The Specials: Live at the Paramount (1981)

Most Specials bootlegs document the band circa their debut album, so this decent-sounding 1981 show is (uh-hum) ...special, as it gives the mellower songs from their sophomore album, More Specials some live bite.

Tell us what you think of the Specials sophomore album in the comments.

Speaking of the comments section, that's where you'll find the link for Live at the Paramount.

This bootleg is a gift from Silvarude who has a fine YouTube channel and, most spectacularly, runs a great site exclusively dedicated to Specials bootlegs - so go there for Much More Specials!

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V.A. Dance Craze (The Best of British Ska)

(L.P. scan from 2Tone.info)

For the top ten scenes from the movie, Dance Craze, come visit THE BIG TAKEOVER!

Whatever form of vanity keeps Dance Craze, this seminal document that so effectively lays out the case for the genius of the residents of the House of 2-Tone, out-of-print on CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and VMC* is an abomination. With Bad Manners, The Bodysnatchers, English Beat, Madness, The Selecter and The Specials the film-makers effectively covered all the key players of the 2-Tone era, even ones who only briefly dallied with the label.

(*Vulcan Mind Chip)

(Image from Madsounds)

This is the 15 track L.P. version that spread the steady, steady sounds of ska (click on image for track listing).

MRML's gone on a bit of a Ska Craze of late, so go hear more of The English Beat here, The Specials here, The Selecter here, Madness here and...

And there may be more to come - but that depends on your COMMENTS, readers!

Speaking of which the Dance Craze (L.P. rip) link is in the comments.


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Madness: Live at Rockpalast (1981)

Madness carried the ska. While much of the 2-Tone roster quickly changed their sounds (before imploding) Madness took their ska-music-hall sound to the top of the charts (even in North America!), relinquishing the ska more gradually. While Madness never had a throat-grabbing punk-fueled album like The Specials or The English Beat that deep songbook of theirs, loaded with hummable hooks, clever instrumental interplay and sharp-eyed lyrics, gives them special placing in the 2-Tone hierarchy.

So, where do you rank Madness amidst the all the other ska-maniacs of the the 2-Tone era? Please leave us a comment!

Speaking of which, Live at Rockpalast link is in the comments

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V.A. Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan Volume Twenty-One

This thirty-TWO volume series features artists covering Bob Dylan songs. All of the tracks are recordings of independent origin (ROIO) and hence officially unreleased.

Well the "guitar volume" seems to promise a sequel to the "jam-rock volume" but this one is not without it's interesting inclusions, like The Band doing "Don't Ya Tell Henry" from 1969, Richard Hell (and Robert Quine) doing "Going, Going, Gone" as well as blazing Jimi Hendrix version of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?". Of course there's the usual quota of stuff I usually make fun of as well as the first and last appearance of Guns N' Roses here (unless Chuck Klosterman himself Twitters about this post!)

01 Rainy Day Women (instrumental) - Phil Lesh and Friends with Warren Haynes and Jimmy Herring (Apr 20, 2001, Independence Hall Cricket Arena, Charlotte, NC)
02 Highway 61 Revisited - Johnny Winter (Jul 27, 1980, Blues 'N' Tattoo, New York, NY)
03 Quinn the Eskimo - Manfred Mann's Earth Band (1970, Paris Theatre, London, England)
04 Going Going Gone - Richard Hell with Robert Quine (Jul 14, 1982, Old Waldorf, San Francisco, CA)
05 Don't Ya Tell Henry - The Band (Aug 17, 1969, Woodstock, Bethel, NY)
06 Queen Jane Approximately - Grateful Dead(Oct 8, 1989, Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA)
07 Watching the River Flow - Joe Cocker and Eric Clapton (NOV 28, 1983, ARMS Benefit, Reunion Arena, Dallas, TX)
08 Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues - Bill Kirchen (Aug 7, 2005, Rancho Nicasio Nicasio, CA)
09 Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? - Jimi Hendrix (May 5, 1968, Fillmore East, New York, NY)
10 Isis - Derek Trucks Band (Dec 31, 2003, Visulite Theater, Charlotte, NC)
11 This Wheel's On Fire - The Black Crowes (May 13th, 2006, Labatt Centre, London, ON)
12 One More Cup of Coffee - Chris Duarte (Feb 3,2007, Mexicali Blues, Teaneck, NJ)
13 Knockin' on Heaven's Door - Guns N' Roses (Dec 19, 1987, Madison, WI)
14 All Along the Watchtower - Night of the Guitars with Randy California, Robby Krieger, and Phil Manzanera (Apr 30, 1989, Stadthalle, Heidelberg, Germany)



Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan Volume Twenty-One link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, if you'd like the series to continue please don't forget to leave some words about these volumes.

Thanks to Jeffs98119 for compiling these and to stewART for the images.

