2012 Midwest 'Mini Tour' Souvenir

The Hideout

Chicago, IL
November 15 or 16, 2012 

audience recording (sound quality VG-; audio rip from YouTube videos)

SUBSTANTIAL THANKS to seijinlee for recording and posting these!

FAIR WARNING: all of the music below comes from video sources, more or less as I received them. Therefore, there are several cut-ins, end cuts, and abrupt audio transitions from one song to the next.

FULL COVERAGE of THE dB'S MIDWESTERN MINI TOUR IS HERE
 

The dB's play The Hideout in Chicago, November 2012
photo by Max Herman / Time Out Chicago (see lots more of his photos HERE)

SAMPLE: "(I Thought) You Wanted to Know (Chicago 2012)"

01 Before We Were Born

02 Happenstance

03 Ask for Jill

04 World to Cry

05 Excitement

06 Love Is for Lovers

07 (I Thought) You Wanted to Know

08 I Didn't Mean to Say That

09 Big Brown Eyes

10 Neverland

11 I Don't Want the Night to End (Nick Lowe cover)

12 The Summer Sun

13 Black and White

14 Nothing Is Wrong

15 If and When

16 pH Factor

17 Money (That's What I Want)

 

Blueberry Hill St. Louis, MO November 17, 2012

Highlight: I'm with Tom L, who reviewed this show for the blog, saying, "The band was loud, proud and tight from playing the previous two nights."

SINCERE THANKS to NovelNeoNomad for recording and posting these!
  

Found Their Thrill: The dB's Played Blueberry Hill, St. Louis, MO
November 17, 2012  (Tom Lippard photo)

01 That Time Is Gone 
02 Before We Were Born

03 Happenstance

04 Lonely Is as Lonely Does

05 Ask for Jill

06 World to Cry

07 Love is for Lovers

08 (I Thought) You Wanted to Know

The dB’s:

Gene Holder – bass

Will Rigby – drums

Chris Stamey – guitar & vocals

Peter Holsapple – guitar & vocals

Brett Harris – keyboards & additional guitar
 

AWESOME RHYTHMS, COURTESY of WILL and GENE
Max Herman photo

Part 1 (MP3@320)
DB link 
MF link 

Part 2 (MP3@320) 
DB link 
MF link
  

 

The Embarrassment - Lawrence, KS 1981 + bonus

Off the Wall Hall

Lawrence, KS

June 27, 1981
 

audience recording (sound quality VG; vocals are a tad distant; I did some tweaking to balance out the sound and raise the overall volume)

REPERCUSSION: Coupla weeks ago, I posted part of a 1983 radio show and four tracks from a 1981 Embos show in Witchita. As cool as those are, I kept thinking a complete live show would be more satisfying. Fantom came up with this one and — whomp — here it is. (Go to the earlier post if you want to learn the tangential relationship between The dB’s and The Embos.)

WHOLE BUNCHA THANKS to R. Hellman for taping this one and, once again, to fantom for the share!

 
01 Can't Forget

02 Two Week Vacation

03 Chapter 12

04 Celebrity Art Party

05 Elizabeth Montgomery's Face

06 Sound of Wasps

07 Godfrey Harold Hardy

08 Don't Choose the Wrong Song

09 Wellsville

10 I'm a Don Juan

11 Jazz Face

12 Dino in the Congo

13 Sexy Singer Girl

14 Lewis and Clark

15 Nothing to Eat

16 Picture Women

17 Two Cars

18 D-Rings

19 Pretty Woman

20 Drive Me to the Park

21 Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

22 Patio Set

23 Pushin' Too Hard

 

MP3@192

The Embarrassment:

John Nichols – guitar, vocals, keyboard

Brent “Woody” Giessmann – drums, vocals, sax

Bill Goffrier – guitar, vocals

Ron Klaus – bass

Freaky double Michael Jackson reference: the name of the venue plus MJ cover, track 21

BONUS: 3 live tracks from Big Dog Soundstage, Witchita, KS 1988-12-31 
A kind and generous Embos fan sent me these, for which I am very grateful. They're from a New Year's Eve show -- that had a magician as the warm-up act (!). 

BIG THANKS to Bo for sharing... 

soundboard (Ex- sound quality) 
 
01 Wellsville 
02 Two Cars 
03 Two-Week Vacation 

MP3@320

Learn more about The Embarrassment's music at TrouserPress, AllMusic or the band's web site
 

 

Cat's Cradle, Chapel Hill, NC - Jan. 1982

The dB’s
Cat’s Cradle

Chapel Hill, NC

Jan. 6, 1982

audience recording (sound quality VG; there's fairly persistent background crowd chatter, but it doesn’t ruin the show) 

HIGHLIGHT: It's a previously unknown dB's show from the Repercussion era; so it's ALL highlight!

VERY SIZABLE THANKS to the taper and to dB’s Fan for sharing!
 

THE dB'S - IN FULL FLIGHT

SAMPLE: "Dynamite (Cat's Cradle 1982)"

SET 1:  
01 Living a Lie

02 We Were Happy There

03 Bad Reputation

04 I Feel Good (Today)

05 Storm Warning

06 (I Thought) You Wanted to Know

07 Judy

08 Excitement

09 The Fight

10 Ups and Downs

11 Happenstance

SET 2:

01 Ask for Jill (cuts in)

02 Soul Kiss

03 Dynamite

04 Molly Says

05 The Summer Sun

06 Big Time

07 Neverland

08 (applause, hooting, catcalls, etc)

09 Big Brown Eyes 

MP3@320 
Alt. Link

The dB’s:

Gene Holder – bass guitar

Peter Holsapple – guitar, vocals, keyboard

Will Rigby – drums, backing vocals

Chris Stamey – guitar, vocals
  

Matthew Sweet - Chicago 1993

Grant Park

Chicago, IL

July 4, 1993

FM (sound quality Ex-; transfer from 1^st-gen. tape)

Normal shutter speeds cannot capture Matthew's rapid right-handed riffing...

