4AD Bootleg Tapes

During the 90s, I was involved with a lot of tape swapping related to the British record company 4AD. These tapes have since languished in a box in the basement, but this autumn I went on a I Must Tidy Things! jag and carried the box up to the apt. and digitised all the tapes.

Most of the tapes were rarities (tracks from limited edition 7″ records and stuff like that), and all that stuff is available already for anybody interested. But there was also a small stack of live bootleg recordings that nobody seems to have bothered to upload to Youtube yet, so I did it.

Enjoy. Most of these are pretty horribly-sounding recordings from the middle of the audience, so you get a lot of “whoo hoo” and not so much music, but I think some of these are pretty exciting anyway. Especially the Throwing Muses live at Anaconda tape, which is just so raw-sounding and intense. Wish I were there.

Kristin Hersh live mid-90s (bootleg audience recording)
The Breeders live at Toad's Place, New Hampshire (bootleg audience recording)
Dead Can Dance live at the Loft Club, Berlin, 21/11/87 (bootleg audience recording)
Throwing Muses live at Anaconda, Santa Barbara 12/9/92 (bootleg audience recording)
The Breeders live 1993 Double Trouble (bootleg soundboard recording)
Throwing Muses live at Club With No Name 11/11/92 (bootleg audience recording)
Kitchens of Distinction live (bootleg audience recording)
Björk live at Paradiso Amsterdam (bootleg audience recording)
Cocteau Twins Live in Cleveland 3/17/94 (bootleg audience recording)
Cocteau Twins Live at London University 12/13/83 (bootleg audience recording)
Cocteau Twins Live in Vera, Holland 2/2/85 (bootleg audience recording)
Interview with Kristin Hersh at a radio show 25/01/1994
Interview with Mark Kozelek at Dutch radio May 1993

ACW1984: Starman

What a pretty baby!

What is friend?

What happened! They’re both in focus at the same time!!!

And now the backgrounds are in focus at the same time as the people!? WHAAA. Is this even a Carpenter movie!?

John Carpenter. Starman. 1984.

By this time in his career, Carpenter had abandoned everybody from his stable of production people and actors from his pre-studio days, apparently? At least I don’t recognise anybody from the screen or the cast list… (But that may be the beer writing…)

In any case, this is his biggest budget yet. Kinda puzzling after The Thing and Christine not exactly putting the box office on fire.

And it’s a puzzling movie. It’s not immediately obvious what kind of film this is going to be, which is the question you ask of genre film directors. Another The Man Who Fell To Earth? E.T. remade with Jeff Bridges as the alien? Alien Encounters without the mashed potatoes? The Day the Earth Stood Still with a less shiny klaatu? What?

It’s a comedy about Jeff Bridges learning human behaviour and languages, and the humour is just what you’d expect: Cringe-worthy. These things are never funny, no matter how many times it’s been attempted.

So it’s another semi-flop, commercially and critically. But not sufficiently to bar Carpenter from getting money to do another comedy.

This post is part of the A Carpenter Winter series.

ACW1983: Christine

Uh-oh.

Nasty boys.

You can tell that he’s evil by his leather vest.

John Carpenter. Christine. 1983.

The only thing I remember about this film is 1) I thought it was a bit meh, and 2) I had several friends that thought this was the greatest film ever. Or something.

I’m excited to determine who was right.

The first thing I notice is how grainy the film is. Carpenter likes to make his films look luxe, so that’s odd. Was it shot on the same experimental film stock as Aliens? Did something go wrong during the bluray transfer?

And… My friends were right! This film is a hoot! I love the sensitive jock/jerky nerd protagonist pair. It’s a strange kind of power fantasy, though: The jerky nerd (who I think we’re supposed to sympathise with, but who I loathed from the first frame) goes through a journey where he becomes kick-ass (and evil)… Are nerds supposed to go “yeah! so cool! he was a nerd but now he’s kick-ass! whoo!”? We’re cheering when Christine is killing those nasty boys, aren’t we?

So it’s a nerd service film, and kinda disgusting that way.

But it’s still fun, although that rant near the end is snoresville. Probably Carpenter’s most accomplished film so far, helped a lot by finally getting a cinematographer that’s not useless. He’s still totally hung up on the shallow depth of field thing, though. Probably fails the Bechdel test.

This post is part of the A Carpenter Winter series.

ACW1982: The Thing

John Carpenter. The Thing. 1982.

Carpenter’s first major studio movie. It’s very different from all his preceding films: Instead of a cheery amateurishness, we’re into Standard 80s Sci-Fi territory.

“Competent” US actors that emote in the normal American mainstream film way, and a “professional” film score that tells us how to feel at any given second.

It looks great on bluray, though.

Oh, I’m watching the 2011 prequel, not the 1982 Carpenter film!

*puts the right film on*

Ahem.

This is Carpenter’s first major studio movie, but it doesn’t really look that different from his previous films. You’ve got more dolly/steadycam shots, better sets, more expensive lenses, and they’ve hired Ennio Morricone to do the soundtrack, but it’s definitely a Carpenter film.

THIS TIME.

I like the monster designs. Very disgusting. Nice bluray transfer. But… It’s not really that scary or exciting. And all the drama from everybody melting down in the face of crisis isn’t very interesting.

Let me summarise the plot through monologue: “There’s a thing here that kills people and takes over their bodies! Let’s split up! This looks like a shortcut! Aieee!”

This post is part of the A Carpenter Winter series.

ACW1981: Escape from New York

That’s pretty much how cell phones looked in 1997.

John Carpenter. Escape from New York. 1981.

It’s fun watching these Carpenter films chronologically. You see how Carpenter’s cast of regulars develop. Adrienne Barbeau (who first popped up in that TV horror film) reappears, and the star is, of course, Elvis.

This is another one of those films where I’ve heard snippets of the dialogue so many times through samples on various songs, like Colourbox’ Baby I Love You So.

Anyway, for the first time Carpenter has something resembling a real budget ($6M), and it really shows. Everything looks so cool, and he’s got better special effects, set designers and focus pullers.

The premise of this film is so cool (in the “dude!” “sweet!” meaning of the word) that if this had been a modern movie, it would have been a three hour epic. Instead we’re introduced to the premise at the 25 minute mark, and the film is over in an hour fourty.

It’s a film any 14-year-old boy, of any age and gender, will find entertaining.

This post is part of the A Carpenter Winter series.