The Ramones - The Palladium - NYC - 1.7.1978 (SBD)

It's hard to imagine that someone actually had to write the lines "hey-ho, lets' go". It feels like such a simple and basic chant that it must have predated time itself. But someone had to be the first to come up with it. 


The Ramones formed in in Queens, New York in 1974. They all came together sharing a mutual love of The Stooges who's raw bloody rage gave The Ramones infinite inspiration. They quickly found a home in Manhattan clubs like CBGB's and Max's Kansas City playing alongside the god fathers of punk like the New York Dolls and Iggy Pop. 


The Ramones can be credited with being the first true and pure punk band because they invented and perfected the basic punk formula. They boiled the music down to it's most basic elements. They played quick two minute songs, which was about half the length of the average Dolls tune. Every song was built around a fast sloppy 3 or 4 chord riff with a simple, driving, repetitive hook, a basic verse-chorsu-verse structure, and fast simple lyrics that walked a fine line between psychotic and retarded. 


The Ramones also pioneered the punk attitude of complete indifference to their audience. Before them Iggy had experimented with attacking his audience, but Joey just ignored them completely. He did not dance, move, or even look up while he was playing. He just stood in front of the mic with his long, greasy, black hair in front of his face. There was no stage banter. The only way you could tell when one song stopped and the next started was by a short pause for Dee-Dee to yell, "1-2-3-4!". 


In the second half of the 1970's The Ramones produced four albums using their signature formula: Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, and Road to Ruin. These four records pushed rock and roll to new levels of intensity and cemented the sound and aesthetics of  punk rock. They worked their way through the Ramones formula in every possible permutation and by the end of Road to Ruin they had carried it to it's natural conclusion. 


Today I'm a sharing the Ramones live at the historic Palladium in New York City recorded live January 7, 1978. This was recording right in the middle of the Ramones hey day. They had already achieved world wide success, but they were still young and fresh. They were not yet tired, aging rock stars. This show has some special energy because they are performing back in their hometown of New York City. One of the only pauses in the whole set is right before Blitzkrieg Bop. A very energized Joey says, "Well, it's great to be back here in New York City, and it's good to see all of you again."   


This show was recorded from the soundboard for an for F.M. radio broadcast on The King Biscuit Flower Hour. The audio quality is excellent. If it weren't for the cheering crowd after each song it would be difficult to distinguish between some of theses tracks and the recordings used on their early records. 


The Ramones
Location: The Palladium - New York, NY
Recorded: 01.07.1978
Source: FM Broadcast
Duration: 56 min
Size: 125mbs 
Bitrate: 320 kbps
Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?gb2w56hqdy63rwc


Setlist
01. Rockaway Beach
02. Teenage Lobotomy
03. Blitzkrieg Bop
04. I Wanna Be Well
05. Glad To See You Go
06. Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
07. You're Gonna Kill That Girl
08. I Don't Care
09. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
10. Havana Affair
11. Commando
12. Here Today, Gone Tommorrow
13. Surfin' Bird
14. Cretin Hop
15. Listen To My Heart
16. California Sun
17. I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You
18. Pinhead
19. Do You Want To Dance
20. Chainsaw
21. Today Your Love, Tommorrow The World
22. Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy
23. Suzy Is A Headbanger
24. Let's Dance
25. Oh, Oh, I Love You So
26. Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
27. We're A Happy Family





    

13 Floor Elevators - WFAA-TV, Dallas, TX - 1966

The 13th Floor Elevators are the original psychedelic rock band from Austin Texas. They formed in 1965. In January of 1966 they released their first single "You're Gonna Miss Me." The 45 was an immediate success and gained the band instant notoriety. However The Elevators rapid ascension to fame brought along some unwanted attention.

The local Texas authorities saw Rocky Erickson as a figure head for the emerging drug culture, and they wanted to make an example of him. The police did not know of any specific crimes that the Elevators had committed but they put a surveillance team on the band because they were sure that Rocky Erickson and The 13th Floor Elevators must be up to no good.

At the time The Elevators electric jug player, Tommy Hall, happened to be trafficking large amounts of marijuana from Mexico into Texas on a regular basis.

On January 27th, 1966 Roky Erikson, Stacy Sutherland, Tommy Hall, Clementine Hall, and John Ike Walton of the 13th Floor Elevators were arrested on felony charges for possession of Marijuana. The police seized the Elevators van and as a cruel and ironic punishment the authorities used their van as an undercover surveillance vehicle.

