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.


Thursday, 3 September 2026

Ramones Roundhouse Camden London 4th July 1976

 

This iconic set from Ramones cropped up on 101 Guitars recently. It is from a gig that is steeped in the lore of the early Stranglers. Punks were on parade over the 4th July weekend in 1976 as the bicentenary of American Independence was marked at the Roundhouse.  24 hours later Ramones were in action again with a headline gig just down the road at Dingwalls. It was here where some semblance of punk pecking order was established in a brawl that effectively ostracised The Stranglers from the punk scene even before it took off. More can be read up on that here.

So this is a lossless recording of the Ramones set. The NME review in the earlier post on this gig described Ramones as a comedy act more than a rock 'n' roll band. However, whist this is not the greatest of recordings, the band sound pretty good, albeit a bit slower... they speeded up in later years. Rather than being bemused, it is clear that at least a section of the audience were familiar with the first album (released in April 1976) as chants of 'Hey Ho Let's Go!' and 'Beat on the Brat with a Baseball Bat' can be heard.

I was prompted to post this tonight since I received an email tonight alerting me to a post that has recently been made on the Burning Up Time Forum that indicates that the recording of The Stranglers from this gig has surfaced. Whilst such a recording may not be the Holy Grail of bootlegs... an accolade still held by the NOB gig, it would be pretty special, not least because it includes 'Tomorrow Was (The Hereafter)' in the set. Let's see what happens.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-vYZENHi9GFUccfCU

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-KCVpuN0Y3xjDJvSU



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