When they do essays or presentations, or when we do a class organized around videoclips they've suggested around a theme or genre, my students often turn me onto things I've never heard / heard of.
This is a sporadic blog series representing these oddities and gems.
Occasionally they turn me onto something I do know about but have not heard this particular iteration
So it is with the inaugural offering - a fantastic live version of "Born Under Punches" by Talking Heads (my #3 postpunk band back in the day, after PiL and Slits). It's concert footage but not from either of the live albums / concert movies.
Suddenly I'm not sure whether I ever saw the Jonathan Demme movie... bit remiss if not, for a postpunk historian.
The idea of the concert movie has never really appealed to me, though.
Nor - really - the live album.
Qs for the massive
1. What are the great concert movies?
(Don't bother to say The Last Waltz - it is great, in places, yet also hugely aggravating on account of Robbie Robertson's smugness - and the final bit of The Band's music on a soundstage, with no audience, is some kind of cultural crime, or at least all-time Top 10 case of legacy-self-enshitenment) *
2. What are the live albums worth bothering with?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You don't believe me? Gird thy earholes and eyeholes
Ummm, are you sure that clip isn't from Live in Rome? Looks familiar, and the RAI Uno ident in the bottom right corner is suggestive.
ReplyDeleteCan't think of many concert films that anyone bar fans would bother with. The opening sequence of Nocturne (Siouxsie and the Banshees) where all the fans in their goth-punk finery are walking past the Royal Albert Hall ushers in their velvet-jacket finery to the sound of "The Rite of Spring" is great though.
Going to see Live at Pompeii (Pink Floyd) in the cinema in May for old time's sake, though I doubt I'll feel the same way about it as I did when I was fifteen. There's a brief homage to it in a Beastie Boys video ca. Ill Communication, if I recall correctly.
As for live albums, Space Ritual (Hawkwind) is the only one I can think of that is unequivocally the best thing the artist ever released. (I'm assuming that we're really talking rock bands here, live albums by jazz musicians feel like a different beast somehow)
Oh I right I didn't realise they'd done a DVD of a Rome concert. I was thinking of the two original era releases - The Name of This Band, and Stop Making Sense.
DeleteSpace Ritual is a funny one because I am well up for it, as an idea - of it being THE Hawkwind release - but in fact I've never managed to make it to the end of the record.
I’ve never understood the antipathy so many people hold toward live albums.
ReplyDeleteCertainly in the realm of heavy rock / punk / metal (ie, genres reliant on high energy levels / random noise, and easily replicable on stage), they’re a pretty core part of many groups’ recorded output, and there are numerous examples of live albums being either the best recording by a band, or at least the best introduction / gateway to their studio output.
Hawkwind (as mentioned), The MC5, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Thin Lizzy (infamously nearly entirely overdubbed in the studio, but still..), Neil Young & Crazy Horse, The Grateful Dead (if you like that sort of thing), Judas Priest, Cheap Trick, The Yardbirds… the list goes on.
You could even make an argument that many of The Velvet Underground’s best moments are found on their live albums / bootlegs.
Going further underground, there are numerous examples of key acts in the broader noisy realm whose live recordings are their best / most definitive output - Roky Erickson, Dead Moon, Saint Vitus, High Rise, Fushitsusha - just to list a few personal faves.
And then there are studio-phobic bands who have built up hallowed cult status entirely off the back of murky live recordings - Les Rallizes Denudes, Sonic’s Rendevouz Band…
In all of the above EGs, I think you can make the case that the rough / chaotic playing, variable recording quality, crowd noise, feedback etc of live recordings serve these bands’ aesthetic better than the clarity (I won’t say ‘sterility’) of the studio.
And yeah, what of the world of jazz, where “music created live in the moment / no overdubs” is a sacred principle, and much of the time the only thing differentiating ‘live’ from ‘studio’ is the presence of a paying audience…. but this is more than enough blather for the time being…
yeah but Les Rallizes Denudes are just about the most overrated band of all time innit
DeleteI can think now of only two concert movies that for me aren't boring.
ReplyDeleteObviously "stop making sense", and "live at pompei" even though my days as a pink floyd superfan are far gone.
