Siouxsie And The Banshees Edinburgh Playhouse 17th June 1984

 

Here's one from 'Hyena' period Banshees in Edinburgh in the Summer of 1984. Thanks to the person who shared this file with me. I think it may have been Sewer Rat.

WAV: https://we.tl/t-U3P9GRh4IF

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-vi4XQlVGYg

Beach Ballroom Aberdeen 9th March 2017

 

Nine years old tomorrow with the 'Classic Collection' in Aberdeen. This is a WAV format version of Chatts 24-bit recording. many thanks to him as always for the share and thanks to Meanie for the artwork.

WAV: https://we.tl/t-9iDQtAF2mn

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-FxmG63QaPv

20 From '87 (11) David Bowie Miniestadio FC Barcelona 8th July 1987

 

As much as I love Bowie, this is not the man at his best. I may be in a minority here, but 'Let's Dance', whilst being a massive commercial success was, for somebody with his track record, a creative low. It was the start of a near decade long decline that for me was only reversed by the brilliant 'Outside' album in 1995. This is not a great set from him either.... but then again for me, I would go for a 50:50 split of 'Rubber Band' era material and Berlin material!

Of note on these two nights when Bowie played Barcelona, The Stranglers were the 'Artista Invitado'.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-41wupECRBV

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-20JyeUobHC

Anja Huwe Republica Da Musica Lisbon 31st May 2025

 

I have posted a few Xmal Deutschland gigs on Aural Sculptors in the past but this is the first post of solo material from Anja Huwe (although I have plugged her recent album 'Codes' a couple of times). Anja has only recently started touring again and her set is a mixture of material from 'Codes' and Xmal Deutschland songs. 

I was trying to fathom what is is that draws me to Anja and Xmal and I came to the conclusion that what she/they do represents a hybrid of punk/post punk and electronic music that sits quite neatly in the midst of my musical preferences, although primarily, then and now their conventional band set up is augmented by keyboards, rather than them being an electronic band as such.

I also like the fact that Xmal material and much of Codes is sung in German. Songs sound better in the language that they were written in I think, more often than not, something gets lost in translation and the songs suffer as a result. I have all of Kraftwerk's albums in English and German but by preference listen to the German language versions. And the thing is I don't even speak German (despite having a half German wife).

I must get to see Anja Huwe somewhere soon. 

This one is from Chatts, so many thanks as always for the share! Please note that this is a 24 bit version so will need to be converted to 16 bit if you want to burn it.

Anja Huwe

Republica Da Musica, Lisbon 31st May 2025

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-Zvahtu8eq1

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-i8H3XBADTY

Flamin' Groovies/Ramones/The Stranglers Roundhouse London 4th July 1976 Review (New Musical Express 10th July 1976)

CORRECTION: 

It has rightly been pointed out the Battle of Dingwalls could not have occurred post gig on 4th July since the Clash playing the Black Swan in Sheffield that night. A little more digging reveals that the incident took place in Monday 5th July when Ramones headlined Dingwalls. This date is confirmed in the gigography included in Monte Melnick's book 'On The Road With The Ramones' and in George Gimarc's 'Punk Diary 1970-1979'.

The appearance of Ramones at Dingwall's may have been a last minute arrangement as NME's gig listing's for that week do not include an entry for Dingwalls, a venue that was routinely included in the newspaper's weekly listings.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of punk which means that the 250th anniversary of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence. 50 years ago London marked the bicentenary (the maths here is quite simple) with a gig at the Roundhouse in Camden.

It was an odd billing that 4th July. According to the article below the headliners (Flamin' Groovies) had not played in the UK since 1972. In support were Ramones (playing their first UK gig that night) and a belligerent 'London pub band' called The Stranglers - not yet known for their anti-American sentiments at that stage (one can only assume!).

Below is a review of the gig that appeared in the 10th July 1976 issue of New Musical Express. It was the summer of '76, the year of a heatwave that is scorched into the memory of anyone who remembers it. Unbearable heat is the impression that reviewer Max Bell is looking to convey in the opening remarks of his piece. Rather than being off putting, the idea of seeing The Stranglers at an early prestige gig like this (and an infamous one to boot) in an atmosphere described as 'a malignantly swampy sweat box' is appealing beyond imagination!

