Doubt was no sophomore slump: it entered the UK charts at #1, went platinum, and scored a US hit with Right Here Right Now, which still sounds absolutely fab.
One great thing about these Homemade Live Albums is hearing the songs as they were performed in concert, rather than the familiar studio versions. In 1991, an interviewer for Select magazine observed, "Jesus Jones gigs are legendary; the records (good as 'Doubt' is) are not."
Singer/songwriter Mike Edwards responded, "We haven't captured what we do live, no. But to some extent that's deliberate. I'm a very firm believer that everything we do, every medium we're involved with - playing live, releasing records, doing videos - should be kept distinct from one another. We do different versions with songs when we're doing them live...".
Have a listen to Doubt Live, dear reader, and tell us what you think!
Doubt Live
ReplyDeleteAnother Stinky Production
https://tinyurl.com/67berj5f
https://www.allmusic.com/blog/post/allmusic-loves-1991
ReplyDeleteKinda interesting to see what else was new in Apocalypse '91. I had Nevermind, Metallica's Black Album, Siouxsie's Superstition, De La Soul Is Dead, Rumor And Sigh, and Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk on cassette! The Cactus Album too, I think. I did a lot of driving that year.
What a year for hip hop! Mistadobolina! OPP! Cypress Hill! "Mind Playing Tricks On Me"! "No Future In Yo Frontin"! Even the Fresh Prince had a good tune ("Summertime"). The Low End Theory was here (and it was time to wreck shop). I got that and Black Sheep on CD. You can't beat that with a bat.
My wife bought Green Mind, and we borrowed Bandwagonesque, Girlfriend and Diamonds And Pearls from the library. Dang, we bought the Spin Doctors too, like every other sucker. I was late to Pavement, Spiderland, Laughing Stock, Blue Lines, Loveless and shoegaze in general. I was done with REM, U2, and Pixies by '91, and I had no love for Pearl Jam (still don't).
While I'm blathering, the Jesus Jones video for "Blissed" (https://youtu.be/2zecs8xwuIA) reminds me of Mark E. Smith's self-skewering lyric about "five wacky English proletariat idiots" on tour in America. See http://annotatedfall.doomby.com/pages/the-annotated-lyrics/c-n-c-s-mithering.html
I saw THE SPIN DOCTORS in a dive bar in Richmond VA. My friend said he'd heard good things, so we went. At the time I listened exclusively to cassettes (or maybe CDs by then) so I hadn't heard any of their songs. They put on a rock solid live show!
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt that they were good musicians, especially their bass player. I saw an article somewhere about the used CD's that you are guaranteed to find in any record store or thrift shop. Two of them were Tubthumping and Pocketful Of Kryptonite.
DeleteI guess that since you posted this that it's safe for me to say I was kinda into this album. But I guess, thinking back, that there were a lot of good albums that year. You mentioned many that I bought & enjoyed. That year I think I also picked up Talk Talk. Massive Attack release their Blue Lines (still on my constant listening list, Primus, Legendary Pink Dots (the Maria Dimension - one of their best), Cows...the list seems much longer than I remembered. The one that had the most effect on my that year was Nine Patriotic Hymns for Children. Thanks for the cpntemporary mind refresher. & thanks Stinky for this great live chunk.
ReplyDeleteI had to look up Nine Patriotic Hymns for Children -- wow! Why wasn't I listening to that?
ReplyDeleteI've come around to the view that there should be no "guilty" pleasures in music or other forms of entertainment (despite what I wrote about the Spin Doctors). It's strange to look back at the press that Jesus Jones was getting in 1991. The British music writers seemed to have a love/hate relationship with them. I think American audiences just liked their music, without being too concerned about how they dressed or whether Mike Edwards was egotistical or a control freak.
https://www.jesusjonesarchive.info/1991.php
Saw Born Against at a little roadhouse up in the redwoods in Boulder Creek, CA when I was living in San Jose. Got a chance to talk to them before the show. Sam McPheeters was a very savvy guy. They were totally DIY radical punkers. He gave me a cassette of Nine Patriotic Hymns prior to it being released. I wrote up the show in EAT POOP! & promoted the soon to be classic punk album. I painted the Born Against logo across the back of my leather jacket (which I still have). Those words got me hassled more than my variously-colored mohawk or tats. I have always felt it was better to be Born Against rather than born again.