Live albums, two i can recall that are essential if you like the band are Motorhead "no sleep till hammersmith" and Kiss "alive" (that probably was not alive at all. I should give a try to those Can live album recentely unearthed. Outside of rock, a lot, for example Miles Davis live albums are as we know immense.
I always think Pink Floyd - Live At Pompei is prog rock, so-called, at it's very best.
DeleteThe motion picture of Pink Floyd - The Wall, on the other hand is prog at it's absolute worst.
Prince’s Sign o the Times is the only one that really approaches Stop Making Sense
ReplyDeleteRecently saw Spike Lee’s film of David Byrne’s American Utopia and I think it’s as good as Stop Making Sense. The Name of This Band is….by (yet again Talking Heads) is really great.
ReplyDeleteRe. Phil's point, there are so many utterly pointless live albums. Bands who aren't particularly great live who have done a live album.
ReplyDeletePrime example would be The Smiths - Rank is wank. Or just very middling dull. They weren't actually a very good live band - that is my steadfast belief, having seen them twice and certainly being extremely predisposed to be blown away.
But like for instance, even Heaven 17 - who made a point in the beginning of not playing live, but doing PAs in discotheques to backing tapes, anti-rockism etc - they made a live album in the 2000s when they reformed as a nostalgia act. What on earth could be more redundant? But in fact there are 1000s and 1000s of almost-as-redundant live albums in the world.
Sometimes I go on a streamer and am startled by how many live albums a particular artist has done. Like half-a-dozen, maybe more, all at different stages of the discography / career. It's just bilking the fans.
Yes that Talking Heads clip is indeed from Live In Rome, available in full on YouTube. My favorite Talking Heads music, my favorite live rock performance, and actually one of my favorite cultural artifacts of any kind, ever.
DeleteThe live album ‘The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads’ was in part recorded on the same tour as that show, and is the absolute peak of their career, IMO. Blows away the serviceable but relatively flimsy versions of the same material on Stop Making Sense. There is something electrifying about the studio wizardry of Remain In Light being reproduced, and expanded, by nine humans performing in real time. The expanded group is just an incredible white-hot band. One of those supergroup concepts where someone thought: “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Bernie Worrell from Parliament and Adrian Belew from King Crimson played together?” And it actually worked.
100% agree on ‘Rank’. I enjoyed the Smiths live, but their shows were all about the atmosphere and the emotions of the fans, and that intensity and excitement was impossible to capture on record.
DeleteOne definitive hard rock live double that pulls it off is Whitesnake’s ‘Live in the Heart of the City’. The peak moment is when they play their cover of the Soul hit ‘Ain’t No Love’ - later brilliantly sampled by Jay-Z - and in the middle the band mostly drops out for the audience to sing the chorus. The thousands of denim and leather-clad young men filling the Hammersmith Odeon sing their hearts out in protest at urban alienation, and find community in the process.
That is cool, as you say. I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly listened to Humble Pie before.
DeleteIn a similar vein, I think both the album and movie of ‘The Song Remains The Same’ are largely unlistenable / unwatchable. But this one song leaves the studio version for dead: https://youtu.be/kW3xDZrlBQs?si=tIhoEs7FDLS9hbBB
This is the most fun you pack into four minutes, Ed:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdXjm8pZMws
Aside from anything else Rank is unrepresentative, as it dates from the back end of 1986 - the brief phase where The Smiths were a five-piece, which never seemed right.
DeleteThey were never a rock band. They were a beat combo - stranded and (significantly) out of time, but a beat combo, all the same.
Morrissey's vocal histrionics on that record are what really lets it down, mind. It's just annoying. It's like seeing an actor who you know to be great going into ham mode - De Niro in Cape Fear, for instance.
The July 2020 edition of Mojo had a good long piece on Remain In Light era Talking Heads and that Rome.Concert shown by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, was mentioned. Adrian Bellow had been brought in on guitar and he was key in making that concert so grest. Tonnes of the Mojo/Uncut/Record Collector etc are available for free on the public library apps Pressreader, Libby or Borrow Box. They 're great on the ipad. There's another site called freemagazines.top where you can also get full PDFs of hundreds of mags. Shindig is on that. The Hauntology issue hasn't gone up yet though.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I must check that out.
Delete...and the folkies: Tim Buckley's 'Dream Letter'. John Martyn's 'Live at Leeds'.