• For V.'s 1-20 of Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan go here
  

• For slugline's impressive spreadsheet of the whole series go here

The Selecter: BBC Sessions

The Selecter (more here) do rank lower on 2-Tone pantheon for me just because "Too Much Pressure" is so face-meltingly good that it sometimes overshadows a lot of their other material (but I imagine I'm in the minority on this one).

And here's one argument against my thesis:

BBC Sessions link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, where do you think The Selecter fit in the 2-Tone hierarchy?


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The Specials/The Selecter: BBC LIve

More Specials (see here), indeed!

Now with added Selecter!

BBC Live link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, what's your take on The Selecter?


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The Specials: Maggie's Farm (Lyceum Deluxe)

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sure inspired some unforgettable protest anthems. From The English Beat's "Stand Down, Margaret", To Elvis Costello's "Shipbuilding" to The Exploited's "Let's Start a War" every musician in England seemed united against the Iron Lady's Conservative government. The Specials (more here) responded to this avalanche of agitprop, by trying to update one of Bob Dylan's more abstract "protest" songs, "Maggie's Farm.

It used to go like that, then, for a few minutes, it went like this:

So, this early aughts CD bootleg of the Live at the Lyceum L.P. from 1979 tacks on nine more live and rare tracks, including a version of "Maggie's Farm".

Live at the Lyceum (Deluxe CD) link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, what do you make of The Specials doin' Dylan?


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The Specials: Live at The Lyceum

A radio-only promo L.P. of a non-stop Specials (more here) show from 1979. As a live band it's almost impossible to believe how much of a whirlwind The Specials were. Watch their relentless energy and tight-ass playing when they visited Saturday Night Live and shake your head at the rampant cultural idiocy of late seventies North America.

As a bonus, perhaps only for this listener, is that you get to hear the rip-snortin' "Do the Dog" with those toasts ("Do The daaawg, not the DON-KEY!") as background vocals and rather than as the loudest part of the song, as they are on the studio version. Plus you get another fabulous take on the band's nod-to-their-roots, "Skinhead Symphony".

(Thanks to the amazing 2-Tone.info for the images + info .)


Live at The Lyceum link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, what's your favourite Specials tune?


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The Specials: BBC Sessions

Who were the most important band of the 2-Tone ska revival era?

The English Beat mixed in the American R & B, Madness added that carnival sound, The Selecter (and the short-lived Bodysnatchers) brought some female representation and Bad Manners injected a shot of that inimitable British Silliness but The Specials led the way. It was the roster of their label (2-Tone launched the careers of ALL of the above), their Rude Boy image and their refusal to stand still musically that defined that hugely-influential period.

Of course, there doesn't have to be a Most Important band of this or any other era. It's possible to simply stand in awe of just how concentrated the creativity of the super-brief flash that we now call the Two-Tone Era really was. To help remind you of the brilliance of the era in general and The Specials in particular let us consider the long out-of-print BBC Sessions CD.



BBC Sessions link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, tell us who your fave 2-Tone band is!


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Redd Kross: 2,500 Redd Kross Fans Can't Be Wrong

(Image courtesy of Record Collectors of the World Unite)

COMMENTER THANK YOU'S (#5 in an intermittent series).

(As MRML's thanks to the great commenters, those who add to the
conversation here, I'll be trying to fulfill some of their requests.
This one is for Nazz at Bleeedin Out, ViaCom... at Down Underground
and Chris at Scruffy the Yak

A 1994 collection of Redd Kross (more here) studio rarities put out by Sympathy for the Record Industry as a limited edition (2,500 copies, natch') 10" record.

A1 Any Hour, Every Day
A2 Switchblade Sister
A3 What's Wrong With Me

B1 Trance
B2 Byrds And Fleas
B3 Huge Wonder

2,500 Redd Kross Fans Can't Be Wrong link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, talk to us about Redd Kross!

UPDATE: MORE KROSS EPHEMERA OVER AT BLEEDIN' OUT!

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Redd Kross: Black Shapmpoo (Shows World Demos)

COMMENTER THANK YOU'S (#4 in an intermittent series).

(As MRML's thanks to the great commenters, those who add to the
conversation here, I'll be trying to fulfill some of their requests.
This one is for CallPastorJerkface (and Don)

I once wrote an arguably decent post on Redd Kross and their late career-resurgence known as Show World. You can still read the post and download the out-of-print album here but for today, let's listen to Black Shampoo, the demos for Show World.

