The Jam- Live At Rockpalast 1980

 

This week, our old house is under-going a thorough updating of our ancient knob & tube to modern electrical systems. This means, at least for a couple of days, that most of the electricity is unavailable and it prevents me from functioning like a typical 21st century drone. The loud drilling, banging and lack of lighting (and internet!) has driven me from the house to my local library, laptop in hand to get some "work" done. Libraries are one of the few places you go to use internet, use their electricity (to charge stuff), use their ultra-clean unisex toilet facilities and hang out for hours without buying anything. They even allow you bring in your own food and drink, so I can chill with headphones on while checking emails, searching the web and updating my website and this blog...way better deal than Starsucks! A bonus is that I can actually make multiple blog posts in one week. I probably would if I got paid, but it's something you gotta do, right? Yay!

 

This has given me an opportunity to listen to a backlog of music on my computer. The Jam is one of those ear-candy bands I like to listen to while writing, so here's a show that's been around for a while and probably popular enough to have been heard already, but it's so good not to share if you haven't. There are at least a couple live DVD's of the Live at Rockpalast concert from 1980, including a Japanese version from 2006 and a compilation video from 2015, About The Young Idea, which featured the full Rockpalast show. One of the versions of About The Young Idea, includes an audio version CD and this is the source for the show I'm posting below. The sound quality is near perfect and since most live concert videos bore me, the audio only is an excellent addition. This is the Jam at their peak, with an amazing setlist, before Paul Weller became too self-aware, went solo and began to write boring songs. Get it while you can!

Enjoy!

 

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy formats, except for personal use.

Please share!

 

 

THE JAM
Live At Rockpalast
Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Germany
November 30, 1980

1 Dream Time
2 Thick As Thieves
3 Boy About Town
4 Going Underground
5 Pretty Green
6 Man In The Corner Shop
7 Set The House Ablaze
8 Private Hell
9 Liza Radley
10 Dreams Of Children
11 Modern World
12 Little Boy Soldiers
13 But I’m Different Now
14 Start
15 Scrape Away
16 Strange Town
17 When You’re Young
18 In The City
19 To Be Someone
20 David Watts
21 The Eton Rifles
22 Down In The Tubestation At Midnight

 

THE JAM- Live At Rockpalast 1980 FLAC. rar 

 

If you are having trouble with the above link, Try this one from my DropBox:

The Jam- Live at Rockpalast 1980 FLAC. rar

 

X- Whisky a Go Go, West Hollywood, CA, April 11, 1980

 

Sometimes the story behind a recording is more significant and interesting than the recording itself. The debut album from X, Los Angeles, was released at the beginning of April 1980 and the show at the Whisky on April 11th was purportedly the record release party. Tragically, the show was also the same night Exene's sister, Mirielle was killed on a Hollywood side street by a drunk driver. The band went on stage just before they heard the news, so it was truly a difficult horrible circumstance and the band continued to perform with many in the crowd oblivious of the situation, while others had already heard to awful news. 

Listening to this recording, there doesn't seem to be any evidence about the circumstances mentioned above, so it's possible the band played two sets and the live recording (below) was from the first set. I haven't seen a recording of the second set, so I don't want to jump to any conclusions. The recording quality isn't great, but it is listenable and definitely worth the listen. Ray Manzarek (from the Doors) produced the debut album and sits in and plays keyboards with the band. A nice version of the Roadhouse Blues is even more cooler with Manzarek's keys and the fact he was involved with X blows my mind! I love X, especially their early albums (the first 3 are essential!) and they're terrific live, at least that's what I've heard!

Enjoy!

 

 

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy formats, except for personal use.

Please share!

 

 

X

WHISKY A GO GO

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA
April 11, 1980

Cassette Master -> Untracked Aiff File -> Soundforge -> FLAC

01. Year One
02. Los Angeles
03. Sex And Dying In High Society
04. Your Phone's Off The Hook, But You're Not
05. Sugarlight
06. The Unheard Music
07. When Our Love Passed Out On The Couch
08. Lotta Loving
09. Lotta Loving (again!)
10. Bad Boy
11. Soul Kitchen
12. Johny Hit And Run Paulene
13. We're Desperate
14. Nausea
15. The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss
16. -intro-
17. Universal Corner
18. Roadhouse Blues (with Top Jimmy)
19. Good Rockin' Tonight (with Top Jimmy)

with Ray Manzarek on keyboards 

X- 1980-04-11, Whisky A Go Go FLAC. rar

 

The Replacements- Live at the Longhorn 1980

 

This past Record Store Day, I only made one purchase, The Replacements, Unsuitable Airplay: The Lost KFAI Concert which I was lucky to pickup at my local bookstore/vinyl record retailer. I know the recording was included with the Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash deluxe CD box set a year or so ago, but I haven't gotten around to buying that yet and it's cool to have this live show on vinyl. The sound is incredible and it's a treat for Mats fans to hear the band's early shows (circa, Sorry Ma...) when they were relatively tight and less drunk. It got me thinking about some other early Replacements shows I had on cassette and through Dime, some suffer from some tape hiss and noise, but most sound pretty good and are worth exploring again.