ReplyDeleteWorst offenders for unnecessary live albums: David Bowie, the Rolling Stones.
Live albums I have paid money for
ReplyDeleteSome kind of James Brown live in Tokyo end of 70s job, an import I think - at one point this was the only way to get hold of his famous tunes in the UK. There were no compilations or anthologies, the original LPs were out of print.
The Birthday Party - Drunk on the Pope's Blood bw Lydia Lunch Agony is the Ecstasy
Miles - Pangaea (double CD Japanese import)
- Agharta (vinyl Japanese import) - these at a point when the LIve Miles 70s stuff out of print everywhere but Japan
erm... scratching my head...
I think everything else I got sent - Dream Letter (reviewed that), Arc / Weld, The Blow Up - or taped off people (the other Miles live things)
Oh yes I did buy Live At Leeds second-hand - the Martyn, not the Who, obviously
DeleteThe live single is a small genre but it does include notably "Too Much Too Young", the Specials's first number 1 hit.
ReplyDeleteThen there's the category of the bootleg - never really seen the appeal.
ReplyDeleteOnce in the thin pickings doldrums of the Bad Music Era I did buy in Camden Market a cassette of a Triffids gig . The sound quality was awful.
UFO - Strangers In The Night 2LP (1979) is a personal fave live album - some fans consider it the one UFO to own (I prefer many of these versions but still wouldn't want to give up the studio albums). the songs are so tight/loose that the push pull against the beat causes the music to really breathe and reminds me of the rhythmic flexibility of tracks on Hoodoo Man Blues. some personal faves here include: "This Kid's" and "Rock Bottom".
ReplyDeletespeaking of Jazz (above), Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard LP (1961) may seem genteel, but there's a depth of emotion. and the bass playing is fantastic so there's added resonance in the car crash death of Scott LaFaro less than 2 weeks later.
I think I once read Iggy Pop pick James Brown - 'Live' At The Apollo LP (1963) as his fave album.
and Ummagumma was where I first heard a Syd song. was obsessed with the live version of "Astronomy Domine" for a couple of months back in 1980 until I got the Syd-era Floyd via first 2 albums + Relics, Masters Of Rock (for Candy And A Currant Bun plus Apples And Oranges) and Syd solo.
Ummagumma belongs to an odd sub-genre of releases that are half-studio and half-live. What are the other ones? (I know it exists but can't think of any examples as of this moment)
DeleteMiles Davis "Live/Evil" mixes live tracks recorded in a small club by a lineup including Keith Jarrett and John McLaughlin with some beautiful studio tracks. King Crimson's "Starless and Bible Black" and "Red" both contain studio tracks and live recordings with edits/overdubs. Kiss "Alive 2" side 4 is new studio tracks. Man's "Back Into the Future" (getting obscure now!) double is half-live.
DeleteSweet "Strung Up" double is one album live and the other a sort of studio compilation (Blockbuster, Ballroom blitz, etc). "Six" by Soft Machine, first album live and the second studio (and on "Third" the first side is a collage from live recordings). Byrds "untitled" 2lp also half studio half live. Only a 1/4 (side four) of "Live at the London Palladium" by Marvin Gaye is studio, but is the great complete 12 minute version of "Got to Give It Up" (the three sides live are not really that great). "Uncle Meat" is an interesting mixture of studio and live (like many unlistenable Zappa later albums).
DeleteThee Hypnotics "Live'r Than God", 8-Eyed Spy S/T, ESG S/T 12" all do a studio side/live side. I feel like there is also a Pooh Sticks release here.
DeleteThat Rome footage of Talking Heads is the absolute white-hot peak of that band (and for that matter, any band, recorded on stage). Hyperbolic, yes, but maybe by not much. They sound frenetic but they also *look* like electricity is literally coursing through their elbows and knees and joints, musicians vibrating at some impossible level.
ReplyDeleteAs far as live albums, I don't listen to them much, but 'Live at Leeds' is almost perfect, like a bomb exploding. And I would be remiss not to mention Fleetwood Mac's 'live' (1981) which has wildly different versions of 'Sara' and "Over and Over" that are gorgeous. The latter especially ends on a couple of minutes of MBV-esque shimmering guitars, rinsed in blasted, gorgeous distortion.