The Stranglers have according to the writer improved tremendously and as such the writer views the band favourably, although the memory of threatened violence may also have come into play somewhat in this different view. Still, compared to his view of the Ramones, The Stranglers come across as virtuoso musicians.

It is funny to think that whatever their musical shortcomings in the summer of 1976, by the end of 1977 both The Stranglers and Ramones would have sold out headline shows at the Roundhouse.

As I transcribed this review I took an opportunity to listen to the Flamin' Groovies, the 'legendary' headliners on the night. Previously, I had knowingly only heard 'Shake Some Action' and guided also by the fact that the review stated that most of the material played that night was lifted from their 1976 album of the same name that's what I picked. It's very pedestrian in my view (but I like the Ramones so what do I know!!)... The Beatles tamed by the California sun. Max Bell loved them but interestingly made reference to The Beatles and The Byrds.... very much to my point.

As mentioned earlier, this was the UK debut of the much vaunted Ramones. Mark P had raved about their album in Sniffin' Glue, so it was only natural that all of the players in the nascent British punk scene were in attendance on the night in order to check out the Stateside competition.

After the gig, band members from both stage and audience decamped to Dingwalls, a club a few hundred meters away at Camden Lock. Born from a misunderstanding, JJ Burnel punched Clash bass player Paul Simonon in a fight that spilled out into the clubs courtyard. By all accounts it escalated too into something resembling a Western brawl as the simmering rivalries within a small London scene boiled over into fisticuffs. Accounts of the incident also have it that, whilst drinking together and looking down upon the fracas, Joe Strummer said to Hugh Cornwell 'looks like my bass player and your bass player are not getting on too well' or words to that effect. This was also the moment when Dave Greenfield was said to have John Lydon pinned up against the side of a van, the idea of which is very gratifying!

The incident in part put an end to any fraternal feeling that may have existed in the scene up to that point.... and it was only July 1976!

Bands in Town (4th July 1976)

(r-l: Johnny Ramone, Johnny Rotten, Dee Dee Ramone and the soon to be clumped Paul Simonon)

New Musical Express 10th July 1976

Maybe it was no accident that the hottest, steamiest, dirtiest night of the year was reserved for July 4. It’s not every day that we get to see one bona fide legendary band, and a squad of recherché New York punksters gunning for similar status, and a home grown outfit who exhibit enough moody madness to take them somewhere close to the pinnacle of nasty infamy, all playing on the same bill in one of the seediest halls in London.

The Roundhouse on Sunday came neat to being a malignantly swampy sweat box as any auditorium I have ever set foot in. The general consensus was that it was too damn hot to rock, let alone roll, so all credit to the performers and audience who stood it out to the finish. In between times the atmosphere congealed into globules of body-stained condensation, the chic were forcibly unrobed, and the young female worthies were seen bearing their ample chests for the cause.

Personally I hadn’t had so much fun in ages, though bending an ear to the post-soiree in-talk revealed that everybody was of that opinion. Still, if you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen. It doesn’t do to be over critical on a night when anyone with an ounce of common would have been soaking in the freezer, and certainly not rocking in the sprawl and stench of fifteen hundred human incinerators fusing to one solid liquid mass.

First to set out into the sauna were London pub band The Stranglers, who I’ve been rather scathing about in the past. What with them threatening to employ sundry kinds of physical violence about my person, and the fact that they’ve improved tremendously of late, they did their thing with a vengeance. Rotating ideas around a sub-Doors vibration, they rattled through “Down In The Sewer”, “Grip” (possibly a single for Arista soon), “Walk On By”, and my own fave “School Ma’am”, where guitarist Hugh Cornwell simulates a distressingly convincing auto strangulation, and bass player Jean Jacques Burnel turns into a lunatic.

They received a much more polite response than that at the recent Patti Smith gigs, where the crowd were plain rude in their impatience to see them off and back in the changing room. If they keep on driving the same levels of monotony, and pulling off the choice gigs that they’ve acquired of late they should get the deserved break.

