Mark Johnson - An Ideal for Living (1984)

Title: An Ideal for Living: An History of Joy Division

Author: Mark Johnson
Publisher: Proteus Books (original), Bobcat Books (reprinting)
Year: 1984

I stumbled onto this book at a local bookstore and quickly realized I'd found something special. An Ideal for Living is an obsessively detailed book about Joy Division and early New Order. It's been long out of print and copies on eBay go for dozens of euros. The book chronologically documents the bands from their earliest beginnings in 1976 until the end of 1983. While we may have the internet today to compulsively research and document every studio session and live performance of a beloved band, in the post-punk heyday this task was left up to the most hardcore of fans. This is a testament to that sort of dedication. Apparently, Mark Johnson was both loved and hated for his work: the band members were annoyed with his persistence and plentiful errors, but fans can only marvel at the amount of information in the book.

Most of the content of An Ideal for Living takes the form of a combined gigography, sessionography, and discography. Although the bands and some related parties were interviewed, the text primarily describes notable aspects of the live performances and recording details. Very few concerts are left without some sort of note, and every show for which a bootleg was available at the time is marked with an asterisk. (The introduction humorously states that to obtain these bootlegs, just ask around at the next New Order concert. Times have changed!) Accompanying these notes, there are also over a hundred reproduced photographs, most of which I'd never seen before.

There is one confusing aspect to this: it is unclear where the most of the information actually comes from. Sources are scarcely listed for anything except the direct quotes from the band members, their associates, and the local press. It would appear that the author attended many of the gigs in question, and has heard bootlegs where available, but one can only assume the rest of his information simply came from the fan community.

In addition to the comprehensive primary text, the other source of content is a series of pseudo-philosophical essays that also go largely uncredited. With only a few exceptions, they are only vaguely related to the bands in question. Most of these essays are nonsensical and an utter waste of space. They don't even do a good job of constructing mystique around the music, which might have been welcome considering how deconstructive the rest of the material is. Paul Morley is listed as contributing "Faces and Masks", and he is likely the author of some of these essays, especially considering his penchant for abstract, irrelevant prose. I generally like Morley, and he seems to like the same bands as me, but his writing often wanders too far off course. At any rate, the authorship is never fully clarified.

While the book is fun to peruse just to ponder the history, the author made no attempt to maintain a consistent narrative. Information is simply presented chronologically as it is available, and the book sort of awkwardly trails off at the end as the material had to be wrapped up for publication. There is also no attempt whatsoever to describe the musicians' personal lives; unlike Deborah Curtis' Touching from a Distance, family members and mental health are largely ignored. In the few words that are used to describe Ian Curtis, his suicide is considered a complete surprise, his depression is left unmentioned, and his epilepsy is downplayed. This may have been the general trend of the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, it's hard not to feel like warning signs were certainly present.

While reading the book, I tried to consider if this book is still relevant. It's a great resource, but apart from being out of date (new audience recordings have appeared since publication, and of course New Order is still active today!), most of this information is now well-documented online, on multiple websites, with additional details. The sessionography and discography are also available in the booklet accompanying the Heart and Soul box set. However, hardcore fans may still appreciate having all of the material in print, especially considering the photographs and the unique nature of many of the incidental details of the various concerts. Considering the limitations of the work and the difficulty in procuring a copy, I can only recommend it to the hardcore, which is presumably for whom the book was written anyway. It's a cool collection of information, but not essential.

Score: B

References and Further Reading:

Joy Division Central

Joy Division Shadowplay

http://archive.new-order.net/2012/08/12-march-1983-recreation-centre.html

https://lwtua.websitetoolbox.com/post/whatever-happened-to-mark-johnson-2753587

Jimmy McDonough - Shakey: Neil Young's Biography (2002)

Title: Shakey: Neil Young's Biography

Author: Jimmy McDonough
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2002

A couple months ago, I was thinking about reading Graham Nash's new book, Wild Tales, but I was sufficiently warded off by advice that it would make me dislike the primary figures portrayed in the book. However, my interest in Nash and his scene had been piqued by the release of CSNY 1974, and I'd also just discovered that Neil Young's Archives Vol. 1 is on Spotify. (This seems utterly bizarre considering his well-known hatred of low-quality digital audio formats). Thus, when I found a copy of Shakey on my parents' bookshelves, I decided to give that a try instead, and so I asked to borrow it.

Shakey had a tumultuous history, and remains somewhat contentious in the hagiography of Neil Young. I don't want to retread water that's been well documented elsewhere, and that includes most of the actual history of the artist in question, but there is still the matter of the quality of the book itself. What I am most concerned about here is the ability of the author of the biography, Jimmy McDonough, to transmit the many-faceted life and music of his subject to the reader.

Two things smack you in the face within the first few pages of the book: the massive ego of the author and the incredible amount of time and energy that went into the project. The lowest points of the book are when McDonough's language gets so ridiculous that you can't take him seriously and you start to question his motives. His opinions are strong and they are scattered all over the book. Avoiding them is impossible. A less-informed reader would come away thinking that Crosby, Stills and Nash are three of the absolute worst humans to have tread this planet (okay, maybe not Crosby), Pearl Jam isn't much better, Crazy Horse is God, Bob Dylan is Jesus, every band from the late 70s through the present is absolute garbage, and Neil Young must be the Second Coming or the Holy Spirit or whatever makes sense out of these awful clichés.

Many people get away with hating contemporary music or new wave or whatever their favorite scapegoat is, but McDonough's virulence is irresponsible. He's allowed to have his opinions, and it wouldn't even bother me if they were presented in a measured fashion, but because he paints in such broad, black-and-white strokes, it's hard not to get distracted. Crazy Horse very well might be his best creative partner, but to pretend that Neil's other collaborators are meritless is unreasonable. For example, CSNY in the early 70s were on fire, even if they never again truly recaptured it; and Neil's album with Pearl Jam (Mirror Ball, 1995) is one of his best and most consistent.

[Mirror Ball.]

Similarly, he tries to portray Young as apolitical, or merely subject to the whims of his time. He successfully makes a point that Neil has appeared out of touch at times, and that he has made his fair share of stupid or ridiculous comments, but he also ignores Neil's long history of political themes. Neil may have become more overt with his subject matter in recent times, but even if you write off the obvious "Ohio", "Southern Man", and "Rockin' in the Free World", what else can one make of songs like "After the Gold Rush", "War Song", "Campaigner", "Homegrown", "Pocahontas", "Powderfinger", "Shots", "Mideast Vacation", "Long Walk Home", "Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)", "Song X", "Act of Love", and so on?