Also, I'm gonna put in a word for Joni Mitchell's 'Shadows and Light' which gets the best late '70s jazz fusion dudes to produce a master class of pop. Her liquid rhythm guitar-playing is particularly fantastic throughout the album.
I do have the Fleetwood Mac live and it's nice but I feel that with the Tusk stuff especially it's so studio-spun....
DeleteBeen meaning to listen to Shadows and Light, never seems quite the moment.
Underworld's live album Everything Everything - the rendition of "Jumbo" is glorious
ReplyDeleteAgree with others who nominated 'The Name of This Band is….'
ReplyDeleteFrank Sinatra Live at the Sands is a great album in its own right, as well as being his personal best (just skip the comedy bit).
Although it is a very no-frills concert film from the late 80s, John Martyn Live in Dublin (with Danny Thompson) has lovely versions of songs from the classic period, and captures something of the performer too.
My local arts cinema showed The Doors Live at the Hollywood Bowl as a late night film and it was a brilliant. So too was a restored version of Dance Craze (the 2 Tone concert film), which was a revelation. It helps that cinemas have excellent sound systems, but being made to sit in the dark with strangers also creates an atmosphere, which you don't get watching third-hand copies on YouTube.
That reminded me that I do seem to own several live John Martyn CDs - not just the Live at Leeds on vinyl. But he really goes in for taking the songs somewhere elsewhere, especially "I'd Rather Be the Devil" but others too.
DeleteI also have a vinyl copy of Philentropy upstairs, still waiting for its first spin, a couple of decades on - maybe longer. But that's when he had a band that didn't include Danny Thompson in it, probably more of an 80s-crossover-half-hearted attempt sound.
Also reminded me that I have long had the Doors Absolutely Live, first on tape (listened to many many times) and then much later I got it on vinyl (listened to... once? twice?). That is good but mainly for the fact that for a long, long time it was the only place you could hear the whole of "The Celebration of the Lizard".
DeleteNever been really tempted to hear Alive She Cried or the other Doors lives, although in his Doors monograph Greil Marcus seems to regard the live Doors as where it's at - where the theatre and the chaos and the sense of event, that it could go anywhere, completely off the rails - is most thrillingly captured. The chapters deal with specific songs and often he doesn't write about the studio version but a version from this massive collation (12 CDs worth I think) of bootleg live performances, Boot Yer Butt!. Which I downloaded ages ago, but have never once listened to....
Well, the film of the Hollywood Bowl concert was very brooding and menacing, so I can see his point now. Interesting thing about these cinema showings of concert films is that they are always sold out, unlike many of the Oscar contenders. Even the new Led Zep documentary was sold out and people applauded at the end.
DeleteAnother thing is that live albums don't seem to come about because a band thinks "wow! we really kicked it out of the park on that night, let's get this out to the fans."
ReplyDeleteIt's more the record company thinking "we need to get some product out this year while the useless fuckers sort out their internal bickering/physical exhaustion/writer's block".
Do you not even rate the Stranglers one? With the creepy leather-looking, or latex-looking, cover? (Never listened myself - likewise never listened to the Devo live album, although fans swear that live they were so much better than on the studio albums)
DeleteThe best thing about about Stranglers live recordings is Hugh Cornwell's banter. Probably the most well-known example:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8o1bzKzInQ
I used to own "The Sound Of Impact" by Big Black, and likewise I only ever used to listen to it for Albini's quips and jokes.
/\ /\
DeleteThat's me, btw.
Watching concert footage isn't usually much fun, but I do like Weather Report at Montreux in '76, which I know Simon has posted here before.
ReplyDeleteIs that the one with the version of "Toon Town"?
DeleteThe only good rationale for a live album is if it documents a side of the band unavailable elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteBy that definition I love The Smiths' "Rank", foregrounding as it does the virtuosity of Johnny Marr and the tightness of the band as a whole. It is unique in the band's discography because of second guitarist Craig Gannon. Though unremarkable as a player, his presence frees Marr to express himself through the guitar as strikingly as the guy with the mic. Both songwriters' personalities blaze forth side by side, not always the case in the studio, where Marr's music, for all its brilliance, is usually more orchestral, complementary to the voice. The live LP also captures the band's ability to, uh, really *rock*-- not the reason most people liked The Smiths, sure, but again it's an under-appreciated dimension that gets some air time on "Rank", justifying its existence. It's a fitting capstone to their career, an answer to the disappointment of the debut album, which everyone more or less agrees did not capture the sizzle of the band's live sets.
