Today I can finally remember exactly what it
was like to find the Velvet Underground’s ‘1969 Live’ for the
first time. At the time of hearing ‘Waiting for the Man’ after Lou
Reed’s famous "you guys have a curfew or anything?" speech, I
think I recall saying something to myself along the lines of, ‘Shit! I
don’t even need the rest of my albums anymore! This is the best I’ve
ever heard!’ The same thing happened when I was given E.W.F’s ‘Pineapple
Chunks’ just this morning. I mean bloody hell! One listen and you’re
a life long fan!
The C.D is a full length album, complete with live material from giros last
march. And before any conclusions are jumped to, no, they are not a hardcore
punk band that do mainly covers…badly…oh so badly. NO! The music is
a cool blend of jazz and rock with organ solos -the type that appeal to people
that don’t even like solos- and lyrics like, "’Cause when you’re
bad / It drives me so mad / Your womanising ain’t surprising / It’s
just that it’s so / Quintessentially sad," and childlike taunts like
"Liar, liar, your bum’s on fire!" I don’t want to be insulting
by comparing vocalist Jani X’s voice to Patti Smith’s (no insult to
Patti either) it’s refreshingly original, but you can’t help but be
reminded slightly of the CBGBs-dwelling punk poetess, at least sometimes. The
live song, ‘Birds Do It’ is one of the best on the album, complete
with information about the sexual reproduction of Bumble Bees the instruction
to grab your partners by ‘any sticky-out parts.’ The first two songs,
‘Slide’ and ‘Man Is Bad’ are great too but then again the
whole album is amazing.
The album is engineered by the band themselves except the live tracks which
are done by Mac from giros. I think that the quality of these tracks, especially
the live ones, prove that all the bands that blame their awful sets on the sound
at giros are really just … well crap bands basically. The sound is excellent
and shows that bands shouldn’t be afraid to record there.
Now, I’m not one that’s particularly in favour of media control and
don’t usually take the word of all those critics who say that blahblahblah
are the next best thing since Nirvana and whoever are going to save rock and
roll (how many times has it been saved in the past year?) but I am going to
command you thus… buy this album. Listen to it. Try to fend off the urges
to find the band and beg them to play anything on their next album, even if
it’s only a woodblock. And do yourself a favour and do not buy any other
albums for a long time after this one for they will be forgotten and ignored
and - depending on the album - may remain unearthed for many a year.
Paul Doran ” 2002 www.mute-ni.com