In keeping with his love of Crazy Horse and producer David Brigg's anti-overdub policy, McDonough overlooks that Neil has a perfectionist side that has produced an equal portion of his best work, starting with his Buffalo Springfield masterpieces "Expecting to Fly" and "Broken Arrow", and continuing throughout his career, including some of his best albums, such as Harvest (1972), Comes a Time (1978), Trans (1982), and Freedom (1989). The author tries to portray any carefully crafted album as lacking spirit or soul, but almost all of his albums are a balance of first-take gut instinct and mechanical perfectionism. Young's catalog defies simple categorization. Some of the lopsidedly overproduced albums, like Harvest Moon (1992) are dull and predictable, while some of the more underproduced albums, like Broken Arrow (1996), are lumbering and slipshod.

[Trans.]

Worst of all is his portrayal of CSN, and in particular Graham Nash. While largely excusing Crosby for his regularly awful behavior, and merely writing off Stills as a drugged-out failure, he spares nothing from Nash. The author paints Nash as overly sentimental and unartistically populist, yet fails to appreciate that he brings an element of balance and precision to their collaborations. McDonough cleverly overlooks that Nash and Young have a lot in common, including political interests and personal assistants (i.e. archivist/photographer Joel Bernstein). In fact, he never mentions the joint Nash-Young single "War Song" from 1973 at all, nor Nash's Wurlitzer contribution to "On the Beach". His role in the Time Fades Away tour and album and his many vocal contributions to Neil's songs performed with CSNY are also downplayed. Despite the author's negativity, the very photo on the cover of the book was taken by Nash!

Another strange element, perhaps fitting into the author's overwhelming prejudices, is that he refused to interview several important people, including erstwhile record company owner David Geffen and latter-day collaborators Pearl Jam and Booker T & the MGs. Considering the number of subjects interviewed, these exclusions are obviously deliberate, and the author even calls them out specifically in the endnotes. The reasoning is apparently left as an exercise for the reader. Several subjects are also mentioned as ignoring or refusing interviews, including Bob Dylan and Stephen Stills. (Also, bizarrely, Beck.) While perhaps disappointing, their voices are hardly missed, and this is presumably no fault of the author's.

Instead, several sections of the book focus on otherwise unknown, hyper-obsessive fans that the reader is given no reason to care about. Two of these figures, Ken Viola and Dave McFarlin, are repeatedly quoted and interviewed. Neither seems to offer a particularly sophisticated or unique perspective, yet both are treated as sage voices of the truth. Why their opinions are relevant is left unclear.

A more complex subject is the author's treatment of Neil Young's family. First wife Susan Acevedo apparently declined to be interviewed, but she is still discussed. Young's next long-term partner, Carrie Snodgrass, and their child together, Zeke, are both interviewed and discussed, but when the narrative reaches the point of Neil's marriage to Pegi, the author states that he decided not to enter that space. Hence, Pegi is hardly mentioned at all, and it is unclear if she was even interviewed. Their two children together are also minimally discussed, except for son Ben's struggles with cerebral palsy.

I don't think McDonough's decision is necessarily a bad one, but since Neil's personal life from that point largely becomes a transparent void, the narrative loses a lot of its force and weight. Up to that point, his life is analyzed and processed just as much as his musical endeavors, but after the mid-70s, Neil is presented as a purely musical entity. I understand the desire to respect the privacy of his children, but we lose a lot of perspective on what drives and defines Neil. Halfway through the book, the narrative has just reached February 1971, only a few years into Young's career. Much of his music-making career, throughout the 80s up until the manuscript was completed in 1998, is given a rushed, at best precursory treatment.

To make it worse, as the narrative carries on, the author begins to insert himself into the narrative. His ego is large enough that he describes telling Neil that some of his material was terrible and shouldn't be released. Apparently, he didn't know what else to say about Neil's career in the 90s, so he just writes about hanging out in Neil's tour bus and model train barn. These might be interesting or unusual parts of Neil's life, but no one cares about how the author fits into them.

[Homegrown (unreleased, but recorded in 1974).]

McDonough's text makes for a frustrating read. He gets so much right – he digs deep into Neil's circle, he doesn't shy away from Neil's eccentricity, he researches all the obscure unreleased material, he describes all the best concerts and tours that you'd never know happened in Santa Cruz or New Zealand or wherever, and he doesn't always paint Neil in the best light. Shakey convinced me to immediately start seeking out a bunch of bootlegs I didn't heretofore know existed and to give some of his weirder, less popular albums another listen. That right there is indicative of a successful rock biography.

But on the other hand, the author's arbitrarily harsh opinions too often get in the way of the story. His over-the-top style of trying to come off as some sort of streetwise hustler only makes him seem immature and less credible. His blatant preference for the seedy, grainy side of everything tarnishes his perspective on anything fashioned in any other manner. And while the thoroughness of the book is hardly a fault, the length is a little excessive when you consider how much of the material relating to himself or to irrelevant fans could be trimmed. I wanted to read a book about Neil Young, not a book about Jimmy McDonough and his fanboy preoccupations.

Score: B

References and Further Reading:

Thrasher's Wheat on Jimmy McDonough

Thrasher's Wheat on Shakey

Los Angeles Review of Books interview with Jimmy McDonough

The Guardian review of Shakey

PopMatters review of Shakey

Peter Hook & the Light - Live 2014.11.04 Mohawk, Austin, Texas

I've been very skeptical of the recent trend of concerts consisting of full album performances. It seems like a blatant nostalgia trip, at risk of providing neither room for the creativity of designing a good setlist nor the freedom of rearranging songs to take advantage of the live setting. This type of show has become very popular among some of my favorite post-punk/new wave bands, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. It clearly is an attempt to give fans what they want, which apparently is just a rehashing of the past, but I see both good and bad in it.

I've also been very skeptical of the antics of Peter Hook as of late. It was only a few months ago that I acquired his first book, The Haçienda, and my review was mildly unfavorable. Hooky has long since seemed like the odd member out of New Order, and there is quite a bit of content available to the public of the feuds between him and the rest of the band. For that matter, there's a fair bit of history of feuds between him and others (cf. Freebass). In fact, he comes off as a bit of a loudmouthed jerk. However, it's hard to really know the truth or to actually establish fault.

At any rate, when I heard that Peter Hook and the Light were coming to town to perform New Order's Low-Life (1985) and Brotherhood (1986), I did not jump at the opportunity. It wasn't until just a few days before, after deciding that I wouldn't be going to the Fun Fun Fun Fest this year, that I realized that $21 was pretty cheap for an aging veteran of two of my favorite bands. Even though the forecast was heavy thunderstorms, the venue claimed to have tents, and I figured it was still worth a shot.

Artist: Peter Hook & the Light

Venue: Mohawk (outside)

Location: Austin, Texas

Date: 4 November 2014

First set (Joy Division):
01. Atmosphere
02. ICB
03. Passover
04. No Love Lost
05. Something Must Break
06. These Days
07. Shadowplay

Second set (Brotherhood):
08. Let's Go (instrumental)
09. Lonesome Tonight
10. Thieves Like Us
11. Paradise
12. Weirdo
13. As It Is When It Was
14. Broken Promise
15. Way of Life
16. Bizarre Love Triangle (extended)
17. All Day Long
18. Angel Dust
19. Every Little Counts

Third set (Low-Life):
20. Love Vigilantes

21. The Perfect Kiss (extended)
22. This Time of Night
23. Sunrise
24. Elegia
25. Sooner Than You Think
26. Subculture
27. Face Up

Encore (non-album singles):
28. Confusion
29. State of the Nation
30. True Faith
31. Temptation
32. Love Will Tear Us Apart

[Peter Hook & the Light.]

