Quazelar's thread about the Hendrix video made me think...

I was watching a documentary about KISS Alive. For years, people had been noticing and saying that the album seemed heavily doctored in the studio - and the band themselves as well as Eddie Kramer have confirmed that. It's actually pretty cool to see Kramer show how they did it.

I can't help but think that 25 years ago, as a young and naive musician on a quest to authenticity, I would most likely have thrown the album in the garbage can.

But these days, man, it seems like a pretty forgivable approach. Studio albums back then were probably more live than any live albums we hear these days, w/ all the sequences playback and stuff... I mean, so what if they overdubbed the crowd? The point was that it should make you feel like you were there. Furthermore, the overdub didn't involve Autotune or multi-instrument quantization - maybe they beefed up the kick, but when the drummer drifts or accelerate, that's what you get.

I dare say that, even after all those years, it's still one of those albums which I enjoy listening to, and one of my favorite live albums, along w/ Ozzy's Speak of the Devil (another case of heavy studio doctoring), even if I'm not the biggest KISS fan. 

Most of the shows I've seen in recent years - including some of my favorite artists - sounded absolutely tamed and controlled by comparison... It's like, the soundman just edit the performance at the source...

My 2 cents anyway... Just thinking out loud and wondering how we can keep the music alive, where to place the bar...

One of the best live albums IMHO is Live and Dangerous by Thin Lizzy.

Rain, its always been live utopia for me................until reading Tony Visconti's comments on it in a mag. It was also heavily doctored - bass re-done in studio, vocals "re-aligned", and IIRC, the two guitarists also wanted to redo certain harmony runs. The track Southbound had applause added to it and so on.

Shame, but whatever, Visconti did great production work and i still go back to it.

Bum notes an' all Should be left in...... To a certain degree, and i agree with you, live shows are sometime a little flat. Last great spontaneous show i saw ? Leningrad Cowboys - now they rock !

Cheers,
Jerry

Some things you just can't fix in the mix.

joakes


One of the best live albums IMHO is Live and Dangerous by Thin Lizzy.

Rain, its always been live utopia for me................until reading Tony Visconti's comments on it in a mag. It was also heavily doctored - bass re-done in studio, vocals "re-aligned", and IIRC, the two guitarists also wanted to redo certain harmony runs. The track Southbound had applause added to it and so on.

Shame, but whatever, Visconti did great production work and i still go back to it.

Bum notes an' all Should be left in...... To a certain degree, and i agree with you, live shows are sometime a little flat. Last great spontaneous show i saw ? Leningrad Cowboys - now they rock !

Cheers,
Jerry

I'll have to put that one by Thin Lizzy on the playlist. :) I know Visconti mostly for his work w/ Bowie.

one of my favorite live albums is Humble Pie's Rockin the Fillmore. 

Great sound, great energy, great playing, and yeah... it was recorded live. 

I'll check this one out as well. Thanks. :)

Man, when I was a little rocker kid (like 10 years old) I LOVED that album. I must have listened to it a million times. hmm... maybe I'm thinking of Kiss Alive II. Whichever one had Dr. Love and God of Thunder on them. Great songs. Looking back though Kiss was pretty cheesy and the Alive albums completely obliterated any studio work they did. They still had a huge impact on a young Beepster though.

Remember when we were kids, we had those cars that you put this giant nylon tie strap in with teeth, then you pulled it out really fast and the wheels would spin on the car, and some of the cars had sparks that would shoot out ...




I made ramps out of my Kiss albums to jump them off of.

Good times.

Bub


Remember when we were kids, we had those cars that you put this giant nylon tie strap in with teeth, then you pulled it out really fast and the wheels would spin on the car, and some of the cars had sparks that would shoot out ...




I made ramps out of my Kiss albums to jump them off of.

Good times.

I actually didn't before you posted this... :)

Ooo... I had some of those cars!  You were supposed to aim them at each other and parts would come off as they hit.  Kids loved 'em, mom's hated 'em!

And, to get back on topic, VH1 happened to have a KISS concert on that my roommate was watching so I ended up watching quite a bit while having dinner.  Man, were they cheesy, but those simple songs really worked didn't they?