DeleteNØ:
ReplyDeleteI'm glad JESUS JONES floats your boat! Maybe Jon & I should stick a toe in the 90's more often!
I was also unaware of NINE PATRIOTIC HYMNS FOR CHILDREN.
Stop by anytime! We'll leave your name with the bouncer.
- Stinky
You triggered a memory of the old me who thought 1991 was such a great year in music but that was because it was the beginning of the 90's Festivals from bar bands busting out from the 80's clubs after NEVERMIND broke the Mould. Seeing Primus a couple times or Letters To Cleo at our very first EDGEFEST from that radio station now in control, the parties were huge and fun. Looking back at albums a lot of favorites were however in late 80's but I was feeding punk and my old RCA record club AOR standards to my little bass playing brother and he was popping out albums back to me that I hadn't heard that became staples like Infectious Grooves and let me tape NEVERMIND. He never gave me my Houses Of the Holy vinyl back but I got the CD boxset for my birthday and his band KIND was playing our local park with Dead covers, Doobies, CSN and some of the best standards. It was the mainstream now dancing outdo' and all over says I! I just read a list of TOP 100 albums on MSN yesterday and very few 90's albums--most were from 2000-2009. They had Houses of the Holy as Number one, Ha ha! Speaking of 2009, I'm finding that was a banner year for movies as I have been labeling my VHS/DVD rips to MP4 from the last four years or so from Goodwill--finally after ditching most of the source material. Weird thing is about 30% didn't work out from noise in the line that I have since fixed (I think) so I deleted them but they were all crappy movies!!! Must be sanctified as R.L. Burnside used to say at his gigs.
ReplyDeleteI wish I was as patient and productive as you are with ripping music and videos (and troubleshooting problems with rips). I've got a backlog of vinyl and cassettes that I want to convert to digital, as well as a few things on VHS.
Delete1991 may have been "the year punk broke", but this blogger makes a compelling argument for 1981 as an amazing year for music:
https://musicophilia.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/post-punk-1981-complete-collection-including-the-briefcase/
And here's another blogger's box set (15 discs!) of music from 1984:
http://perfectsounds1984.blogspot.com/
Don't think I've ever heard the studio album but the R.H.R.N. video was played to death at the time and wore out it's welcome for me. But I trust team Jon-ky's taste enough to give this live version a go. The Alt-Rock 90s version of "Punk" going mainstream was very distressing to me at the time though maybe it had some good repercussions. Lots of bands got screwed by the Major label feeding frenzy though and it certainly ruined the underground music "scene" at the time in my opinion though I guess more good music got distributed and heard which is a good thing. I know it's hypocritical to think "why don't more people appreciate this great music" and then have sour grapes when they do but I guess that's nothing new in the counter-culture mass-culture appropriation cycle. Anyway, of the '91 releases highlighted by AllMusic, Nirvana, Matthew Sweet, Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, Mercury Rev, Pavement would have been the ones playing on my stereo along with a ton of independent label releases. That was when I had to spend all my time and money going through the used CD bins and using the Columbia Music club deals to get lots of $5 discs. I'm not sorry those days are over now!
ReplyDeleteMr. Dave:
ReplyDeleteYou could afford to buy $5 discs? My habit got to where I could only afford to buy enough CDs to scratch my itch in the $1 bin, and I had to store them in boxes rather than CD cases!
Who am I kidding--I still frequent the $1 bins. I figure anyone can pay full price for a classic album. The trick is getting it cheap! I had the luxury of traveling a lot, so I could buy things like BUCK NAKED & THE BARE BOTTOM BOYS cheap in mid-America, whereas, if I'd bought it in SF where he reached legendary status after being shot in Golden Gate Park by a guy feeding pigeons--his CD would have commanded top dollar. By the way, Buck Naked's guitarist is where my nom de plume comes from!