, then beat her to death with his BOOT. It is speculated that he was upset about the ease with which he got into her pants, when she had resisted his brother's attempts earlier. He threw her body into Frenchtown pond, if memory serves, and went home. When the police found him the following afternoon, he was nonchalantly scrubbing out the cab of his truck with the aid of a garden hose.

11 Pavement Saw

The things people do when they have nothing to do can be pretty silly. Those same people can become all-important in each others lives. The things they do increase in importance in proportion. Soon a lot of people who do nothing individually scrutinize the miniscule doings of the others. This, in short, is "FALLING in love."

12 Tiny, King Of The Jews

Sometimes, even killing yourself wouldn't be enough. Like when you realize that your entire life has been lived under a PRESUMPTION of free will, but all you've been able to make of it is a sad parody of everything you used to hate. Slowly, without trying, everyone becomes what he despises most.

13 Bombastic Intro

Every good Vegas act has an opening theme, some appropriately triumphant fanfare to welcome the delight of the audience. It helps convince them the show was worth their thirty bucks or so.

14 He's A Whore

Hey, breaking up is an idea that has occurred to far too few groups, sometimes to the wrong ones.

T'anks fer da laffs: Corey, Lisa, Justin, Paul, Pat, Nate, the pals we made, the pals we didn't, Jochen, Carlos, Byron, Jimmy, bands who don't write love songs. Joel, get your shit together.

If you're ever in Chicago, don't stop in, it's a small place we've got.

Big Black:
David Michael Riley: Bass (David uses and endorses Alembic basses and Trace-Elliot amplifiers)
Melvin Belli: Guitar grrr (Melvin follows and endorses the Fibrelife meatloaf diet plan)
Steve Albini: Guitar skinng (Steve uses and endorses heroin)

The future belongs to the analog loyalists. Fuck digital.

edit: Removed link.

concert: New Order 16 June 1989 Irvine, CA *remastered*

So the internets are abuzz lately with talk of a newly-discovered Joy Division rehearsal tape floating around, featuring not one but five full-length takes on "In A Lonely Place" - the last song written by the band prior to Ian's suicide, and closing with the verse beginning with "Hangman looks round as he waits / Cord stretches tight, then it breaks...". In 1997 this song was released on the Heart and Soul box set, but ending just prior to the final verse (sensitivity reasons to his surviving family, perhaps?). So it would be great to finally hear the long-rumored full-length variant, alas the set has yet to surface publicly on the internets so we will just have to wait.



In the meantime, we move forward. 10 years from last week's post, and 20 years in the past. According to New Order bassist Hooky, the band first died in the afternoon of today's featured gig, when Bernard announced to the group that he was starting Electronic (his project with Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr) and no longer wished to carry on with New Order. Seeing as how this was at the near beginning of that summer's American tour on the back of their 5th LP Technique, the band's sets from this point forward were those of a group in their death throes - and nobody outside the band knew it.

Which may account for the unique setlist of this June 16, 1989 Irvine Meadows Ampitheatre, Irvine, CA gig. "Age of Consent" and "All Day Long" see rare airings - it was the next-to-last-ever "Age of Consent", and the last-ever "All Day Long". Maybe Bernard was throwing Hooky a bone with "Age of Consent"?

This actual recording, the mastered version presented here, was considered for release recently by the band and ultimately rejected for feelings of sounding too "clinical" - it's too much of a pristine, sterile soundboard or something like that. Which is why I love it so - it's perhaps the best pure soundboard recording of this band I've ever heard, with a stunning clarity and depth that's got to be heard. It's also got perhaps my favorite live versions of "Your Silent Face" and "Temptation", at least for modern-day performances.

Sadly Bernard introduces the gig dedicating the set to Echo and the Bunnymen drummer Pete deFreitas, who died the day before. The two bands were good friends with each other and they toured the States in summer 1987 as co-headliners.

This gig was ultimately sourced from a DAT liberated from the band's archives by persons affiliated with Hooky. Interestingly enough, the same DAT liberated from Hooky shows signs of editing the between-song bits, perhaps to make the gig fit on a 74-minute CD? So this either was considered for release way back in the day, as well as more recently, or perhaps Hooky just wanted it edited down so he could throw it in his car/Discman for private listening? We'll never know.

This was available on various filesharing sites, but not in the mastering you find here. So if you had a previous copy of this gig, I'd still suggest grabbing this version. It's that much better.

NEW ORDER
16 June 1989 Irvine Meadows Ampitheatre, Irvine, CA
remastered and EQ'ed from the band's leaked master soundboard DAT



01 intro, dedication to Pete deFreitas
02 Ceremony
03 True Faith
04 Age of Consent
05 Dream Attack
06 All The Way
07 Mr Disco
08 Your Silent Face
09 Vanishing Point
10 Round & Round
11 Temptation
12 Bizarre Love Triangle
13 The Perfect Kiss
14 All Day Long
15 Bernard jamming
16 Fine Time

Grab it here, lossless FLAC split across 5 RAR files

radio live transmission: Joy Division Paris 1979 UPGRADE

I do have quite a few queued items in the "to be blogged" category, but while this one wasn't techically atop the list, we are close enough to its 30th anniversary that I wanted to feature it this week.



One of the better sounding Joy Division live CDs out there is Les Bains Douches, a disc documenting 9 tracks from their 18 December 1979 gig in Paris (with the remaining tracks on that particular CD coming from other gigs).

I had a slight problem with this CD though.

1) The compilers did FAR too much noise reduction on the track intros.

2) Better (DAT) sources existed than what was given the compilers, though you can't fault the compilers for that since I believe the DAT source didn't surface until after this was done.

3) It wasn't a complete document of the gig.

Reasons for all three?

1) I think the original source for the compilers was off cassette;

2) The DAT, the person helping the compilers, and the compilers themselves couldn't get together in time;

3) France Inter radio - in particular DJ Bernard Lenoir - did not broadcast, at least that we are aware of, the entire gig. This gig has been broadcast several times on Paris radio, though each time a different selection of tracks featured. The 1994 broadcast is the source for *most* of the below, it was recorded on 32kHz DAT by a gentleman direct off the air.

Bernard Lenoir has said in the past that the original reels, as recorded for France Inter at the gig, are unusable and safety copies had to be used to source the latter-day broadcasts.

So allow me to present a hodgepodge - though in total, the best document of the gig ever assembled outside of France Inter offices - of this legendary gig.

Lossless FLAC of course!

Source key to follow.


JOY DIVISION
18 December 1979
Les Bains Douches, Paris, France



01 Passover
02 Wilderness
03 Disorder
04 Love Will Tear Us Apart
05 Insight
06 Shadowplay
07 Transmission
08 Day Of The Lords
09 Twenty Four Hours
10 Colony
11 These Days
12 A Means To An End
13 She's Lost Control
14 Atrocity Exhibition
15 Interzone
16 Warsaw

01 from a 2001 broadcast, DAT source
02/10/13/15 from an audience recording
03-09, 11-12 from the 1994 broadcast, from DAT source
14/16 from a unknown-year 1980s broadcast

Grab the 4 RAR's here!