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Kate Bush, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie and others expound on the topic of ‘Punk’ in 1979
03.18.2014
05:54 pm
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Getting it or not getting it to varying degrees are Kate Bush, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Cliff Richard, Steve Harley, Mick Taylor, Peter Gabriel, Paul Cook, John Lydon, Meatloaf, and a surprisingly astute young Leif Garrett putting in their two cents on the topic of “Punk.”

According to the caption on YouTube, these comments aired in December 1979 on a program called Countdown on a specific episode called “End Of the Decade.” Presumably this is something from the archives of Australian television. It looks like an editor’s raw “selects” in the formulation seen here.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.18.2014
05:54 pm
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Slint announce tour dates
03.18.2014
03:35 pm
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On the heels of the announcement of the insanely posh Spiderland boxed set and the Breadcrumb Trail biographical documentary, the ridiculously influential band Slint have announced dates for a full tour.

April 29—Boston, MA, Paradise Rock Club
April 30—Asbury Park, NJ, The Stone Pony
May 01—Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer
May 04—New York, NY, Bowery Ballroom
May 06—Brooklyn, NY, Music Hall of Williamsburg
May 08—Cleveland, OH, Grog Shop
May 09—Detroit, MI, Saint Andrews Hall
May 10—Chicago, IL, Bottom Lounge
May 29-31—Barcelona, ES, Primavera Sound
June 05-07—Porto, PT, Optimus Primavera Sound
July18-20—Louisville, KY, Forecastle Festival

Formed in mid-‘80s Kentucky by still-teenaged refugees from the punk band Squirrel Bait, Slint created a dynamic, unnerving, ponderous and emotionally resonant sound that was entirely novel, and though they broke up before the release of their signature LP, their ideas were all over the music of the 90s. Slo-core, post-rock, and post-hardcore all bear Slint’s deep fingerprints, and they’ve intermittently reunited since 2005 to reap the overdue benefits of inventing a few genres without even trying. No new Slint music has been released since an instrumental 10” single in 1994, though guitarist Dave Pajo has had an intriguing career with Tortoise, Papa M, and the Billy Corgan-led Zwan, and drummer Britt Walford re-emerged pseudonymously in an early version of The Breeders, then in Evergreen, and much more recently, in the new band Watter. For those who are curious to go deeper into the band’s history, I will go to my grave unconditionally recommending the superb 33 1/3 book on Spiderland.


Here’s a bit of what you can expect to hear if you nab one of these coveted tickets, recorded in Italy in 2007.
 

Via Consequence of Sound

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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03.18.2014
03:35 pm
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‘Lady June’s Linguistic Leprosy’: Art rock obscurity featuring Brian Eno and Kevin Ayers
03.18.2014
08:53 am
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When she died of a heart attack in 1999 at the age of 68, her obituary in The Independent called “Lady” June Campbell Cramer “a great British eccentric and cosmic prankster.” That’s already a pretty good claim to fame, but the obit went on to say that her “most achieved performance was herself: she succeeded in turning her existence into living art, bristling with humour.”

“Lady” June—the honorary title given to her due to her upper-crust, aristocratic voice (she sounded like a stoned Judi Dench) and the fact that she was the de facto landlady of many a progressive musician from the Canterbury set—was a sort of free-spirited hippie bohemian poetess and multimedia performance artist who ran with the crowd that included Gong and Soft Machine, who she first met in Spain in the early 1960s.

According to Daevid Allen, who was in both groups, June’s Maida Vale flat was “London’s premier smoking salon”:

“She was ferocious in the mornings until the first joint arrived: she’d hover over you with a wet cloth demanding that you clean the stove.”

Gilli Smyth of Gong, Allen’s wife, was her best friend, and it was at a dual birthday party June threw for herself and Smyth that a drunken Robert Wyatt fell out of a window, falling four stories and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
 

 
In 1973, June took part in the chaotic BBC Radio 4 series If It’s Wednesday It Must Be… with Kenny Everett and former Bonzo Dog Band member Vivian Stanshall. Later that year she recorded Lady June’s Linguistic Leprosy, her surrealist poetry set to music by her longtime friend (and longtime tenant) Kevin Ayers and Brian Eno, who lived nearby. The recording was made in the front room of her apartment (along with Gong’s drummer Pip Pyle and David Vorhaus of White Noise) and is said to have cost just £400. A wary Caroline Records—a Virgin subsidiary set up to release things with little to no commercial potential in the first place—pressed up just 5000 copies, but the album sold out quickly when news of her famous collaborators got around. June performed on bills along with Gong, Hawkwind, The Pink Fairies and Hatfield and the North.