1. Redd Kross - Vanity Mirror (02:59)
2. Redd Kross - What Went so Wrong? (03:02)
3. Redd Kross - Popular Cult (03:29)
4. Redd Kross - Number One (02:29)
5. Redd Kross - Get Out of Myself (03:39)
6. Redd Kross - Out of my Tree (02:28)
7. Redd Kross - jam (00:06)
8. Redd Kross - Secret Life (03:49)
9. Redd Kross - It's in the Sky (03:15)
10. Redd Kross - Stoned (03:53)
11. Redd Kross - So Cal V8 (02:37)
12. Redd Kross - Sick Love (03:19)
13. Redd Kross - insrtumental (03:20)
14. Redd Kross - Vasoline (02:36)
15. Redd Kross - instrumental (03:45)
16. Redd Kross - Get out of Myself (04:02)
17. Redd Kross - Misery is Mother (02:13)
18. Redd Kross - One Chord Progression (02:57)
19. Redd Kross - Girl God (03:35)
20. Redd Kross - Ugly Town
21. Redd Kross - Teen Competition

Black Shampoo link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, is Show World one of the best things Redd Kross ever did?


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Motörhead: Keep Us On the Road (Live '77)

COMMENTER THANK YOU'S (#3 in an intermittent series).

(As MRML's thanks to the great commenters, those who add to the
conversation here, I'll be trying to fulfill some of their requests.
This one is for Biopunk, just 'cuz.

Yeah, generally speaking, I despise heavy metal and each and every one of the ten million meaningless micro-genres it has spawned. I could try to defend this loathing (I have before and will again) but slandering a long-lasting, wide-spread genre of music is hopelessly immature and utterly pointless. Really, if the music survives, it's because it fills some sort of need and my deep-seated belief that heaviness is the dullest possible metric of good music won't affect Joe Metal, nor should it. Really, if you break down any of my (or your own) genre hatreds, they're likely just a jumble of petty prejudices and personal preferences dressed up as objective criticism. So, rather than having me regurgitate why I believe that the early Motörhead weren't really a heavy metal band, let's simply admit that, all genre-babble aside, Lemmy kicks ass.

This out-of-print (and going for upwards of $350.00 on Amazon) collection combines the 1989 release, Blitzkrieg On Birmingham '77' with 1990's Lock Up Your Daughters' into one ferocious package. This is Motörhead in a crucial early phase when they were just a three-piece consisting of Philthy Phil Taylor on drum, Fast Eddie Clarke on guitar and the fearsome, guttural bass and vocals of Lemmy Kilmister.

Keep Us On the Road link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, what's your pet peeve genre?

(Click on the image above for the full set lists)


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Doug and the Slugs: Tales From Terminal City

COMMENTER THANK YOU'S (#2 in an intermittent series).

(As MRML's thanks to the great commenters, those who add to the
conversation here, I'll be trying to fulfill some of their requests.
This one is for West Coast Doug (whose last name is not Bennett)

(Poster from D & S' Facebook page - click to enjoy!)

This is Doug & The Slugs final release, which seeks to re-capture the wordier, rawer nature of their earliest work but in 1992 there wasn't much call for good-time, smart-alecky pop songs, least of all in the in the Pacific Northwest.

Believe it or not MRML has posted EVERY (out-of-print) Doug & The Slugs albums and you can find them here!

Tales From Terminal City link is in the comments fixed link added, just scroll down a bit!


Speaking of comments, don't forget to leave one in support of the departed Mr. Bennett and his Gastropod Mollusks.

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Joan Jett: Cherry Bomb (Fan Club)

COMMENTER THANK YOU'S (#1 in an intermittent series).

(As MRML's thanks to the great commenters, those who add to the
conversation here, I'll be trying to fulfill some of their requests.
This one is for Midnight Rambler who runs the ever-amazing blog, Sons of the Dolls.

Here's a run-down of the rarities on this Fan Club only release from 1995. More Jett on MRML can be found here.

Cherry Bomb [Dance Mix]
Originally released as a special promotional only red vinyl 12 inch. This marks its first official release. The original version can be found on the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts album, GLORIOUS RESULTS OF A MISSPENT YOUTH.

A Little Bit Of Heaven
Recorded during the sessions for the GLORIOUS RESULTS OF A MISSPENT YOUTH album. This previously unreleased Jett/Byrd composition was produced by Kris Kimsey of Rolling Stones fame.

Who Can You Trust?
Previously unreleased 1985 composition, recorded for the movie "Gotcha" but not used.

Let It Bleed
Classic Rolling Stones song, recorded during THE HIT LIST sessions. Appeared as the B-side of "Dirty Deeds" single and as a bonus track on the Japanese version of THE HIT LIST. This is its first US release on compact disc.

Long Live The Night
Appeared on the soundtrack for the 1990 Tom Cruise movie "Days Of Thunder."

Right Til The End
Written with Jules Shear of Jules and the Polarbears fame, this 1987 track appeared only on the cassette version of the 1993 Joan Jett and the Blackhearts rarities release FLASHBACK and on the Japanese CD version of FLASHBACK. This is its first US release on compact disc.

- Danny Solazzi (via Bad Reputation Nation)

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Captain Sensible's King (1979)

Hey Damned fans, that White Cats got 117 D/L's and THREE comments. Why for you bury a perfectly good post in the cold, cold ground?

