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.
Here's one of the band profile radio documentaries that the BBC put together from time to time. This one tells the tale of one of the most original and inventive bands to emerge from the stews of punk rock - The 'Cocks!
There are very few bands that can be described as peerless, but I do believe that this is a term that can be applied to Kraftwerk. On the back of an excellent BBC documentary 'Kraftwerk: Pop Art', here is a recording of the band at their creative height.
I think that Kraftwerk really do transcend the limitations of a band, everything is considered, perfected and protected. The music clearly, but also the visuals, be it in the way the band dress or the stage sets. The way the band communicate with the media (or should that be the way the band don't communicate with the media!) preserves a mystique around this quartet of somewhat odd men from the Ruhr.
In recent years they have been touring the world with their catalogue shows featuring each of their eight key albums from Autobahn to Tour De France Soundtracks. In doing so they have taken to playing internationally renowned art galleries, another acknowledgement of the pop meets art concept. In London they played the Tate Modern on the South Bank, a doubly relevant venue, being both art gallery and former power station.
In the Pop Art documentary, Paul Morley said something along the lines that Kraftwerk were culturally more important than The Beatles and I think in that he is probably correct. The Beatles took an existing music genre and turned it into something extraordinary. Kraftwerk create their own genre and in doing so inspired others to create something new also, be it electronica or hip-hop.
01 Intro / Numbers / Computer World
02 Computer Love
03 Home Computer
04 The Model
05 Neon Lights
06 Geiger Counter / Radioactivity
07 The Voice Of Energy / Uranium / Die Sonne, Der Mond, Die Sterne / Ohm Sweet Ohm
08 Autobahn (Part 1)
01 Autobahn (Part 2)
02 Trans Europe Express
03 Metal On Metal
04 Hall Of Mirrors
05 Mitternacht / Les Mannequins
06 Pocket Calculator
07 The Robots
Kraftwerk on French TV performing 'The Robots' and 'Radioactivity'
01. Nuclear Device/Toiler On The Sea
02. Toiler On The Sea (Cont'd)
03. Ships That Pass In The Night
04. It’s A Small World
05. Just Like Nothing On Earth
06. No More Heroes
07. Who Wants The World
08. Never Say Goodbye
09. Baroque Bordello
10. Golden Brown
11. Princess Of The Streets
12. Midnight Summer Dream
13. European Female
14. Tramp
15. The Raven
16. Duchess/London Lady/Nubiles (Cocktail Version)
17. Genetix
A rather hirsute Jake Burns at the Harp Bar, Belfast in 1978
Here's an early review of SLF written by Gavin Martin in NME of 29th July 1979. A very positive review over all, but even then with a caution that Jake's boys love a cover version!
The Undertones on the Creggan Estate, Derry in 1977
Linked in with the recent post about the early Ulster punk scene, here's a very early short audience recorded set of the band at the Casbah, a frequent haunt of the band in their home town and a venue immortalised on their debut album. This eight song recording is composed of only one original (and I'm not convinced that it's from the same set), the other seven being covers. Perhaps they didn't sing about the Troubles, but they matched SLF's 'Suspect Device' with and 'Incediary Device', albeit one of Johnny Moped's!
01. Undercover Lover (Kids In Glass Houses)
02. There She Goes Again (Velvet Underground)
03. All By Myself (Eric Carmen)
04. Incendiary Device (Johnny Moped)
05. Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue (Ramones)
06. You're Gonna Miss Me (13th Floor Elevators)
07. I Feel Alright (Iggy & TheStooges)
08. Jimmy Jimmy
It's a famous image and may have had a ring of truth about it in 1977, but listen to these teenagers learning the business in the Casbah in '77 and then compare them to the band they were a mere 18 to 24 months later!
