Bands who don’t translate from stage to record

Last Updated on June 15, 2023

S01 E12

Have you ever been to see a band that you had never heard before and been blown away, only to be confused when you got home and heard them on record?

Maybe you were wandering from stage to stage at a festival, and an act stopped you in your tracks, but when you looked them up later your only reaction was ‘meh’.

In this week’s edition of the Beat Motel podcast, Dr Sam Page and Andrew Culture discuss bands with a dissonant disconnect between the stage and the recording studio.

This episode also includes a new feature called ‘Sam’s so what segment’.

RIFFS OF THE WEEK

• Thantifaxath – Solar Witch (Sam)
• Prolapse – Government of Spain (Andrew)

SAM’S PICKS

• Albert Ayler – D.C.
• Mike Watt – Baby-Cradling-Tree-Man
• Shellac – Steady As She Goes
• Deafheaven – Vertigo

ANDREW’S PICKS

• The Phil Collins 3 – Pooey Stick
• Sunn O))) – big church (megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért)
• Shellac – End of Radio

OTHER MENTIONS

• David Bowie
• The Minutemen

Hilariously incorrect auto-transcript

00:02.25
Andrew Culture
Hey hello you’re welcoming your welcoming. No I’m welcoming you back to the beat motel podcast and I am honored and a little aroused to be ah, be in the company of Dr Sam page

00:17.16
Sam
Then a blackbird who won’t shut up but we Europe youre asian backbird.

00:17.90
Andrew Culture
Who was a Blackbird is it right? Eurasian um, so I’m in Ipswich and it’s as hot as the badgers are here and Sam is in Helsinki. How’s the weather in Helsinki Sam

00:36.21
Sam
Ah, I’d go for a maybe a moist cat sauce.

00:41.55
Andrew Culture
Moist cat cats. Don’t get moist. It’s kind of like a cat thing that cats don’t get moist. They actively they actively avoid it. There was abandon its which called Herat there was abandoned its which called hooray for snakes which is for 1 thing a great band name.

00:50.74
Sam
Um, even their tongue is dry isn’t it.

00:58.10
Andrew Culture
But they they had an ep called the truth behind why cats don’t like getting wet and it didn’t contain any answers at all which I think was was a bit of a letdown right? So we have a theme this week. The theme this week is bands who don’t translate.

01:10.25
Sam
Was for that.

01:16.78
Andrew Culture
From stage to record explain the premise there Sam.

01:24.72
Sam
Ah, yeah I It’s a bit of a heart. It was a really hard one to come up with actually for a playlist because so many bands do it well of being slightly different things live to record and but it’s I Guess there’s just like a.

01:29.35
Andrew Culture
Um.

01:42.61
Sam
It was more like the thing of like I have been and I think there’s ah maybe the first thing will play is this is is this band but I’ve always been struck how much I enjoy a a lot of post particularly post metal stuff. Live. And I just have no patience whats whatsoever for it on record.

02:03.11
Andrew Culture
No patience is such a good way of describing it my my take on it is that I’ve been seeing a lot of bands on stage and gone Wow That’s fantastic, especially at festivals and then gone home and gone I don’t know what they were trying to do here.

02:18.10
Sam
Um, it’s it’s it’s an interesting thing because it’s also that question of like how do you capture because so many so many people bands sort of talk about. You know they have this one stage presence was ah ah the band howling rain whose one of their albums was produced by Rick Rubin and they have this phenomenal sort of live ah reputation and regroman said right? Well golf and tour and we’re going to record you after you’ve played your basically the whole album live and so only when you know it and this will get I’ll get back to this. With one of my choices but only when you know it will we record it inside out. Will we record it and so and you were going to basically try and capture the live performance rather than capture this something that I think a lot of the time the studio becomes a quite a tame version of.

03:13.93
Andrew Culture
Right? So before we get into this properly. Let’s do riff of the week so here is your riff of the week would you like to introduce it because I don’t know how to say the band name.

03:14.15
Sam
Ah, what life powerful band can be.

03:28.00
Sam
Ah, panty tanks Phanks Fancy Fatta Fatak No who knows the Canadian doesn’t matter what their name is.

03:33.66
Andrew Culture
Fatie Fat right? And the song is called so solar which which here we go.

03:43.60
Sam
Solar wood.

04:14.69
Andrew Culture
Woa. Okay, go so why is that your choice Ted tell us a bit more about paper.

