The Mars Volta - Live at The Electric Ballroom

I remember being pretty excited when I found this record. I was in London for a night before going to the airport. In a lot of ways, it was a bad time to go record shopping - I was going away for nearly two weeks, going to Heidelburg, Vienna and Lancaster before going back to my parents' house for just three nights before going back to Australia for another six months. Not only did I have to lug this, a couple of other records I bought in London (and the ones I bought on my travels) on a number of flights and trains, I also had only three days to enjoy it (I frantically recorded all the records I bought that fortnight onto tape before going back to Canberra, but somehow missed off a whole side of the Murder City Devils live LP, something I was annoyed to find out when I tried to play it in Oz). After buying this, I stayed at my friend Jo's house and we watched the Johnny Depp version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and had an early night ahead of my flight; there's a detail no one cares about.

Anyway, I was really into The Mars Volta at the time. I'd enjoyed Deloused in the Comatorium but really got into them on Frances the Mute (an album I'd still argue is their finest). During my first six months in Australia, they released Scab Dates which contained some incredible live recordings along with some frustratingly long field recordings of bollocks. This record - a straight-forward live recording from the sound-desk at a London show in 2003 - was then right up my street. The tracklisting is basically all of Deloused (in order) along with Concertina from the Tremulant EP (which I bought about six months later, just before I left Australia for good). On top of that, the sleeve stated that it was for promotional use only (but probably actually a bootleg) as well as singing the praise of being a purely analog recording, something I was pleased to see other people consider important, having had frequent and irritating conversations with my friend Tom about whether digital could be better than analog - see the last picture for the full text. I also bought the 12" single of Frances the Mute that day.

The quality of this recording is perfectly fine - you couldn't call it outstanding, but it does the job. What is perfect is the band, who are on incredible form. The thing that amazes me is that I saw them just two months after this recorded and they were terrible. I remember being really excited to see them at Reading Festival and they played what felt like two songs over a 45-minute set - two elongated jam-fests (which I might enjoy now to be honest, but wasn't in the mood for at the time). I can't have been the only person in the audience who was hoping to hear Inertiatic ESP. In hindsight, we were probably being treated to some early versions of songs from Frances the Mute, but we weren't to know. I saw them a handful of other times over the years and had far better experiences after that - their set at Southside Festival in 2009 was particularly brilliant. The version of Cicatriz ESP is far more enjoyable than the version on Scab Dates because you don't have to fast-forward ten-minutes of bollocks to get the huge climax. The recording of Televators is pretty breath-taking too - Cedric's voice on top form - and Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt is a superb closer. I think for a long time they'd take the stage and introduce themselves as a different band - on this particular show they came on stage with the line "Hello, we're Mudvayne", a nu-metal band that I'm sure most people have long forgotten. It's a strange blast from the past whenever I play this album.

Despite being a bootleg/promo/"unofficial release", copies of this album seem to be about two or three times more than I paid for it, which is always nice (although peanuts compared to how much the reissue of Deloused is now going for - and to think I complained about my copy costing £27, an annoyingly common price for an LP these days). A nice bonus was that the two records are on coloured vinyl - transparent yellow and blue. Whilst not strictly an official release, I'm very glad this is sat in my collection and that I decided to lug it around Europe rather than leave it in Selectadisc that rainy January day. I miss The Mars Volta, so it's nice to have a live recording of some of their best songs.

Format: Double 12", plain sleeve, insert, promo-only
Tracks: 9
Cost: £20 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 13/01/06
Colour: Transparent yellow and transparent blue
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Desert Sessions - Vol V. Poetry for the Masses (Sea Shed Shithead by the Sea Sore) / Vol VI. Poetry for the Masses (Black Anvil Ego)

I started writing about this record last year when I wrote about Volumes 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 but completely forgot to finish it off. Volumes 5 & 6 are a strange bag of things, Vol 5 features a huge opener in the form of You Think I Ain't Worth..., full-on punk-rock on both I'm Dead and an early version of Punk Rock Caveman which found greater fame as a Queens song. But the problem with Vol 5 is that they ruin it with Letters To Mommy, a terrible joke song that doesn't even stand up to being a hidden track on the end of an album. Not only is it shit, it goes on far too long too. I get that they were probably high when they thought it'd be worth including but it just ruins the flow entirely. Goin' To a Hangin' is nothing to get excited about either.