“Lady” June Campbell Cramer returned to Spain in 1975 and became an active and creatively fulfilled participant in the artists’ community of Deya in Majorca. It is primarily for the company she kept—and this one remarkable album—that we remember her today. Lady June’s Linguistic Leprosy was re-issued on CD in 2007 by Market Square.
 

“Everythingsnothing”/“Tunion”
 

“The Letter”
 

“Tourisy”/“Am I”
 

“To Whom It May Concern”
 

“Some Day Silly Twenty Three”
 

“Missing Person,” a gorgeous number from a 1984 French various artists release entitled History of Jazz.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.18.2014
08:53 am
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Blazing Away: ‘Lost’ Marianne Faithfull concert film resurfaces on YouTube
03.17.2014
05:07 pm
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In 1990 Marianne Faithfull was filmed in concert at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Brooklyn along with a crack band consisting of The Band’s Garth Hudson, Dr. John, her longtime collaborator Barry Reynolds , Marc Ribot, Fernando Saunders (Lou Reed’s longtime bass player), drummer Dougie Bowne (John Cale, Iggy Pop, Arto Lindsay and the Lounge Lizards) and Lew Soloff on trumpet and flugel horn.

The set was released as Blazing Away on CD and VHS in 1990. According to Maggie Bee (who uploaded the video with Faithfull’s expressed permission) the record label actually lost the video master.

Set List
Prisons Du Roy
Falling From Grace
Blue Millionaire
Strange Weather
Guilt
Sister Morphine
Working Class Hero
When I Find My Life
The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
As Tears Go By
Why D’ya Do It
Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Broken English
Times Square
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.17.2014
05:07 pm
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Has Courtney Love found Flight 370???
03.17.2014
04:52 pm
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Courtney Love posted this to her Facebook page 11 hours ago. I’ve got nuthin’ else to add.

I’m no expert but up close this does look like a plane and an oil slick. http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/malaysiaairsar2014/map/128148 … prayers go out to the families #MH370 and its like a mile away Pulau Perak, where they “last” tracked it 5°39’08.5"N 98°50’38.0"E but what do I know?

Courtney Love on Facebook

Via METRO

Posted by Tara McGinley
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03.17.2014
04:52 pm
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‘Inside Out’: Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s wildly entertaining life on parole
03.17.2014
04:14 pm
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It’s safe to say that for virtually every moment from the time that Wu-Tang Clan became prominent around 1993 until his sad death in 2004, Ol’ Dirty Bastard—“Russell Jones” to the law enforcement community—was in some kind of legal trouble. He was convicted of second degree assault in 1993 and was arrested for failure to pay child support in 1997. A year later, he pleaded guilty to attempted assault on his wife and was also arrested for shoplifting. It goes on from there. In 2000 he was assigned to a court-mandated drug treatment facility but escaped—as a fugitive he met up with RZA and spent some time in the studio. In Philadelphia he was eventually captured. (DM previously reported on his endlessly interesting FBI file, released in 2012.)

After spending the next two and a half years in prison in New York, he was released on parole on May 1, 2003. Sensing an opportunity, ODB’s manager, Jarred Weisfeld, arranged for VH1 to have a crew follow ODB around for his release and the first few weeks out of jail. The end result was “Inside Out,” which can be viewed below. Actually, it’s a little unclear what this video is—IMDb.com lists the running time as 60 minutes over two episodes. This video isn’t that long, however. What I think this is is episode 1 of “Inside Out”—not sure there was an episode 2—followed by a brief remembrance section that likely doesn’t have anything to do with VH1. In any case, it’s wildly entertaining.
 
Ol' Dirty Bastard
 
The life of a mentally troubled rap star is as crazy as anything you’re likely to find. A stretch limo filled with family, friends, and business associates (of course these lines overlap) is there to meet him upon his release. He is immediately presented with a gift of 500 condoms. As the father of 13 children by multiple women, ODB sniffs out the subtext: “They don’t want me makin’ no more babies!” At his press conference the same day as his release, who shows up to take part? Of course, Mariah Carey.

Eventually ODB’s interest in the ladies alienates his sort-of ladyfriend Raquel, who promptly flees back to LA. Within days he’s photographing a silicone-enhanced Playboy model and hitting on women in the street. Meanwhile his new relationship with Roc-A-Fella records is proceeding with the usual complications. We see a few cordial encounters with RZA as well.

