No comments about Peel Sessions.

5 comments about Dwight Live.

1. If you've ever seen Dwight live he puts on a fantastic show. I rarely like live albums, but I do this one. Well worth the money and adding to your collection. Some great cuts on a wide variety of songs, that showcase Dwight's talent.
   
   The Mean Eyed Cat
   Rock-A-Billy Review
   KNON Radio 89.3
   Dallas, Texas



2. Dwight's version of "Suspicious Minds" would even make the Big E proud.



3. Even if you have his greatest hits, the Reprise box set, or albums containing the studio versions of these songs, this live album is STILL a MUST. The energy and musicianship, not mention Dwight's own incomparable vocals, are fantatsic. And there are great live versions of songs you can't find anywhere else, like Rocky Road Blues, Fast As You, Long White Cadillac, Two Doors Down and more. Whether you're just now catching on to the genius and talent of DY's music, or are already a fan with lots of his albums, this is one you won't regret owning. It'd certainly one of my top 3 favorites.



4. This live album is a disappointment. Dwight Yoakam's
   best studio work has crystal clear sound (vocals and
   instruments) and lively energetic arrangements.
   Unfortunately, Dwight never seems to get in the
   groove during the concert[s] and his performance
   is lackluster. Another disappointment is that the
   sound quality is poor, even for a live album. The
   redeeming qualities are the choice of some of his
   best songs and his band is in good shape. Standouts
   are "Lonesome Roads" and "A Thousand Miles From
   Nowhere."



5. Dwight Yoakam may be the most underappreciated of contemporary artists. He has, from day one, been catergorized as a country artist, but whether he's doing country, western, bluegrass, blues, soul, or just good ole rock and roll, it's just pure Dwight. He has an ability to merge musical styles and make things his own, like that of a Ray Charles or an Otis Redding. And music aside, he may be the best lyric writer in any genre'. Unlike most country artists, whose live outings seem to be packaged, over produced, virtual replicas of their recordings, Yoakam does as great soul artists do. He takes his songs and his great band to inspiring new heights. His version of "Lonesome Roads" oozes soul, far outdoing the original, and has brilliant work by the extremely underrated guitarist, Pete Anderson and fiddle wonder, Scott Joss. The band's tight work on "Long White Cadillac" becomes an orgasmic jam with all the excitement of a Booker T. & the MGs workout. At first listen, a casual Yoakam fan may not appreciate its greatness. But this may be, aside from perhaps either of his two greatest hits collections, the quintessential Dwight Yoakam album.

No comments about Must've Been Live.

4 comments about Live in NYC.

1. 'Live In NYC' was recorded at the Ritz in November,1986.Not as good as his 'King Biscuit' CD from Boston's The Channel(see my review).Overall,this is 'okay' for a live release.The sound mix is a bit too tame for me,however Iggy's vocals are fine.Counted just three Stooges(no pun intended)tunes here,"I Got A Right","Gimme Danger" and the bonus track "I Wanna Be Your Dog".Other worthy tracks are the full throttle rocker "Real Wild Child","Sister Midnight","Lust For Life","Night Clubbing" and the Igster's classic/anthem "Five Foot One".Check it out.



2. I was looking forward to this CD after seeing good reviews...bu am disappointed that the guitars and the rest of the band are burried in the mix. IGGY is out front as he shouldbe, but the mix has the band buried far too deeply. This would sound a lot more powerful if you could hear the band.



3. The performance is wonderful, the sound quality is great... but for whatever incomprehensible reason, King Biscuit Flower Hour decided to juggle the original playlist! You can actually hear the music fade out at certain points in order to acheive this! Why? Do they think they know better what order the songs should be heard in than Iggy did? Instead of this, buy "Live Ritz NYC 1986 (IMPORT) instead. It is also available from Amazon at about the same price, and it is the same concert, however it runs in the original order as it did that November night. The only difference is it omits "Lust For Life" probably for space requirements, while this new "Live In NYC" omits "Cry For Love" for probably the same reason. Incidentally, the concert actually ended with "Cry For Love" ...you can actually hear Iggy say "goodnight" at the end of the track. One more notable difference... the import is graced with actual photos from the concert while this new rehash has clever, but generic artwork. I gave this new CD 4 stars because I didn't want to drag down a great Iggy performance with a 1 star rating... however compared to the vastly superior "Live Ritz NYC 1986", this new one should not be your first choice.