Armpits lay soggy on the slippery floor and the buzz settled into a hum of expectancy for the band we’ve all heard a deal of recently, Manhattan’s own Ramones, who were…  absolutely hilarious. I reckon they’re closer to a comedy routine than a rock group.

They succeeded in dividing opinion into believers and open ridicule. The guys on the mixer hated them and The Ramones hated the guys on the mixer back. I laughed solidly for half an hour particularly when on taking the stage , bass player Dee Dee Ramone’s mike farted into silence before a note had been mangled.

“More fuckin’ power!” he yelled. “Piss off!” yelled the knob twiddlers.

“Dese tings shoulda been woiked oit before” retoted Dee Dee petulantly.

The Ramones left huffily to a barrage of slow hand claps and jeering, only to return five minutes later with their problems far from resolved. I don’t think Dee Dee noticed. He is possibly the most half-witted specimenI’ve ever seen hulk over the golden boards. Him and guitarist Johnny side swipped their rented Marshalls like the fourth and fifth sleepers while singer Joey flapped around centre in a fair impersonation of Batroc. When he stood sideways I couldn’t see him at all. 

Thing is about The Ramones is you either take them in the intended spirit, or you go home. The appeal is purely negative, based on their not being able to lay a shit or give a shit. The thinking process involved in evaluating their performance is non-existent; it’s first step moronorock strung across a selection of imbecilic adolescent ditties whose sole variation lies in the shuffling of three chords into some semblance of order . They were still oodles more exciting than the majority of bands who usually throw up our collective amusement, even if the songs are indistinguishable. “Blitzkrieg Bop” became “Loudmouth” became “53rd & 3rd. Durrrgh.

Thirty minutes was enough to get across cos, like Nick Kent said, they could be too heavy for even the hardest punk fan. Their singer is closer to a stick of well salivated chewing gum than a human being, though he was the only one man enough to keep his leather jacket on ‘til the bitter end.

And finally the raison d’etre for melting four hours! The Flamin’ Groovies, as much San Francisco as The Ramones are peeled off the streets of Noo Yoik, and they were terrific.

What no one seems to realise is that The Groovies, despite their mythic status, are not a live force in the States. This was the first gig they’d played since ’72, when on climaxing their poorly handled trip (also at the Roundhouse) things were so grievous that the roadies employed for the occasion refused to give them their guitars or set up the equipment. Despite their magnificence, the Groovies didn’t quite satiate the audience. The reason for this were two-fold.

Firstly, unlike The Ramones, they can play properly. With the excessive heat this necessitated tuning up after nearly every number, because guitars aren’t made of tissue paper and need to sound just right if you’re unleashing a set as tightly constructed as their new material requires. Some people lost patience with this, and the Groovies’ not looking ‘heavy’.

They wear sixties suits and Annello and Davide Cuban healed Beatle Boots instead which is professional, smart and cute. It fits.

Secondly, they didn’t play their older material and a lot of folk wanted “Teenage Head” stuff. Understandable: I did myself, but then very few people bought those records when they came out (four hundred copies of “Married Woman”?) and they don’t owe their previous landlords anything by way of a plug. So they did mostly “Shake Some Action” tunes, perfectly, and those are lighter, in a Byrds, Lennon and McCartney vein, rather than greased lightening rockers.

I still don’t think it was necessary to make allowances for the change. Cyril Jordan remains unsurpassed as an exponent of the Wes Montgomery, James Burton and Sun style of pickers. He is a technician with a feel for electric guitar that is virtually unequalled. His solos on the numbers that took the roof off – the Pretty Things classic “Big City” or Paul Revere and the Raiders “Ups And Downs” – were magic. The band assault on “Please Please Me”, “I Can’t Hide” and “Miss Amanda Jones” were characterised by a type of controlled ferocity that only evolves after years of practise and a genuine understanding of the whole ball game. The Groovies are working within a vacuum because they, along with Earth Quake and Loose Gravel represent the last of a dying breed, remaining criminally unrewarded for services over and beyond the typical delineations of rock ‘n’ roll (more on that same in interview next week).