Of course, it did indeed rain during most of the concert, and the best spots were not actually under tents. So I stood in the rain and even took my usual notes, although I now know that was pointless since Hooky posted the setlists online the next morning. This was actually the opening night of the new US tour of these albums, following prior tours featuring the original Joy Division albums and then the first two New Order albums. It was also announced that the band would be their own opener, playing an assortment of Joy Division songs.

Currently, the line-up of the Light features Hooky's son, Jack Bates, on "rhythm" bass, along with three of Hooky's former bandmates from Monaco: guitarist David Potts, drummer Paul Kehoe, and keyboardist Andy Poole. Hooky himself sings and plays "lead" bass. The dual-bassist situation might strike some as odd, but since Peter's last band initially featured three bassists, this is not so extraordinary. Furthermore, considering the prominent role that his bass played in Joy Division and New Order, it's no surprise that many of the songs put both musicians to full use. Of course, in most songs, Hooky let his son handle the basic parts, while he would just occasionally double the parts, play an octave higher, or break for the solos.

Nonetheless, Hooky is still a solid performer, and when he did play, it was with honed precision and skill. On "Love Vigilantes", he even played the melodica riff, and in the bridges of a few songs, he would turn to a drum pad and beat out some extra rhythm parts. And naturally, he took the lead vocals – except on "Sooner Than You Think", where he let Potts take the lead on the verses. Potts also took the co-lead part of the chorus to "Paradise", and sang backing vocals in many songs. The similarity of his voice to that of Bernard Sumner's threw me off, but I'm glad it wasn't relied upon too much. Meanwhile, Hooky can actually do a decent job of approximating Ian Curtis, but these days he sounds quite different than Sumner.

The Joy Division set was a great way to start things off, especially since it started with their best song ("Atmosphere") and continued along with a motley selection of songs scattered throughout their brief career. Most of these songs were played with a punky, energetic vibe befitting the original band's live sound. The real surprise was "ICB", a conspicuous anomaly in that it is a New Order song from their debut album, Movement (1981). It fit right in, but one can only wonder why that song. After all, Hooky did sing lead on two songs from that album – but not that one!

I had assumed that after a brief break, the band would jump right into Low-Life. Instead, the Light (without Peter) came out and played an instrumental version of the rare "Let's Go". Hooky then came out and played both sides of the great 1984 single "Thieves Like Us" / "Lonesome Tonight". I figured that worked as a good chronological prelude to Low-Life, but the band surprised me again by starting into Brotherhood.

I've always slightly preferred Low-Life, and I'm left to assume that by reversing the chronology and playing it last, Hooky shares my feelings, or he figured his audience would. I felt wronged for a second until I realized that it didn't matter at all. Even if I do have an established preference when it comes to the recorded versions, I'd be hard-pressed to say which one was better live. I think the band handled the Brotherhood songs better than I would have expected, but part of it might just be that the album is less sequencer-based and thus translates to the live rock band format more readily.

The band brought a great energy to the show, and I thought the band's familiarity with each other contributed to a certain tightness. The sequencer-heavy songs (i.e. most of the singles and "Elegia") were less dynamic and exciting, but the music was still good. It's just a bit awkward to watch the musicians stand around on stage, waiting for their brief part or even just the next song. Otherwise, it was great to see some of these lesser-known songs played live for the first time since 1987 or thereabout. I also appreciated that several songs were played in their extended forms, closer to the versions found on the original 12" singles. "Bizarre Love Triangle" was definitely longer than the album version; "Subculture" featured a few elements from the 12" mix (although that's a rare case where I prefer the album mix); and "The Perfect Kiss" featured the third verse and extended instrumental section found only on the 12" version, although it probably still wasn't the full nine minutes of the unedited original. (The frog solo was sorely missed, for example.)

[Hooky on a stool with his six-string bass for "Elegia".]

Hooky's vocals were the one thing that were sometimes a weak point. While he appeared natural trying to convey Curtis's words, he was clearly less comfortable singing some of Sumner's vocals from the New Order set. The main problem was just range: Hooky's voice is much closer to Ian's, so he didn't really have to stretch to sing the Joy Division songs, but Bernard's voice is just a bit higher and softer than what Hooky could reasonably manage. He ended up singing many parts an octave lower, which sometimes worked and sometimes just didn't sound right. There were a few parts that he didn't drop but still couldn't do justice to. Otherwise, while his voice might not be extraordinary, I thought he did a good job with the vocals, and the mix was such that I could understand most of the lyrics quite well.

The encore included several singles from the era (loosely speaking), which naturally received great audience response. "True Faith" and "Temptation" really got the crowd excited, while "State of the Nation" was a bit of a surprise, even to me. (I always thought that one and "Shellshock" were of a lesser quality musically, even if the lyrics to "Nation" have reasonable merit.) The final number was a precursory take of "Love Will Tear Us Apart", which was satisfying despite the predictability.

I'll admit, Peter Hook more than surpassed my expectations. He might not have challenged his audience or provided any new insights, but the entire purpose of his project with The Light has been to bring alive songs of his past, and he certainly does it well. I give him major bonus points for the Joy Division set and especially all the extra singles and rarities. The show rocked, the sound was superb, and he treated his audience quite well, so what else could you want?

Score: A-

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - CSNY 1974 (2014)

As a bootleg collector and a fan of CSNY, I've been well acquainted with their fabled 1974 tour. I've heard complete audience recordings of three or four of the performances and parts of at least a dozen more. Underneath the hiss and audience chatter that pervade every bootleg recording of a stadium concert from that era, it was clear to me that the band was in better form than most rock historians would tell you. While every concert was far from flawless, they were still probably about on par with their shows from the original days of the band in 1969 and 1970. Even 4 Way Street, their official live album from 1971, supposedly showcasing their best concerts in 1970, suffers from missed notes, off-key harmonies, and flubbed lyrics. In the 1974 bootleg recordings, as with the 1971 album, the flaws aren't enough to truly dampen the magic. The ability of four clashing rock monsters to yield any amount of impressive results is something to marvel at, and the fact that more often than not they are right on the mark is amazing. Plus, in concerts from both 1970 and 1974, alternate arrangements and rare or otherwise unreleased songs are offered all over the place.

I was happy enough with my bootlegs, and knowing how slow and reluctant certain members of the band are to retrace their history, I never expected to hear an official release of recordings from the tour. Even when I heard that the project was in the works, I just assumed it would never actually come out. So, after numerous delays, when it finally did, I couldn't resist purchasing it. I had to hear it. And now that I've heard it, I want to share some insight from the perspective of someone that has heard the raw, untampered bootlegs. A word of warning, though: this review is long and detailed, which may be tedious for the casual reader, but hopefully will be of particular interest to the dedicated fan. Because of the length, I have used section headers and boldface to make the article easier to scan and search.

