I Beam, San Francisco - 1984

The dB's

I Beam

San Francisco, CA

Nov. 15, 1984

audience recording (GD++; not the greatest sound quality in the world, but the energetic performance just about makes up for it)

Highlights: unusual opportunity to hear a pre-show dB’s soundcheck, plus a gaggle of entertaining covers

THANKS A BUNCH to the taper and batchain for sharing!

Artwork courtesy of the ever-generous batchain 
(it's included in the download, as usual...)

THE SHOW

01 Neverland

02 Love Is for Lovers

03 She Got Soul

04 Bad Reputation

05 Amplifier

06 Not Cool

07 Black and White

08 Death Garage

09 White Train

10 Suspicious Minds

11 New Gun In Town

12 Spy In the House of Love

13 Paint It Black

14 See No Evil

15 Everybody's Happy Nowadays (Buzzcocks cover)

16 Big Brown Eyes

17 Heart of Gold

18 Sex Drive (The Embarrassment cover)

MP3@320

Alt. Link

THE SOUNDCHECK

01 riffing & jamming

02 more riffing & jamming

03 faffing around + Love Is for Lovers

04 She Got Soul (partial)

05 Everybody's Happy Nowadays (partial)

MP3@320

Alt. Link

This post's style, color scheme & theme song is Black & White.
 

The dB’s:

Will Rigby – drums & vocals

Gene Holder – lead guitar

Peter Holsapple – guitar & vocals

Rick Wagner - bass

Steve Earle - Stradbally, Ireland 2010

Steve Earle

Electric Picnic

BBC broadcast

Stradbally, Ireland

Sept. 4, 2010

FM capture (sound quality EX-)

Highlight: Just Steve, his voice and his guitar, raw and righteous. Note the “dedication” of “Rich Man’s War” to Tony Blair, who was in Ireland at the time for a book signing event…

Repercussion: No self-respecting music blog about the “repercussion” of The dB’s can ignore the fact that Will Rigby has been the main drummer for Steve Earle for a long time. (Even though you won't hear Will this time around, I will rectify that soon enough. For now, I thought a Steve solo show would make a good introductory post.)

Guitar, Vocals - Steve Earle at the Electric Picnic, 2010
photo by Dave via Flickr

01 Copperhead Road

Steve belts it out for the Electric Picnic

02 The Devil's Right Hand

03 My Old Friend the Blues

04 Someday

05 Rich Man's War

06 Taneytown

07 Now She's Gone

08 Goodbye

09 Way Down In the Hole

10 Billy Austin

11 Dixieland

12 Galway Girl

13 Guitar Town

TT: 50:48

Steve Earle: guitar, vocals

MP3@320

Alt. Link

Will stands next to the lovely Allison Moorer, but
husband Steve Earle gets to hold her hand...

Charlotte Reunion Show 1988 + Copenhagen 1988

UPGRADE - much improved sound!

The dB's

Grady Cole Center

Charlotte, NC

May 15, 1988

("Gimme Shelter" homeless benefit; first-ever dB's reunion show with Chris)

soundboard (1st-gen. copy of master tape; sound quality EX-; some sound & mix problems evident in the first song, but they disappear quickly). With this upgrade, this is now the complete show.

The dB’s playing for a French TV show in 1988

HIGHLIGHTS: Rareish “I’m In Love” plus hearing the guys’ reunion enthusiasm expressed in their playing

BIG THANKS to the taper, Scott for sharing & dB’s Fan for the upgraded Charlotte tracks!

01 intro*  
02 Black and White
03 Ups and Downs
04 Big Brown Eyes
05 Dynamite
06 The Fight
07 I Feel Good (Today)
08 Happenstance
09 Bad Reputation
10 Living a Lie
11 I'm In Love
12 Neverland
13 Amplifier* (power cut mid-song!)

       *intro and “Amplifier” are from an audience recording; 
        intro announcer = Hope Nicholls of the late, great Fetchin' Bones

The dB's

Copenhagen, Denmark

Jan. 11, 1988

(venue unknown)

audience recording (sound quality VG; slight distortion on the louder tracks)

14 This Is Where I Belong (Kinks cover)

15 Neverland

16 Big Brown Eyes

17 Money (cut at halfway mark; fades out)

MP3@320

Alt. Link

Jeff Beninato, bass & backing vocals; Will on drums; 
Peter, guitar & vocals; Eric Peterson, guitar

The dB's

Will Rigby - drums

Gene Holder - bass

Peter Holsapple - guitar, keyboard, vocals

Chris Stamey - guitar, vocals

*Jeff Beninato - bass & backing vocals

*Eric Peterson – guitar

*Jeff and Eric did not play the Charlotte reunion show; Gene & Chris did not play the Copenhagen show.

 

Mick Ersatz - Wear & Tear (Best of the Demos)

      High Quality MP3

      Alt. Link

Roscoe's Gang - NYC 1989

Roscoe's Gang

Lone Star Café

New York, NY

February 4, 1989

audience recording (sound quality VG; transfer from 2^nd-gen. tape)

THANKS to the taper and original uploader, whoever you might be!

