My choice of listening matter today was determined by a
package I received in the mail yesterday containing my most recent internet purchase. It is a double CD set, the first of which I
played last night;
(# 290) The
Supersuckers – Live At The Hammersmith Apollo & Indigo2, London 2011 (err,
2011)
It is the proud boast of frontman Eddie Spaghetti that The Supersuckers
are “The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World”. If you ever seen them on a good night with
all guns blazing you wouldn’t dispute it.
This is a classic 4 piece straight ahead rock ‘n roll band (with nods to
punk, rockabilly and country) that performs songs almost exclusively about the
things true R.O.C.K bands care about – sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, drinkin’, gamblin’
and drivin’, all preferably indulged in the course of a one night stand in your
home town when you least expect it. And it
if you don’t like, they don’t care.
But this package doesn’t find them on home turf. Instead, it finds them on successive nights
in London third on the bill behind
headliners Thin Lizzy. If the band is
unhappy with this turn of events, they don’t show it; given they cover Lizzy’s
Jailbreak live, they probably regarded the gigs as a great honour. (The set is released by a label called
Concert Live which appears to have gained the rights to release a rather eclectic
selection of live performances in the UK over the last few years.)
On both discs the band gives it full throttle with little
let up in tight 45 minute sets of 11 tracks.
Both shows are constructed – like gigs by most artists these days–
around a core of tracks. These include
the kick ass triple threat of Rock & Roll Records (Ain’t Selling This
Year), Rock Your Ass and Luck, a newer track called Go!, and set closers Pretty
F**ed Up and Born With A Tail. The
remaining tracks varied each night providing other great tunes including The
Evil Powers Of Rock ‘N’ Roll, Coattail Rider, How To Maximise Your Kill Count
and Creepy Jackalope Eye. It’s all deceptively
simple in its brilliance.
Not that the crowd at The Hammersmith Apollo appear to appreciate
it given they are practically silent on the disc. The Indigo2 crowd, on the other hand, appeared
to get it and you get a sense of
their reaction improving over the gig. It
really seems to affect the band’s performance; you get a slight sense of the
band’s enthusiasm sagging during the first set and gaining strength during the
latter. But, if you want the true
Supersuckers live experience get your hands on Live At The Magic Bag Ferndale,
Michigan. I played the first few numbers
of this on a rare solo drive home tonight.
I had to switch it off after about 5 tracks because I know I’ll want to
play it in full at some point later in the year.
After I heard the last version of Born With A Tail at work,
I decided that my next album should be:
(# 291) Danzig –
Danzig (1988)
Danzig’s debut album appears to have been unfairly laboured
with associations with the dark side, seemingly based on the cover image and the
biblical inspiration accorded to some of the tracks. A parental advisory sticker on my copy says “STRONG IMPACT coarse language and/or
themes” although I do not remember hearing any swearing and didn’t find
anything in the lyrical content that would be that confronting. It only serves to obscure that this is a damn fine album
marrying early AC/DC and Metallica sensibilities (the latter’s James Hetfield
apparently contributed backing vocals to a couple of tracks) to Glen Danzig’s
rough Jim Morrisonesque vocals and Rick Rubin’s sterling production. In an album without a duff track, Not Of This
World, Possession and The Hunter stand out.
And with that, I’m now off to ignore the Thatcher funeral.
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