Vol 6 similarly has its highs and lows; A#1 is just a classic stoner tune and Like a Drug might be my favourite across the whole series. It's smooth and unlike anything else - if all the experimental songs sounded like that I would be very happy. Rickshaw is quite fun too. But then there are songs like Take Me To Your Leader, which the series would be better without.

One of my complaints about this series of, admittedly slightly shitty, bootlegs/reissues is that the sleeves are paper thin. I've never seen an LP on such flimsy cardboard. However, my copy of Vol 5 & 6 has a further annoyance in the form of a large defect in the vinyl at the start of I'm Dead - it looks like a bit of something got caught in the pressing and has left a dent in a few grooves (see the picture below). It's a shame it had to be there, and not a few millimetres further out and ruined Letters To Mummy instead

If I had to sum up the six volumes of the Desert Sessions that I'm familiar with, I'd say that there is a lot of shit that could be culled easily but you'd then be left with one (long) album of incredible songs; the good songs are so good its a shame that they're surrounded by some really bad ones. The problem is, of course, that on vinyl it's not so easy to skip the bad songs (especially when you're already changing the record so often) so I basically don't listen to these records very often. It's a shame because there really are some great songs and I don't give them the time I should.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 10
Cost: £13 new
Bought: Spillers
When: 04/11/08
Colour: Blue
Etching: None
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - Suicide Alley [Bootleg]

I knew this record was a bootleg copy when I bought it - the eBay listing was very clear about that and, for £11.40 (including postage!), it was definitely not priced with any implication of it being the real deal.

But I was fine with that - I was hugely into the band and I'd read so much about that first 7" I just really wanted to hear it. Both of the songs made their way onto other records as b-sides, but I think I had neither at the point when I bought this. I also knew, from the New Art Riot EP, that I shouldn't have high hopes for their musical talent at this early point; that EP was quite the shock on the first listen. Suicide Alley and Tennessee (I Get Low) are similar, if not worse, in how hard they are on the ears. James' vocals on the start of each verse of Suicide Alley are so far off-key it's almost funny; I'm glad he learnt to sing better. I love their passion and dedication to making music at this early point, but I love more that by the time they recorded Generation Terrorists they'd learnt a lot more about how to write and record great songs.

Both songs show huge potential, which I guess is all the 7" needed to show. As a song, Suicide Alley does a few interesting things, the only problem is that it does them quite badly! The bootleg is numbered, which seems strange - mine is #42/480 - and the name of the band is underlined where it isn't on the original. Both labels say "side a" despite otherwise having the correct song titles; I have no idea if the original pressing has the same thing. Looking on Discogs, it seems that this bootleg sells for about £40 these days - I definitely didn't see this as an investment when I bought it, I was just eager to hear the first record they released.

Format: 7", bootleg, numbered
Tracks: 2
Cost: £11.40 new
Bought: eBay
When: 02/12/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Desert Sessions - Vol I. Instrumental Driving Music for Felons / Vol II. Status: Ships Commander Butchered

On a Tuesday in 2008, just over 7 years ago, I nearly crapped myself with excitement whilst in Spillers Records. I was flicking through the racks, as I did every Tuesday that year, and found copies of the first six Desert Sessions. I'd read about them before and Vol. 7 & 8 and Vol. 9 & 10 had been released on cd gathering a lot of attention (and had been on frequent rotation in my friends' cars). I knew the first six were originally all on 10" but I'd read somewhere about them being paired up on 12". Either way I was excited. I'd long been a Kyuss fan (but never that big on QOTSA) and was mostly just really keen to hear the music on there. A part of it was definitely the idea of hearing music that was considered quite rare.

I should have, of course, been suspicious. Why would Spillers, a shop that only stocks new music, be selling copies of long out-of-print Desert Sessions? Many years later, a few quick internet searches proved that these copies are from a series of bootleg reissues from around that time. A better question might be why were Spillers selling bootleg reissues? I even asked the girl in the shop if she knew much about the pressing, but she didn't. I assumed I'd stumbled across some unearthed old stock and excitedly bought Vol. 1 & 2. A week later I bought the remaining two 12"s, despite the idea of the year being one record a week. I skipped the following week knowing I'd basically stuck to my rules. It's worth noting that at £13 a pop, I don't feel too ripped off.

What about the music? Well, of Vol. 1 & 2 I was mildly underwhelmed initially. Now I can listen to it as what it is - some stoner jams from some excellent musicians, but at the time I was expecting more. Maybe it's because I was hoping for Kyuss but instead got Queens (quite literally on later records). As the title suggests, the music here is mostly instrumental (except for Cake (Who Shit on The?)). There are some pretty good moments and I wish a lot of them lasted longer; any of the proper songs on Vol. 1 could have been twice as long. The only exception is Screamin' Eagle, which goes on for too long (there's no pleasing some people).