04:17.13
Sam
Yeah I I’ve been waiting to hear someone do that with double kicks for so long that sort of um so slow slowing down and sort of playing with the tempo of it and it’s.. It’s sort of it’s so nice to hear this for one one I Just love the sound of that sort of pulsing or pulsation of the of the double kick but it was also so nice to actually so much of the time heavy metal drums. These days can sound like just this machine.

04:51.12
Andrew Culture
Just a pro.

04:51.68
Sam
This sort of sounds like a machine going wrong? Um, yeah, exactly it’s just sort of this rumble of bass drum whereas this is sort of really playing with this and you know there’s a weird thing at the moment where I think the black metal scene has got this sort of abundance of ah. Really exciting experimentalism going on inside it and this just this track The whole album’s great, but this track stands out head and above it because of sort of that just inventiveness this track has with rhythmic ah sort of devices and. It’s just it’s so it’s so cool to put that into a song and that riff into a song and it’s so so unique to my ears at the moment. Um, and it’s also.

05:39.72
Andrew Culture
Um I.

05:41.91
Sam
Yeah I Just love that Just like the one of those moments where you just is just go with the fuck. That’s so good.

05:45.90
Andrew Culture
That that sort of rising intensity is such a tease because it doesn’t yeah it it just keeps resetting and going again now I Really like that I think in in our discussions on this podcast. We’ve often said that I’m often a fan of rhythm before melody.

05:52.72
Sam
Speaks.

06:03.49
Andrew Culture
So anything like that. In fact, my my riff of the week is quite an old song um from a thing when it was late 90 s possibly and it’s a band that that I have always liked because of their rhythms I’m not chosen a particularly good ch ah choice. But I’ve chosen a song which is just I just like a bit of shouting.

06:18.75
Sam
Are.

06:21.38
Andrew Culture
And this has got some good so shouting by ah I think the sing was glaswegian and when you spoke to in person. It was proper thick accent. Ah so the band is prolapse which when the internet first became a thing I learned very quickly not to search image search for and the song is. From an album called ghosts of dead airplanes which again just I love titles like that and it’s called. It’s called the government of Spain and I think you probably could have guessed that when you listened to it because here we go.

07:12.79
Sam
Um, steam.

07:33.31
Andrew Culture
Just but if you saw the guy he thought why might not even be six feet tall but I’m I’m quite a big person and just hearing him screech like that just brilliant and I don’t know what the government of Spain did to upset them. But.

07:35.80
Sam
Um, oh.

07:48.24
Sam
Um, I’ve I’ve been going through what I love I love I was listening someone I was listening to what the is for for ah Furman um, and Laura Jane Grace ah

08:00.30
Andrew Culture
Um, ah you heard that on six music.

08:04.94
Sam
Yeah I thought i’ I’m sort of slowly going through it but they played this ah this wonderful singer. But I didn’t like the the the music was a bit low key for me something cummings ah has she used the voice. So 1 you know amazingly. And it just reminded me and then I think another choice was was that english band the idols idols and I just couldn’t get into idols because he just seemed to be doing the same thing every song and it’s just made me miss I really like.

08:29.54
Andrew Culture
Um.

08:36.60
Andrew Culture
Um.

08:43.47
Sam
Really like people who aren’t afraid of doing weird things with their voices who aren’t particularly fantastically trained and you know great.. He’s trying to.. He’s Funny. He can’t sing amazingly but you know prolapsed guy can’t sing amazingly but he’s trying to do something Interesting. He’s trying to. Create some sonic texture with changing up his voice a bit and and has to be celebrated.

09:00.45
Andrew Culture
I think his name was Mick Derek I think his name is Mick Derek which is just such a I can’t think of a more british name than Mick Mick Derek but also they different take on it but that was another ascending parts track wasn’t it very different production and whatever. But.

09:18.54
Sam
Um, yeah I know? Yeah yeah.

09:20.40
Andrew Culture
Yeah, know that’s quite a lovely coincidence right? So let’s actually just before we just before we move on from talking about idols because it is in context to this this you know this show this episode got to know them really well because they’re a-listed on 6 music here. So all their songs when they first came out were played. You know the singles.

09:24.63
Sam
Um, that’s great.

09:39.10
Sam
Um, yeah.

09:40.30
Andrew Culture
And they are undeniably songs versus chorus versus choruses and they popped up on Glastonbury around the same time because the Bbc I think essentially funds glastonbury festival and live. They don’t this one with just screechy. You know Delay soaked guitars with very structuless but with driving drums and I don’t know if that that when they get into the studio. That’s when they then sort of turn essentially these jams into songs. But I thought I was really surprised I was like wow I just thought they’d get up there and play the hits. But right. So here. We go with our first song. This is one of Sam’s It it is Albert Ayla and the track is Dc have I got that the right way around. Oh okay, here we go.

