Live Skull Appreciation Thread (pre-Thalia admirer)

I got Dusted on vinyl pretty cheaply Scott, shouldn't be too hard to replace that one. Not sure about the others.

fort belvedere was my total anthem when i was 16

That was the Live Skull first song I ever heard at about the same age cos it was on the Wailing Ultimate compilation (how great was that record BTW? Il Duce, Repulsion, Sun God, I Remember, The Well, White Elephant... that and SST's Blasting Concept Vol II were my gateway drug to the whole US indie thing).

Dusted and Snuffer are my favourite Live Skull records though. Maybe it's just the power of suggestion of the sleeve photos for Dusted, but for quite dark records they also seem full of a lot of light, albeit a light that blinds.

I hope this further disputes the idea that Live Skull were grim.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, January 25, 2006 1:55 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

okay hey slow reaction time but live skull were pretty fucking grim. mark c + marnie smiled about as frequently as michael gira, and while I'm not gonna say there wasn't a lot of ironic humor in what they were doing, the lyrical stance was as sour as the milk in a junkie's frigidaire. some exhibits:

what I did was wrong, I'll erase myself

little tern little tern little tern, o where will you go now
with your dress hiked up above your waist and your legs tossed loose in shameless grace
there a soft stain on the carpet where the couch meets the living room floor
there's a dead man in the hallway and his name is on the door

you said it would be different with this rope around my neck... but it's really nothing special... what else is there?

you know I'm coming
to wreck your life
to tear your face off
drive a stake through the heart of your loved one

once glass has been spit on
it's gonna get smashed
but I'm gonna get you all when I flake out
yeah I'm gonna get you all when I flake out

I go to the doctor
he lies me on the table
takes out his speculum
cold thrust of steel
infecting my organs
this is my condition
this is my condition
this is my condition
this is my condition

woo hoo party on live skull!

If I may be so bold, what Live Skull, even James 'n' Marnie era Live Skull, had that none of the other NY noise-sters did/do, is pop. Despite their walls of noise, those songs are full of hooks -- try getting "Fort Belvedere" out of your head once it gets in. And in contrast to the drawn-out sonic explorations of Sonic Youth, L.S. KNEW where they were going, so their songs are a bit more succinct. You can drive youself crazy asking why Dave Grohl is a billionaire and Tom Paine works at Taco Bell, but truly, if there were any justice in this world, Live Skull would be universal overlords of us all.

i dunno, i love the skull, but it seems super obvious why they never made any money

Looks like Bringing Home The Bait and the first EP have both just been reissued by some French label with a bunch of bouns tracks. Both up on Spotify to. Apparently the rest of the albums will follow...

http://desirerecords.bigcartel.com/artist/live-skull

Just pressed play on Bringing Home The Bait, sounds oddly contemporary thanks to the Savages album.

It sounds absolutely fucking great and a joy to hear once again, but you knew that already.

I bought a copy of Snuffer a few weeks ago.

Snuffer is underrated I think, Step is one of my favourite songs by them.

this version. THE BASS!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mayn9DAro4

played that so many times in 1983. over and over and over. couldn't get enough. it kills the studio version.

I don't actually know that first EP at all. That one wasn't on Homestead was it? Don't think that many copies would've made it to Europe.

BTW, the French label doing this reissue also recently put out an album by o13 who are Mark C's latest project (along with Stuart from Ike Yard)

oh and to be clear that youtube is the superior live speed trials verson of the song not the EP version of the song.

twenty years behind schedule, but these sound fucking great. all of my neighbors just listened to Age of Oil and Wax (they will thank me later, I'm sure).

Heck yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pe-c9t0jls

https://youtu.be/2MtVFqpFxUE

There's no way ^this isn't one of the coolest songs of 1985. Bringing Home the Bait rules so hard