Expect posts about the other two 12"s to follow sometime soon.

Format: 12", a4 insert
Tracks: 7
Cost: £13 new
Bought: Spillers Records
When: 28/10/08
Colour: Purple
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Tool - 10,000 Days

This record is a bit of an oddity in my collection, in that it's a shameless bootleg of an album that was never pressed on vinyl. I largely avoid buying bootlegs for all the usual reasons (quality, ripping off the band, they just feel wrong, etc) but I still bought this one despite knowing full-well that it was a bootleg; I'm not entirely sure why. 

The weekend before last I was in Manchester visiting my friend Aled and going to see Neutral Milk Hotel. Sunday turned into a pretty-much perfect day - I went record shopping in the morning, spent the afternoon in some nice pubs drinking beer in the sun, ate "Manchester's best burger" and saw Neutral Milk Hotel for the first time (in a very lovely venue). The midnight bus ride back to Oxford followed by a full day at work took away from the enjoyment a little, but it was all good. My record shopping saw me visit three shops: Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange and Vinyl Revival. The last of the three, Vinyl Revival, I knew as soon as I walked in wasn't going to be great. This happens a lot - I walk into a record shop and instantly know there isn't going to be much for me. There are usually over-full boxes of knackered 1960's LPs and a "metal" section that contains nothing released later than 1989. Vinyl Revival had that vibe, but did have one box of fairly recent albums that weren't in horrendously shitty condition. I felt guilty not buying anything (which is becoming a problem) and, in the box of not-shit records, was this bootleg copy of 10,000 Days. Interestingly, he also had a bootleg of Lateralus and a small handful of other tempting, mostly-bootleg albums. At £20 I should probably have left it behind, but unless it ever gets a proper vinyl release (which it might do given how strong the reissue market is these days) I figured I'd never get another copy. Plus the shit-record-store guilt. So I bought it.

Addressing the bootleg issue first, the quality here isn't too shitty at all. Maybe a more trained ear could pick any flaws out, but it sounds fine to me. The only times you really notice that it's a bootleg are on the run-off groove (which makes quite a racket) and on the rough edges to the vinyl when you turn it over. The sleeve looks pretty decent, albeit quite minimal - the cd of 10,000 Days had quite the fancy packaging. The back of the record says "For promotional use only", but I've been around too long to fall for that.

10,000 Days is Tool's most recent release, which is ridiculous when you recall that it came out 8 years ago. I was living in Australia at the time and that feels like a lifetime ago already. I remember going into town the week it came out to buy the cd and having a very excited conversation with some guy I half-knew about how good it was. A few weeks later I left Australia and saw Tool play Roskilde Festival, a memory that's surprisingly fresh in my mind. It's a lot heavier than the two albums that came before it and, at times, almost sounds more like The Melvins than it does Tool. A lot of the quirks that featured on Lateralus (songs designed to be played at the same time, Fibonacci rhythms) are missing and replaced with huge riffs. I kind of miss those little oddities, but sometime it's nice to appreciate a band for the talented musicians they are. Highlights for me are Vicarious, The Pot and Rosetta Stoned but Tool really cut out the filler here and squeezed in a lot of strong songs. Makes me hope they come out of their slumber soon.

Format: Double 12"

Tracks: 11

Cost: £20 new

Bought: Vinyl Revival, Manchester

When: 18/05/14

Colour: Transparent red

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Kyuss + Slo Burn - Live at The Marquee-Club / Amusing the Amazing

I don't normally bother with bootleg records like this one, but a number of factors led to me buying it in April 2011:

1) I was in London and due to meet a friend a bit later. I had some time to kill so headed to Selectadisc (Sister Ray) to browse the records. That place is usually too expensive for my liking, and most of the new releases were about £20. I browsed for ages and the only record I could find that wasn't stupidly expensive and that I kinda wanted was this one.

2) I'd been thinking not long beforehand about how ridiculous it was that I didn't have any Kyuss vinyl. When I lived in Australia their LPs were fairly easy to find (I've not seen them in shops since) and I regret not buying them then (my record buying budget was much smaller back then). The JB Hi-fi in Canberra even had the Muchas Gracias best-of record, which I still don't own. Back in those days the idea of ever seeing any band that even remotely resembled Kyuss was wishful thinking, and I remember thinking it would be cool to hear the four live songs on that record. Since the four songs here are those live songs, I figured this record would make me regret not buying the LPs a bit less. It does. These songs are great, especially Gardenia, which was always one of my favourite Kyuss songs. Freedom Run is ace too.