10:31.54
Sam
Um, yeah, yeah, ah but I would say Albert I love but Ella that makes sense as well.

10:53.41
Andrew Culture
Ah.

11:09.00
Andrew Culture
We’re back to the forbidden music again Sam so I just I just want to give a shout out actually to brighten the corners of the festival. They they kindly told everybody about about the reviews I did a bit of the the bright and the corners festival and I wonder how many people who listen to those episodes have now just switched off.

11:10.86
Sam
Are.

11:26.47
Andrew Culture
Ah, cut of starting with with extreme black metal going to prolapse whatever they were and then playing that but ah come on Sam just just tell us was that a live recording was that studio recording.

11:31.83
Sam
Um.

11:43.49
Sam
Um, oh it’s live recording. It’s jazz.. It’s pretty much all live, but that was done and probably in a studio I don’t know mux about that. But um, it’s more like um, it’s not really against abert either. It’s more like against recorded free jazz and. There’s an aspect where it’s such a ridiculous like there’s an aspect of free jazz where it’s live. It. It can be this really involving intense. Ah, just it’s all about the moment and to me that’s what a lot of free jazz and free noise stuff is. It’s all about the moment. It’s not really about trying to capture this thing to them and replay it. It’s not you know it is just this intensity of the moment and some there are some free jazz records that are sort of spectacular and I really like the the oneette coles Coleman stuff. Um, but.

12:36.51
Andrew Culture
Um.

12:38.81
Sam
It’s also you know it’s never a. It’s never a calming listen. Um, but then just generally generally this will lull you to sleep? Um, generally it’s not ah.

12:44.74
Andrew Culture
Ah, go to sleep child listen to this.

12:56.71
Sam
Just something I think translates well to record because it it. It takes you outside that moment of intensity and to me free jazz is such a sort of moment of intensity that it just doesn’t translate that well to a recorded sentiment. Um.

13:15.83
Sam
Yeah, that is. That’s my sort of my my bugbear with recorded free jazz stuff because it and there’s a point where you know with that. It is just people scrawling and hitting each other which doesn’t make sense out of the context you know it.

13:28.67
Andrew Culture
I wonder whether they’ll be so I wonder whether there might be a shift in in the way, the public views recordings versus live because the industry model for 30 years you know from fifty s to.

13:35.44
Sam
And now go gopher.

13:47.93
Andrew Culture
Two thousand s was get bandned in studio record stuff send them out and tour so that more people buy the recorded stuff because the recorded stuff is where bands made money and yeah that that was just the way the industry worked but now with streaming you know the revenues are so tiny and I’m not just talking about my own. Ah, revenues. They’re so small that bands are quite openly saying look we make money from merch and playing live now and I wonder if that will make them more conservative with their recordings or try and get them closer to you know the recordings can then become an advert for the live experience whereas previously. The live experience was ah, an advert for the recordings.

14:28.67
Sam
What I say I mean for me for my money I’ve this written the last few months I’ve sort of discovered I’ve never really understood the point of live albums to an extent and then I heard yeah I but I there was so like a lost there was a sort of rediscovered.

14:38.92
Andrew Culture
It’s contractual fulfillment I think usually.

14:48.38
Sam
Sam Cook who’s ah like the the original soul singer. Ah, the guy who sort of invented soul in some ways. Um or defined a lot bit shape and he they sort of put out an album after his death. Um.

15:07.10
Sam
Can’t remember when they put this album out but it’s he’s got his recorded studio material is hitting in this this live album is just fucking phenomenal. What’s it sound live um ah and it’s him in a small club. Just. Sort of and he just he sounds like he’s he’s barely breaking a sweat but he also sounds like like the the hottest thing going ah live albums Sam Cook live at the Harlem Square Club 1960 3 released 1985 so it was really discovered thing. Yeah, and then there’s also I also got ah an Otis reading live album and that was you know sort of again, he he did 2 live. Ah.

15:46.42
Andrew Culture
60 is really well.

16:06.10
Sam
Is it ah 2 live albums that unknown at least I know about 2 live albums Sam could live album i’s got quite a few I’ve got um yeah in person at the whisy. Go go so he did a live album with um, it was an interesting sort of aspect that soul singers would do these live albums with ah, really like the the best ah bandned Liveb band going. So maybe oakless reading. Ah, would go on tour with his own band and then do a live albumn with ah ah Aretha Franklin’s band because they were just considered better musicians tight and so on and so forth, but there’s something. Yeah, ah, but there’s something about you know these bands that are touring together and they’re playing together every night.

