Aural Sculptors - The Stranglers Live: September 2019

This doesn't happen so often but I'm glad when it does! As far as I am aware this is a previously unavailable recording from the band's 1987 Stateside tour. Here they appear in Philadelphia. Nice sounding gig all round. Many thanks for the original poster, billydee, who was happy for this to be shared on Aural Sculptors. Cheers!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-uXgO0Z4iBt

Artwork: Any offers?

01. /No More Heroes (fades in)
02. Was It You
03. Down in the Sewer
04. - banter -
05. Nice in Nice
06. Punch and Judy
07. - banter -
08. Souls
09. - banter -
10. Always the Sun
11. Strange Little Girl
12. Golden Brown
13. - banter -
14. North Winds
15. Big in America
16. Nice 'n' Sleazy
17. Who Wants the World?
18. Bring On the Nubiles
19. Shakin' Like a Leaf
20. Uptown
21. 5 Minutes
22. Tank
23. Toiler on the Sea
24. - banter -
25. Spain
26. Duchess
27. London Lady

Total time- 01:27:06

Source- (1) Sennheiser 441 mic
Recorder- Sony PCM-F1 @ 16bit > Zenith Portable Betamax Recorder
Transfer- Master tape > Sony Betamax > Modified Sony 601EsD PCM digital out > 16/44 WAV (PCM emphasis decoded in the process)
Processing: WAV > Audacity > TLH FLAC8 > Foobar2000

Recorded by- billydee and Teddy Ballgame
Transferred by- The Philly Crew
Processing and upload to Dime (Sept 2019)- billydee

Newport Centre 11th June 1989

One of a trio of gigs that I did over the course of a mad weekend. Many thanks to Dom for the remaster!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-GxwO9SBU32

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-0OEDCKRpbe

01. All Day And All Of The Night
02. Bring on The Nubiles
03. Uptown
04. Peaches
05. Someone Like You
06. Spain
07. Always The Sun
08. Nice 'n' Sleazy
09. Where I Live
10. Ships That Pass In The Night
11. Shakin' Like A Leaf
12. Toiler On The Sea
13. The Raven
14. Who Wants The World?
15. (Get A) Grip (On Yourself)
16. Was It You?
17. Down In The Sewer
18. Golden Brown
19. Nuclear Device
20. Punch And Judy
21. Hanging Around

RESTORED LINKS - 1988

1988....

Paleo Festival Nyon Switzerland 24th July 1988
Amnesty Festival of Youth Milton Keynes Bowl 18th June 1988

Tuesday, 17 September 2019

The Star Inn Guildford 31st January 2019

Well this was a proper event and one that I consider myself to be very privileged as a long standing fan of the band to have attended.

Way back when, the nascent and struggling Stranglers played their first public gig at The Star Inn in the centre of Guildford. Long an established stop on the Stranglers landmark pilgrimage, previous innkeepers have not always been as welcoming of visiting fans as the landlady was on this special occasion. I have heard tales of rat adorned punters being refused service as a result of an association with the band! ‘That band have brought enough trouble to this town!’. On this Thursday afternoon though the band were all benevolence rather than belligerence, but there was still a fight to be had.

Local developers had a acquired a nearby property with a view to a residential conversion. Unfortunately, there happened to be a long standing entertainment venue (established for more than 80 years) within earshot….. not on at all thought the developer. Legal actions were being taken with a view to forcing the closure of the venue as that was obviously the right course of action to take to ensure peace and quiet for new would be tenants. Music aficionados and the pub management begged to differ and mounted a campaign to ‘Save The Star’.

What could help perhaps was a name band with an association with the venue that would bring the media flocking to the inn doors to capture some high profile coverages of The Star’s plight. Enter The Stranglers and PRS. The unveiling of a commemorative plaque was the order of the day. I am sure that a plaque in their honour was a draw for the band….. it certainly drew Jet Black out of Wales, but the real meaning of the day was the fight to save yet another small, independent music venue from enforced closure on the whim of a self-serving property developer. As a brief aside, I heard on the radio only yesterday that the Liberal Democrats intent to address this issue in their manifesto whereby they would ensure that in such disputes the responsibility to provide noise reduction measures would lie with the developers rather than with the venue. A step in the right direction at least.