[CSNY 1974.]

Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Album: CSNY 1974

Release Date: 8 July 2014

Label: Rhino Records

Producer: Graham Nash and Joel Bernstein with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Lists and Numbers

Below, I provide the complete tracklist annotated with first album appearance, authorship, and additional contributing members to the original version. I have not listed cowriters outside of the four core CSNY members. Tracks in bold had not been released at the time of the tour. Note that Young's On the Beach was released during the tour (July 16, 1974). For the DVD, I have listed only the songwriter, since all of the tracks already appeared in the CD tracklists with full details.

Disc 1:

01. Love the One You're With (Stephen Stills, 1970, by Stills, with Crosby and Nash)

02. Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Crosby and Stills, with Nash)

03. Immigration Man (Graham Nash David Crosby, 1972, by Nash, with Crosby)

04. Helpless (Déjà Vu, 1970, by Young, with Crosby, Stills, and Nash)

05. Carry Me (Wind on the Water, 1975, by Crosby, with Nash)

06. Johnny's Garden (Manassas, 1972, by Stills)

07. Traces (unreleased, by Young)

08. Grave Concern (Wild Tales, 1973, by Nash)

09. On the Beach (On the Beach, 1974, by Young, with Nash)

10. Black Queen (Stephen Stills, 1970, by Stills)

11. Almost Cut My Hair (Déjà Vu, 1970, by Crosby, with Stills, Nash, and Young)

Disc 2:

01. Change Partners (Stephen Stills 2, 1971, by Stills, with Crosby)

02. The Lee Shore (4 Way Street, 1971, by Crosby, with Nash)

03. Only Love Can Break Your Heart (After the Gold Rush, 1970, by Young)

04. Our House (Déjà Vu, 1970, by Nash, with Crosby and Stills)

05. Fieldworker (Wind on the Water, 1975, by Nash, with Crosby)

06. Guinevere (Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Crosby, with Nash)

07. Time After Time (Whistling Down the Wire, 1976, by Crosby, with Nash)

08. Prison Song (Wild Tales, 1973, by Nash, with Crosby)

09. Long May You Run (Long May You Run, 1976, by Young, with Stills; alternate version from Decade (1977) also features Crosby and Nash)

10. Goodbye Dick (unreleased, by Young)

11. Mellow My Mind (Tonight's the Night, 1975, by Young)

12. Old Man (Harvest, 1972, by Young)

13. Word Game (Stephen Stills 2, 1971, by Stills)

14. Myth of Sisyphus (Stills, 1975, by Stills)

15. Blackbird (Allies, 1983, written by Lennon/McCartney, performed by Crosby, Stills, and Nash live since first concerts in 1969)

16. Love/Art Blues (unreleased, by Young)

17. Hawaiian Sunrise (unreleased, by Young)

18. Teach Your Children (Déjà Vu, 1970, by Nash, with Crosby and Stills)

19. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Stills, with Crosby and Nash)

Disc 3:

01. Déjà Vu (Déjà Vu, 1970, by Crosby, with Stills and Nash)

02. My Angel (Stills, 1975, by Stills)

03. Pre-Road Downs (Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Nash, with Crosby and Stills)

04. Don't Be Denied (Time Fades Away, 1973, by Young)

05. Revolution Blues (On the Beach, 1974, by Young, with Crosby)

06. Military Madness (Songs for Beginners, 1971, by Nash)

07. Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969, by Crosby, with Stills and Nash)

08. Pushed It Over the End (Heritage box set, 1981, by Young, with Crosby, Stills, and Nash)

09. Chicago (4 Way Street, 1971 / Songs for Beginners, 1971, by Nash)

10. Ohio (Single, by Young, with Crosby, Stills, and Nash)

DVD:

01. Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Young)

02. Almost Cut My Hair (Crosby)

03. Grave Concern (Nash)

04. Old Man (Young)

05. Johnny's Garden (Stills)

06. Our House (Nash)

07. Déjà Vu (Crosby)

08. Pushed It Over the End (Young)

There are many reasons for me to provide the tracklist with these annotations. It's worth noting how the songs get divided up. For example, I have tabulated of some of the above information below. The first number is the number of songs written by the member; the second number is how many songs they performed on; third is how many of the original released versions they performed on; and last is how many of the songs on the DVD were written by that member.

Crosby: 8.5 / 34 / 14* / 2

Stills: 8.5 / 35 / 11 / 1

Nash: 9 / 35 / 15* / 2

Young: 14 / 34 / 1 / 3

Notice any trends? I should make a couple notes. First, the asterisk represents the fact that "Long May You Run" originally featured Crosby and Nash, but the first official release did not, so if you want to count that, just add one. Second, the fractions represent "Wooden Ships", the only true collaboration that appears here. Third, many of these songs had been performed by the group live in 1969 and 1970, so even if the first released version didn't include other members' contributions, they may have already performed the songs live together before this tour. This discrepancy is not accounted for in my tabulation. Fourth, "Pushed It Over the End" was previously only released on an obscure Italian box set, and in fact was a recording from one of the Chicago dates of this very tour. It is a different recording than the one that appears here, and the sound quality is significantly inferior. Many ignore that release and considered the song essentially unreleased until now.

At any rate, the incongruity is obvious: Neil contributed the most songs (and especially the most then-unreleased songs), yet he appeared the least on other member's released recordings. However, the total live performance appearances (the second column) are almost even. As might be expected, the members were more collaborative when they shared a stage than they were when recording in the studio.

Songs and Songwriters

At first glance, the setlist/tracklist is undeniably impressive. It balances the original two CSN(Y) studio albums, various solo (and band) efforts, and a slew of newly written material. Neil offers a bunch of otherwise unavailable (or exceptionally rare) songs, which is an obvious treat, but also of special interest are the many rearrangements of previously-available material. One might complain that the box set doesn't include every single then-unreleased or rare song that was performed on the tour, but what is there is notable nonetheless. To discuss the specifics of what songs and performances are noteworthy (or forgettable), as well as what's missing, I will break the setlist down by bandmember.

I'll start with Graham Nash. As always, Nash tends to be the most consistent and stable. His voice is in good form, and while his songs never falter, they also rarely grow and change. Similarly, his musicianship is never showy but also never exceptional. Nash appears on many songs just on vocals, but he can be found on rhythm guitar or keyboards on plenty others.

Nash's highlights are "Fieldworker", a moving, newly-written song played just once on the tour in a simple arrangement; "Grave Concern", whose strong live performance greatly improves upon his solo studio recording; and "Teach Your Children", which risks being a cliché today, but is presented here with a louder, clearer mix of the counterpoint vocals in the second verse, which might be the best part of the song. "Pre-Road Downs" is given a thoroughly rocking take, but the vocals suffer a bit and lose clarity. "Military Madness" is a little weak, but "Immigration Man" is great, and "Chicago" features some great lead guitar from Nash's bandmates. Nash's songs have the least low points and the least high points, and the only real complaint is that his song "It's All Right" (unreleased until Earth & Sky in 1980) didn't make the cut.