16:48.90
Andrew Culture
Now How much that’s got a burn.

17:00.16
Sam
But they just click and they sync so much and that’s happened with the Sam Cook on that happened with the reading Oti redding live at the whiskey gogo they’re just so in sync with one another and on this in person at the whiskey gogo um, he does a cover of ah Papasco Brandy bag. Which for my money blows anything James Brown James Brown’s version out of the water completely even if brown wrote it. Um and I always think that. Yeah yeah, of course I you know maybe and that goes back to this idea like the records were that? Ah, ah.

17:38.31
Sam
Advert for the live album but these days when you can’t sort of go back to see these bands. They’re now sort of this lauded thing owners working at ah ah this record shop here in Helsinki. Um, they in came this David Bowie live album that was recorded on same tour as his.

17:58.19
Sam
Um, his big life. The album. What’s it called excuse the screeching seabelts. Ah but what’s it David Bowie with live album. He did one with Adrian Balloon as ah, the guitarist.

17:59.11
Andrew Culture
I did all teracty.

18:09.51
Andrew Culture
More well.

18:17.94
Sam
Um, stage. That’s a double album stage Adrian Balles as the egos guitarist and it’s the same tour, but this one is called. It was a bootleg lenberg and a really good sandboardg recording from 19 late 1970 s and um, unlike. Ah, the stage chapin where they’re sort of they obviously know they’re recording it to be released as an album as’s a step contractual but obligation you know in this life of Perkin which is just this bootle Adrian Ballou goes off and he’s one of the most individual guitarists and this is like 1970 s and it was just.

18:40.62
Andrew Culture
Are.

18:51.00
Andrew Culture
Um.

18:56.97
Sam
You know he was just he had just joined bowie from ah Bowie from the from Frank Zaapper’s touring band and he was just absolutely incredible and I urge people if they like Bowie to find this live and vogue and ah.

19:02.40
Andrew Culture
Are.

19:16.67
Sam
Um, boot like it’s got to be out there somewhere but it’s just he’s He’s so good on it.

19:22.30
Andrew Culture
Called Bootlegs is almost a whole topic by itself isn’t it. Um right? So we’re going to move on now slightly different genre slightly different type of thing you’re talking about the very best and the most talented.

19:24.51
Sam
Yes.

19:34.10
Andrew Culture
I’m going to play you a band which I put on a few times here in Ipswich I think they’re from Brighton they’re called the Phil Collins 3 if you heard of them so live they were just wild really exciting. So I’m going to play one of it’s the only recording I could find and I think it is the only recording they ever released and it was.

19:42.11
Sam
Um, oh yes, yeah, no often.

19:52.60
Andrew Culture
On a compilation. It wasn’t even this is all bands released stuff now as soon as they star but people didn’t used to record for a few years after start was swarming a band so here is I’m not collect to give you the title because it’s going to give away the song.

20:40.68
Andrew Culture
So that was Pooey stick by the Phil Collins tree now. Clearly what I saw them but clearly like when I put them on at the steamboat table in hippswich They didn’t have the full youth choir thing. But I think it’s incredible that they i’t that they manage to even do that.

20:46.61
Sam
Um, Spikey Harmony is going on there with.

21:00.21
Andrew Culture
And live they were they used to dress up. They used to like stuff things in their clothes to make them look cells look misshapen and they’d build these amazing amazing stage sets like they they did like city skylines and the amount of effort they went into and like it was such a brilliant experience live that. When I first heard that recording you know back back when it was made I was like ah ah oh come on. It’s it’s they just they apparently they were courted by major laples briefly who then got terrified by the prospect of trying to make money out of something like that and and.

21:32.34
Sam
Um, was full.

21:35.68
Andrew Culture
You know ran away. But what a bonkers song that is pretty much the entire song at 30 seconds as well. So they they they burned. Yeah intensely but shortly, but um.

21:39.86
Sam
Are what.

21:49.65
Andrew Culture
As you say it was difficult to choose tracks for this and and I really didn’t want to choose a band and then have that band think well we we did try so I just want to just choose something that was a complete wildcard and just yeah miles off right? So let’s go for your next select which is a Matt Watt do you want to say? yeah.

21:57.19
Sam
E.

22:08.96
Andrew Culture
Tell me what they tell us what the song title is if you got look it up I’ll I’ll just say it. It’s baby baby cradling tree man.