Anyway, back to The Star. It was an odd collection of fans and curious passers-by that congregated in the street outside of the pub. On seeing an ITN outside broadcast van parked a little way up the road, several fans fairly blanched with the knowledge that the white lies given to employers that morning risked being uncovered by an unwitting cameo on the evening news. Fancy a game of cat and mouse with a TV camera and a boom mike anyone?

Hostelry doors swung open at midday for prosecco and the run of the bar ahead of the scheduled unveiling at 1pm after which we trooped back inside for another couple of free ones before being summonsed to proceed to the back room for the musical part of the day’s event. Before Baz and JJ took to the stage, Jet said some word’s about the importance of The Star and many venues like it to aspiring musicians who like The Stranglers four decades before them were taking to a stage for the first time.

And here we have it, short but sweet, but rather different to the usual tour fare. Thanks to the taper and to Dom for the sound jiggery-pokery!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-i4nb4lwODN

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-L0rrcplYp1

01. JET BLACK'S INTRODUCTION
02. DUTCH MOON
03. STRANGE LITTLE GIRL
04. WHERE I LIVE
05. GO BUDDY GO

Sunday, 15 September 2019

RESTORED LINKS - 1987

1987......

Hammersmith Odeon London 31st March 1987.
The Metro Chicago 28th April 1987.
Warfield Theatre San Francisco 10th May 1987.
Roskilde Festival, Denmark 4th July 1987.
Reading Festival 30th August 1987.

RESTORED LINKS - 1986

1986....

St Austell Coliseum 20th October 1986.
Newcastle City Hall 26th October 1986.
Edinburgh Playhouse 25th October 1986.

RESTORED LINKS - 1985

Into '85......

Manchester Apollo 21st February 1985.
Birmingham Odeon 23rd February 1985.
Brighton Centre 4th March 1985.

Saturday, 14 September 2019

Thursday, 12 September 2019

RESTORED LINKS - 1982

Yet more...

'No Nukes' Festival Utrecht 9th April 1982 (4 high quality tracks).

'No Nukes' Festival Utrecht 9th April 1982 (Full Set)

Here's the full set recording from the bands appearance at the 'No Nukes' Festival in Utrecht back in '82.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-K8NXy8ADhG

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-xlkFx7qsPJ

01. Intro
02. Down In The Sewer,
03. Just Like Nothing On Earth
04. Second Coming
05. Non Stop
06. The Man They Love To Hate
07. Who Wants The World
08. Baroque Bordello
09. Golden Brown
10. How To Find True Love And Happiness In The Present Day
11. Tank
12. Let Me Introduce You To The Family
13. Tramp
14. The Raven
15. Nuclear Device
16. Genetix
17. La Folie

Wednesday, 11 September 2019

RESTORED LINKS - 1981

And more....

Unknown Venue Toronto 30th May 1981.
Bonds Casino New York 20th June 1981.
The Gaumont Southampton 19th November 1981.
Birmingham Odeon 15th November 1981.

RESTORED LINKS - 1980

And the next batch....

Saarbrucken University February 1980.
The Rainbow Theatre London 3rd April 1980.
Castel St Angelo Rome 2nd July 1980.
Parma Palasport 3rd July 1980.
Colston Hall Bristol 11th July 1980.

Tuesday, 10 September 2019

The 2 Tone Story - BBC 6 Music 25th August 2019

An updated account of the chequered history of Coventry's 2 Tone record label to mark it's 40th anniversary..... without doubt one of the most important labels in music history.

WAV: https://we.tl/t-tsY2VNrNqv

Enjoy yourself!

RESTORED LINKS - 1979

Some more here:

Le Palace, Paris 13th November 1979

Salle Des Fetes Du Grand Parc, Bordeaux 16/11/79 - Upped as new post.