Both of David Crosby's new songs for the tour appear on the album: "Carry Me", which turned out surprisingly good; and "Time After Time", which didn't. Crosby consistently played rhythm guitar throughout the album, often on an electric 12-string, and his vocals grace almost as many songs as Nash's. However, Crosby was the only principal member not to offer any keyboard parts. While his vocals are generally very strong, they do sound just a notch less consistent than Nash's.

Crosby's "Déjà Vu" is one of the highlights of the entire collection, rearranged in an extended, powerful, electric style. It may drag on just barely too long, but it's a cool enough take that I can't complain. Conversely, "Long Time Gone" loses some of its strength compared to the superb studio version. Somewhere in between is the lethargic take on "Almost Cut My Hair", which certainly loses some energy, but gains some depth and moodiness. In general, Crosby fared well, although his rampant hard drug use and general poor decision-making contribute to the feeling that these performances perhaps marked the end of his prime.

Stephen Stills is the least-favorably represented of the group. His guitarwork is in great form, and he even plays some decent keyboard parts, but his vocals suffer substantially compared to performances even a couple years prior. His voice might not have been as bad as it was when I saw CSN this year in Austin, but it is probably comparable to or worse than when I saw CSN two years ago in Kentucky. This has clearly been a long-standing problem. His poor showing mars "Love the One You're With" and brings down the otherwise excellent "Johnny's Garden". The vocals on "Black Queen" are abhorrent, but thankfully the electric guitar arrangement makes for a cool jam, even if it is a little ostentatious and drawn out.

Somehow "Blackbird" was left unscarred, and it remains a showcase for the band's vocal prowess and harmonic arrangement skills. The bridge is particularly transcendent and the performance is clearly superior to the version on the mediocre Allies (1983). However, two centerpiece performances for the band, "Wooden Ships" and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", suffer just a touch from Stills' vocal inability. Otherwise, those two songs sound superb and stand as strong as ever. For better or worse, the band hadn't started the trend of letting Nash sing most of Stills' parts in "Judy". That song has long served as a guidepost to the quality of a live performance by any group featuring Stills, and the ability of the members to harmonize correctly on it varied widely throughout the band's early years and just as much through the 1974 tour. (During the brief Stills-Young Band tour of 1976, the two principals consistently utterly failed to nail it. No wonder Young jumped off that sinking ship.) The performance on this album may have been edited or "tuned", but I'll address that notion in greater detail below.

The one pleasant surprise for Stills is "Word Game", which borrows a rambling, affected, somewhat annoying style borrowed from "Black Queen" but takes it in a better direction. It's on the line of showiness, but since the lyrics are actually meaningful (almost preachy, in fact), it works. A point of confusion for me is that many bootlegs and setlists denote that the song was played as a medley with Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me". Neither this album nor any bootleg from this tour that I've heard appear to include that additional material, although the Stephen Stills Live album (recorded in 1974 before the CSNY tour, released in 1975) includes a medley of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" with "You Can't Catch Me" as a separate track from "Word Game".

Less pleasant are Stills' new songs, "Myth of Sisyphus" and "My Angel", both later released on Stills (1975). Both are bad, but the latter is despondently terrible. I appreciate the attempt at offering new material, but when it's that worthless, it's hard to enjoy. Stills played three further songs on the tour that would later also appear on Stills: "My Favorite Changes", another bland song played just once on the opening night of the tour (and thus not recorded); "First Things First", which is just barely better than mediocre; and "As I Come of Age", which is actually pretty good, but which had been played live with CSNY since 1970. A big deal was made in the press about the lack of "Carry On", a traditional Stills showcase in the form of a hyperextended jam. I don't think the absence is much of a loss, but its inclusion may have helped bring up the average quality of Stills' material on the album.

The best showing was clearly given by Neil Young. I may be biased, but even the most precursory examination of this collection would bring most listeners to the conclusion that Young was the only member concerned with exceeding expectations. He brought the most songs, the biggest share of great songs, and the most proficient instrumental contributions.

His vocals are mostly in good form, and although they do stretch across a spectrum reaching from excellent to totally off (i.e. "Helpless"), his backing vocals are a welcome and distinctive addition to many of the other members' songs ("Love the One You're With", "Immigration Man", "Change Partners", "Prison Song", "Teach Your Children", et cetera). On bootlegs, his backing vocals were extremely hard to hear, if they were even in the mix at all. The presence of these additional vocals is one the best hidden treasures on this album.

Neil's guitarwork matches Stills', or perhaps even exceeds, in that Neil tends to be less flashy and more subtle and expressive. "On the Beach", "Don't Be Denied", "Revolution Blues", and "Chicago" all feature great improvisational work from the two guitarists, but sadly the number of truly shared or dueling guitar solos is fairly limited. The two clearly play off of each other and bring out interesting parts of each other, but even when left to their individual devices, Neil still never disappoints here. Young's keyboard work also graces many songs to good effect.

Some of Neil's most notable performances are the fuller, harmony-drenched renditions of songs like "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", "Old Man", and "Mellow My Mind". The former two might be predictable, but the a capella chorus of "Only Love" is transcendent nonetheless, and this early live take on "Mellow My Mind" is better than the version on Tonight's the Night.

A couple of Neil's hitherto-unreleased songs are a bit lightweight, but they're still likable. "Goodbye Dick" is a brief, throwaway joke, and "Hawaiian Sunrise" is only saved by the great harmonies, but "Traces" (which appears on some bootlegged early acetate versions of Tonight's the Night) is good, and "Love/Art Blues", a song about finding balance in life, is even better. (It features the hilarious couplet, "my songs are so long / my words are all so sad".) "Pushed It Over the End" is the true lost treasure, an epic with both great guitar breaks and solid harmonies.

"Long May You Run" appears here performed as a duo with Stills, which is how the song would first see release two years later on the otherwise terrible Stills-Young Band album named after the song. Stills manages some great guitar runs, but he also misses the "Oh, Caroline, no" cue, and Neil even hits a wrong note on the harmonica. One longs for the full CSNY harmonies that grace the alternate mix heard on Decade.

Similarly, "On the Beach" and "Revolution Blues" do not feature any harmonies, but the brief dueling guitar solos from Stills and Young are a pleasure to hear. It's hard not to feel that an opportunity was missed, but the manic, paranoid intensity of both songs comes alive well here anyway. At least "Don't Be Denied" takes advantage of the full band: the harmonies in the third and fourth verses and the great guitar duels elevate the song to match or best the live version from Time Fades Away.

