Sunday, January 14, 2007

Music from Archive.org


I hadn't realized, but the internet archive at archive.org has a pretty big music offering, mostly live shows.

Not a lot of famous bands, but there's twenty-nine Butthole Surfers and sixteen Supersuckers shows.

Link here : Browse music at archive.org

As an aside I like this excerpt from the Butthole Surfers' Wikipedia entry:

Often without speaking to or even acknowledging the audience, sometimes playing in darkness, the band would assault the attendees aurally with four channels of sound placed throughout the venue. This allowed the band the opportunity to "swim" the sound in a circular pattern which, when combined with the visual stimuli would occasionally evoke nausea from those in attendance. ...

... the combined effect with the swirling sound and the sudden, lengthy strobe-light barrage is said to have caused panic and even seizure in some participants.

Other common elements of the stage show included Gibby's fascination with singing through a bullhorn or smashing a cymbal mounted upside-down and filled with flaming rubbing alcohol, causing flames to shoot up with each rhythmic beat (that's pictured above there). ... For daylight shows, Gibby instead would occupy instrumental passages with shotgun blasts over the audience's heads.

While on tour in Times Square, the band met a woman whose control over reversal of her digestive tract had given her the stage name 'Ta-Da the Shit Lady'. She was brought along and became a fixture of several tours in which, unannounced, she would leap onto the stage and perform a frantic, gyrating dance in the strobe lights after disrobing (it was not a libidinous presentation). ... the total effect of the live presentation was unique in popular music.

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