4. This cd captures Iggy at his best, live, on stage. My first concert was an Iggy Pop concert and it was the best concert I've ever seen. I totally recommend this cd to anyone that has seen him live or who hasn't.

1 comments about Senseless: Live at Cantone's, 1982.

1. Real Kids seriously kickarse. This one is a live recording from Sept. 1983. Hear how they shread in the 80's and even in '99 with the Down To You EP. Loud, snotty, power pop/punk masters they are. If you like the old Stones mixed with the above then you'll love this. Great recording asewll for a live album. Thank god Norton Records knows their stuff, bless em for amazing releases. With albums like Better Be Good and a couple others your set. In fact Better Be Good has been on a cassette in my car for like 3+ months stuck. I just cant eject it and love to drive to it. The Real Kids and the real deal...its amazing they never became big stars outside of the east coast. I love em, you will too...

5 comments about Document and Eyewitness.

1. Aside from Wire's John Peel sessions, this is Wire's only release that includes a large amount of unique content. The latest live albums (On The Box, etc.) are really more what you would expect from such a release: more aggressive performance to accommodate the missing use of live electronic instrumentation, poorer sound quality, and so on. Well, the live performances on D&E are no exception to poor sound quality, but this time Wire keep a fair amount of electronic influence in their work; not just guitars and percussion here, which makes this all the more valuable in my opinion. This release, to me, is more suited to be considered the 4th Wire album over Newman's A-Z (for one Newman wrote nearly all the tracks on that album on his own, so why would they be referred to as Wire songs?)
   
   I also don't understand what some people consider to be issues with this release. You do hear a lot of experimental work, which I love, and if you're a Wire fan so should you, but there are also a great deal of more conventional songs, like 'Go Ahead' and 'Relationship'. Basically, you get to hear at least a dozen tracks that haven't been recorded in the studio (some of these tracks were re-recorded by Newman for solo work, and I know that 'Underwater Experiences' was an earlier demo). One thing I don't get is why 'Heartbeat' is just thrown in with the mix, as it was from a different performance altogether; just doesn't fit well, despite its being a good track.
   
   I don't want to spoil the atmosphere of the album by explaining much of the music, but I will comment that it crosses between more aggressive Chairs Missing-era and something not quite Wire (mainly because without having come from the studio it's hard to picture what the final production qualities would be like).
   
   And yes the final two tracks are from their Our Swimmer EP (can't really call it a single because it wasn't promoting anything, it just was). These two tracks are quite different from what you hear on E&D, and for that matter, Wire's other albums. I would've really enjoyed getting to hear more than just these two songs from this new style that they developed.
   
   But this album is still valuable even for people who aren't fans of live recordings (a lot of time the audience is just too noisy and compromises the music, but in this case the audience was so baffled by what they heard you really don't hear much of them.) I did take one star off because it isn't perfect, but still great.



2. Live albums are usually nothing more than cheap giveaways that you already have heard in their studio life and are usually much better. Everybody knows that you'll get the same tracks with the crowds cheering the performer on for more more MORE. So why should you buy this? Well the fact of the matter is that it's everything a usual live album is NOT. Yes that's right - this is NOT your usual live album. First of all many of the tracks here are new. Secondly the band are practically hated mainly because there isn't 12XU which eventually comes up in fractured form ( not a bad thing ). Their MC is the one that helps the fans get what they want because it's his " request spot " despite being called a fat.....well you know - can't say it here for obvious reasons. And in the mix there's a few snippets of conversations from an interview. And at the end there's two studio tracks which are OK but dilute the whole experience of the concert(s) completely

   I guess it's one for the diehards but everyone should try this live album for the chaos within because if not you'll be missing out. Oh and you can't resist the bottle being thrown in the middle of a song with the reply " Who's a clever boy then! "