If all of Neil's unreleased material, early versions, and rearrangements weren't enough, it is worth noting that there was even more done on the tour that doesn't appear on the album. Most importantly, several songs intended for the scrapped Homegrown album first appeared publicly on this tour. "Homefires" has never seen release in any form (although it has been sporadically played live since then); "Love Is a Rose" debuted here; one of two performances ever of "Pardon My Heart" was on this tour; and "Star of Bethlehem" and "The Old Homestead" were both performed three times on this tour and never again. "Human Highway" was performed in an excellent sparse arrangement with great harmonies, far superior to the overdone version that would later turn up on Comes a Time. "Roll Another Number" was a drunken tune from Tonight's the Night that was already recorded and done live but still hadn't seen release. Also notable were "Walk On" and "For the Turnstiles", both from the contemporaneously released On the Beach. The latter was treated well by the full CSNY arrangement, but I can't speak to the latter, as it was only performed once (and not played again until 1987!), and that show was neither officially recorded nor bootlegged.

[An acoustic number in Houston.]

History vs. Post-Production

Moving on from the specific songs and songwriters, there are a few bigger-picture issues to consider. My first question is how well this album represents what actually happened on the tour. I've covered the song choices in great detail, and I think it's fair to say the producers did a good job constructing a fairly accurate representation of the setlists. An equally important issue is how much the recordings were altered to create a more perfect version of the past. All four members and archivist/producer Joel Bernstein have frequently derided the quality of the performances in the past, so it is not without irony that this album sounds as good as it does. There are minor flaws, such as static (during "Love the One You're With" and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"), occasional bum notes, missed cues, and off-key vocals, but they aren't common enough to detract from the performance. In fact, they may even contribute to an air of authenticity. However, Nash mentions "tuning" the songs in interviews, and he also discusses editing together multiple takes, sometimes even flying in individual lines from other shows.

While this sort of post-production is certainly no crime, and I don't believe any overdubbing was involved, one does have to wonder how far they went. Nash has also stated that "Guinevere" is actually from a Crosby & Nash concert later that same year (judging by the liner notes, December 14 at a United Farmworkers Union and Project Jonah benefit in San Francisco), because Crosby demanded that it be included despite that none of the CSNY shows recorded featured it. Since neither Stills nor Young ever performed on the song, this may not be a big deal, but it does damage the reputation a little bit. If you listen for it, you can actually hear the audience and ambient sound conspicuously change at the end of the song during the transition to the next. And if they were willing to take recordings that weren't even done on the tour in question, what else might they have done that they aren't willing to publicly admit? Do we have any reason to trust their word?

Supposedly the final show of the tour at Wembley Stadium in London was a catastrophe, and the next day, the band couldn't even sit through a complete playback of the recorded performance. I've heard a bootleg, and while the awful sound quality doesn't help, the performance itself is indeed middling at best. However, Wembley is credited as one of the recording locations and the DVD includes four songs shot there. So did they manage to salvage a couple golden tracks from the mess, or was the whole thing better than everyone remembered?

Based on the bootlegs, most nights of the tour were a mixed bag, with some songs turning out great, some falling apart, and most ending up somewhere in the middle. I suspect if one were to make a compilation of the best performances from the bootlegs, you could probably find good enough versions of all the songs to make a convincing case that the tour was an unqualified success. Maybe that's what actually happened: everyone remembers all the lows, but when you put together all the highs, you get a pretty good package. It's hard to know for sure just how much additional tinkering was done in the studio, but at least the final results are believable.

It is a real joy to hear these recordings in soundboard quality, even if they do represent an idealized concert. The bootlegs all show their age. They were mostly recorded in the bleachers, far away from the stage and speakers, and the huge outdoor spaces translated sloppily on to the primitive bootlegging equipment of the day. The acoustic songs in particular suffered; they were usually mostly inaudible to start with, and the audience noise only compounded the problem. Even when the band was in top form, the low recording quality made it hard to enjoy the show or accurately evaluate the performance.

We know from 4 Way Street that even when CSNY was at their peak, they still made mistakes. Their first live album is surprisingly earnest in revealing the flaws of the performers. This time around, they couldn't help themselves from revisionism, but it does make for a more consistently enjoyable listening experience. The lack of most of the stage banter is also somewhat welcome, as the quartet had a well-established history of rambling and ranting, or just mumbling and grumbling. One of the only sections that did make the cut (at the end of "Traces", leading into "Grave Concern") was the hilarious Nixon spoof in which the band tries to convince each other that "I just don't recall", "I wasn't there", and so on. That was well worth keeping, especially considering the band's fascination with the Nixon proceedings at the time.

Locations

Another big question that I've alluded to is the matter of where the individual songs were recorded. Apparently, nine concerts at the end of the tour were recorded (in addition to the aforementioned benefit appearance by Crosby and Nash from which "Guinevere" was taken): two in Uniondale, New York; three in Landover, Maryland; three in Chicago; and the finale in London. However, to name a specific location to a specific song, there aren't many clues available. All I can find are a couple shouts from Graham Nash to the audience, mentioning Wembley in "Almost Cut My Hair" and Maryland in "Military Madness"; the stage announcements after "Ohio", which address Chicago; and the fact that a few songs were only performed a single time during the recorded part of the tour ("Goodbye Dick" and "Mellow My Mind" on August 14 in Uniondale and "Fieldworker" on August 20 in Landover). The rest is anyone's guess, and if the recordings really are composite edits, even comparing with the bootleg versions won't help. In the worst case, if the edits were extreme enough, it might not even be possible to name a single night as the source of a performance.

While we don't know the specific locations of the audio tracks, nor just how much editing really was done, we do know the locations and dates of the video: the first four are from Landover on August 20 and the last four are from London on September 14. One can speculate about how much audio editing was performed on the DVD tracks, and even wonder if the audio (or parts of it) originate from other shows. However, other than a brief moment in "Grave Concern", I failed to observe any conspicuous incongruities between sight and sound, so I believe that any such post-production was minimal. But the real question with the DVD is why there are only eight songs. Is it too much to ask for more? Were those really the only eight songs worth providing video for? The liner notes make a big deal of the fact the these kinds of video recordings were very new and not of very high quality, but certainly most fans interested in this album would understand and just want to see what's there.

The Mix

One last concern is the quality of the mix. This is an easy matter to address: the album sounds great. The instrument separation is about as good as one could get with four guitars, bass, and two percussionists. Crosby and Nash's guitars are sometimes hard to distinguish and low in the mix, but it is well recognized by everyone involved that most of the time they were just strumming along. Neil and Stephen's guitars are usually prominent, and can be distinguished in that Neil is usually in the right channel and Stephen in the left. The various keyboards are usually distinctive; the drums are present but not too loud; the bass is maybe a bit soft, but thankfully not buried, either. The vocals are always clear and usually everyone credited with singing can be heard distinctively.

The only odd thing about mix is that just a few songs have little oddities that can be heard most easily when listening on headphones. "Pre-Road Downs" has several points where there is a weird imbalance in the right channel, which might be bad edits or just an odd drum pattern. "Black Queen" has some similar effects halfway through, as well as some volume swelling in the first half, and "Don't Be Denied" also suffers from some of the same imbalance issues.