22:11.47
Sam
Ah, good to get it up first. Ah, it’s Mike yeah.

22:52.74
Andrew Culture
I Thought it’s cradling the packaging when I first heard it but it’s packaging that So might what the minute men and this album All the songs are really really short. It sounds like it was trying out ideas.

23:01.75
Sam
Um, or who knows what Mike what say.

23:10.93
Sam
Um, yeah, and one of the loved things I loved about the minute men and this album was his album was sort of written in memory of in a way of the minute men. Um, and um.

23:12.65
Andrew Culture
Ah, Ted tell us a bit about this album.

23:28.81
Sam
I love I always love the sort of the shortness and of ah the mini men because it is sort of it is like ah like being confronted by just these ah really sort of amazing ideas and it’s not like ah like a grindcore album we have just confronted an assaulted by. Things going on a hundred miles an hour these are certain melodic ideas that you know they have all sorts of shapes to them and and it’s very really entertaining listen and this album was the first he said Mike what said it’s the first album he tried to listen it’ right to try to write since the demise of. The minute men because of the boons on timely death in the ah mid to late eighty s um he tried to write like a minute men album and um, he he did the as he did it as the you know he did it as it this trio and he did it as. The thing to basically advertise his touring but the thing is that I think they had just got figured out the songs and we saw them pretty early on in this sort of touring circuit. He tore this album for years and. We saw that we saw him at atp pretty early on and it was a bit. Yeah, it was a bit empty and it was a bit like and I was I was really trying to love it because I love so much of Mike Wat’s output he so endlessly interesting as musician and I you know as a bass.

24:46.40
Andrew Culture
Um, now your Mba. Yeah.

25:03.66
Sam
Who likes punt rock and jazz. He’s so sort of a good place to find yourself sort of trying to be inspired by um and ah then this album came out and then they played. This album on like they went through a massive tour in the us and then they bought that tour to Europe and they played every tiny like venue. It’s really long touring like Mike what occasionally does and he did this thing he played Bryon and it was just 3 ps um, never and it was such a beautifully constructed show but because ah. By that point they knew the songs inside out whereas when they’re recording the album it sort of feels quite like this. They’re still trying to feel out what things are so the louder points live. The louder points were louder the quieter points so much quieter like they’re this really nice bit where they just. Were still making a noise but they were barely touching their instruments and then they just bring it back full volume and it was so sort of like dramatic and everything you wanted I wanted the album to be live and it’s just you know such a shame to me that they they never produced. Ah, live version of that record because the studio version feels so quiet and so tame so sort of um so safe compared to yeah.

26:31.55
Andrew Culture
It’s nice. It’s a yeah, nice and safe isn’t it but that would that always surprise me I mean. Okay, so let’s move on to the next track now the next track we struggled earlier with meant with ah saying than ti to facts for the ah your riff of the week

26:37.29
Sam
Yeah.

26:49.17
Andrew Culture
This this is a bit of an obvious choice for me for a band that live I really enjoy. But on record I don’t really bother with and it’s Suno and the song is I’m going to try and say this the song is big church and then in brackets it says mega sense cell’ tells the s and sell guess. DSSs second esekca tekeha cururt and that’s I’m not reading the accents above the ease correctly or anything but well man, let’s just.

27:15.72
Sam
Um, step here.

27:50.45
Andrew Culture
Right? So yeah I tend to think with Suno on record I think cool. That’s a great guitar sound and then I’ve spot a fluffy dog outside and get distracted because it doesn’t for me production is amazing and.

27:52.28
Sam
Got 5 chords there.

28:04.70
Sam
Um, yeah.

28:09.16
Andrew Culture
The first time I saw son I was probably it was with you at atp in in butlands in mine head and absolutely astonished by just the volume and it’s ah it’s a whole body experience and I apologize if I told this story on the podcast before but I was thick with cold and it cleared my my sinuses out. And it was such an ethereal weird experience. They ended up down at the front just sort of transfixed by these cloaked figures in all this thick smoke and at the end they they took their hoods off and bowed and and all that stuff and that’s when I noticed that one of them I’d met before. He’d been queuing up with this for the the flumes at the swimming pool at butlands in mine head that morning for a good couple of hours and I can remember him because he was the only person queuing up to go down the flumes wearing tidy whiteies that had gone see through he didn’t have any swimming equipment. Yeah is any swimming trunks or anything. So.

28:50.99
Sam
Um, so both.

