The Nashville Rooms West Kensington London 3rd September 1978 (Secret pub gig played as 'The Old Codgers') - NEW LINK

JJ Burnel At The Nashville Rooms 3rd September 1978

Updated link that fell in the Megaupload melee, both on here and on the original site (Burning Up Time Forum).

Thanks again to Dom P for making this remastered version available. Cheers.

Here

Glasgow Apollo 7th October 1979

This one's for Dave Sez who I had the great pleasure of sharing a few pints with last night in Bishops Stortford. The reason being this was his first Stranglers gig... and that should always be marked!

FLAC: http://rapidshare.com/files/774029673/glasgow79FLAC.zip

MP3: http://rapidshare.com/files/3738496998/glasgow79MP3.zip

1. 5 Minutes
2. Shah Shah A Go Go
3. Ice
4. Down In The Sewer
5. Hanging Around
6. The Raven
7. Dead Loss Angeles
8. Threatened
9. Curfew
10. Tank
11. Burning Up Time
12. Bring On The Nubiles
13. Nuclear Device
14. Genetix
15. I Feel Like A Wog
16. Duchess
17. Toiler On The Sea

New Links - Work In Progress

A proportion of the links on this site do not work - a hangover from the fall of Megaupload. I am in the process of adding new links (I have most of the files backed up). Be patient, it's a time consuming process, but I will get there.

If there are any specific posts that folk are after, please email me or leave a comment and I will prioritise those files.

Here's a list of recently repaired links:

Nashville Rooms, London 10/10/76
Top Rank, Sheffield, England 19/10/77
Rock Goes to College, Guildford University, England 19/10/78
Stone Club, San Francisco, USA 9/5/81
Ipswich Gaumont, England 5/2/82
John Cooper Clarke John Peel Session 3rd October 1978
Philipshalle, Dusseldorf, Germany 21/12/84
Aural Fantasy LP (Aural Sculpture & Dreamtime Demos)
Conference Centre, Brighton 4/3/85
Amnesty International Festival, Milton Keynes, England 18/6/88
The Damned Amnesty International Festival, Milton Keynes, England 19/6/88

Poole Arts Centre 30th January 1983

Ok, this is an anniversary recording (two days in advance for the pedantics ones among you). Actually, I was intending to post the first night of the tour that saw the band play Goldiggers in Chippenham (or plain 'Nam as my friend who lived down that way called it) on this day in 1983, but that recording has suffered like many of my others thanks to dodgy labels. Nevertheless, that recording can be found here:

For my part I give you this recording from Poole Arts Centre from 30th. Many years ago a portion of this gig was released as 'The Taming Of The Hugh' bootleg.

This however, is the full set and the quality is excellent. In fact, until such time when the record company venture into the vaults and dust off the tapes of some of the 'Feline' dates recorded on the Continent, this Poole recording is the definative live document from that tour.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-WwghIhxW1L

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-fcfp3vPuje

1. Aural Sculpture Manifesto
2. Nuclear Device
3. Toiler On The Sea
4. It's A Small World
5. Ships That Pass In The Night
6. Just Like Nothing on Earth
7. No More Heroes
8. Who Wants The World
9. Never Say Goodbye
10. Baroque Bordello

1. Golden Brown
2. Princess Of The Streets
3. Midnight Summer Dream
4. European Female
5. Tramp
6. The Raven
7. Duchess
8. London Lady
9. Genetix

Cool For Cats - Feline Hits The Big 30!

As heralded on the official site (carrying a great piece on the album, here), this month marks the 30th anniversary of the 'Feline' album (or 210 years old in cat years if you prefer). Therefore prepare yourselves for a tranche (good word that!) of Feline related material.

This album, or perhaps more accurately The Collection of 1982 which preceded it, is where my earnest interest in the band started, with 'Feline' following on soon after. Annoyingly, I also remember all too well, a group of mates changing out of school uniform into punk gear before sneaking out of the school back gates in order to make the journey from Lewes to Brighton to see The Stranglers play. This would have been on 17th February 1983. Don't ask me why I did not go, I had been going to gigs for about 14 months by this point and already had a few under my belt. Perhaps I had an exam or something (I was always a conscientious pupil!), but what ever the reason, next day my mates had ringing ears and great stories and I had a ticket stub, a copy of Strangled and a Feline and Rattus badge from the gig..... oh well.

A donated ticket stub.... the full extent of my live Feline experience!

As someone for whom 'Feline' was a starting point (from which I subsequently quickly worked backwards through the back catalogue), the dramatic change in pace and aggression that the album represented didn't provoke in me the kind of reaction that was reflected in the pages of Strangled in the issues that came after its release. In fairness, I think that had I had more experience with the band, 'Feline' may indeed have been an abomination to my ears as well!

I can honestly say that I love 'Feline'. For me it is the last Stranglers album that retains a real menace. That menace, or perhaps it's something more of a brooding (?) drips from the record, even when the material is so melodic. I find that feeling hard to explain, but someone may get it. Anyway, the other things that I like about 'Feline' is that it is brass-free (all of my latter experiences with Mark I featured that brass section, which may have augmented a couple of songs, but did very little for entire sets.... for me at least) and it does not suffer from the horrible overblown production techniques that ruined many an album made in the mid to late '80s.

As an album, it achieves exactly what JJ and the others intended it to. It is so European, even ignoring the lyrical content, to listen to 'Feline' is to be transported to a French village square on a summer evening .... if you really concentrate you can taste the Pastis!

As an album 'Feline' is a triumph, it has aged very well in my opinion (like a fine wine?) and to that I'll raise a glass of Pinot and declare 'Bon anniversaire !', 'Feliz Cumpleaños!' and 'Buon compleanno!'

The Ruts A Few Rehearsals & Demos

A while ago I posted a Ruts gig from Acton Town Hall which featured the rarity 'Fanatical Fascists'. Well, as I promised, there is a better version of the song to be found amongst these often shared rehearsal and demo tracks.

MP3 (only format I have these in): http://rapidshare.com/files/2708817778/Bethnal%20Green%20Rehearsals%20%26%20Demos.zip

Freerange Studio Session 1st October 1977

01. Rich Bitch (Demo)
02. Out Of Order (Demo)
03. Lobotomy (Demo)
04. Stepping Bondage (Demo)

Bethnal Green Rehearsals

05. You're Just A Jerk
06. Back Biter
07. Slightly Deranged
08. H-Eyes
09. Fanatical Fascists
10. Stepping Bondage

Wilko Johnson Interview on 'Front Row' BBC Radio 4 25th January 2013

Wilko Johnson and John Wilson

January 2013

Here's a great little interview broadcast yesterday on BBC Radio 4's arts programme 'Front Row'. In it, Wilko talks of how the simplicity of the Dr Feelgood sound was achieved and of course his recent diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer. Very poignant stuff indeed!

FLAC: http://rapidshare.com/files/1789753624/00_wilko%20interview_unknown.wav

MP3: http://rapidshare.com/files/599160351/wilkointerview.mp3