Manchester Apollo 25/10/79

Monday, 9 September 2019

REPOST - Salle Des Fetes Du Grand Parc, Bordeaux 16/11/79

It cannot be over emphasized just how good this bootleg is and thanks to Dom P's gadgets and good ears it's even better than it was when I first posted it on here. The best recordings of The Raven tour all seenm to come from France and this in my opinion is the best of the lot!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-YPGz54EYsS

01. Intro
02. Five Minutes
03. Shah Shah A Go Go
04. Ice
05. Down In The Sewer
06. Hanging Around
07. The Raven
08. Dead Loss Angeles
09. Threatened
10. Baroque Bordello
11. Curfew
12. Tank
13. Burning Up Time
14. Bring On The Nubiles
15. Nuclear Device
16. Genetix
17. Duchess
18. Toiler On The Sea

Sunday, 8 September 2019

Hope & Anchor 22nd November 1977

Here we have, courtesy of Dom P, the definitive version of the definitive 1977 set. A bootleg of the band's appearance at the Front Row Festival had long been doing the rounds on cassette by the time that EMI (as owners of United Artists) finally put it out on CD in the early '90's. The consensus on this release is that it was rather a lackluster effort!

Dom's version addresses the failings of the official release.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-WdmZ30UM4l

Make no mistake, this is such an important recording (from any source). At this point in late 1977 The Stranglers' stock was high with two hit albums and a clutch of high flying singles under their collective belt they were the most commercially successful of all of the punk/new wave bands. By the time of the No More Heroes tour they had made the necessary transition from the pubs and club circuit to the larger sports halls and the Apollo-type entertainment Meccas.

However, the band's reappearance in the dingy basement of this famous Upper Street boozer was both a fond farewell and a thank you to each and every one of those London pubs that had nurtured and facilitated the success of the pub rock scene. There is no doubt that Pub Rock provided the venues and the environment that gave '77 punk bands the opportunity to come to the fore.

Without the patronage of pub venues such as the Hope (and its landlord Fred Grainger, famously name checked in 'Bitching'), The Windsor Castle, The Duke of Lancaster and The Lord Nelson et al all of the London bands may not have made it.

The set that the band played that night is unique in that it features 'Tits', 'Mean to Me' and 'Choosey Susie', none of which are captured live in anything that has survived. I think that this was a deliberate closing of the door on the early phase of the band. From here on in the band would focus on new material.... 'Black and Whilst was just around the corner!

Thanks to Eric and Rat Zone for the artwork.

RESTORED LINKS - Update 1977 and 1978

So finally I am planning to restore every link on the site, starting with The Stranglers material. in the 8 year lifetime of the site there have been some file sharing disasters, namely megaupload (a site that was shut down by the FBI!) and rapidshare (a platform that became unfit for purpose). Touch wood with the two WeTransfer accounts that I maintain the links will be functioning for a long time.

So here goes:

The Rock Garden, Middlesbrough 24/2/77.
Madrid 19th May 1978.
Bataclan, Paris 6/10/78.

Index to Stranglers Live Collection

Following on from the PC crash, I have in the past couple of weeks been doing a thorough inventory of The Stranglers collection. Please take a look here to see what is available currently on the site. Titles in white are yet to be uploaded.

Many thanks to those who have taken the time to sort me out with replacements etc!

Cheers,

Adrian.

Tuesday, 3 September 2019

Taxi-Girl Seppuku Demos 1981 - RIP Laurent Sinclair

Tonight we heard the news that Laurent Sinclair from the band Taxi Girl has died at the young age of 58. The band were associated with The Stranglers and particularly JJ in the early '80's. They supported the band on dates on the La Folie tour.

To mark this sad occasion here are demos that the band recorded in 1981. Thanks as ever to Eric and The Rat Zone.

M4A: https://we.tl/t-UOihRlpWlt

Sunday, 1 September 2019

Lost Recordings - The Stranglers 1991 to 2005

Here's the next period, the Paul Roberts era. Not so much damage here as my collection over these years was always a bit thin. Shame really because as I have always said, whilst it was not particularly my cup of tea there are many for which this period means a great deal.

Here's what has been lost.

Goldwyns, Bristol 28/2/91
~~The Venue, New Cross 11/9/93~~
Heineken Festival 25/6/94
~~Cardiff Festival 27/8/94~~
Cabot Hall, Canary Wharf, London 3/10/03

Please refer to the bootleg list in the pages section of the site and if you have other Robert's era shows to share, please feel free to do so.

The email address for transfer is: adrianandrews1@sky.com

Live Recordings 1976 to Date

Monday, 30 September 2019

Thursday, 26 September 2019

Tuesday, 24 September 2019