SECRET SAUCES RADIO #013: LIVE

It's a live special for the thirteenth Secret Sauces Radio show, a nice head-gig with 15 bands on the bill on a revolving stage like they had at Live Aid (that also time travels)... or a selection of live tracks from various records with edits covered up by crowd noise from a rip of a Neil Young live DVD.

Here are some notes on the show, which can be listened to on Mixcloud here...

1) THE CLASH - Complete Control

Live at Bonds International Casino, New York City, NY, 13/06/1981

For my money, the greatest live performance of all time. Taken from the 1999 live compilation album 'From Here To Eternity', this track was recorded during the Clash's legendary residency at Bonds just off Times Square. I've said for years that if time travel was a possibility, I'd immediately go and see The Clash at Bonds. Criminally, the full shows have never still never been released, nor has Sony pony-ed up the money to restore all the Don Letts footage from the time. A film, 'Clash On Broadway' was shot and in post-production, but various shenanigans prevented it receiving a full release. From the 20-odd minute rough cut found on the Westway To The World and Sound System DVDs, you know it would easily be the best music film of all time.

Check out the YouTube channel 'The Clash: Live At Bonds' here, which has uploaded all of Marky Dread's remasters of the Bonds shows for us all to enjoy. Thank you Marky.

2) THE JAM - The Dreams Of Children

Live at Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Germany, 30/11/1980

Many live recordings of The Jam have been released in box sets over the years - some iconic shows in great fidelity, such as the Newcastle City Hall 1980 show. This German show, recorded for Rockpalast, does not have legendary status, with the band playing on rented gear (from memory, I could be wrong - but there is video of this gig and Paul Weller is not playing his signature Rickenbackers). I simply included this because I love the shouty Weller bit where he goes 'I GOT A PASSION for the...'. The video and audio of this were included in the deluxe DVD/CD edition (but not the Blu-ray, annoyingly) of the 'About The Young Idea' documentary back in 2015.

3) PRETENDERS - Middle Of The Road

Live at The Reunion Arena, Dallas, TX, 11/02/1987

This live recording was originally issued on a limited-edition double 7" version of 'My Baby' in 1987. It was then reissued on disc 2 of the 2015 2CD/DVD Edsel reissue of Pretenders' 'Get Close' LP (though technically they were 'The Pretenders' for that album, and the album before where this song is originally from). As far as I am aware, the full gig has never been given a full release.

4) XTC - Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go!)

Live at The Macaroni Club, Sydney, Australia, 20/07/1979

This live recording was released on the 2002 box set 'Coat Of Many Cupboards', along with the 'Atom Medley' of 'Into The Atom Age', 'Hang On To The Night' and 'Neon Shuffle' from the same show. Back in the day, a handful of other tracks from this show were released as b-sides to 'Making Plans For Nigel' ('Are You Receiving Me?', 'This Is Pop') and 'Love At First Sight' ('Beatown' and 'Roads Girdle The Globe'). Unfortunately the full gig has never been officially released - only the 1998 BBC box set gives a good taste of live XTC with near-complete BBC-recorded shows in 1979 and 1980. While XTC stopped playing live in 1982, they toured a fuck-ton in the early days and there are full shows in the vaults that are dying to be released - they were a great live band as heard on the handful of recordings that have come out.

5) GUIDED BY VOICES - Exit Flagger

Live at Bela Joe-Krompecher's 26th Birthday Party, Stache's, Columbus, OH, 18/06/1994

This typically drunken GBV performance is from the 'official bootleg' 'Crying Your Knife Away' which was recorded at Bela's birthday party. It's probably not the best demonstration of GBV's live prowess, but I love the intro of Bob demanding to know where the fuck Mike Hummel is.

6) HELMET - Sinatra

Live at The Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA, 30/07/1994

This live recording of the song originally from their debut LP 'Strap It On' can be found on 1994 'Wilma's Rainbow EP' (and possibly a special edition of the 'Betty' album - I can't be arsed to check that), along with four other tracks from the show. The full show has not been released officially, which is a shame.

7) TAD - Behemoth

Live at The Crocodile Café, Seattle, WA, 1995

In 2018, MVD Audio released 'Quick And Dirty' on vinyl only, which included the previously unreleased final studio recordings of TAD, along with five tracks recorded at the Crocodile Café in Seattle 1995 - no specific date was given.

8) 50 FOOT WAVE - Pneuma

Live at The Middle East, Cambridge, MA, 14/03/2009

From the digital-only release 'Live At The Middle East'. 50 Foot Wave were playing support to Kristin Hersh and Bernard Georges' other band Throwing Muses that night, and their set was also recorded and digitally-released. What a night that would have been.

Damon Albarn is so sweaty he can't play properly anymore

I snipped this from a bootleg from the 1999 b-sides show that Blur played at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. A few tracks from it were released on a fan-club CD but the full show has never come out. The air-con in the venue was broken and it was far too hot in the venue, hence Damon saying how sweaty he was, in quite a weird fashion. Someone has uploaded the full audio on YouTube here, so you can turn your central heating on and re-create the gig from the comfort of your own home!