The flip side to that is New Order. I love listening to New Order's live albums (in bootleg form, apart from the semi-official release of their 1987 Glastonbury set) because the group was so unpolished, clunky, and at times frankly amateurish playing live. Especially on the stuff from '81 to '83, you get to hear them figuring out how to use the new machines they'd bought-- from the sound of it, the afternoon before the gig-- to synthesize new material from whatever their inspirations were at the time. I would describe some of the renditions as downright awful, but when they got it right, they produced a sound more dynamic and inspired, quirkier and improvised-- more fallibly and ferociously human-- than the studio versions. Plus the between-song banter is hilarious and gives the lie to the airless austere overdesigned imagery established by the iconic sleeves.
Finally, I've always liked Depeche Mode's "101" as an astonishing testimony to the band's unlikely yet completely convincing transformation from twee synth act to a stadium-shaking titans. Whether or not becoming a stadium act is a good thing or not is another question, of course, but the fact that they pulled it off makes "101" a fascinating moment in time, not only for the band but more generally, also, because in the US in '87 "new wave" music, to everyone's surprise, was breaking out as a commercial force to rival the decade's usual suspects.
For concert films, I can't think of many, but back in 2005, "Dave Chappelle's Block Party" came out of nowhere to thoroughly delight me.
You are clearly even more of a Smiths fan than me!
DeleteThe New Order take is interesting... I wonder if there are other synth outfits where that clunk factor comes into play, agreeably.
Some would say Suicide live in Brussels is a crucial document
Depeche rocking the stadium circuit is one of the odder unexpected developments in pop history
Well, the clunk factor is endearing if you listen to the New Order stuff as a fan, which I do. For anyone else, I'm sure it's totally unlistenable, although Greil Marcus saw them live in 1981, during their awkward post-Curtis period of endearing clumsiness, and came away so impressed he wrote a review that would've made Paul Morley incandescent with jealousy.
DeleteMaybe if there's any wider interest, it's that New Order approached the use of those electronics as a punk band would, stumbling into certain sounds or arrangements out of a lack of sophistication or preconceived ideas about what synths should sound like. Their inspiration to use machinery sound nothing like their peers'. To quote a few hastily-plucked examples from "Rip It Up", Cabaret Voltaire "initially saw themselves less as a musical entity than as a 'sound group'", while the Sheffield groups "tended to embrace synths, tape recorders, and crude rhythm boxes rather than the standard rock instrumentation of rock, bass, and drums". Maybe New Order (and Joy Division, too) were interesting because on some basic level it was the sound of Stooges fans fumbling with Emulators. Monkeys and monoliths more than Arthur C. Clarkes from art schools.
The Smiths! Proudly a fan, yes, though the music only makes sense in the context of the last century, like pay phones and liberal democracy.
Joy Division's live (former bootleg) Les Bains Douches has plenty of the clunkiness that Nick is referring to especially on Love Will Tear Us Apart and Atmsophere live.
DeleteThe live album served much more of a purpose in the pre internet days when access to seeing live music was a lot more restricted, especially here in Ireland anyway in the 70s and early 80s when not many post punk or indie acts had Dublin on their touring schedules. Big bands didn’t really perform here that much either so the likes of Fleetwood Mac Live from 1980 would have been a big bonus for a fan I suspect. Also, not seeing the live album show on film maybe added to an act’s mystique a bit and left it to the imagination as to how show was actually performed. Obviously in these YouTube times live albums have been rendered completely meaningless. Are they even a thing anymore without the actual film footage?
ReplyDeleteNice to see all the love here for that 1980 live incarnation of Talking Heads.
ReplyDeleteChris Frantz begins his very touching memoir ‘Remain in Love’ with a description of that Rome show. He knows they were doing something special.
One of my favorite things about the video is the grins and exchanged glances, from Dolette McDonald, Tina Weymouth and Adrian Belew in particular, when they hit a particularly deep groove. You can read about the transcendence that comes from collective music-making, but rarely see it captured so vividly.
This is a great interview with McDonald, where she talks very warmly about working with Talking Heads, but also reveals the appalling way she was treated at the end: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/singer-dolette-mcdonald-interview-talking-heads-police-1134960/
The duality of man. Or at least of David Byrne, anyway.
