Aural Sculptors - The Stranglers Live 1976 to the Present


Welcome to Aural Sculptors, a blog aimed at bringing the music of The Stranglers to as wide an audience as possible. Whilst all of the various members of the band that have passed through the ranks since 1974 are accomplished studio musicians, it is on stage where the band have for me had their biggest impact.

As a collector of their live recordings for many years I want to share some of the better quality material with other fans. By selecting the higher quality recordings I hope to present The Stranglers in the best possible light for the benefit of those less familiar with their material than the hardcore fan.

Needless to say, this site will steer well clear of any officially released material. As well as live gigs, I will post demos, radio interviews and anything else that I feel may be of interest.

In addition, occasionally I will post material by other bands, related or otherwise, that mean a lot to me.

Your comments and/or contributions are most welcome. Please email me at adrianandrews@myyahoo.com.


Monday 30 August 2021

Hugh Cornwell Stone Valley Festival South III 14th August 2021

 


I am once again indebted to Chatts99 for sharing a real, genuine gig from 2021!!!

Here is Mr Cornwell at the Stone Valley Festival South that finally took place at Great Amwell in Hertfordshire. Really should have attended this one but my mother turned 80 on that day so priorities kicked in. Oh well, I an sure it won't be too long before I get back into the gigging swing of things.

FLAC (24 bit): https://we.tl/t-WuZcwVG0Q9

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-lJLlL05KNn

01. Intro/Nice ‘N’ Sleazy
02. Pure Evel
03. 5 Minutes
04. I Want One Of Those
05. Duchess
06. Bilko
07. Strange Little Girl
08. Monster
09. Thrown Away
10. Mothra
11. Skin Deep
12. The Most Beautiful Girl In Hollywood
13. Goodbye Toulouse
14. Bad Vibrations
15. No More Heroes

Interruption to Normal Service - An Explanation

Regular visitors to this site may have noticed that activity on Aural Sculptors has dipped of late. This is due to i) preparations to return Mo to Manchester so she can resume her Fine Art degree after an enforced 10 month return to the family seat, ii) my son returning home after completion of his MSc, iii) selling my mother-in-laws flat so that she can relocate to Cumbria and iv) preparation for some major home improvements that will see builders in the house for the next two months! This last task has been the most laborious. A collection of approximately 4,000 CDs needs to be rehoused from their current location. For the bootlegs (about 50% of the collection) this entails reprinting of artwork and transfer from jewel cases to plastic wallets in order to reduce the shelf space required for storage (I know it could all be on a hard drive, but I am a bit old fashioned!). This is very time consuming and tedious to say the least, but normal service will resume shortly.

Thanks for your patience!

Tuesday 3 August 2021

The Damned Harlow Town Park 1st August 1987

 

Back when The Damned were riding a wave of commercial success and mainstream appeal they played a free, open air gig in Harlow Town Park, Essex. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the area for some years yet so I wasn’t there. Nevertheless, it was an interesting time to be a Damned fan. After several years in the wilderness, managerless and without a recording contract for a time, it came as something of a surprise I suspect to the band and fans alike that hey bounced back with an album that was a tour de force, ‘Phantasmagoria’. It was an album that dismissed all doubt (if any doubt remained by 1985) that The Damned were a group of highly accomplished musicians rather than that cartoon band of punk’s first wave. Dark and brooding, it was apparently a regular listen for JJ on the tour bus. One can only wonder what his thoughts were, having at around the same time produced ‘Aural Sculpture’, a rather patchy and lacklustre album when put head to head with ‘Phantasmagoria’.

The Damned capitalised on the album’s success with the release in early 1986 of a cover of Barry Ryan’s ‘Eloise’, a song that they made their own to the extent that Ryan went on record to say that he preferred it over his own version! It provided The Damned with their biggest hit to date. Later in the year the band’s seventh studio album was released. In a similar vein as its predecessor to my mind at least it lacks some of the intricacy and mood of ‘Phantasmagoria’. Having said that ‘Anything’ does feature some great tracks, ‘In Dulce Decorum’, ‘The Portrait’ and ‘The Girl Goes Down’. Once again, their choice of a cover was spot on with Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’.