In March of '66 The Elvators relocated to Dallas. They were in a new city, paranoid, reclusive and, alienated. They were still shaken up from their bust. Because of their legal problems they coudln't smoke much grass and they were having trouble finding Acid which they liked to drop before every live performance. They began heavily abusing pharmecuitacals such a Amphetamine and Quaaludes to compensate for the illegal drugs they could no longer use. They were seen chugging Listerine before shows and a few members even missed a gig because they were too fucked up on glue to perform. It was during this turbulent period of the their career that The 13th Floor Elevators made their first live television appearance.

This bootleg was recorded on the Sump'n Else television show. Which was a live teen dance show on Dallas' WFAA Channel 11. They made two appearances: The first in March of '66 shortly after moving to Dallas and the second two months later in May.

The recording quality is excellent especially for a bootleg from the mid sixties. The performances are extremely high energy and very psychotic. They also do some interesting tripped out covers of "You Really Got Me", "Roll Over Beethoven", "Have Mercy" and "Gloria". This bootleg sounds more weird, raw, and freaked out than their debut album The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators which had yet to been released when these shows were recorded.

But what makes these recordings really great is the enthusiastic television host who introduces the band and also tries to interview a very spaced out Tommy Hall about the electric jug. He sounds like a typical 1960's television personality. His chipper, wholesome, all american attitude stands in stark contrast to The Elevators who were standing at the forefront of a national cultural and psychedelic revolution which was set to explode in less than a year.

The 13th Floor Elevators

Sump'n Else - WFAA-TV, Dallas, Texas

Recorded: 3.25.1966 & 5.9.1966

Source: Television Broadcast

Duration: 37min

Size: 46.4mb

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?w2c4o8cdcx6cywb

Set List:

Sump'n Else TV Show, WFAA-TV, Dallas, TX, 3/25/66

1. You're Gonna Miss Me

2. Fire Engine

3. You Really Got Me

4. Roll Over Beethoven

Sump'n Else TV Show, WFAA-TV, Dallas, TX, 5/9/66

1. Mercy, Mercy

2. Tried To Hide

3. Gloria

4. Fire Engine

5. You're Gonna Miss Me

6. Roller Coaster

The Black Angels - Seattle, WA - 6.11.2008

The Black Angels are a rock and roll band from Austin, Texas. They formed in 2004 taking their name from "The Black Angel Death Song" by the Velvet Underground.

The term "Psychdelic Rock" is extremely vague by nature and it does not actually mean anything. It does not refer to a specefic musical style or technique.It is a general term that can refer to any band that would sound better if you were high on Acid. That said The Black Angels are the definitive Neo-Psychedelic Rock Band of my generation. They have been the backing band for Rocky Erickson. They sound more droney than the Velvet Underground, more minimal than spaceman 3, and more strung out than The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

This show is a recording of the Black Angel's first set at Neumo's in Seattle on June 11, 2008. The best way to listen to this recording is alone in a dark room with your eyes closed. It sounds like three hits of acid, two balloons, and a fat line of Ketamine. These songs are deeply meditative but dark and sinister at the same time. Each song evokes vivid images of distant and haunting landscape full unspeakable beauty and strange, dark shadows.

This is an excellent show. All the songs came from their debut album Passover and their follow up Directions to See a Ghost. This was recorded in June of 2008 less than one month after Directions to See a Ghost had been released.

It is an audience capture. Normally I only post shows from the soundboard, but in this case the dissident echoey sound of an audience recording compliments the sound of The Black Angels in a very good way.

The Black Angel's

Location: Live at Neumo's - Seattle, WA

Recorded: 6.11.2008

Source: Audience

Duration: 80min

Size: 112.7mb

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?2ix07e5gq82zfd6

Set List:

01. [Intro]

02. Manipulation

03. You On The Run

04. Sniper At The Gates Of Heaven

05. Mission District

06. Black Grease

07. Deer-Ree-Shee

08. Science Killer

09. Young Men Dead

10. Empire

11. Surf City Revisited

12. Never Ever

13. [Intermission]

14. Better Off Alone

15. You In Color

For more Black Angels shows visit The Black Angels Collection at archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/TheBlackAngels

Sonic Youth: Live at Brixton Academy-(SBD)-12.14.1991

Sonic Youth formed in New York City in the year 1981. They started out as part of the short lived but highly influential New York No-Wave scene. They later found a wider audience and new relevance as leaders in the burgeoning "alternative rock" scene of the late eighties and early nineties.

