metaBeats

I returned last night from NYC, after a 36 hour whirl wind business trip, and I have to say that for the city that claims to never sleep it’s damn hard to find something to do on a Monday night!

I was going to check out Brian Jonestown Massacre at the Mercury Lounge but it was apparently sold out so I dropped by the Knitting factory around 11:00 to see a gig called “Kerry Rising” which was a political Springsteen covers night…thought it might be interesting…but it was over by the time I got there. By this time my tootsies are sore from having walked from the top of midtown through Soho, Greenwhich etc. down to the immense hole in the ground that once used to be the site of the WTC and back up to the Knitting factory, so I hop in a cab up to Iridium on Broadway @ 51st to catch Les Paul in action. Oooops, strike three, by the time I get there at 11:30, everyone is already pouring out of the club….time to quit and watch some late night tv!

“The city that never sleeps”….guess I just don’t know where to go!

Great live albums:

U2’s Rattle and Hum…not a live album in it’s entirety but more a chronicle of an American tour that includes a mix of new and previously released material …does not quite live up to “J tree”, but not much could. I think it works very well as a diary of a band in the middle of their career and includes some smoking work by Edge on Silver and Gold. A great portrait of the American West.

Springsteen’s triple box set of live recordings from though out his career is very well put together for a live album but is bound for glory considering his charismatic and energetic stage performances. Do we need it on top of all his great studio work? No; but it adds another level to the music as our memories of concerts with “hot chicks in tight cut-offs and tee’s” fade into the past.

What about live jazz? Are the any good live jazz recordings? (lol)

m.