 

I found one of their earliest known live recordings (on Dime recently) and it's an amazingly good sounding recording, possibly soundboard and supposedly, this show was about 2 months after Paul Westerberg handed future manager Peter Jesperson a four-song demo. The band opened for The Dads at The Longhorn which included three songs that would wind up on the debut album. The rest of the set was covers that really showed off who their influences were (The Kinks, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers) and though it's a short set, they played with confidence and showed they were ready for bigger and better things. This has been available on the Color Me Impressed: The Replacements Live Archive, but the version I have here is uncompressed and the setlist seems to have a few more songs (is that right?). Anyways, this is essential for Mats fans!

Enjoy!

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do not convert to lossy formats, except for personal use.

Please share!

 

 

The Replacements
Jay's Longhorn

Minneapolis, MN

July 17, 1980
 

 Lineage: Soundboard Master > unknown gen tape > Tascam 202MKVII > USB > CDWAV > Audacity (levels, fades) > CDWAVE (SPLITS) > FLAC [loughney xfer]

Show notes:
Earliest known Replacements show. Sounds like a soundboard, but with a mic that pics up the crowd on the left channel.

Transfer notes:
Lots of hiss. Tape cut at the end of So Long.

1 intro
2 I Wanna Be Loved [Johnny Thunders]
3 More Cigarettes
4 Hey Little Girl
5 Careless
6 So Long [999]
7 Get off the Phone
8 Get on the Stick
9 I Hate Music
10 All Day and All of the Night [The Kinks]
11 All By Myself [Johnny Thunders] (stops, then repeats...?)

 

THE REPLACEMENTS- 1980-07-17, Minneapolis, MN FLAC. rar

R.E.M.- Live At Tyrones, October 4, 1980

First of all, I must apologize for the lack of updates and new posts in 2015. I decided a few months ago I should finally organize and catalogue all the boxes of live concert recordings I have stacked in Mandarin orange boxes lining my shelves in my mini art/music studio room. Back in my tape trading days, I kept up to date a list detailing artist, venue, date, time length and I rated the sound quality. My last update was 2003 and since then the majority of the recordings are downloaded and available through the good ol' (and how could we have lived without) world wide web. Yes, the internet really is a tape trader's dream with recordings much more accessible and shared amongst fans and completest. It really was a game changer and the amount of shows I've collected since 2003 has increased 100x, maybe even more. Cataloging has been a lot more time consuming than I anticipated. Many of the discs were labelled, some with setlists, but I have five boxes of semi-unmarked discs that are missing details such as venue or date that I'm still trying to figure out with the help of the internet. It's tedious, but it's a lot of fun and I've made many great discoveries I'd almost forgotten about. Right now, I'm going through the last of the external hard drives, so I'm close to finished. I'm excited to share some of these gems and I promise I'll have some up on the blog soon.

Last year, I started to slowly digitize my live cassette tapes. I had hoped to have more converted, especially since I have many masters that haven't been played in 15-20 years. I'll also be slowly posting them soon, but I'm starting with some non-masters (Sleater-Kinney from 1997 was one).

Last May, R.E.M. released two rarity collections, Complete Rarities: I.R.S. 1982-1987 and Complete Rarities: Warner Bros 1988-2011. To me, the first four R.E.M. albums are essential for anyone that wants to understand why I love music from the 80's. These albums are great and an excellent companion is the I.R.S. rarities collection. My other favourite R.E.M. album is the 1987 compilation, Dead Letter Office, which coincidentally is well represented in the collection. To be honest, I've always enjoyed the old days when R.E.M. played covers live, often unpredictable and off-beat, but well suited to the band. The Tyrones show from 1980 I'm posting is one of their earliest recorded shows, as they played their first live show as R.E.M. only six months earlier. This recording sounds fresh and crisp and their setlist of songs is unlike anything they did later. Lots of covers, unreleased songs and an early version of Rockville. Even if you're not a fan of R.E.M. or thought they sold out and sounded too commercial have a listen, this is where alternative-jangly indie rock began and it sounded oooh so good, back in 1980!
Enjoy!

R.E.M.
Tyrones
Athens, GA
October 4, 1980
SBD

Fuji Type I Cassette> Aiwa tape deck> ADS Instant music>
usb> Nero SoundTrax> WAV> Direct WAV splitter> FLAC> rar

01. Nervous Breakdown
02. A Girl Like You
03. Dangerous Times
04. There She Goes Again
05. I Can Only Give You Everything
06. All The Right Friends
07. Rockville
08. Body Count
09. Hippy Hippy Shake
10. Action
11. Narrator
12. Nadine
13. Gardening At Night
14. Scherezade
15. Lisa Says
16. Mystery To Me
17. Gloria- Shakin' All Over (cuts)
18. White Tornado

R.E.M.- 1980-10-04 Tyrones, Athens, GA FLAC. rar