01. Dinosaur Act

02. I Wanted to Tell You

03. The Ugly Truth

04. Someone to Pull the Trigger

05. Girlfriend

06. Do it Again

07. In Too Deep

08. Day for Night

09. Evangeline

10. Reaching Out (few brief seconds dropout at the tail end)

11. Devil With the Green Eyes

12. Knowing People

13. Divine Intervention

14. Does She Talk?

15. Time Capsule

16. Crippled Inside (John Lennon cover)

17. I Want You

Matthew's just a shade cooler than the rest of us...

REPERCUSSION: I teased you guys last time around with a Steve Earle show — without Will Rigby's most excellent drumming. Here's Will banging the skins with extra pizzaz for this Matthew Sweet show from 1993. In the 1980s, Chris collaborated with Matthew in his Buzz of Delight days and they worked together as "The Jacks" on "Ask for Jill (3D)," a re-working of the old dB's song.

MOST SINCERE THANKS to the recordist*, transferist*, and uploadist*  

                                                             *not their actual titles...

MP3@320

Alt. Link

  

musicians:

Matthew Sweet - vocals, guitar

Richard Lloyd - lead guitar

Will Rigby - drums

Tony Marsico - bass

Learn more about Matthew Sweet's 
music at AllMusic and his own site
 

The Embarrassment - Witchita, KS 1983 & 1981

REPERCUSSION: Two weeks ago, I posted a dB’s show from 1984 that had a cover song called “Sex Drive” by a group I’d never heard of, The Embarrassment. Demonstrating his unerringly good taste in music, Peter Holsapple has once again pointed me in the right direction: “The Embos” (as their fans know them) are quite a find — a talented combo from Kansas that had their heyday in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They call their music “blister pop”. Check out the music they’ve released over the years; it’s all worth seeking out, methinks…

BIG THANKS to “The Embos” for sharing some of their rare live music freely on the web & special thanks to John McBride for mixing and mastering the KMUW tracks in Nashvegas.
 

Members of The Embarrassment, many moons ago

They were prob’ly dreaming up more great blister pop...

 
SAMPLE: "Woods of Love (Witchita, KS 1983)"

KMUW-FM Radio

Witchita, KS

1983 (month & day unknown) 

soundboard (sound quality Ex-)

01 Godfrey Harold Hardy

02 Wellsville

03 Woods of Love

04 Death Travels West

05 Can't Forget

06 The Viewmaster

07 Jazzface

08 She's One of the Other Kind

The Flatiron

Witchita, KS

April 25, 1981

VHS audio rip (sound quality VG-)

09 Celebrity Art Party

10 D-Rings

11 Dino In the Congo

12 Funtime

BONUS TRACK

Liberty Hall

Lawrence, KS

August 20, 2006

soundboard (sound quality Ex-)

13 Careen
 

Snag this if you want cover art (it's not in the download...)

MP3@320

Alt. Link

From one of the band's last gigs at the Cedars

 

The Embarrassment:

John Nichols – guitar, vocals, keyboard

Brent “Woody” Giessmann – drums, vocals, sax

Bill Goffrier – guitar, vocals

Ron Klaus - bass

Learn more about The Embarrassment's music at TrouserPress, AllMusic or the band's web site
  

Bordeaux, France + 'Paris Ave.' outtakes - 1988

The dB's
unidentified TV studio

Bordeaux, France

Jan. 25, 1988

TV-VHS audio rip (sound quality VG+)

BIG THANKS to dB’s Fan for sharing!
    

SAMPLE: "Spitting In the Wind (Bordeaux 1988)"

01 Think Too Hard

02 Amplifier

03 Big Brown Eyes

04 Not Cool

05 band intros + She Got Soul

06 Spitting In the Wind

07 Bonneville

08 A Spy In the House of Love

09 New Gun In Town

10 announcer + Neverland

11 This Is Where I Belong

12 Money (That's What I Want) [end cut + faded]

The dB's

'Paris Avenue' outtakes 
Brooklyn, NY May 1988 (demo session)

and

New Orleans, LA July-Sept, 1988 (demo session)

soundboard (sound quality VG++)

Rob, did you say 'Paris Avenue OUTTAKES'?? OK, so Paris Avenue is not most folks' favorite dB's album, myself included. Trust me, though, these outtakes make for a really interesting collection. Admittedly, a few of these tunes are in the "not quite finished" category, but you've also got some fascinating experiments, such as "Explaining to a Child About Sex" and — my favorite of the bunch — the white funk workout "Love Is Letting Go of Fear" (take that, Sly Stone!). Add the earliest known demo for "Taken" and Will's lead vocal on "Second Time Around," and it all makes for a worthwhile listen. Whether you agree or disagree, please leave a comment so I'll know how you see/hear it... 
  

artwork included in download

SAMPLE: "The Second Time Around (demo 1988)"

01 Explaining to a Child About Sex [1] 
02 Money to Burn

03 The Second Time Around [WR vocal]

04 Metal Detector

05 Taken

06 Explaining to a Child About Sex [2]

07 Love Is Letting Go of Fear

MP3@320

Alt. Link

The dB's:

Will Rigby - drums, backing vocals (& lead vocals on #3 above)

Peter Holsapple - guitar, keyboard, vocals

Jeff Beninato - bass & backing vocals

Eric Peterson – guitar