Conclusion

It's clear that a project like this had a huge scope and took a massive amount of effort. The results might actually manage to live up to the recent hype, and they absolutely paint a better picture than what history would have led you to believe. The bootlegs have always told a part of the hidden truth, i.e. that the performances were better than the band remembered, but the official release seals the deal. One will always wonder how much doctoring was done, but since little about it feels artificial or overdone, it's an easy album to enjoy. The songs are good, the performances are strong, and it sounds superb.

Score: A-

References and Further Reading:

CSNY 1974 on discogs.com

1974 CSNY Reunion Tour on sugarmtn.org

CSNY 1974 on wikipedia.org

The Oral History of CSNY's Infamous 'Doom Tour' on rollingstone.com

How Graham Nash mixed Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s 1974 tour intoHD bliss on digitaltrends.com

P.S. Note that the discogs.com page erroneously lists Stills as performing vocals on "On the Beach". There may be other inaccuracies that I haven't noticed.

Mutual Benefit / Suno Deko / Taft - Live 2014.10.21 Red 7, Austin, Texas

I wasn't excited about another super-late-night show on a work night, but for Mutual Benefit, a rising band that has captured my attention like few others, I couldn't resist.

Artist: Mutual Benefit
Venue: Red 7 (inside)
Location: Austin, Texas
Date: 21 October 2014
Opening Acts: Suno Deko, Taft

Setlist:
01. Strong River

02. Golden Wake

03. Auburn Epitaphs

04. Statue of a Man

05. Desert Island Feeling

06. Advanced Falconry

07. Stargazer

08. That Light That's Blinding

09. Statue of a Man

10. Backwards Fireworks

11. Animal Death Mask

12. C.L. Rosarian

13. Strong Swimmer

14. Moonville Tunnel

The evening started off with Taft, a solo singer/guitarist. Apparently, he normally operates in a five-piece rock band framework, but was trying out something different. At face value, he reminded me just a bit of Billy Bragg, with his solid solo electric guitar technique and his tuneful, earnest lyrics. His songs always had good groove and just enough of a hint of a hook to keep my attention. I'll admit, when he was walking up to the stage, my expectations were pretty low, but he immediately impressed me with his voice and style. His songwriting was excellent and his voice was always jumping into places I didn't think it could go. He could slip into a falsetto without pause and then fall right back into his normal range. He was far more vulnerable and expressive than I would have otherwise imagined. He ended with a solid cover of the Kinks' "Strangers", but his own material is what really impressed me.

Next up was Suno Deko, a solo looping act. Considering that that's the style in which Mutual Benefit started, too, it seemed like an appropriate match. However, whereas early MB focused on unusual soundscapes and experimentation, Suno Deko takes a more direct pop approach. Every song of his followed the same pattern of overdubbing a simple snare drumbeat, a simple pitch-shifter-assisted bassline, a couple guitar parts, and maybe a keyboard part, and then singing and/or playing additional guitar parts on top. Only one song featured his extra stage props, a violin and a shaker, both used to minimal effect. I think there's promise in his approach, but as it is now, it ends up sounding like every guitarist with a looping pedal. It didn't help that the mix was overdriving and muddying his high-end, so there was nothing to grab on to in the higher ranges. His lyrics were almost totally indecipherable, so anything they may have added was lost. I was hoping for some surprises, but he just stayed in his one idiom and wouldn't break out.

When Mutual Benefit finally hit the stage, it was as a quartet, as opposed to the seven-piece outfit I was expecting after I'd seen one of their performances at SXSW. I was a little disappointed that the bassist and violinists had departed, but I suppose a full national tour as a small, rising band on a small label probably makes it infeasible to tour with a large cast of characters. The current lineup features frontman Jordan Lee on guitars, banjo, keyboard, loops, and lead vocals; his sister Whitney on keyboards, accordion, and backing vocals; Mike Clifford on lead guitar; and Dillon Zahner on drums and backing vocals.

Lee has spoken before in interviews of the challenge of adapting his recorded compositions to the live stage. His songs usually feature a large number of parts, many contributed by a wide variety of friends, and it's easy to understand that rearranging the songs for a limited number of performers on stage would take some work. I think the material benefited greatly from the seven-person lineup, where it sounded rich and full, and while the four-piece edition did a good job with what they had, some songs felt like pieces were missing. Jordan's loops helped build up the songs, but the lack of sounds afforded by the missing violinists and bassist meant there was simply a smaller spectrum to work with.

The mix was better than with Suno Deko, but the high end was still getting abused. The loops and keyboards often ran into each other or were simply too low in the mix to be heard, so one really had to strain to pick apart some of the individual parts. Whitney's left hand frequently contributed bass parts, which certainly added to the frequency range, but it was still no substitute for a real bass, whose absence I felt a little too keenly.

The setlist started with the opening songs of Mutual Benefits debut album, Love's Crushing Diamond, and the band proceeded to play the entire album in order, interspersed with a variety of cuts from their assorted EPs. The album is short, as are the EPs, mostly because all their songs are short, so the entire 14-song set only lasted about an hour. "Strong Swimmer", the final track of the album, was the only extended piece, and it came off beautifully. Other highlights were "Desert Island Feeling" and set closer "Moonville Tunnel", which are the type of songs that open up your heart in an unexpected way, somehow coming off sweet and tuneful despite the strange tales they tell.

The steady beat of a drummer brought a little more power to the songs, and the song selection leaned towards the more melodic side of the band, so I found myself moving and singing along with songs I thought I barely knew. The musicianship was excellent and somewhat unconventional, especially since Jordan plays guitar in a deliberately unostentatious manner. Whitney's accordion and Jordan's banjo were also welcome additions that added to the depth of the sound. I'm a big fan of Jordan's lyrics as it is, so it was easy for me to get lost in the show.

Despite that Mutual Benefit began as an inauspicious solo affair, I think the music calls for a larger, grander representation. The performance was good, but it felt a little restrained, like there was more hidden underneath a veil, waiting to come to light. The small venue and mediocre sound hurt their presentation greatly, but their spirit was strong and the music never faltered. I enjoyed it thoroughly yet felt like I wanted more.

Scores:

Taft: A-

Suno Deko: C

Mutual Benefit: A-

Bonus scores:

Love's Crushing Diamond: A+

The Cowboy's Prayer EP: A-

I Saw the Sea EP: C+

Mutual Spirits split 12" with Holy Spirits: B-

Spider Heaven EP: B

Drifting EP: C+

[The Cowboy's Prayer EP original artwork.]

P.S. Love's Crushing Diamond might be a short album, but every minute is just about perfect. The Cowboy's Prayer, recently reissued on vinyl, is the obvious next in line, and while it is very, very short, it too is nearly perfect the whole way through. The other EPs are a mixed affair, with great tracks next to sonic experiments that sometimes stretch a little too far. Spider Heaven is probably the best of these, as it contains the standout tracks "Desert Island Feeling" and "Moonville Tunnel". Most of these releases can be downloaded from bandcamp, several as "name your price".

