John Cale @ Whisky A Go Go 1980-03-29

John Cale
The Whisky
West Hollywood, CA
March 29, 1980
RG Master via JEMS
New Wave LA Series Vol. Eight

Recording equipment: unknown mics and recorder

JEMS 2020 Transfer: RG Master Cassette > Nakamichi RX-505 (azimuth adjustment) > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 capture > iZotope RX6 > iZotope Ozone 6 > CD Wave > ffmpeg > FLAC

first set
01 Walkin’ The Dog (Rufus Thomas cover)
02 Mercenaries (Ready For War)
03 Baby You Know
04 Dead Or Alive
05 Evidence
06 Dr. Mudd
07 Memphis (Chuck Berry cover)
08 Only Time Will Tell
09 Magic & Lies
10 Fucking Your Neighbour’s Wife
11 Chorale
12 Sabotage
13 Guts
14 Pablo Picasso (Jonathan Richman cover)
second set
15 Dead or Alive
16 Memphis (Chuck Berry cover)
17 Leaving It Up To You
18 Fucking Your Neighbour’s Wife
19 Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis Presley cover)

JEMS is pleased to continue a series of historic recordings made by our longtime friend and diehard music collector RG. He was on the scene in LA as a teenager, began recording shows in 1977 and continued on well into the 2000s. Our series will focus on tapes he made between 1977 and 1987.

What sort of music was he into? Well, one simple way to put it is KROQ music, meaning the bands that LA’s “world famous” new wave radio station was playing were the bands he saw and recorded. First wave if you will, with forays into indie and punk(ish) artists. The early years are dominated by UK artists breaking in the US. Over time his work expands to US bands in the second wave. Some of the artists RG taped include:

Siouxsie & the Banshees (Vol. Four)
Madness (Vol. Eight)
The Specials (Vol. Six)
OMD
The Damned
The Stranglers (Vol. One)
Public Image Limited (Vol. Three)
John Cale
Magazine
The Buzzcocks (Vol. Seven)
Orange Juice
U2
Wreckless Eric
The Cramps
Johnny Thunders
Talking Heads
Iggy Pop
XTC (Vol. Two)
The Jam
The Only Ones
The Undertones
Boomtown Rats (Vol. Five)
The Birthday Party
The Penetrators
The Bluebells
Athletico Spizz ’80

Later on he caught The Smiths, R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, The Replacements and many more.

RG used good, not Millard-level recording gear, which means his tapes are mostly solid and listenable, with the occasional very good one and also sorta crappy one. What makes his tapes compelling is that RG was recording in a particularly vital window of time. In many instances these were the first or second times these acts played Los Angeles. Some never did proper US tours, only playing select dates in key markets like LA or NYC. Also, for many of these gigs, RG was the only taper. He grabbed a few local radio broadcasts along the way, too.

Because these shows were almost exclusively at clubs like The Whisky and The Roxy, the sets are generally short, 45 to 60 minutes because that's what you did at The Whisky. On occasion, RG would copy his own masters to save tape and we have done our best to distinguish what’s a true master and what’s a first generation copy. If there’s a doubt, we will note it. Regardless, the series will offer the lowest generation copies available of his recordings, digitized directly for the first time from RG’s tapes which had been stored in boxes for the last 15+ years.

The ninth volume in our series presents John Cale at the Whisky in March 1980. The setlist is an eclectic one as Cale wasn’t touring in support of a new album, so it draws from across his ‘70s work. As such, it bears some resemblance to his 1979 live album Sabotage, though that album only featured nine songs, so the performance here is more wide-ranging, including “Dead Or Alive,” which was unreleased at the time and would come out a full year later on Honi Soit.

One of the Cale fansites has setlists for the early and late shows on this date and lists audience recordings for both. Whether or not these are the same sources we can’t say for sure. RG only got a partial recording of the second set, but of the five songs, two of them were not in the early show: “Leaving It Up To You” and The King’s “Heartbreak Hotel.”

RG’s recording is commendably listenable and transports you to the venue effectively with some appealing audience commentary on occasion and relatively consistent sound quality. Samples provided.

We’re so grateful to RG for letting JEMS dig into his tape boxes and pull out the assets for this series. He witnessed some amazing LA music history. Tip of the hat as well to cpscps who volunteered to handle post-production on our series which is a huge help to us and makes it possible to get more music in your hands. Stay tuned for more New Wave in LA.

BK for JEMS





https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1khIjb68FUyFVRHjhUgf2RKbIFC4DItDN?usp=sharing


I gotta get caught up on listening to these