Thursday, July 12, 2012

Straitjacket Fits - KPFK FM, L.A. 10/21/89

Before moving onto another band I thought I'd follow up my Straitjacket Fits re-upload post from two nights ago with something I haven't shared by my favorite Kiwi quartet, and it's a truly divine artifact at that.  In that most recent spiel I mentioned the band's first two albums, Hail and Melt.  This is a ten-song set cut for renown Los Angeles station KPFK bearing a late 1989 airing date, falling right smack in-between the release of the aforementioned LPs, and moreover what most would regard to be their halcyon era.  As if their studio recordings weren't sonically stirring enough, the Fits exude even bolder hues of texture, melody and flat out visceral persuasion in a live setting.  There's a real purity to this session that I can't put my itchy finger on, all the better to hear for yourself as opposed to me babbling on about it.  There's some slightly cheesy inter-song banter, but the band reveals that as of this date Hail technically wasn't available Stateside yet, but would be in the very near future.  As you might surmise, songs from that disk comprise most of the set, but we do get a few previews of 1991's Melt in the shape of "Headwind," "Hand in Mine," and "Follow & Fall," which was later rechristened "In Spite of it All."

01. Dialing A Prayer
02. Seeing You Fled
03. Bad Note For A Heart
04. Hand in Mine
05. Roller Ride
06. She Speeds
07. Follow & Fall
08. Headwind
09. Quiet Come
10. Hail

Hear

7 comments:

Just8 said...

Thanks, this sounds great;
I saw Straitjacket Fits once, when they toured Europe with JPS Experience and the Bats (which was called the Noisyland tour); that was in support of their album 'Blow'. And as another commentator mentioned earlier: that was a great evening. JPS Experience were very good, and Straitjacket Fits and the Bats were even better.
As an aside, the CD single of 'Bad note for a heart' (which contains 3 songs from 'Missing from Melt') also has a live version of 'Hail' from Triple J. I don't know if it's from the same Triple J session you posted earlier. 'Such a daze' from triple J is featured on a compilation 3CD of Dunedin bands called "...But I can write songs okay". I can recommend that 3CD compilation; a lot of great songs, including rarities.

Unknown said...

Any chance you could relist the please, would love to hear it

Unknown said...

Thanks for the relist, is a bit more raw and real than the studio album, always get the best of a band in a live recording

Unknown said...

I would love it if you could re-list this SJF session. Please? Pretty please?

spavid said...

The link has been updated.

Unknown said...

Thanks so much. You rock spavid, as do SJF!

ANON said...

Hi, there- I've been discovering so much great NZ music recently...I'd dug some of it in the past but have been digging in and finding more and more - I'd love to hear this live set if you could repost. Thanks and thanks for all the great stuff on your blog!!