"I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind."
I saw Piano Magic live twice: the first time five or six years ago, and then some weeks ago during the tour of their last "Ovations". This is the bootleg recording of that concert. It must be said that as a live band they are way different than in studio (i.e. more electric guitars, less electronic, more strightforward, etc.). Still, they always play beautiful, meaningful and profound music. Only more new-wave-like (and yes, I do hear some echoes of Joy Division in here). Anyway, I did whatever I could in order to give this audience recording the best possible sound: now it's not perfect, but it's a nice listen if you enjoy Piano Magic. PS The picture is from another gig (an english one, taken from Flickr).
I know how poorly this album is usually considered, and by the Go-Betweens too, as anyone can see by reading the Forster-McLennan interview on their whole career in the 80's @ the Go Betweens' Archive page, where Forster, talking about "Tallulah", says: "...we were sort of cursed. We had the engineer that we were using on Liberty Belle, Dicky Preston, and working with Dicky was good. We then went on to the next one and we were put into this horrible studio–..." and then "And so Dickey didn't do a good job I think on Tallulah, so it had to be rescued and remixing a little but which always sounds horrible ...". But I also completely agree with him when he says: "...Tallulah really could have been the big, dark masterpiece, and I don't know, we didn't… really…hit it. But it's good." Yeah, that's really true, I mean, look at some of the songs in the album: there is Someone else's wife ("It's a fine line between love and despair/Do you know the times I've waited on your stair?"), The house that Jack Kerouac built ("With friends like these; you're damned as well/Keep me away from her"), Hope then strife ("Never gonna be the one /Who said you were the one /Who liked the lonesome life"), and then there's the whole (and one-of-a-kind type of song in the GoBes' canon) intense The Clarke sisters. But yes: the production of "Tallulah" brings out the worst of the eighties' music: it's almost hard to listen to this version of Right here (when compared to the oh-so-much-better live rendition of it)... Plus there is Cut it out, possibly the worst Go-Betweens' song ever. And that's one of the reasons why I have uploaded the bonus disc too: the demos of Right here and I just get caught out do give more justice to Forster's and McLennan's songwriting skill. Moreover the B-side When people are dead is a beautiful gem. One more thing: this two-discs edition of "Tallulah" got out of print...why?
I saw Piano Magic live twice: the first time five or six years ago, and then some weeks ago during the tour of their last "Ovations". This is the bootleg recording of that concert. It must be said that as a live band they are way different than in studio (i.e. more electric guitars, less electronic, more strightforward, etc.). Still, they always play beautiful, meaningful and profound music. Only more new-wave-like (and yes, I do hear some echoes of Joy Division in here).