The special presents a glimpse of actual parole life that’s not often available on TV. We see ODB successfully pass a drug test and we’re told that, as messy as his life was, he was able to adhere to the 9pm curfew imposed on him. When he signs the paperwork before his release, he’s told that he’s agreeing that parole officers can visit his home more or less anytime, and sure enough, we get to see such a visit. All goes well, except for ODB’s lingering paranoia after the fact.

ODB never really got the psychological help he needed, but nobody could say that he lived an unfulfilled life. “Inside Out” is excellent evidence of both parts of that equation.
 

 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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03.17.2014
04:14 pm
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Remembering Cathy Berberian, the hippest—and funniest—lady of avant-garde classical music
03.14.2014
02:02 pm
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Cathy Berberian was an American mezzo-soprano vocalist based in Italy. She was known as a proponent of both avant garde and contemporary vocal music, moving during her career from debuting one of John Cage’s major works, his “Aria with Fontana Mix” composition in 1958, to covering Beatles songs. Cathy Berberian was an opera diva who never took herself too seriously and she was probably the hippest lady in classical music of her day, a sort of spiritual predecessor to Laurie Anderson in certain respects.

Born in 1925, after attending Columbia University, Berberian received a Fulbright scholarship in 1949 to study music at the Milan Conservatory where she would meet her future husband, the great composer Luciano Berio, who would write music for her during their marriage (you might say they were collaborations considering how integral her contribution is!) and afterwards. His Requies: in memoriam Cathy composition premiered the year after her death of a sudden heart attack at the age of 57 in 1983. It’s interesting to note that when she passed, Berberian was to sing “The Internationale” (ala Marilyn Monroe) on TV in Rome to Karl Marx on the anniversary of his birth. That’s the sort of performer Cathy Berberian was. She just didn’t take it all that seriously, and yet, she took her artform very seriously indeed. Pompous, she wasn’t, although she was the most celebrated vocal recitalist of her time spent on Earth.

Sylvano Bussotti, Hans Werner Henze, William Walton and even Igor Stravinsky works for Cathy Berberian’s distinctive voice. She’s even name-checked in the Steely Dan song “Your Gold Teeth” on Countdown to Ecstasy: “Even Cathy Berberian knows / There’s one roulade she can’t sing.” (There’s the answer to that Trivial Pursuit question!) Of his multifaceted wife, Berio said “The versatility of her mind was astonishing.” Aside from her great vocal gifts, she was also a gourmet chef, a fashion model, a collector of pornographic porcelain and she translated Jules Feiffer and Woody Allen’s work into Italian with Umberto Eco.
 

 
But for all of her high-falutin’ musical and intellectual pedigrees, Cathy Berberian was equally known as someone with a wicked sense of humor. Her Revolution album of Beatles covers is a unique and quirky collection indeed, but she really ties together her pop and avant garde inclinations beautifully in her own composition, “Stripsody,” a short vocal piece where she uses comic book exclamations and sounds (Words like “Boing!” “Vrrop vrrop” appear on the sheet music) to get the point across, sounding very much like a humorous version of Cage’s Fontana Mix combined with Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot’s “Comic Strip.”

Here’s a performance of her infamous “Stripsody”:
 

 
More Cathy Berberian after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.14.2014
02:02 pm
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Hawkwind: Psychedelic Space Rock Warriors on the Edge of Time
03.13.2014
05:44 pm
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Barney Bubbles cover for Hawkwind’s Space Ritual

When you’re writing on a daily basis about popular—or unpopular—culture, it sure helps if you’ve got a great deal of enthusiasm for the topic at hand. You can’t feel lukewarm because if you don’t care about something, why should you expect your readers to care, right? The whimsical nature of what we cover here at Dangerous Minds does come down to an editorial policy of, well, whimsy on a daily basis. Luckily we’re all enthusiastic people!

Like many of you, I’m on a never-ending quest to find “something new to listen to” or something old that’s “new again” if only because I missed out on it the first time. Right now, the thing I am absolutely off-the-scale enthusiastic about is Hawkwind. I am hoping to share my enthusiasm here with you the reader in the hopes that you’ll get something out of it.

The other day—Monday—I noticed that there was a new-ish (2013) box set of Hawkwind’s Warrior On The Edge Of Time album and that it had been remixed for 5.1 surround by the incomparable Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree. As I have written here in the past, I’m interested in pretty much everything and anything when it comes to classic albums that have been snazzed up by Mr. Wilson—his name is the mark of quality when it comes to 5.1 surround—even stuff that I normally wouldn’t be that interested in (Yes, Jethro Tull, XTC). That’s not the case with Hawkwind. As soon as I saw that his Warrior On The Edge Of Time existed, via an Amazon recommendation, I couldn’t hit the buy button fast enough. “Assault And Battery” on the human anatomy—my human anatomy—in 5.1 surround as remixed by the one and only Steve Wilson? Count me in.