9) BLUR - Never Clever

Live at Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, 28/06/1992

Blur in 1992 were at a funny stage - they hadn't particularly sustained the early success of the debut album 'Leisure' and its hit 'There's No Other Way', and were regularly turning in sloppy drunken performances - the Gimme Shelter show at the T&C five days earlier nearly got them dropped from Food Records, opening with Damon going "we're so shit, you should fuck off now". The new favourites of the British weeklies were Suede, who played that night and blew everyone away (there is a complicated relationship between Blur and Suede involving a love triangle). Blur had yet to 'invent Britpop' with the then-overlooked 'Popscene' single later that year and quickly become the biggest band in the country.

At Glastonbury 1992, the band were fucking hammered as usual for that point, and the hilarious performance of 'Day Upon Day' was featured in the classic 'Starshaped' documentary, where a pissed-up Damon launches himself into the PA stack which then falls on to his ankle (ouch) - this very moment is immortalised on the cover of Issue One of Secret Sauces (along with a Clash at Bonds moment too - buy it here!). You can watch a full audience recording (with nifty editing of pro-shot footage alongside the crowd-cam) of the set here, with bizarre stage banter, a bizarre hat, and dangerous drunken climbing of the stage rigging. It's great viewing.

Anyway, this forgettable song 'Never Clever' was actually pegged as the band's next single at this point. It was quickly shelved when they realised they had much better songs knocking about. A lifeless studio demo version was later released on the 'Food 100' compilation in 1997, then on the Blur 21 box set in 2012. But the first, and best, release of this song was this live recording which was tucked on the second CD single of Chemical World in 1992.

10) SUGAR - Hoover Dam

Live at The Cabaret Metro, Chicago, IL 22/07/1992

Many tracks from this live set were dished out as b-sides back in the early '90s, but the full show did not see a release until the 2012 Edsel 2CD/DVD reissue of 'Copper Blue'. In 2017, Edsel reissued 'Copper Blue' as a 3LP set with this live show included. For some reason, this show was not included in the recent-ish 'Bob Mould: Distortion' box sets, though the 1994 live Sugar set entitled 'The Joke Is Always On Us, Sometimes' was.

11) THE STOOGES - Search And Destroy

Live at Richards, Atlanta, GA, October 1973

No specific date on this one, but this is from the legendary 'Georgia Peaches' show, which was officially released as part of the 'Raw Power' Legacy Edition back in 2010, with the original Bowie mix of 'Raw Power' on the first disc. You can't beat live Stooges + piano.

12) DAVID BOWIE - Panic In Detroit

Live at the Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY, 23/03/1976

A popular bootleg, tracks from this Nassau show were first officially released in 1991 as bonus tracks on the Rykodisc edition of 'Station To Station'. In 2010, the show received a full release for the first time as part of a STS box set. In 2016, the live album received a wider release in and outside of the 'Who Can I Be Now?' box set. If you are familiar with live Bowie bootlegs from the 1976 Isolar tour, you will know that this album dramatically edits down the Dennis Davis (RIP) drum solo played nightly during this song, supposedly so Bowie could pop off stage and hoover up some coke. Here is the unedited version with the never-ending drum solo from this show.

13) SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES - Night Shift

Live at the Royal Albert Hall, London, 30/09/1983

This recording is taken from the fantastic 1984 live set 'Nocturne', recorded while Robert Smith of The Cure was in the band. I don't have a solid date on this, as the album was culled from two shows from 30th September and 1st October 1983, but I am guessing (with no good reason to) that it is from the first show. There was also a video released, and you can watch the whole of it here, or just 'Night Shift' here.

14) THE THE - Another Boy Drowning

Live at the Royal Albert Hall, London, July 1990

The culmination of the very first world tour by The The was three shows at the Royal Albert Hall in 1990, which was beautifully shot on 35mm film by Tim Pope and released on VHS and Laserdisc (no DVD or Blu-ray still, thanks to Sony being bastards). Instead of a live album being released, the majority of tracks were dished out as b-sides to singles between 1990 and 1994. With a rhythm section of David Palmer and James Eller, Johnny Marr on Guitarr and D.C. Collard on keys, this lineup of The The focuses mainly on the Mind Bomb, Infected and Soul Mining records, though this song is from 'Burning Blue Soul', the 1981 LP released on 4AD under Matt Johnson (it was later re-titled to The The upon its re-issue in 1993). This recording can be found on the 1991 Shades Of Blue EP (check your CD copies for PDO disc rot) and also the 1994 US compilation 'Solitude'.

While I prefer the original Burning Blue Soul version, it is always nice to hear tracks from that album being played live as it is very near and dear to my heart. I feel very privileged to have heard a few over the years - 'Bugle Boy' and 'Like A Sun Risin' Thru My Garden' once at Brixton in 2019, and Icing Up a couple of times in 2024 (I hope they play it in Southend next week too).

Woodstock stage announcements

Chip Monck wants you to get off those towers.

15) YOU AM I - How Much Is Enough?

Live at ABC Studio 227, Sydney, Australia, 10/04/1995

This nine-song set recorded Live At The Wireless for Triple J can be found on the 2013 'Superunreal' 2CD edition of You Am I's classic second album 'Hi Fi Way'. YAI have just finished a 30th anniversary tour of the album in Australia. I wish I could have been there.

SECRET SAUCES RADIO OUTRO IDENT

Thanks for listening and reading. New 60 minute music mixes are uploaded to Mixcloud every Tuesday and I will post accompanying notes, with pointless trivia and endless links for you to enjoy.

See you next Tuesday!