While Rat Scabies was content to hang around with The White Cats (available here) the good Captain aimed to be King. The tracks here (including "Second Time Around" later to be re-configured as the title track of The Damned's comeback album Machine Gun Ettiquette) foreshadow the more mid-to-late sixties direction the band would be heading in just a few years time.

King Peel Session link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, what do you make of Captain Sensible's first solo trip?

These Peel Sessions have been donated to MRML by estimable Crimewave, give him thanks and check out his band's webpage.

Rat Scabies' White Cats (1979)

In the brief period The Damned were broken-up (late 77 to mid '78) punk's greatest beat-keeper, Rat Scabies formed the psych-pop-punk band The White Cats. While they never released anything they did record two great Peel sessions, which we present for your listening pleasure.

White Cats Peel Sessions link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, what do you make of Rat's ever-so-brief "solo career"?

These Peel Sessions have been donated to MRML by estimable Crimewave, give him thanks and check out his band's webpage.

V.A. Soviet Punk Anthology 1981-1990

(More excellent Soviet punk photos here)

"I am a sick man... I am an angry man. I am an unattractive man."
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground

So if these Metrojets compilations we've been posting lately sound too well-fed, too cushy or just too damn bourgeois then check out these thirty-six crude and gnarled blasts from the tail end of the Soviet era in Russia. (Some musical history here and here)

(More excellent Soviet punk photos here)

The Pravda line on on punk went like this; "The music and lyrics of punk rock provoke among the young fits of aimless rage, vandalism, and the urge to destroy everything they get their hands on. No matter how carefully they try to clean it up, it will remain the most reactionary offspring of the bourgeoisie mass culture." That meant that punks weren't just getting marginalized in the Soviet Union but were getting threatened, harassed and even institutionalized. (A story I once read on these broad Internets had it thusly, "In in the former USSR, records were commonly homemade using discarded medical x-rays. These records, nicknamed "Bones", were usually inscribed with illegal copies of popular music banned by the government. They also became a popular means of distribution among Soviet punk bands; in addition to the high cost and low availability of vinyl, punk music was politically suppressed, and publishing outlets were limited".)


As a result of this oppression, J.M.K.E. were one of the few of these bands whose name made it beyond the Iron Curtain.

Of course. if you read Maximumrocknroll in the late eighties. you've also heard of Naive, who the magazine heavily supported.

The fact that such a collection, sick, angry and unattractive as it often sounds, can exist at all in the light of the brutality of the Soviet regime is a testament to both the strength of the ideals of punk and to the indomitably of the human spirit.

00.Narodnoe Opolchenie - Soviet Hymne
01.Propeller - Punker
02.Futbol - Poswjaschtehie Portweijnu No 33
03.Kolpi Otell - Veteran
04.Aquarium - Pepel
05.Generator M - Diversant
06.Zoopark - Prigorodnjui Blues
07.DK - Towarischt Wer
08.Osakond - Monitus
09.Kino - Anarchia
10.12 Podvigov Nurkena - Strannui Pjanui Maltschik
11.Anonueuemne AK - Mis Vahid
12.Antis - Kada Kada
13.Retsepti - Mashin Imedi Kvreba
14.Avtomaticheskie Udovletvoriteli - Leto
15.Vennaskond - Paeike Koergel Pilvepiiril
16.Brigadnyi Podrjad - Dengi
17.J.M.K.E. - Tere Perestroika
18.Igry - Ja-Nikto
19.Graschdanskaja Oborona - Vtoroi Äschtelon
20.Nac Dilonit Apsedies - Ringolds
21.Chudo-Judo - Quasimodo
22.Objekt Nasmeshek - Bljacha-mucha
23.Anna Vanna Kapec
24.Janka - Po Tramvajinuim Relsam
25.Jugo-Zapad - Po Pazbitjim Butjilkam
26.Vopli Vidopljasova - Ugaga
27.Naive - Tanki-Panki

(Plus nine more!)

Soviet Punk Anthology 1981-1990 link is in the comments

Speaking of which what's your take on all this Soviet punk stuff?

V.A. Metrojets Volume Two (1979-1981)

Here's some vintage late seventies, early eighties mod-punk-power-pop-new-wave wussiness from the two-volume bootleg series. Metrojets (Red Rubber Ball RRB CD 002, Spain, 2001?).

Artist here include: (right click on the image below for a complete list): T-BOYS, JO ALLEN & THE SHAPES, THE FURYS, THE SHADES, THE REALISTS, SWEET TOMMY BAND, THE MONOS!, TENNIS SHOES, RICK TUBBAX & THE TAXIS, URGENT CRUNCH BAND, NEW TOYS.

Metrojets Volume Two link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, is this collection too wussy or just wussy enough?