It arrived the next day—Tuesday—and that evening, after inhaling copious amounts of entertainment insurance (the nice little man who sold it to me called it “Lemon Skunk,” I think, and he said that it was the best weed in the shire!) I sat down in the darkness to let the majesty of Hawkwind’s Warrior On The Edge Of Time LOUDLY wash over me.

Now I should mention that I have not listened to this album in a very, very long time. Don’t get me wrong, I know every note of it but I probably haven’t heard Warrior On The Edge Of Time since 1983. My sense memory of listening to the LP I owned as a teenager is still very strong however, so maybe that’s what had me salivating over the prospects of what the extended audio field of a 5.1 remix could do for such a freaky, wild sounding album.

I was not disappointed.

Hawkwind was/is a band that had to either be recorded live in concert or else live in the studio. They’re hardly a jam band, but to lock into that monolithic Stooges meet Neu! groove would have been impossible to achieve otherwise. The way that Wilson has refashioned Warrior On The Edge Of Time gives the listener an amazing sense of what it would have been like to be IN the studio with them (not in the control room, but standing among them in the studio) and then he takes the weirdo electronic “space rock” noises they were known for—and Nik Turner’s sax—and weaves those distinctive sonics in and out of the 5.1 configuration in a manner that is both trippy as hell, and from a creative standpoint, the choices he made are simply thrilling. The vocal treatments JUMP out of the speakers and hover around you in the room like holograms or ghosts.

It’s really impressive stuff. I was stoned, true, but then again I usually am. These motherfuckers were just… far out. Hawkwind were a group who set out to push the boundaries as far as they could go at a time in history when boundary-pushing was all the rage. They to my ears, are the sole British prog rock group of the 1970s who were looking to Amon Düül II, Can, Neu! and other Krautrockers for inspiration. In that regard, a pretty good argument could be made that Hawkwind are also the missing link between prog and post punk via their influence on groups like Public Image Ltd. or the Psychedelic Furs. And of course there’s that whole Motörhead connection…

It’s kind of strange how low of a profile Hawkwind have in the US. I think most people who have never sampled the wares write them off as a “crazy hippie” band or assume that because Lemmy played bass with them during their classic era that this implies the music must somehow be moronic. Maybe it’s the participation of fantasy overlord Michael Moorcock and the spoken word bits that marks Hawkwind as “music for nerdy boys,” I don’t know. The only people who seem to care about the band stateside seem to be Motörhead fans, whereas YOU, yes YOU THERE listening to Faust reading this, you might find that there is much for you to enjoy, too, in the classic Hawkwind albums.

Have a listen to Hawkwind’s Warrior On The Edge Of Time in stereo and try to imagine how sick it would sound coming out of five speakers and a subwoofer.
 

 
The promo film for “Silver Machine” that was filmed for Top of The Pops. This would explain why their amazonian gogo dancer Stacia has her clothes on…

 
Below, Hawkwind do “Urban Guerilla” and here Stacia is more casual in her attire, you might say…

 
The terrific BBC documentary on Hawkwind over the decades:

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.13.2014
05:44 pm
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The Source Family’s Isis Aquarian, this week on ‘The Pharmacy’
03.13.2014
12:33 pm
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Gregg Foreman’s radio program, The Pharmacy, is a music / talk show playing heavy soul, raw funk, 60′s psych, girl groups, Krautrock. French yé-yé, Hammond organ rituals, post-punk transmissions and “ghost on the highway” testimonials and interviews with the most interesting artists and music makers of our times…


 
This week Isis Aquarian, historian of the legendary Source Family visits The Pharmacy.

If you don’t know about the Source Family they were one of the first young spiritualist groups to combine the teachings of the yogis and gurus of the East with the burgeoning counterculture of the late 60s, early 70s Los Angeles sex, drugs and rock-n-roll scene. The Source Family, led by Jim Baker aka “Father Yod,” also operated The Source restaurant on the Sunset Strip, notably one of the countries first organic food restaurants, catering to the LA art, film and music worlds. They also had a slammin’ rock group!

In 2013, Drag City Records released The Source Family documentary, the critically acclaimed film directed Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille.

This week’s show features music from Source Family band Ya Ho Wha 13 as well as Isis’ personal documentations of Father Yod’s unheard (and often fascinating) morning meditation tapes, unearthed after 40 plus years.

