THE PLIMSOULS : LIVE ALBUMS

The Plimsouls are one of my favourite bands. I discovered them following thanks to a short review that followed the re-release of their live album One Night In America on CD in 2005. I finally purchased the record a couple of months later and was totally blown away by it. It just seemed to contain everything I liked about Rock'n'roll, the songs are catchy, the band is tight but the playing is not flashy and Peter Case is a fantastic singer. After listening to that album I was eager to check their studio albums. They have released 3 LP's, two during the original lifespan of the band : The Plimsouls and Everywhere At Once and one when the band reformed briefly in the mid nineties : Kool Trash. I must admit that after the "blast" of One Night In America, I was slightly disappointed by what was on offer on these 3 releases. The Plimsouls sounded a bit thin on the ears and a bit flat, Everywhere At Once has the 80's sheen common to the year it was released (1983) and Kool Trash showcases a band that has mellowed a lot compared to its heyday. Don't get me wrong though, all have really goods songs on them, it's just that none of them have the drive and the swing of what's on display on One Night In America.

In the liner notes to One Night In America, Peter Case hinted that there was other live releases to come from the vaults so I sent an email to Oglio to see if anything was scheduled but I got a reply saying that despite that announcement nothing was on cards yet. Fast forward 3 or 4 years and we finally get an announcement from Peter Case saying that a new live album will be released, titled Live, Beg, Borrow And Steal and featuring a whole show recorded on Halloween Night 1981 at The Whiskey-A-Gogo in Los Angeles. Even if there's no information on where and when One Night In America was recorded, Peter Case has said that it might have been recorded in Cleveland in 1982. Even if the band seems a little stiffer than on ONIA, LBBAS is still an excellent album and showcases how good a live a and they were. It also enables to hear the songs from the first album with some extra oomph. It also contains of my favourite Plimsouls  : Lost Time. If you want to see a really good version of that song please check this youtube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz6nFTzbDm4. It's an extract of a show recorded for the French television show Chorus in 1982 and it features a fantastic Eddie Munoz solo. There's quite a few songs that overlap between the two recordings (7 in total) but the difference between the two gigs justifies the purchase.

After the release of  LBBAS, I wasn't expecting a new release to come out of the vaults but we got a final one with Beach Town Confidential, recorded at The Golden Bear Club in 1983. The raw edges of ONIA and LBBAS have been trimmed and the raw enthusiasm has been replaced by professionalism. As with all previous Plimsouls LIlive recordings there are quite a few covers, highlights of which are fantastic versions of Fall on You and Making Time (originally recorded by Moby Grape and The Creation). There's also a really good original Plimsouls song called Who's Gonna Break The Ice that was never recorded in the studio (I'm a big fan of the intro with all the interweaving guitar lines). This record features The Plimsouls at the top of their game. Unfortunately their studio album Everywhere At Once failed to reach the mainstream and the band disbanded in 1985.

NICK LOWE : THE ROAD TO THE BRENTFORD TRILOGY AND BEYOND PART THREE

After coming back from Madrid I was thinking that now would start the long wait for the next Nick Lowe album and accompanying tour. Boy was I wrong. First there was the announcement of a joint European tour with Ry Cooder following two successful shows for a charity in San Francisco during the fall of 2008.  I managed to catch the tour at the Carre Theatre in Amsterdam. Tickets for this tour horrendously expensive, I remember paying something like 90 euros for a seat that was right at the top of the theatre. The gig mainly featured material from Ry Cooder's back catalogue with a couple of songs from Little Village (a short lived super group that Cooder and Hiatt were in at the beginning of the 1990's), a few Nick Lowe tunes and some covers. The gig was nice but if you were a Nick Lowe fan you ended up feeling a little short changed. The two highlights of the gig for me were a cover of the Eddy Giles song "Losing Boy" and a nice version of Lowe's 1984 hit "Half a Boy and Half a Man" with a tasty slide solo by Ry Cooder. The backing for the gig should have included long term Cooder collaborator Flaco Jimenez on accordion but he fell ill before the tour leaving just Lowe, Cooder and his son Joachim on drums and two female back up singers for some songs. I think that the gig would have been fantastic if they just added Ry to Nick's backing band with the same song selection. Nick band are such skilful players that I'm sure they would have adapted themselves to Ry's style without any problem.