29:02.27
Sam
If you didn’t bring your kit. You’re gonna have to do it in your pants. Yeah.

29:02.50
Andrew Culture
Yeah, it did take the shine off the mystery a bit yet luck i’ getting a kids at school. But ah if I have to be honest, i’t really got much more to say other than Suno live I’d go again. But on record I I don’t I don’t understand like god is’s one these things I think i’m.

29:19.77
Sam
Um, did they have I think they had at atpm I think they had the or what? what are the aspects I loved about them. Life was sort of the ridiculousness of it because they have what that they they make feel like they have so many amps on stage that they they make a semi-stone hinge.

29:35.90
Andrew Culture
Um, yeah.

29:36.21
Sam
Half Circlecle Stonehenge out of their amp so they have these massively tall probably base cabs and then these guitar ans probably orange or a mixture of things gosip. Yeah, um, and um, they ah.

29:44.31
Andrew Culture
And their sunop Suno hence the name.

29:55.80
Sam
Yeah, they make such and I remember seeing them in Brighton last of I saw them was bright I went from being so fucking annoyed with them to being absolutely transfixed and I go from sort of like just the magic being broken then a few seconds later I was completely.

30:05.51
Andrew Culture
Um.

30:15.63
Sam
In their world and then a few seconds and then a few minutes later I just wanted to go to the pub fuck this and then and but but yeah record live I was just I’m just what’s the point because the problem part of the problem with this band and like a few of these other things.

30:16.74
Andrew Culture
What.

30:34.34
Sam
Part the problem with sunow life is that can just turn the volume down you know when you’re look when you home like yeah was okay I’m just going to listen to it. It’s just going to be white noise in the background 5 you know, ah a chord every 5 minutes

30:40.55
Andrew Culture
Um.

30:47.38
Andrew Culture
It’s it’s on the Forbidden music list in my house Very much. So ah, right, Let’s move on I am going to one of your choices and this is a band you and I have seen together and I first saw. I’m going to tell you later ego.

31:10.98
Andrew Culture
Hello is anything happening.

31:45.51
Andrew Culture
Woo Deaf heaven with Vertigo tell us a bit about that Sam.

31:50.70
Sam
I think it’s sort of like a like I think I said earlier that there’s parts of post rock and post metal that I just do not get on record whatsoever and I remember going to see her that heaven at the positive. It’s the u see you. University College Union in London with you? Yeah and and sort of going whoa this band’s but like there’s so much sort of they’re so good live and you know that sounds great on record I can deny that you know they they’re recorded very well.

32:10.30
Andrew Culture
Um, yeah, that’s where you and I went together in.

32:28.37
Sam
Just I just do not have the patience for sort of six seven minute tracks which is where I get. You know it’s like there’s a aspect of because I and maybe this is sort of ah partly to do with my bad listening habits of like. Trying to do stuff whilst I’m listening to stuff but I just I I just don’t have the patience for it. Um, because I like I don’t I’m not good with ah delayed gratification I want my shit now and. Frankly, the minute men and punk rock and most like death metal stuff gives me what I want immediately. There’s no hiding around it whereas you know there’s this sort of like we’re going to strum a few chords for for 5 minutes and then we’re gonna go into a blast beat and I just. You know and live I found it very profound and very moving but record.

33:29.33
Andrew Culture
See I’m the total opposite I think I I love that I wouldn’t want all the songs to be like it. They’re the new. The new album by Gayrea I absolutely love and the first track has that noodling around kind of come on get on with it thing but it it builds up the tension. So nicely that when the.

33:39.66
Sam
Um.

33:48.52
Andrew Culture
Song does kick in It’s so powerful after that you can just skip through the songs every every single one of them starts you know on full tilt and that’s great I think yeah, a little bit of a little bit of kind of light and dark is is is I’m a big fan of that that album when I first heard deaf heaven I first saw them but at. Heaven actually in in London anything I listened to at the gym because for the gym it was so perfect. It didn’t require enough of my attention to really get the newances of it but it had enough drive and went on long enough that if I was doing 10 minutes on ah you know the tracks were long enough that I was doing 10 minutes on a treadmill or something. I have something that just or neatly fitted the whole length of it right? yeah.

34:27.82
Sam
Um, in yeah I mean I get that I and I understand that and I think yeah, it’s we will. We should come back to exercise and and heavy music.

34:40.72
Andrew Culture
Exercise and heavy music. There’s There’s a good good topic for a podcast right? I’m gonna go for I’m gonna go for my last choice and then after that we’re gonna go for your last choice. So here is my last choice. Um I. Can’t see the full title of the track right here we go Of course.

