Hope And Anchor 1980 w Belmont. Boot listener p.o.vs please

[bambooneedle]

Just been enjoying this show and reading up on it thanks to this site:

http://snuh.livejournal.com/185418.html

Steve was in a car crash and so they got guitarist Martin Belmont from Graham Parker & The Rumour. There are extras that are not from this show. It's very good but the writers seems to think it's the best... "indispensable", "all in all, this is the live album Elvis should have released", "It also has the absolute best version of Watching The Detectives", and also "I can't tell you how many times we sat around the bong and played the cassette of this concert, detailing all that was right about this approach", it says.

Am listening to it now and the sound is certainly excellent. Lots of cool song choices, too (Girls Talk, New Lace Sleeves !).

I did see it in the Trading Post section before but didn't pay attention till now when I saw the article.

Is the writer right in your opinion - where do you think it ranks among EC boots? Feel free to disect this show in exhaustive detail and compare it or parts of it with other shows, I for one would be interested to see what folks who know about these things have to say about them.

[migdd]

I'm by no means an expert on EC boots but I've owned a few over the years and I once had a copy of this on vinyl. This particular show was broadcast on The King Biscuit Flower Hour which accounts for it's excellent radio broadcast-quality sound. The Attractions were having a pretty good night, even without Steve, and it's interesting to hear the dual guitar sound with Marty Belmont adding some nice but brief fills and solos. I particulary like the choice of covers for the show, particularly EC's versions of Little Sister and Don't Look Back .

For me, this show stands out from bootlegs of earlier shows in that the Attractions were really becoming a very tight unit after several years of touring. They were playing at a level that was intense (as in earlier tours) as well as skilled and cohesive (maybe not so much during the early years).

This show was performed and recorded shortly after the release of Get Happy! Only the first 15 tracks on the boot are from the show, which was obviously edited to fit into an hour-long (with commercials) radio broadcast. The version of New Lace Sleeves that is contained on the disc is actually from a live TV appearance on Tom Snyder's Tommorrow Show.

[FAVEHOUR]

I predict that if they do a "deluxe" Get Happy reissue with a live album, this will be the show they will use (hoepfully more complete than the radio broadcasts).

Dave

[bambooneedle]

Good stuff. Were EC bootlegs hard to come by back then? Did you have to know people?

I once (late 80's) saw some Led Zeppelin bootlegs near the counter of this used records shop and they were $40 and the guy wouldn't let anyone handle them. Then he showed me the discs and they just had blank white labels and looking at them you couldn't even tell where there were gaps between the songs. Now that they're easy to get online, I imagine a lot of collectors would be regretting all the trouble and cost they went through back in the day.

Has any detailed guide to EC bootlegs been published that anyone is aware of? I did check out http://www.elviscostello.info/disc/bootlegs/index.php but besides for songslists there doesn't appear to be much info about the gigs. Eg. something similar to this: http://www.brucebase.org.uk/bbmain.htm

[migdd]

During the late 1970's and early 1980's (the time period I would have been paying attention to EC bootlegs, prior to the advent of the compact disc), vinyl boots could be found in many of the better-financed, trendy used record shops throughout the US but you used to have to drive to a "major" city to find them. My buddies and I used to make 2-hour road trips from Chattanogga, Tennessee (no boots to be found there!) to Atlanta, Georgia in order to haunt some of the trendy record shops for rare LPs and (occasionally) boots that we couldn't find closer to home.

Prices were pretty high. I seem to remember single discs being priced in the $18-$20 range with double platters selling for around $35-$40. (this was during the time when commericial vinyl releases were selling for $5-7 USD. Also, packaging ranged from blank white sleeves with printed tracklists inserted between the shrinkwrap and the sleeve to really well-done glossy full-color graphics (like the sleeve for Elvis Costello and the Attractions Go To Washington).

Audience recordings were usually pretty poor quality back in those dark ages; however, occassionally something of a decent quality could be found in a soundboard or broadcast recording. Collecting boots was a pricey hobby but I think much more fun that it is today, when eveything is available. The thrill was in the hunt!

[Dr. Luther]

This configuration never worked for me -- it was a matter of necessity, more than anything else.

To use this show as a Get Happy re-issue bonus show would be insane. Won't happen.
The organ is probably the most integral part of the Get Happy sound.

[migdd]

I would agree that this show is not at all representative of the Get Happy sound and hope that a different show will be included in the inevitable deluxe edition rerererereissue.

However, for me the bass guitar, with all respects to Steve, is the instrument most integral to the sound of this album. Bruce Thomas once told me after a show (I believe this was during the Imperial Bedroom tour) that he learned to play bass while listening and playing along to Motown records. His sage advise to this novice bass player was "Play along with the records and play the beat. Don't worry about the chords."

Get Happy was Bruce's high point with the Attractions and his playing on that album defined its sound, particularly on tracks like Opportunity and Secondary Modern, where the bass part WAS the melody.

[Man out of Time]

I predict that if they do a "deluxe" Get Happy reissue with a live album, this will be the show they will use (hoepfully more complete than the radio broadcasts).

In case anyone does not have a copy, or (like me) has a cassette recording on a C120 from when it was first broadcast in 1980, the BBC are broadcasting this show again on 6 Music on Wednesday 4 May at 4am (BST). The timing of this broadcast seems to be set to suit listeners on the East Coast of America.

Details of the show are on the Wiki here:

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... 1980-05-14

Details of the radio broadcast are here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010v7bw

Since the BBC show is only an hour long and includes the Hope and Anchor show, plus some session tracks from the Redskins, and the Young Knives (who?), it may be that we don't get all the EC songs previously broadcast.

MOOT

[johnfoyle]

Part of this was on BBC6Music last night, about 2.17 into this -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lb3gn

These songs in this order -

PLU, Hi Fidelity, Lipstick Vogue, 'Detectives and You Belong To Me.

[sweetest punch]

BBC 6 is airing this (again) on September 5, 2013: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039j92y

[John]

8 songs available to listen to for the next 7 days.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039j92y

[johnfoyle]

This is getting another outing on BBC6 Music on Sept. 12th -


http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/programmes/ ... 2015/09/12