In 1990 Sonic Youth released Goo their first album with Geffen Records. This move to a major label was controversial at first, but with the release of Goo and it's follow up album Dirty Sonic Youth proved that it was possible to retain complete creative control while on a major label. Their work for Geffen was slightly more polished and Pop oriented than their earlier releases but only slightly. They still made heavily distorted, experimental noise rock, rich with feedback and non-sequiturs.

Most of the tracks from Sonic Youth: Live at Brixton Academy are renditions of songs off of Goo and Dirty. It was recorded live in London December 14, 1992. It captures them at the height of their commercial success and only a few years after the peak of their artistic career. This is a Radio Quality Recording and it is captured from the soundboard.

With most bootlegs you must tolerate a low-fidelity recording to enjoy a glimpse of an artist at their most raw and un-polished. But with this recording of Sonic Youth it is the exact opposite. This show is not particularly unique or special. There are no notable fuck ups or interesting stage banter, but the performance is first rate and as a recording all the songs sound as good if not better than they do in the studio.

The guitars are a little muddled, there is a lot of extra distortion and feedback, and the vocals are not nearly as clear or upfront as they are on Goo or Dirty. Normally these acoustic imperfections would detract from the listening experience, but with Sonic Youth it only makes the songs sound more full and rich. I feel that this live bootleg is probably a better representation of the band and their sound than anything they recorded for Geffen.

Sonic Youth - Live at Brixton Academy, London

Recorded: 12.14.1991

Duration: 54min

Size: 101mb

Source: Soundboard

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?hec5013gmsydtqg

Set List

01. 100% [3:24]

02. Dirty Boots [4:50]

03. Kool Thing [4:37]

04. Swimsuit Issue [3:03]

05. Genetic [4:04]

06. Theresa's Sound-World [6:11]

07. Tom Violence [3:31]

08. Sugar Kane [8:54]

09. Schizophrenia [5:13]

10. Drunken Butterfly [3:02]

11. Youth Against Fascism [3:29]

12. JC [4:18]

Neil Young: Amsterdam 12.10.1989

Neil Young is a Canadian singer songwriter. He first discovered fame in 1966 as one of the founding members of Buffalo Springfield. He is still actively touring and recording to this day. He has released over 50 albums in the last 45 years.

I'm choosing Neil Young Live in Amsterdam recorded December 10th, 1989 for todays post because it represents a key turning point in Young's long and turbulent career.

The eighties had not been an easy decade for Neil Young. Like many of his contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones he had alienated much of his audience by delving into an experimental phase of electronic synthesizers and rock and roll excess.

But in October of 1989 Neil Young released the album Freedom which was a huge artistic and commercial comeback. The album mixed acoustic numbers reminiscent of Young's early career with heavier electric tracks which sounded more up to date and contemporary.

This show is an acoustic set. About half the songs are taken from Freedom and the other tracks are mostly renditions of his older hits from the 1970's.

The first track "Hey, Hey, My, My(Into the Black)" is a very fitting opener for this transitional period of Neil Young's career. He wrote the song in the late seventies. It is about the future of Rock and Roll as Young saw it in 1979. It self-consciously eludes to Young's fears about the growing irrelevance of himself and his generation in the era of disco and punk rock. It was partially inspired by his interaction with Devo while making the Bernard Shakey film Human Highway.

Ironically "Hey Hey My My" became a huge hit and brought Neil Young back to prominence for a few years before returning to obscurity through most of the eighties. The famous line "It's better to burn out than to fade away" was later lifted by Kurt Cobain for use in his infamous 1994 suicide note. Young's inclusion in this most holy of rock & roll documents combined with his influence on Dinosaur Jr, his association with Sonic Youth, and collaboration with Pearl Jam made him the unofficial "Godfather of Grunge".

The second track "Rockin' in The Free World" was the big hit single from Freedom. It reached #2 on Billboards mainstream rock chart. It addresses homelessness and crack addiction in the first verse, and the second verse is a scathing criticism of American policy. A month after the release of Freedom the Berlin Wall fell. Newscasts played the song over the footage of the wall being torn down. Because of it's easily misinterpreted chorus "Rockin' in the Free World" became the unofficial theme song for the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Like the album Freedom the Amsterdam '89 bootleg is bookended by two versions of "Rockin' in the Free World". It starts with a softer version early on in the set and ends with a heavier faster version as the final track.