Mr. Pharmacy is a musician and DJ who has played for the likes of Pink Mountaintops, The Delta 72, The Black Ryder, The Meek and more. Since 2012 Gregg Foreman has been the musical director of Cat Power’s band. He started dj’ing 60s Soul and Mod 45’s in 1995 and has spun around the world. Gregg currently lives in Los Angeles, CA and divides his time between playing live music, producing records and dj’ing various clubs and parties from LA to Australia.
 
Set List

Intro
Hit it and Quit it - Funkadelic
Over Under Sideways Down - The Yardbirds
Intro 1 / Psychastenie (Miles Dum Edit) - Rx / Serge Gainsbourg
Source Family’s Isis Aquarian Interview Part 1
Sweet Young Thing - The Chocolate Watch Band
Night Time - the Strangeloves
Contact High - Ike & Tina Turner
Intro 2 / Soul Sitar - Rx / Sohail Rana
Source Family’s Isis Aquarian Interview Part 1.5
Love at Psychedelic Velocity - The Human Expression
Barabajagal - Donovan
Source Family’s Isis Aquarian Interview Part 2
Don’t Look Back - The Remains
Lucifer Sam - Pink Floyd
Source Family’s Isis Aquarian Interview Part 2.5
Don’t Turn on the Light, Leave Me Alone - CAN
Journey In Satchidananda - Alice Coltrane
Intro 3 / Journey In Satchidananda - Rx / Alice Coltrane
Source Family Isis Aquarian Interview Part 3
Right Place, Wrong Time - Dr. John
I Get Lifted - George McRae
Source Family’s Isis Aquarian Interview Part 3.5
Pushin’ Too Hard - The Seeds
Cool It Down - The Velvet Underground
Source Family’s Isis Aquarian Interview Part 4
Side B of Father Yod And The Spirit Of ‘76 - Ya Ho Wha 13
Outro
The Other Half - Mr.Pharmacist

 
You can download the entire show here.
 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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03.13.2014
12:33 pm
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Iggy Pop belts out two immortal Joy Division songs at Tuesday’s Tibet House benefit
03.13.2014
08:44 am
Topics:
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Iggy Pop and New Order
 
The lineup that the Tibet House US put together for the 24th Annual Tibet House US Benefit Concert at Carnegie Hall two nights ago was the kind of collection of noteworthy musical talents that was guaranteed to make a certain kind of discerning fan of rock music quiver with excitement. The program promised the following enticements:
 

Philip Glass
Nico Muhly
Matt Berning, Aaron Dessner, & Bryce Dessner of The National
Bernard Sumner, Phil Cunningham, & Tom Chapman of New Order
Iggy Pop
Robert Randolph
Patti Smith and her Band
Techung

With an invocation and closing by
Monks from the Drepung Gomang Monasteries

 
The evening would prove to have an impressive number of impromptu guests and collaborations not depicted here, including the surprise appearance of Sufjan Stevens, who sat in with The National; Nico Muhly playing together with Philip Glass; and a special gesture of tribute to recently departed Lou Reed from Patti Smith, who covered Reed’s classic “Perfect Day.”

But most exciting of all, perhaps, was Iggy Pop teaming up with three of the members of New Order (no Peter Hook, of course; Sumner was the only original member present) to play two of Joy Division’s most enduring songs, “Transmission” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” As all dedicated Joy Division fans know, when Ian Curtis hanged himself on May 18, 1980, Iggy’s 1977 album The Idiot was spinning on the turntable just a few feet away.
 
Iggy Pop and New Order
 
Earlier in the evening, Sufjan Stevens joined The National for “I Need My Girl” and “This is the Last Time” off of 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me and “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” off of their 2010 album High Violet (video for which can be found here; scroll down) before Sufjan played two songs from The Planetarium, the somewhat proggy collaboration involving Muhly and the National’s Bryce Dessner from 2013. Then Nico Muhly and Philip Glass joined forces for “The Chase,” a track off of Glass’s 2004 soundtrack for Undertow.

When New Order’s time to perform arrived, they played “St. Anthony” before introducing Iggy, who joined the band for “Californian Grass,” off of New Order’s 2013 album Lost Sirens; Sumner said that the band had never played the song live before. The next two songs were the immortal Joy Division numbers “Transmission” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

What follows are fan videos, but both the video and the audio are in fairly good shape. 

“Californian Grass”

 
“Transmission”

 
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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03.13.2014
08:44 am
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