The Big Green House

Hey Ho, Let's Go!

The Ramones, San Francisco City Hall Plaza, 6/8/79

I’m pretty sure that this show was broadcast on KSAN (more on which later). The sound of the recording is pretty good (which would also lend some credence to the KSAN broadcast theory), and Joey gives the station a shout-out at one point (could be because of a simulcast, or it could be due to the fact that KSAN was one of the few stations in the bay area playing The Ramones at the time). Dee Dee’s backing vocals get a little lost in the mix, but his bass is right there (most of the time), as are the all-important “1-2-3-4”s (and the occasional “eine-zwei-drei-vier” – Dee Dee spent part of his time growing up in Germany). The performance is just what you’d expect from The Ramones – tight, fast and loud. Joey has a little fun, stretching out a few syllables (“I’ve gone mental” becomes “I’ve gone may-un-til” at one point), Johnny does his Amazing Human Buzzsaw act, Marky is a metronome, and Dee Dee is, uh, Dee Dee. (For more –much more – on the phenomenon that was The Ramones, go here. Make some coffee first, though.)

I don’t know how much more I really say about the show. I’m not saying that one Ramones show is like any other Ramones show… well, yeah, I am. Sorta. I saw them something like five or six times over the years, and while it was always a good time, it was also one that didn’t usually hold much in the way of surprises. It’s not like they ever stretched out and did the jazz odyssey version of “Blitzkrieg Bop”, y’know. (For which we should all be grateful.) It’s a good record of their set at the time, but I can’t say it’s really all that different from any other live recording of theirs that I’ve heard. If you’re at all interested in the band, you should probably have at least one of their live sets in your collection. You could probably do worse than this one.

A boot up the arse

Oh, hey. Is this thing still on?

Um…

Well, let’s try to catch up, shall we? What have I been up to? The usual: insomnia, melancholia, dyspepsia, apnea. That sort of thing. Oh, I also got new glasses, which means that I can read for fun again. So that’s a plus.

Mostly, though, I’ve been listening to bootlegs. Since there’s generation of cute l’il lemmings sleepwalking over the precipice of indierock in a seemingly non-stop narcoleptic frenzy of twee crayola doodlings and klDSHfkuhaifhrpRP Pahfoannafzobv aporagjas-t AESFOyuYURFAFYGp0WOFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEE

Wha?

Oh, sorry; I seem to have dozed off there for a moment. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the fact that “the kids”, as we used to refer to the under-thirties, have now become the boring old farts we’d always accused our elders of being. A temporary glitch in the March of Progress, I’m sure, but it doesn’t leave much for the discerning ear to amuse itself with.

Fortunately, though, there’s been a quasi-new development in the world of music blogs – namely, the bootleg blog. (I suppose we could shorten that to “bootblogs”, but that’s just a little too cutesy to use and not have to check the blood sugar levels.)

Now, I know that some of you are even now recoiling in terror at the idea of half-assed audience recordings of fifth-rate arena-rockers. As well you might. That being said, I’m here to assuage your fears, although I’m drawing the line at hand-holding. Most of what I’ve found has been of a decent enough quality that it doesn’t offend the delicate sensibility one develops listening to studio-only recordings, and a lot of it sounds really quite good. Plus, there’s no money changing hands, so the slightly creepy sense I used to get buying boots of unknown provenance and knowing that not a penny would be seen by the artist who actually, y’know, wrote and performed the music is no longer a problem.

And it’s not just live tapes, either. The really exciting stuff, for me, anyway, is the demos and outtakes I’ve been able to find. It’s truly fascinating (in a fairly geeky fanboy way, I suppose) to hear the changes an artist will put a song through before finding the right approach. The most striking example of that would be the outtakes from Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks. The demo for “Tangled Up In Blue”, for example has a somewhat tentative, melancholy feel to it, whereas the released version is full of confident vigor.

And yadda yadda. What’s all this got to do with anything? Well, my plan, for the moment, is to maybe take a closer look at some of these boots I’ve found here and there. Since new music has sorta gotten stinky lately, why not? I’ll still weigh in with new stuff that passes the boredom test, of course. Ideally we’d have a “boot of the week”, but it’s much more likely that it’ll be the “boot of the fortnight”. Possibly even “boot of the month”, although I really do want to write more frequently. I can feel my brain going all soft from the lack of use. It’s not a good feeling.

So look for something maybe by the end of the week, unless I surprise myself and finish it sooner rather than later. Hey, it could happen.

In the meantime, have a look at some of the cool places I’ve been gleaning all these recordings from. (And if anybody follows these links back: I will make every attempt to identify where I picked up whatever recording I’m writing about, and to link back to that particular post when possible. I’m not trying to take credit for anybody else’s work.) This is by no means an exhaustive list – just a few off the top of my head.

Nargo the Bort's Deviant Subculture
Nargo Too
The Ultimate Bootleg Experience
Captain's Dead
rbally