35:32.10
Andrew Culture
So that is shell act with the end of radio and I chose that because at god we talk about Atp a lot on this was an atp and they they start that track and the drummer. Yeah we moved on from against me but the drummer was at the back of the room.

35:43.77
Sam
Um, we’ve moved on from against me.

35:51.25
Andrew Culture
Do it hitting that snare and he walked through the room and the performance of shelllock was just so brilliant I rushed home and I’ve got to get that album listen to the album and just kind of went. Yeah but don’ know it just it didn’t connect and it’s Steve Albini I mean the man is a.

35:55.42
Sam
Yeah.

36:09.12
Andrew Culture
He he’s produced some pretty amazing bands and has a unique sound. But yeah I am going to alienate some I’m going to alienate some of my band members by saying on record shell act. Don’t throw me but live they do I’m going to play your last track Sam because.

36:21.22
Sam
Um, do you want to play my last track and that way.

36:26.69
Andrew Culture
Then we’ll have then we’ll have a proper discussion.

36:28.32
Sam
Yeah.

36:32.42
Andrew Culture
Come on play your pucker.

36:42.62
Sam
Um.

37:06.80
Andrew Culture
Gone Sam who was that.

37:11.78
Sam
That was shell out with steady as she goes I think from the same um um, and yeah and I’m completely I’m completely with you I remember that gig where they were playing. Um.

37:15.39
Andrew Culture
It’s the same album. Yeah.

37:27.14
Sam
Yeah, when the drummer walked through the stage they walked through the crowd rather playing and yeah, they’s such a powerful live band and I and I completely agree with you and then you get the record and it just sort of sounds flaccid Somehow it’s like the the.

37:42.85
Andrew Culture
Um, flaccid.

37:46.42
Sam
The power of them live just is not there recorded and I think partly I think it’s partly to do with Steve Alveni’s current philosophy on recording I was I listening to an interview with him that’s doing the round I think it’s on Youtube and he said. When he recorded the pixies and maybe when it recorded Nirvana he was sort of I’m not sure I’m sure about the nirvana thing but when he was caught recording the pixies he was like he was much more he didn’t really he was trying to figure out still his role as a. Producer engineer sort of person and he and’t he hadn’t settled on this idea that he was just there to set up the situation and record the person he was there. He he was still sort of going. Oh wait maybe guys could try this maybe guys you know, sort of this much more traditional producer role and. Apparently he felt uncomfortable with his his sort of spotlight when the pixies were asked some questions about production sounds apparently he just felt quite uncomfortable with the pixies’s going. Oh that is Steve’s idea so you know you should ask him and.

39:01.12
Sam
There’s this sort of aspect of this idea this idea he has of like Sonic um honesty as a recording and I think.

39:11.42
Andrew Culture
Love the phrase Sonic honestly.

39:16.92
Sam
Yeah, and I actually I think he he’s ah he seems quite quite a belligerent fellow and for my money he’s sort of he is not ah if unless you’re an amazingly. Powerful band and maybe that’s why Nirvana’s nuutro is so good. Um, he’s not the greatest person to record with my estimation because because he is you know, not going to use that studio as a.

39:54.80
Sam
This desire for Sonic honesty misses. The point that the studio in itself is um maybe I haven’t read enough of his stuff but it’s manipulating everything Anyway, you know, yeah and in my in my opinion and this is.

39:58.75
Andrew Culture
There is an instrument the studios in that an extra instrument isn’t it.

40:12.92
Sam
Ah, thing that I think um and that’s why sort of shellak sound. They just sound a bit mono they they sound Weirdly, they’re not compressed but they just don’t sound exciting live I mean like they sorry they don’t sound exciting recorded in my opinion.

40:23.55
Andrew Culture
Oh. Yeah i’ I’m gonna listen to it again that show got say because just then when we’re listening to that thirty second clip and and new new listeners. We can’t play more than 30 seconds otherwise we get um, ah we get um our boocks conquered by ah by Prs um, that’s not the right phrase is it. But.

40:47.70
Sam
That nothing.

40:48.30
Andrew Culture
I quite enjoyed that and I think it might be because as we record this sam you’re in Helsinki I’m in I’m in Ipswich and the sound is a bit ropey today for us I mean it should be fine on the on the podcast but it gave it a bit of grit that I think the actual recording is missing I was like okay no I quite enjoyed that.

