Monday, July 30, 2007

Swingline/Buy That Face (live 1983)


swingline/buy that face (live 1983)
volume 2 number 8

there was no tour for the lone rhino album so the twang bar king band was in effect my first live band. to find the whole story on the band you might want to dig all the way back into february to one of our earliest downloads of the song lone rhino.

here are two more "live" tracks from that memorable evening at Bogart's in Cincinnati, Ohio, both from lone rhino.

the first song swingline should easily be recognized by anyone familiar with lone rhino. it's a powerful version marred only by my Foxx Tone Machine crapping out during the solo section. (ughhh!) however, the second song buy that face may surprise you. this is the original version of a song called animal grace from lone rhino and features a pop chorus you've never heard. buy that face was inspired by the oeuvre of david bowie.

why did I change it from buy that face, possible radio fodder, to the more esoteric animal grace? I don't know, but my ex-manager stan always said that decision cost me any chance of lone rhino having major success. he believed as did others that buy that face was the "hit" we never had. with my 20/20 hindsight I'm inclined to agree, but we'll never know.

spilt milk under the bridge.

piano and back-up vocals: christy bley
back-up vocals: bill janssen
bass guitar and back-up vocals: mike sharfe
drums: larrie londin
guitar and vocal: adrian
recorded live at bogart's in cincinnati, ohio on october 6, 1983
using the full sail mobile truck
live mix: rich denhart
recording engineer: gary platt
length:
7:38

7 comments:

  1. Buy this dust!

    "by that face"

    One of my favorite guitar solos anywhere,anytime, or by anyone! Perfect Pop!

    thanks for sharing that one....

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  2. Wow I love this version.

    I have always thought that Animal Grace must have been about Bowie, thanks for the confirmation.

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  3. Forgot to say that these are my two favorite songs on The Lone Rino album and the live version is truly amazing it sounds like that band actually kind of blew away the other bands Mr Belew was touring with at the time.

    At the risk of hectoring my hero I do have one small thing to get off my chest re the MP3s.

    Could the MP3 encoding be a little higher quality?

    I can really hear the MP3 gargle very clearly.

    Since these songs are in the ball park of the same price one would be paying for songs on CD albums but the cost of distribution is vastly smaller IMO the tiny cost of a using a little more space on the server HD and slightly higher band width should be more than offset by the fact that there are no record company and physical distribution network to deal with.

    Sorry to mention it here but this is just a bit of a pet peeve of mine regarding internet distribution in general.

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  4. Tuned my little martin to DADDAD.
    Just spent a pot of coffee with it.
    Dag-nabbit that's fun. Sans pick.
    Thanks for the direction.

    dennisgunn, I don't hear the gargle in atrium's track but I do agree internet music sucks butt. It's like buying a bootleg every time. – buy vinyl!
    Always wanted to name a pet peeve.
    (^_^)

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  5. Funny. I thought the chorus was "Bite of Face" when you sang it back then. I've sung it from memory like that all these years.

    Thanks for digging this out and sharing. IT IS A HIT!

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  6. bgmc:
    if I had thought of that I probably would have sung it!

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  7. C afiado...

    Listen to the the cymbals and the spots were there is just generally a lot density in terms of pink/white noise happenig and it is very easy to spot.

    My comments were very imprecise, actually a lot of digital distribution is encoded pretty well, Most of what I get at emusic.com is actually done quit well.

    Another sloppy comment I made is:

    "it sounds like that band actually kind of blew away the other bands Mr Belew was touring with at the time."

    Actually I saw KC twice around that time and they were "SMOKING" I was actually moved to tears. I guess I just got excited and the slobbering beast from hyperbol bit when I heard this track. The thing I really like in this track that was not present in KC and the Heads and Zappa and Bowie's band is that unpretentious kind of friendly hillbilly quality that is in the Belew band. It is like hearing a hot ass blue grass band that just happens to be from Mars, cutting loose.

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