Rob's Pages

Friday, November 30

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














 


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
 
 

Friday, November 23

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
  

Friday, November 16

Matthew Sweet - Chicago 1993

Grant Park
Chicago, IL
July 4, 1993

FM (sound quality Ex-; transfer from 1st-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
  
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
 

Friday, November 9

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...)
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
  

Friday, November 2

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

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