41:06.17
Sam
Um, I know I for me would have put me I like I did enjoy that and i’ just like but it reminded me so strongly of seeing them live rather than having any sort of like if shallak were playing you know next week I’d go and see them again on the basis of.

41:24.85
Andrew Culture
Um.

41:25.61
Sam
Listening to those records and reminding me how good they are like would I buy the next shellout record that comes out I can’t be fucks.

41:30.40
Andrew Culture
Wait This is the interesting thing with the point that this episode isn’t these bands are great, live and shit on record. It’s not that at all. It’s just the connection to us in a very subjective way is very is very different and you know some bands like I mentioned idols earlier.

41:38.71
Sam
Um, no no.

41:46.52
Sam
Um, yeah, hope of.

41:49.12
Andrew Culture
Live I think they are actually a different band. You know they sound different and everything’s it’s completely different translation of of whatever it is they are they are trying to do right Sam I need to wind it up there. So I’m going to throw a new segment at you.

41:53.76
Sam
Um, me.

42:06.27
Andrew Culture
I have not told you about at all and I was thinking we can try this at the end of each episode and I’m going to ask you to do for 60 seconds something I’m calling Sam’s so what segment so in 60 seconds

42:09.61
Sam
Um, yeah, but.

42:23.92
Andrew Culture
Can you give us a summary of the entire episode and I’m going to tell you when to start star now.

42:24.50
Sam
Um.

42:33.33
Sam
I Think you’ve already done that the best things. Ah this isn’t about this is our subjective relationship and this is I guess about how maybe seeing a band live and then being so good live can ruin those recorded experiences of trying to reproduce that at home.

42:50.65
Sam
And that reproduction at home doesn’t always work that well and also brings into question of what the live experience should be versus what the recorded experience should be and it was it would have been so much easier to.

43:02.34
Andrew Culture
Um, yeah out of time sorry that was 30 seconds pretty your thought though because that was I’d like where you’re going with that.

43:10.35
Sam
Ah, um, it’s so much it would have been so much easier and one of the reasons I liked this idea was it was so much easier to pick bands that were better on record than live Frankly, um and you know to pick bands that actually.

43:19.59
Andrew Culture
1 yeah.

43:27.71
Sam
would go and see live I’d see son out live again I’d see Albert Ila live in a heartbeat I’d see my all my choices I would go and see live again um I would tread very carefully around their records.

43:42.62
Andrew Culture
It’s interesting that out when we were picking the the tracks here I thought out of any of the the topics we’ve done This would be the one that if I was in one of these bands I’ll probably be the most pissed pissed off or frustrated about. Because so much work goes in at the studio so much to have a couple of kind of blokes. Go Well I’ve done’t have so that that would be the one that was ah shit I don’t want some of these bands to find about this and and come and come and duff me up. But.

43:57.25
Sam
Um, if.

44:13.21
Andrew Culture
Is as you say all subjective.

44:14.19
Sam
Oh no, you know this is I It is subjective but and also like this is the point of like the point of criticism who said, um, some who was this a.

44:25.18
Andrew Culture
He can. I Thought you were going to use that every every like opinions. Everyone’s got an asshole but just don’t get it out in public.

44:29.76
Sam
Writing about music is like.

44:37.41
Sam
Um, um, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Um and actually ah this is it. It’s given it’s it was made popular. It’s missed.

44:42.40
Andrew Culture
Um, yes, he was it. He was it.

44:55.42
Sam
Commonly attributed to Lori Anderson and Elvis Costello but actually castello ah himself credited to a comedian called Martin Mull um and a variation this is from Wikipedia says talking about music is like singing about economics.

45:10.48
Andrew Culture
Love it.

45:13.42
Sam
And the thing is that I sort of here is that I mean that’s comedy and that’s explain the joke but it will ruin it but the thing is that criticism isn’t there to sort of say this is shit. It’s there to. Sort of go you know everybody critiques their own stuff and so I Just think it’s quite fun and you know none of these one of these bands I mean I pay give my left nut to do what some of these bands do particularly particularly I would say live. Um. And sickly life.

45:51.20
Andrew Culture
I Think that is a good summary. Let’s call it quits there anything more you want to add before I press the big stop button I think you’ve added quite a lot shall. We just I’m gonna say Goodbye joy say Goodbye or sing us a little song or something.

46:01.70
Sam
Ah.

46:07.80
Andrew Culture
He doesn’t look keen listening. There is one but I can’t remember either. Let’s just say Goodbye bye.

46:09.62
Sam
Ah, can’t think of any sums about economics.

46:17.22
Sam
Um, hello.