But this is no time for getting dewy-eyed. They came, played, and conquered in the grand manner, with a panache that supererogates either nostalgia or progressive deliberation. Chris Wilson sings different to Roy A. Lonely, bassist George Alexander is brick solid as ever, and James Farrell’s 1940’s National cuts another bag of ice to Tim Lynch’s lead of old, so it’s another band. Drummer David Wright is crisper and less demonic than his predecessor, Danny Mihm.

You don’t need to have any specialised input into the machinery of the animal to notice that “Shake Some Action” had a fire and spontaneity missing from the average practitioners’, or that “House Of Blue Lights”, and the encores “Married Woman” and “Under My Thumb” reminded one of the days when rock was special all across the board.

When Jordan reached for his microphone, dripping beneath the lights, and said “I recall momma saying to poppa – “Let that boy rock ‘n’ roll” he’d hit upon the core. The Groovies are doused in the stuff.

Postscript:

The Ramones set is here on Youtube. Clearly there are some technical issues but the band sound OK, they sound like.... well The Ramones!

The Damned BBC 6 Music Session 26th January 2026

 

So, keeping on a theme of '60s cover versions here is a BBC 6 Music radio session that The Damned did for the Marc Reilly and Gideon Coe show in Salford last month enroute to their 'covers' gig at the Albert Hall in Manchester. I have said it on these pages before that I love a radio session. They are a snapshot of where a band is at at a given moment and the songs, as live performances, are the perfect partners to their studio counterparts. Moreover, it is often the case, for both bands and fans alike, for session versions be be superior to their studio versions... being more spontaneous, edgy, quirky, whatever.

The interviews, whilst interesting, do not offer anything of note that any  moderate fan of the band would not already know (apart perhaps for the influence of Mrs Mills over the band!). The four songs featured all appear on 'Not Like Everybody Else' and they sound good here. I always have a bit of an issue with 'Summer In The City' as I have yet to hear a version that comes anywhere close to the Lovin' Spoonful original. That said, The Damned's version  is streets ahead of The Stranglers version, but then again even Tik and Tok's version betters that one (go on look them up).

WAV: https://we.tl/t-1wAUVbp2oH

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-PxaUs6bYwo

Purple Helmets Salle De La Cite Rennes 10th December 1986

 

The recent post of The Damned's covers gig in Manchester, promoting their tribute to Brian James, 'Not Like Everybody Else', put me in mind of 'Naz Nomad and the Nightmares', which in turn got me thinking about the Purple Helmets. To be honest, I don't think about the Helmets a great deal. It's not that I don't like them at all, for sure, they introduced me to some sixties material that I have always considered to be brilliant and perhaps if it were not for this side-project of JJ and Dave's I may not have been exposed to, certainly not as the 19  year old as I was at the time. The timing of their emergence was perfect since The Stranglers were taking it slow at the time in the run up to extensive '10' activity. The great thing for a number of us who met at the time was that this was our first opportunity to see these musical heroes (i.e. JJ and Dave) at close quarters, as opposed to in cavernous venues such as the Hammersmith Odeon and Brighton Centre in my case.

The band were active between 1986 and 1989 but most of their activity was concentrated in 1988. This short career was kicked off in France, down Brittany way with a gig in the city of Rennes. By 1988 they had nailed down their set which was aligned with the track list of the debut album 'Rise Again', but this late 1986 set contains some songs that didn't get recorded (to the best of my knowledge). In there are 'Fire', 'The Beat Goes On', 'Never Knew' and 'Worried About You'. 'Fire' is the Crazy World of Arthur Brown classic and 'The Beat Goes On' is a Sonny Bono composition recorded by Sonny and Cher. As to 'Never Knew' and 'Worried About You' in a brief hunt I have not been able to pin them down. Any ideas?

For some reason there are a couple of tracks of a second or two and I have not edited them out but they do not impact on the recording, just the track numbering.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-nGWpI2VoPj

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-lpYHs3VlsE