Repercussion: The show includes the Peter H song “Next to the Last Waltz” (marginally co-written by Eric Ambel, as he says here). Also, Peter was a guest musician on several tracks on Eric’s 1988 album Roscoe’s Gang. Will Rigby played tambourine on the album and drums on some of the group’s live appearances (but not this one). If you ask real nicely, I might post one with Will some time…

A worthy addition to any musical collection — CD, LP, cassette, 8-track, etc.
Read the 4.5 star AllMusic review

(early set)

01 intro
02 If You Gotta Go, Go Now [Bob Dylan]
03 Next To The Last Waltz [Eric Ambel/Peter Holsapple]
04 Forever Came Today [Ambel/Scott Kempner]
05 I Waited For You [Kempner]
06 Shame On You [Kempner]
07 Judas Kiss [Kempner]
08 Total Destruction To Your Mind [Jerry Wms. – aka Swamp Dogg]
09 Power Lounger Theme [Ambel] / band Intros
10 Love's Gonna Live Here* [Buck Owens]
11 You Must Have Me Confused [Lou Whitney]
12 The Girl That I Ain't Got [Ambel] 

TT: 53:55 

MP3@320 
Alt. Link 

Eric Ambel - guitar, vocals
Donnie Thompson - guitar
Smokin' Joe Terry - keyboard
Rocco W. - drums
Lou Whitney – bass (*vocals on #10)

Eric Ambel remains active in music as a musician and producer

Learn more about Eric & Roscoe's Gang HERE

Rahar's, Northampton, MA - 1980

The dB's

Rahar’s

Northampton, MA

1980 (month & date unknown; might be spring)

audience recording (sound quality VG; transfer from copy of master tape). There’s a bit of distortion and the sound guy got a little silly with the reverb at times, but otherwise a quite enjoyable early show, with surprisingly little crowd chatter. Maybe one of the band’s first live shows in New England?

Highlights: Gene rocks the house with his killer fuzz-tone bass! This show also features the only known recording of a mega-rare Chris composition called “My Sire Wristwatch”. According to Chris, “Sire Records gave out promo wristwatches to promote some punk rock band, and it seemed like some kind of commentary at the time (1978?) about how the scene was changing.” OK now, everybody sing along: "My Sire wristwatch, my Sire wristwatch / Thanks a lot."

BIG HUGE THANKS to the taper and dB’s Fan for the generous share!

This is the site of the now-defunct Rahar’s Inn.

Whatever else you might say, at least it’s got character… 

01 (I Thought) You Wanted to Know

02 Spitting In the Wind

03 Black and White

04 I Feel Good (Today)

05 Judy

06 Dynamite

07 Soul Kiss

08 pH Factor

09 If and When

10 Can't Take Her Away from Me

11 Bad Reputation

12 My Sire Wristwatch - mega rare song composed by Chris

13 Big Brown Eyes

14 You Got It Wrong

15 The Summer Sun

16 Cycles Per Second

17 Tearjerkin'

18 Death Garage

MP3@320

Alt. Link

The dB’s:

Gene Holder – bass

Will Rigby – drums

Chris Stamey – guitar & vocals

Peter Holsapple – guitar, keyboard & vocals

Letch Actively - Hoboken, NJ 1987

MP3@320

Alt. Link

Pylon - NYC 1982

Pylon

Danceteria

New York City  

April 10, 1982

audience recording (sound quality VG-; transfer from first-generation tape)

Chomp cover & dino postcard...

Repercussion: Chris and Gene produced Chomp, Pylon’s second (and some say best) album, most of which was recorded at Mitch Easter’s Drive-In Studio. Have a listen to this show and hear why R.E.M. covered the Pylon song "Crazy" and R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry told Rolling Stone that Pylon (not R.E.M.) were “the best band in America.” Propulsive rhythms that you can dance to, jagged-but-hooky guitar riffs, yelping/growling vocals — how bizarre-cool can you get?? 

BIG OL’ THANKS to the taper and dclubok for sharing!

Pylon: early eighties indie rock heroes (& friends of The dB's)

DISC 1 (first set)

1.  intro

2.  Crazy

3.  Working Is No Problem

4.  Read a Book

5.  Cool

6.  Gravity

7.  Altitude

8.  Italian Movie Theme

9.  Reptiles

10. Beep (early version)

11. Stop It

12. Volume

13. encore applause

14. M-Train (brief cut repaired at 2:33)

DISC 2 (second set)

1.  Crazy

2.  3x3

3.  Gravity

4.  Dub

5.  Cool

6.  Danger

7.  Weather Radio

8.  No Clocks

9.  Stop It

10. Beep

11. Volume

12. encore applause

13. M-Train

14. Feast on My Heart
         (brief cut repaired at 2:41)

15. encore applause

16. Driving School

17. outro

Someone at the torrent tracker had these comments about some of the tracks:

Set 1: Track 10 - Beep (from Chomp, but the lyrics seem a bit different, perhaps these were just working lyrics prior to completing the lyrics that ended up on the album)

Set 2: Track 2 - 3x3 (unreleased as far as I know, only performed live)

Set 2: Track 16 - Driving School (from Gyrate, was on original pressings, later pressings [as well as European pressings] used "Recent Title" instead)

MP3@320

DISC 1 (Hotfile link)

DISC 2 (Hotfile link)

DISC 1 (Mediafire link)

DISC 2 (Mediafire link)

Pylon:

Randall Bewley (R.I.P.) - guitar

Michael Lachowski - bass

Curtis Crowe - drums

Vanessa Briscoe – vocals

Here's Vanessa Briscoe Hay (Pylon vocalist), describing the recording of the band's second album, Chomp (produced by Chris Stamey and Gene Holder) to music writer Fred Mills in 2007:

"Working with Chris and Gene, they both had such different personalities and they really complemented each other. Chris was playing around with things, stuff we hadn't thought of, like noisegating the drums; he just thought outside the box, and he didn't look at anything like it was a problem, but more like, ‘Well, if this isn't going to work, what else can we do?'"  

The rest of Fred's great feature is HERE.

Learn more about the music of Pylon

• at AllMusic
• Vanessa Briscoe Hay's personal recollections
• these fan pages
• and/or this retrospective at Georgia Music magazine
• buy the Gyrate & Chomp re-releases with amazing remastered sound quality (and/or the awesomely groovy 2011 EP "Cover + Remix") HERE