BOC: live in ny/'72 uh...what IS this?

[Doug Pearson]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2000 15:00:10 -0400, Bolts of Ungodly Vision
<js3619 at WIZVAX.NET> wrote:
>Skydog is a shifty label in general. I think almost all their catalog is
in some
>way illegit.

Yeah, Skydog is (was?) one weird (French-based) label that deals in stuff
of varying degrees of legitimacy (sort of like Eva, another French label
which may be related).  Their first release was the classic Stooges live
album, 'Metallic K.O.' (their last show, with the audience full of angry
bikers who had threatened to kill Iggy the night before ... great
audience-baiting by the Igster).  As I understand it, the album was
originally released as a bootleg, but was later authorized by the band (or
at least the Ashetons?), and later reissued as a longer double-LP set.

One of their most classic semi-legit releases would be 'The Gold Star
Tapes' by the Flamin' Groovies (one of my alltime favorite Bay Area bands).
 The band went to record their fourth album under their Sire Records
contract at Gold Star (their previous 3 albums had been recorded at
Rockfield studios - recognize that name, Hawkwind fans?) in L.A., where
Phil Spector had recorded his famed "wall-of-sound" hits (the Groovies'
record includes a great cover of "River Deep Mountain High") and is now a
parking lot :^(.  Since this was around 1979, in the middle of the
post-disco, pre-CD recording industry slump, the band got dropped in the
middle of recording the album, and the label refused to pay the bills owed
the studio.  The band wound up with two completed songs, and three more in
rough mix state on a tape that allegedly contained some sort of
"intentional noise" that would prevent the songs from sounding good enough
to be commercially-releasable.  So the record Skydog put out was not truly
a "bootleg" (since the band approved it and was paid for it), but was not
truly "legit" either, since the studio had never been paid for the
recordings, and three of the songs are a bit rough (but hardly THAT bad).
Skydog had also released some Flamin' Groovies singles/EPs in the early
70s, between their contracts with UA (c.72) and Sire (c.76).

Speaking of the Eva label and upstate New York stuff, are any oldsters
(sorry!) on the list from that area familiar with a band called Morgen (or
the leader, Doug Morgen)?  They had one album on Probe (or maybe Dunhill)
in (I think) 1968 that features some blisteringly-heavy guitar work.  I'd
love to know if anyone actually saw them (or remembered them from then at
all!).

>They did the MC5 _Thunder Express_ Cd of a tv perormance
>by the 5 (sans bassist Michael Davis) w/ what sounded like direct-from-
>worn-vinyl copying of Borderline/Looking at You 45 and I can only give you
>everything. Though the last song has a different ending than on
>Breakout 66 recently released. The Breakout version fades the end out, while
>Skydog's has a proper loud chord ending.

That single was also reissued on the 'Babes In Arms' cassette (and later
CD) on ROIR.  I don't know whether the end fades or not, though ...

And BTW, Munster records in Spain *is* (essentially, AFAIK) a legit label
that mostly releases current garage/punk type stuff, often live albums of
Spanish radio broadcasts by US/UK bands.

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com