3. The single best line ever written about Wire's DOCUMENT AND EYEWITNESS comes from an article A.D. Amorosi wrote for MAGNET magazine (August/September 2000 issue): "...a violent live album that makes the Stooges' METALLIC KO seem like a Phish jam." And while one can hear the bottles being thrown on this album as well (literally: on "Instrumental (Thrown Bottle)"), unfortunately Flipper tactics had not yet come into their own so Wire chose to throw dada instead at their dense and impatient audience. Amid screams for PINK FLAG material, the audience never once allow Wire to demonstrate their amazing chameleon-like capability to never do exactly the same thing twice (like Coil and Madonna after them). Read: they never got it. This CD is split into four parts: part one is a relatively calm excerpt recorded live in London in July 1979 performing tracks from what ultimately would have been the follow-up to 154 but which never happened. The opening sonic slaughter of "Go Ahead" (which absolutely destroys the studio version) has to be heard to be believed, drumming mistakes and all. Part two is an excellent version of "Heartbeat" performed in Montreux when Wire opened for Roxy Music (sort of like when Prince opened for The Rolling Stones), much to the chagrin of Roxy's audience. Listen for the whistling. Part three is an excerpt of Wire's last concert for five years: The Electric Ballroom in London on 29/2/80, opened by D.A.F. (and documented by them on DIE KLEINEN UND DIE BOSEN, also on Mute) who were at a starvation-amphetamine meltdown peak. Wire perform an avante-garde/dada performance perfectique, goading the audience with their music and sarcasm, not really indicating if they mean any of it or not. An examination of this document by headphones reveals the absolute apall of the audience, who came to hear "12XU" (which Wire gratefully disembowel) and not the outre art-attack of such pieces as "ZEGK HOQP". By the end, the concert boils down to merely being one big pissing contest. Brilliant and exceptional. Part four is the band's last, posthumous single ("Our Swimmer" b/w the exceptional "Midnight Bahnhof Cafe") added as a bonus and near pre-cursor to what was to come in 1986 with SNAKEDRILL (see "A Serious of Snakes" for the link, "Drill" for the mood). A worthwhile purchase for the casual fan and an absolute must for the die-hard.



4. Though I appreciate all of Wire's studio-albums from the late 70's to the early 90's, I never liked their live-performances. This is because they often turned their great pop-songs into a dissonant, chaotic goulash of sound. This CD-compilation, recorded at three various locations, Notre Dome Hall, Montreux and Electric Ballroom, is completely unlistenable for "normal" people. If any unknown band had served this, nobody would have noticed, but here the critics said:"Oh Wire, this is fabulous art-school-punk!" You may call the performances on this album "experimental", but I really don't know why this gig made such waves. I only give two points, because there are two good studio-recordings thrown in at the end, they're called "Our swimmer" and "Midnight Bahnhof Cafe". But they're not worth buying this album.



5. I'd read so much about the "Electric Ballroom" gig before I ever heard it that I was very excited when I finally got this CD and popped it in my stereo. I wanted to hear what was it that made this gig really famous. I couldn't really hear anything at all, as it turns out. Seriously, I've heard 4th generation bootlegs that sound better than this, and I can't help asking myself "Why did they bother?". Not to rip on Wire or the individual members, mind you, as they are, quite simply, one the best bands that ever existed. This particular album, however, is for completists and/or masochists only.

No comments about Live in Yugoslavia.

No comments about Last Live.

2 comments about Welcome to Mexico Asshole.

1. I must admit, as an industrial music fan, I was certainly not prepared for this album. It was the first Pigface album I was able to find, and I was blown away. This was the first time I heard the song "Suck" and this is likely one of the best songs you have never heard. Martin Atkins is a good guy; he makes good rhythms, and when I wrote to him in high school when I wrote an Advanced English paper on them, he wrote me back, complete with a coffee cup stain on the letter. "Blood and Sand" rules, and still speaks to us now, since we are killing off people in the Middle East again for no logical reason. I find that Pigface helps me to reach a place that no other group is capable of doing; a strange, rhythmic bliss. Crack open a Newcastle Brown Ale, and turn up the stereo. Pigface will take care of cracking open your head.



2. This is old Pigface, when they recruited some of industrial music's heaviest hitters. Amongst those were Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy, Bill Rieflin and Chris Connelly of Ministry/Revolting Cocks, William Tucker of Thrill Kill Kult, Michael Balch (formerly of Front Line Assembly), En Esch of KMFDM, and Nine Inch Nails contributors Chris Vrenna and Jeff Ward, as well as Trent Reznor himself. They've even got Becky from Lunachicks and Black Francis (the guy from Pixies?). The songs range from decent to excellent, with one of Pigface's better-known songs, "Tapeworm", on it. Also of note are two songs that also appeared on albums by Pigface contributors: "Suck", which was one of the hidden tracks on Nine Inch Nails' "Broken" and "T.F.W.O.", which is on Skinny Puppy's "Too Dark Park". Although I'm not a big fan of live albums, this one has its shining moments.

No comments about Turning Rebellion into Money.