Category Archives: Live

Classic Concert, List, Live, Nirvana

30 Best live albums countdown: 21 – MTV Unplugged Live in NY – Nirvana

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Nirvana unplugged in New York cover

This is not easy listening, it’s uneasy listening!

MTV Unplugged in New York is a live album by the American rock band Nirvana. It features an acoustic performance taped at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993 for the television series MTV Unplugged. The show was directed by Beth McCarthy and first aired on the cable television network MTV on December 14, 1993. As opposed to traditional practice on the television series, Nirvana played a set list composed of mainly lesser-known material and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Meat Puppets (during which they were joined by two members of the group onstage) and Lead Belly.

Rolling Stone ranked MTV Unplugged in New York at #311 in its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”

The album start with About a Girl:

Why is Nirvana’s unplugged album so much better than any other MTV unplugged effort?

It could be the stark contrast to their normal albums or the sparse, naked arrangements that shows that Nirvana could really play. This time they didn’t hide behind a wall of grunge, they displayed their vulnerability and, man, they could be just as intense in this format.  It could also be the choice of songs, almost no hits, obscure songs were included, new and old cover versions also. It could come down to pure stage presence from a band at their peak.

It is probably all the above.

Nirvana MTV Unplugged in New York

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Bob Dylan, Cover versions, Live

My Morning Jacket to tour with Bob Dylan – here covering his songs

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Jim James announced some exclusive news during a video interview with Tap Milwaukee Thursday night: My Morning Jacket will be on the road with Bob Dylan this summer.

My Morning Jackets has a long relationship with Dylan’s songs and it will be great to be able to see them on the same bill.

Bob Dylan’s songs have become part of the great American songbook and there are a lot of artists covering his compositions. My Morning Jacket is one of the best and most interesting of the contemporary bands around, and their covers of Dylan are all good, some are great.

In honor of Amnesty International’s 50th anniversary, a number of musical heavyweights came together for a new Bob Dylan cover album.  Chimes of Freedom: Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International had a wonderful cover of  “You’re a Big Girl Now” done by My Morning Jacket.


This made me check around to see if My Morning Jacket had done more songs by Dylan and they had.

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Live, Rock'n Roll, video of the day

Video of the day: Satan – Stephen Ackles

stephen ackles

Stephen Ackles (15 february 1966), a son of Norwegian mother (Bergliot Kittilsen) and American father (Allan Dale Ackles), he is a singer, pianist and songwriter. He is mainly a rock’n roll/boogie artist and his main inspirations are Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. 

He recently did a version of the song Satan on Norwegian television, it blew my mind. Ackles have always been a good craftsman but his choice of material has been , eeh… questionable. He has lived a hard live, gone bankrupt and found Jesus, he has toured a lot! Ackles has released thirteen  albums and has worked with giants such as Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and Jerry Lee Lewis. His fourteenth album will be released as I write this, and will of course include his interpretation of Satan.

And finally the song he was born to sing came along. Satan. Stephen Ackles tears his soul out, the agony and pain of a hard life is personified in this great performance. His face twists as he spits out his rage and sorrow.

Satan (aka Killing For Satan) is a relatively obscure song by Paul Wibier. From the 1969 film Satan’s Sadists.

Paul Wibier’ original – Satan (Audio):

WIBIER

ss_poster

A fantastic trailer for the very entertaining biker movie, Satan’s Sadists:

Director Al Adamson’s Satan’s Sadists is the jewel in the trashploitation king’s crown, mixing hippie hopheads, choppers, whacked-out violence, LSD trips and groovy music. Russ Tamblyn sheds his “boy next door” screen image as the kill-crazy gang leader Anchor, supported by one of drive-in cinema’s all-time great casts: John “Bud” Cardos (with Mohawk), Robert Dix (with eye patch), Greydon Clark and Regina Carrol (the future Mrs. Adamson) as “The Freak-Out Girl.” Buckle up and brace yourself for “probably the grossest biker movie of them all.” (The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film)

– Hallgeir

Sources: NRK, Wikipedia, Psychotronic Encyclopedia  of Film by Michael Weldon, stephenackles.com

Live, Southern rock, Steve Earle, video of the day

Videos of the day: Allman Brothers and Steve Earle – Knocking on Heavens Door and Copperhead Road

Steve Earle allman brothersThe Beacon Theater – New York, NY.

Steve Earle got to play with the Allman Brothers, and what do the do? A song he said he always wanted to do with them, Copperhead Road plus a true classic done in a respectful way, Knocking on Heaven’s Door. Bruce Katz also sit in on keyboards.

Steve Earle 2

This happened just a few weeks ago.Lucky are the people who had tickets for that show!

The sound is a bit “sharp” but this was just too good to miss.

Knocking On Heaven’s Door:

Copperhead Road:

Fantastic!

– Hallgeir

Great albums, List, Live, MC5, Rock

30 Best live albums countdown: 22 – Kick out the Jams by MC5

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MC5-1969-Kick-Out-The-Jams

“And right now, right now, right now it’s time to… kick out the jams, motherfuckers!”

 Let’s continue with my countdown of 30 the best live albums ever, at 22 I have MC5‘s ferocious Kick Out The Jams.

I was into punk when I grew up, and not metal. There were two camps in our little town when I grew up. When us punk fans listened to Detroit music, we listened to The Stooges. When the metal kids listened to Detroit music, they listened to Kiss. MC5 were something in the middle, to me they are the ancestors of both punk-and metal music. Their attitude was punk and their riffs were the inspiration of many metal bands. Together with Detroit sparring partners The Stooges, The Motor City Five were truly an anomaly in the peace-and-love hippy climate of 1967.

Kick out the Jams (1970):

And they looked great!
MC5 bare chested

…and the borders between the genres have blurred since my childhood, I now like good music no matter what genre or where it comes from.

On new years eve in 1968, MC5 recorded this earthquake , this thunderstorm, Kick Out The Jams. Not everyone’s new year, but the followers of Zenta, The religion of MC5. To us who have no religin or who has other beliefs and follows the ordinary calendar, it was recorded at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit on the Halloween weekend, 30. and 31. October. It was released in February 1969, through Elektra Records.

I know, they were a special group of people…
MC5 Concert Poster

MC5 was formed by their time, the Vietnam War and the social changes, this was garage rock with a rage not known to anybody before (and very rarely since). The guitars acted as assault weapons in their war against conformity.

John Sinclair (poet) was instrumental in leading the MC5 into creating the soundtrack for the new party The White Panther Party, which had the fitting slogan: “Rock’n Roll, dope and fucking in the streets”.

Video where John Sinclair is reading the liner notes from the album:

This was danger caught on vinyl!
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