Live at the ICA has a fine selection of distortion, muffling, crunches etc.. Most of which is there on purpose, to their credit.
Live at the ICA has a fine selection of distortion, muffling, crunches etc.. Most of which is there on purpose, to their credit.
Queenadreena – Live at the ICA
Many years ago I had a bootleg tape of a Smiths gig at The Free Trade Hall in Manchester, I’d been at the gig – it was fantastic and so was the tape. I played it blank. I knew every distorted word and muffled lick. Each bean-can cymbal crunch held a special place in my heart, and every bass woof and squelch brought a tear to my eye. Things have changed since those ancient times, when a ‘mobile’ was something that hung from the ceiling, and ‘the net’ was just something you caught ‘the fish’ in.
Live albums are a breed apart – a few moments, of music, inspiration and emotion snared and burned into a piece of plastic – you get what your given for the most part, warts and all. With a studio album you can place your warts strategically. If you want blemish-free purity – knock yourself out, keep doing it till you get it right. If you want passion and a live feel – fill your boots, keep doing it till you all get it right at the same time.
A live album doesn’t offer that much scope. There’s only so much that can be touched up; and retaining the feeling of the event – the ‘live experience’ – is down to far more than just distortion, muffling, crunches, woofs and squelches.
Although that obviously helps.
Live at the ICA has a fine selection of distortion, muffling, crunches etc.. Most of which is there on purpose, to their credit. The first track to really get my attention is Join The Dots – which is little more than a slow blues with a ludicrously loud and intermittent fuzzy fat bass sound. It’s simple, and is the first to really show-off Katie Jane Garside’s ‘saucy-minx’ voice, which is a considerable asset.
Fat and fuzzy sounds are in good supply for Cold Fish – "splish, splish, splish" with a great chiming discord for the chorus. It comes over all impatience and anguish. Pull Me Under just reminds me of Def Leppard, for which I unreservedly apologise, but they do sink into a mire of 80’s rock every so often – and these are the low points for me.
They pull off Birdnest Hair with some style – Katie-Jane’s voice is quietly fucked and brilliant, while Pretty Like Drugs is noisy, arrogant and stupid and splendid. My interest wanes a bit after that – it flows over me without getting me wet.
I’ve only ever truly loved 2 live albums before I’ve heard studio albums by the band concerned. The first was Hand Clappin’, Foot Stompin’, Funky Butt – Live by Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band and the other was Pissed and Proud by Peter and the Test-Tube Babies. Although Live at the ICA doesn’t really measure up to this illustrious yard-stick, it does have it’s charms. Whether it’s going to be enough to blood the uninitiated or swing the undecided is debatable.