One of the highlights of this bootleg is an acoustic rendition of "This Notes For You" which had just won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Video of the Year for 1989. The Video is extremely hilarious and truly bizarre. The songs contains harsh criticism of the growing commercialism, corporate sponsorship, and product placement found in pop music. The original song was a heavy electric number so it is very interesting to hear this song played soft and acoustically without a backing band.

There is some excellent stage banter right before "Heart of Gold". Neil Young sarcastically announces, "This is a song Bob Dylan wrote...Now there's a friend. I ripped off his song. I ripped off his whole sound."

I assume Young is referring to a 1985 Bob Dylan interview in Spin Magazine where Dylan said: "I used to hate it when it came on the radio. I always liked Neil Young, but it bothered me every time I listened to 'Heart of Gold.' I think it was up at number one for a long time, and I'd say, 'Shit, that's me. If it sounds like me, it should as well be me.'"

This performance was captured from the Soundboard. Both the audio quality and the performance are excellent.

Track Listing

1. My My, Hey Hey (Into The Black) 5:07

2. Rockin' In The Free World 5:41

3. The Old Laughing Lady 5:19

4. Don't Let It Bring You Down 4:05

5. Someday 6:19

6. Crime In The City 8:14

7. Eldorado 7:16

8. Too Far Gone 3:22

9. This Note's For You 3:55

10. The Needle & The Damage Done 2:49

11. After The Goldrush 4:37

12. Hangin' On A Limb 4:48

13. Heart Of Gold 4:27

14. Ohio 2:58

15. Rockin' In The Free World 3:59

NFO:

Neil Young: Amsterdam

Recorded: 12.10.1989

Duration: 80min

Size: 183mb

Source: Soundboard

Bitrate: 320 kbit/s Mp3

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?ob8vurq1s8buybq

The Velvet Underground Live at the Gymnasium - New York - 4.30.1967

The Velvet Underground were a Rock and Roll Band from New York City. They formed in 1964. They began as a folk rock band which was the hip sort of band to be in the East-Village in the mid-sixties. But their sound quickly evolved beyond their immediate scene. They incorporated Lou Reed's pop sensibility with John Cale's background in avant-gard neo-classic minimalist compositions to create a style of Music that was completely Unique from everything that had ever come before it.

I chose the Velvet Underground Live at The Gymnasium April 30th, 1967 because it is an excellent document of a very special time and place. This show was recorded one month after the release of their debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico. This is the only bootleg I've ever found from 1967. It's also one of the few live recordings of The Velvet Underground made before John Cale left the band.

The first track"I'm Not A Young Man Anymore" is not available anywhere else. The second track "Guess I'm Falling In Love" is only available officially on the box set. This show was also the first ever performance of "Sister Ray" which wouldn't be release until their next album came out a year later.

The audio quality is impeccable. I'm not sure if the source was a soundboard or audience recording but it is the only Velvet Underground Bootleg I've ever found where the vocals are remotely audible. The Velvet Underground were the band that got me started collecting Bootlegs and this show is most definitely the best sounding recording of their early days available anywhere.

The Velvet Underground Live at the Gymnasium - New York

Recorded: 4.30.1967

Size: 80.0 mb

Track Listing:

1. I'm Not a Young Man Anymore - 7:17

2. Guess I'm Falling in Love - 4:18

3. I'm Waiting for the Man - 5:24

4. Run Run Run - 6:55

5. Sister Ray - 18:55

Link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?efnqcq9uq2u4orc

Nobunny: Live on KDVS - 8.19.2008

Nobunny is a Garage Rock/Power Pop outfit out of San Francisco, CA. It has only one consistent member Justin Champlin who has been recording and performing as Nobunny since 2001. Nobunny released his first record Love Visions in November of 2008. The release of that record as well as his incessant touring has gained him world wide recognition. Since the death of Jay Reatard in 2010 Nobunny may have taken his place as the most widely recognized face in the world of Garage Rock. Ironically few people know what his face actually looks like because he never appears in public without his signature bunny mask.

This is a bootleg of Nobunny Live on KDVS recorded 8.19.2008 three months before the release of Love Visions. It is a short performance clocking in at under thirteen minutes but he performs some of the best songs off of his breakthrough debut album.

Track Listing:

1. Nobunny Loves You

2. Mess Me Up

3. Church Mouse

4. Boneyard

5. It's True

6. Tina Goes To Work

7. Chuck Berry Holiday

Nobunny Live on KDVS

Recorded: 8.19.2008

Size: 11.5

Source: Radio Broadcast

Bitrate: 128kbps

Dudration: 12:22

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?du9xvyxi1yxh9aq