From MARTINP@CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU Mon Jun 7 01:25:53 1993 Received: from CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) with SMTP id ; Mon, 7 Jun 93 00:46:45 -0400 Received: from CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU by CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU (PMDF #2326 ) id <01GZ2LAD25FS8WZBRK@CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU>; Sun, 6 Jun 1993 21:46:36 PDT Date: 06 Jun 1993 21:46:36 -0700 (PDT) From: MARTINP@CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU Subject: Soft Boys LPs To: fegmaniax@gnu.ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <01GZ2LAD25FU8WZBRK@CGSVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU> X-Envelope-To: fegmaniax@gnu.ai.mit.edu X-Vms-To: IN%"fegmaniax@gnu.ai.mit.edu" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT So far we've had votes cast for "Can of Bees," Invisible Hits" and "Underwater Moonlight" as the "best" Soft Boys LP. May I respectfully submit for your consideration "Live at the Portland Arms", an album inexplicably overlooked by all of you? It's raw, it's witty, and it is unquestionably the oddest album in their catalog. For those of you unfamilar with it, LSTPA is an all-acoustic performance recorded in 1979, the same year as Can of Bees. Some of the songs are from that album--Give it to the Soft Boys, Human Music, and Sandra's Having Her Brain Out are on it I think (I'm sorry, I don't have the record in front of me, so this is all from memory), plus the strangest assortment of covers you could imagine and, best of all, all the stuff BETWEEN the songs. Robyn is in great form, his ravings in "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" are a hoot, "The Duke of Squeeze" is a bawdy, dead-on parody of traditional Folksong, "My Evaline" is, amazingly, straighforward, barbershop harmony. It's fasinating hear ing what a wide range of stuff the Soft Boys where apparently listening to, and experimenting with, and singing in their earliest years. It's closer to seeing them live than anything else they've recorded, and has MUCH better sound than the bootlegs I've heard. Sorry to ramble on so long, but I think a lot of people don't know this exists, and it is still available. It's not on cd so far as I know, but is still in print, I think, as an import LP. I got my copy from the used record bin; a new copy will set you back about $15. If anyone's interested and too impatient to look for a used copy, E-mail me and I'll try find the catalog I saw it in. -Martin-