[Spider Heaven EP.]

Smashing Pumpkins - Adore Reissue DVD (1998/2014)

As should probably be no surprise, considering how many times I've written about The Smashing Pumpkins before, I've been buying their ridiculous reissues and eating them up. Each time, I get high hopes for the live DVDs that accompany them, only to get frustrated each time by certain glaring flaws.

[The Adore reissue, using the original vinyl artwork.]

Artist: The Smashing Pumpkins
DVD: Adore reissue bonus disc: Fox Theater, Atlanta, Georgia: August 4, 1998
Release Date: 23 September 2014
Label: Virgin

Tracklist:
01. To Shiela
02. Behold! The Night Mare
03. Pug
04. Crestfallen
05. Ava Adore
06. Tear
07. Annie-Dog
08. Perfect
09. Thru the Eyes of Ruby
10. Tonight, Tonight
11. Once Upon a Time
12. The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete
13. Drum Solo → Where Boys Fear to Tread [tease] → Zero [tease] → Bullet with Butterfly Wings
14. Shame
15. For Martha
16. Summertime [Gershwin cover tease] → Blank Page
17. Transmission [Joy Division cover] → Let's Dance [David Bowie cover tease]

[The DVD insert. For a moment I thought these might be the same buildings on the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.]

The Adore era tours have always been special because no other part of The Smashing Pumpkins' career has ever tried to do something remotely similar. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was temporarily out of the band, in his place were three live percussionists, Mike Garson joined on keyboards, the band mostly played Adore material and skipped anything before Mellon Collie, almost every song was performed in an extended and dramatic fashion, and all the proceeds of the US tour were donated to local charities. In contemporaneous interviews, Billy Corgan admitted that the album was largely written and performed just by himself, but stated that the live show was a more inclusive, democratic band effort. It's hard to know if that really is true, but the concerts certainly sound different than the album.

The setlist contains every track from Adore except the primarily electronic songs "Daphne Descends" and "Appels + Oranjes" and the forgettable, brief "17". The first two were played at other dates, and while "17" was never played live, it is widely considered to be derived from the rarity "Blissed and Gone", which was played live on a few dates of the tour, but sadly not this one. Otherwise, the setlist contains three songs from Mellon Collie and a hyperextended closing jam in the form of a cover of "Transmission" (instead of the band's traditional closer, "Silverfuck"). Also sadly, "Let Me Give the World to You", an excellent unreleased outtake played many times on the tour, was not played on this date, and nor was the full-band rearrangement of "Stumbleine". Saddest of all is that "1979", despite being played live at this show (see here for details and here for the bootleg recording of the radio broadcast), is not included for unspecified reasons.

In general, the performances are excellent, with only two exceptions. One is the dismembered version of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", which is mostly a heavy jam that doesn't go anywhere and offers no surprises. If the anger of the original version was already on the line of being over the top, this arrangement just feels futile. Maybe that's the point, but for a ten minute song (if you include the drum solo), it really drags. Second is the aforementioned "Transmission", which features a few great elements and many, many vapid sections. Some nights of the tour, the jam would turn out great. Other nights, such as this one, start out well enough and then end up falling apart. Corgan starts to tell a story but loses the thread, he hoists audience members on stage to take the band's instruments when he gets bored, and the music just doesn't hold together. If only the whole twenty-five minutes of the song were as good as the first five or ten.

But otherwise, the best part about this tour and this particular recording is that the band manages to take a carefully crafted, electro-acoustic, dour, heavy album with themes of loss and death and turn it into something more direct, electric, large-scale, and powerful. Adore might be my favorite Pumpkins record, the one where the band's maturity, style, and melody reached a clear apex, but the live shows have entranced me even more ever since my sister gave me a bootleg of their Houston gig. These performances are part of the reason why "Thru the Eyes of Ruby" might still be my favorite song of all time. It was the moment the band realized they could be more than a rock band, but still rock. The track lengths might carry on close to ten minutes a little too often, but the music manages to be simultaneously graceful, heavy, unusual, and elegant all at once.

So what's my real complaint? My setlist squabbles mentioned above are but a trifle, and a few duds in the setlist is no crime. The more serious problem is the mix. This isn't my first time complaining about a Smashing Pumpkins DVD mix, and if I were to review each of the reissue bonus DVDs, I'd be making the same complaints every time. It's like the band was just Billy and drums, and in this case, some keyboards, too. But where you might think that three drummers means a really dense percussion mix, you'd be wrong. Only the primary drummer, Kenny Aronoff, can be heard in the mix. Additional percussionists Stephen Hodges and Dan Morris only occasionally contribute to the sound output despite performing just as often. They rarely appear in the camera shot, but most of the times they do, you simply cannot hear what you can see they are playing.

Even worse is the case with James Iha and D'arcy Wretzky. Iha's guitar is mixed so low in most songs that his parts are rendered useless. In several songs ("Behold! The Night Mare", for example), the camera will show Iha playing a guitar solo, but you wouldn't even know it otherwise, because it is mixed so low that Corgan's absurdly loud rhythm guitar drowns it out. His parts do turn up in a few songs, such as "Thru the Eyes of Ruby", but more often than not, you wouldn't even know he was there.

Similarly, D'arcy might as well have not been on stage that night. It is far from uncommon in rock music that the bass is mixed annoyingly low, but D'arcy's bass is so low as to be simply not present. Rarely are her parts even audible. Even in songs like "Ava Adore" and "Pug", which are ostensibly centered around the bass parts, her bass is practically mute. D'arcy frequently sang backing vocals live, but the only time you would know it from this DVD is on a brief segment of "For Martha", where her vocals are suddenly mixed almost as loud as Corgan's. Iha, too, is given the silent treatment; he sang backing vocals less frequently, but he is nearly inaudible the entire time.

Whoever made this decision had to realize how bizarre and artificial this is. Musicians can be seen playing instruments and singing into microphones, yet Corgan's blazingly loud guitar render them inaudible. Bootlegs from the same era do not suffer these mixing problems and are correspondingly superior. Was Bjorn Thorsrud, the credited audio mixer, at fault, or was this done at Billy's instigation? Presumably, this rather expensive "super deluxe" reissue is only aimed at the hardcore fan, but is it not reasonable to expect that a large number of these same fans would recognize these mix alterations? I'll admit the visual presentation is welcome, but if I'm going to listen to a live concert recording from the band, I'll still be sticking to my bootlegs.

Scores:

Original album: A+

Entire reissue package: A-

Fox Theater, Atlanta, Georgia: August 4, 1998: C+

P.S. Make no mistake, all of the DVDs in the current deluxe reissue series suffer the same flaws. This one may have been the most egregious and obvious, but they are all mixed in a frustratingly revisionist manner.

[The back of the DVD insert.]