I'm a massive Stooges fan but I'm not honestly sure I ever listened to Metallic K.O.
ReplyDelete"Here's one for all you Hebrew ladies...." before Rich Bitch made me smirk.
DeleteOtherwise, I thought it was a bit muddy sounding.
Weirdly, The Stooges are the opposite of the heavy/high energy bands who excel live but can't get it together in the studio -- three exemplary / game-changing studio albums... but everything I've ever heard from them live (almost entirely early '70s 'Raw Power' era stuff) is rough in the extreme.
Delete'Metallic K.O.' is worth a one-off listen for Iggy's banter and the (much over-mythologised) sound of missiles hitting the stage, but the band's actual performance is dreadful, and not in a fun way.
I seem to remember Viva! by Roxy Music was quite exciting.
ReplyDeleteConversely Paris Au Printemps is a dud.
I tell you what's completely disappointing - the June 1974 team up of Nico, Kevin Ayers, Eno, and Cale.
I tell you what's completely whatever-the-opposite-of-disappointing-is - the 1974 Robert Wyatt-and-Friends thing, with Ivor Cutler, Nick Mason, Mike Oldfield, Julie Tippett and the creme of the post-psychedelic jazz-rock underground playing too. Indeed, the year of its release - 2005? - I reviewed it and said it was the best album of the year, even though it was from 30 years earlier.
Absolutely agree. On the art-rock and Canterbury '70 scene, "801 Live" by 801 (Manzanera, Eno, Francis Monkman etc.) is good as far as I remember.
DeleteAnother unique category of the live album is those that contain new, original songs, instead of presenting live versions of previously released tracks, covers/jams/etc. Black Country New Road did this recently with "Live at Bush Hall". The Grateful Dead included new original songs on several of their early live albums. I won't mention Ted Nugent's "Intensities in 10 Cities". Oops. What are some others?
ReplyDelete'Time Fades Away'?
Delete'Kick Out The Jams'
DeleteAnother micro-genre - the Live deejay mix album, as opposed to the normal thing which is cobbled together in the studio. The most famous would be Jeff Mills's Live at the Liquid Room, which is famously high-wire 'will he topple?' in vibe.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a copy of Special Treatment by Throbbing Gristle. It basically sounded like if Lou Reed had recorded Metal Machine Music in a gent's toilet with a hand-held cassette recorder.
ReplyDeleteThrobbing Gristle have put out a ridiculous number of live albums - didn’t they document their every performance and release it on cassette? Then there is the video of them live at Oundle public school.
DeleteAnd Heathen Earth - that is in a very small genre of live albums recorded in the studio in front of a small invited audience
I've had a copy of Heathen Earth for years, but strangely enough I've never got round to actually listening to it. Dunno why.
DeleteLive albums became Psychic TV's main format from the mid-eighties onwards, although that kind of marked their transition from musical group that dabbled in the occult, to occult group that dabbled in music.
Live tracks on studio albums? Offhand, The Needle and the Damage Done (I remember at uni someone complaining that the live version wasn't the studio version), and Tempo House, from the Fall's Perverted by Language. There's also Rust Never Sleeps. Neil Young putting live tracks on a studio album does seem fitting.
ReplyDeleteThe Gang of Four live albums that were put out on streaming services are pretty great and I enjoyed the hell out of Depeche Mode's 101 growing up! But, 100% sign on for The Last Waltz -never been that taken by it (Urgh a Music War! is one I prefer if we're gonna do concert films) but I also think the Band post-Robertson suck so much. That insufferable Springsteen cover of Atlantic City on 1993's Jericho has turned into a finace bro country fan anthem (I witnessed this in a couple of NYC bars over the yeras everytime it came on which was surprisingly often). I blame Helm's arrangement first and foremost for those confusing it with a "country song."
ReplyDeleteWith apols for the 10-days-late reply - yeah, I agree, 'Born Too Late' is the only Saint Vitus studio album that stands up - their others all sound like a potentially great band suffering from dreadful production / lethargic performances... but conversely, there's a live one which came out early '00s (just called 'Live' I believe) which sounds fantastic - far clearer sound, and far more energised - definitely my go-to record from them.
ReplyDelete