Simultaneously to his outings with Ry Cooder, Lowe toured the UK to celebrate the re-release of his two first solo albums (Jesus Of Cool and Labour of Lust) and of a new best of called "Quiet Please" covering the whole of his career from his days in Brinsley Schwarz all the way to his "At My Age" album playing a date at The Royal Albert Hall (sparsely attended unfortunately). Apart from his usual bouts of American touring, year 2010 was spent recording his next album The Old Magic that was finally released in September 2011. I must admit that I was surprised by the mellowness of the album the first time I listened to it but it definitely grows on you with the numbers of listenings. The album is short and to the point coming at just under 36 minutes with the usual ratio of covers and originals. As I said earlier on the album is quieter than its predecessors, only the lead single Checkout Time could qualify as a rock song. The rest of the album is made up of ballads (Stoplight Roses, House For Sale) and mid tempo of what I would call for lack of a better word "lounge rockers" (Sensitive Man, Restless Feeling). The covers blend in seamlessly with the originals (showing Mr Lowe's usual flair for choosing songs that suit his style), the high point being a really good version of Tom T Hall's Shame On The Rain that removes the country twang from the original while adding Nick Lowe's touch. The best track on the record for me is the last one Till The Real Thing Comes Along which somehow never gets mentioned anywhere in reviews and that was never played live during the tour that followed the release of The Old Magic. A fantastic song that ticks every box, perfect pace, spot on lyrics and arrangement. In one word : a masterpiece.

At the Time The Old Magic came out, I was living in the south of France and despite a date being scheduled in Paris, it made more sense crossing the border to Spain to see Mr Lowe and hi band in the beautiful city of Bilbao. In a remake of the Madrid incident a few years before, my girlfriend and I spent a couple of hours going round an industrial estate trying to figure which metal corrugated warehouse contained the venue. Thanks to a few Heineken neon lights that were switched on when the night was falling down we finally located the damn place. The venue called Santana 27 was a rock club from 8pm to 11pm and then a disco after the gig finished till the early hours, the room was far from being full but there was enough punters to make it look nicely attended. The opener was Geraint Watkins (Lowe's piano player for the last 20 years) playing a solo set. Despite a big faux-pas during the gig (message to people playing in Spain : never shout "Viva Espana" when you're playing the Basque region), he got a good reception playing songs from his three solo albums plus a few covers. Lowe came on stage just by himself opening with Stoplight Roses and Heart with the band joining him during What Lack Of Love Has Done. The set list had some nice additions compared to the Madrid gig with some older tunes that hadn't been aired for a while (Raining Raining, Ragin' Eyes) mixing in with newer tunes from The Old Magic and classics (Cruel To Be Kind, What's So Funny About Peace Love And Understanding, I Knew The Bride). If my memory serves me right Lowe put the whole audience in his pocket by saying a couple of words in Basque in between songs. The last number of the gig was a cover version of Alison by his old friend Elvis Costello.

Lowe spent the whole of 2012 touring The Old Magic and I would have to wait till July 2013 to see another live gig by Mr Lowe. He was announced on the line-up of a songwriter day  that was part of a series of concert organized in Hyde Park. Other acts scheduled the same day were in order : Elvis Costello, Ray Davies and Elton John. One week before the gig Elton John's appearance was cancelled which resulted in Nick Lowe being upgraded to the main stage (he was scheduled to headline one of the smaller stages) and as it was too late to find a headliner, the organizers declared that the admission would be free !!! Nick's set was short and concentrated on the "hits" but it was nice to see him play in this acoustic format with just him and his Gibson. I was hoping that we might get a Lowe-Costello duet during the latter's show but nothing happened. Shortly after the Hyde Park gig it was announced that Lowe would be putting out a Christmas Album called "Quality Street : A Seasonal Selection For All the Family". Apparently the idea of making a Christmas album was suggested by Lowe's American record label YepRoc. A bit reluctant to the idea for a start Lowe changed his mind in the end and recorded the album at the end of 2012 with his usual musicians. The result, a mix of Lowe originals, co-writes and rearranged seasonal standards though far from being as good as his recent albums is a pleasant addition to his catalogue. I had the chance of meeting the great man himself and having my copy signed at the Rough Trade shop in Brick Lane on the week before Christmas 2013.