Monday, January 19, 2009

Faith No More - Live at the Brixton Academy (CD, 1991)

Yes, when folks were clamoring for some new music from Faith No More, they pulled the ol' live-album-to-tide-the-public-over move. And believe me, we didn't complain.

This CD was only released as an import, and I didn't pick it up until about ten years ago, via random late night completist-fueled eBay bidding. But, the accompanying VHS tape saw wide release here in the US at the beginning of 1991, and my brother finagled a copy somehow. It's called You Fat Bastards, but in the more sensitive early 90's, they starred out a few letters. So, we always called it You Fat B-tards. Catchy, right?

We watched the shit out of it, studying Mike Patton's every move. A few years later, some of it seemed pretty dumb, but I'm now far enough removed from it to find it both amusing and nostalgic. Anyway, this disc is the soundtrack to that movie, though not a complete one. It's missing "Woodpecker From Mars," "Underwater Love," and "As the Worm Turns." The CD does contain two bonus tracks, but the running time is still barely over 50 minutes. Also, the tracks aren't in the right order. I'm assuming this all had something to do with the vinyl release, but that's just a theory.

I'm not going to do the song-by-song breakdown for this one, as the first eight tracks are all from The Real Thing. Patton is in full-on nasal mode, and if you can move past that, this is a sweet album. The recording is quality, and the band is locked in, tight as shit from touring nonstop. The version of "The Real Thing" here is pretty untouchable, and we always dug the super-fast version of "From Out of Nowhere."

The bonus tracks are a odd pair. "The Grade" isn't much more than Jim Martin (I'm assuming it's him) going nuts on an acoustic for two minutes. A pretty big letdown. "The Cowboy Song," however, is a solid b-side, a song from The Real Thing sessions that didn't make the cut. You can see why it wasn't included on the album, but it's still a strong tune, though teetering towards the butt rawk a little.

A good one to have around.

"Zombie Eaters"

1 comment:

Biff Pocaroba said...

I am pretty sure that Dad was so tired of seeing this that he threw it away. He conveniently told me that he "lost it." Heh. Anyways, I was always miffed that the CD left out the songs that you mentioned. Really the absence of "As The Worm Turns" bugged me most, as this was a very random Chuck-era song for them to trot out and I loved hearing Patton on it. It blew my 1991 brain. So the decision not to include these is odd. And "The Cowboy Song" is totally butt rawk.