3) Kyuss Lives were playing a month later and I was even more excited about Kyuss than I am normally (I'll save the usual how-I-started-listening-to rant for another time; I hope to buy the LPs one day, so I'll write it then). I saw the second night of the two London Kyuss Lives shows and it more than satisfied by need to see Kyuss live. For me, so much of Kyuss is in John Garcia's voice that I didn't mind Josh Homme being absent. The gig was incredible and I head-banged solidly for a hour and a bit. I've never missed having long hair so much.

4) On the B-side were four songs by Slo Burn, who I knew nothing about. Wikipedia filled in the gaps after I bought it. I like it but, like I said, I love John Garcia's voice, so it was going to be a winner. I bought a Hermano record a few years back and get equal enjoyment out of that. If these four songs had been on a 12" and someone told me John Garcia was singing, I'd have probably paid £11 for them alone. I certainly like them enough to have done so. It's also worth noting that I probably would never have a copy of these songs if it wasn't for this record.

5) It's on a nice clear vinyl.

6) The fact that the label is called "No Man's Ruin" amused me.

So, all those things coming together led to me buying this record. I then went to meet my friend (in North London; I rarely venture up there) and we went out for some beers. It turned into a fairly messy night and I ended up sleeping on his sofa. Luckily the record survived the night unharmed.


Format: 12", a4 insert
Tracks: 8
Cost: £11 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 12/03/11
Colour: Clear
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Chuck Ragan - Chuck Plays Frankfurt

When I saw the set-list of this unoffical/bootleg Chuck Ragan live album I knew I had to get a copy. I honestly don't think I could write a better set-list myself (save a few newer songs) - all of my favourite Chuck and Rumbleseat songs make an appearance along with some excellent covers. There are so many great songs I don't know where to start.

I arguably ended up paying too much for this record, but I don't regret a penny of it. I bought mine (238/300) on eBay near the start of my PhD and half a year after getting the Live in Zurich record. I normally don't get on board with bootlegs, but the songs here convinced me. Luckily the sound quality is excellent and the balance between vocals, guitar and crowd noise is perfect. I mention the last because the crowd add so much to these 23 songs and are clearly having a great time. On top of that, their cries of "more" keep Chuck playing for a whole extra side of vinyl, despite him claiming he'll only play "one last song" (luckily for everyone involved, these words have little meaning to Chuck). The two records have blank labels, a scratched out etching in the run-out grooves and the only way to tell the difference between sides A and B is to put the needle down. It's also worth noting that Coal Tattoo is mistakenly listed as Dream of a Miner's Child.

So where do I begin with the music? More than half of the songs on Feast or Famine appear which, given how much I love that album, is a good start. On top of that, my three favourite songs from the Rumbleseat album get played (Cursing Concrete, Saturn in Crosshairs and California Burritos, although I tend to consider the last of those three to be a Feast or Famine song). I haven't written about Rumbleseat on here yet, but when I do, expect a long rant about how great Cursing Concrete and Saturn in Crosshairs are. The crowd here provide some excellent backing vocals to Cursing Concrete. There's also another live version of Open Up and Wail, my personal highlight of the Los Feliz live album, and a scattering of other songs and covers. The closer Will the Circle be Unbroken is worth mentioning too.

One of nicest moments of the album however, is the cover of Bleeder by Alkaline Trio. When I saw Chuck in TJ's he played this after a few requests from the audience and everyone went mad for it. I've never been a huge Alkaline Trio fan and only knew the song from the Hot Water Music collection 'Til the Wheels Fall Off, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Here I see why everyone was so keen to hear it. There's woman in the crowd on this record whose voice you can hear throughout, but near the end she shouts out something about Bleeder and then screams in excitement when he starts playing it. I've always liked that you can hear how pleased she was that Chuck played her request because it really makes you feel like you're there in that venue in Germany.

So yes, I paid a lot for this unoffical record but I love it. I love that any time I want to feel like I'm in the crowd at a Chuck Ragan show I can just put on this album and be there, which is lucky, because I often wish I was at a Chuck Ragan show.


Format: double 12"
Tracks: 23
Cost: £51.51 new
Bought: eBay
When: 11/03/10
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no