Image appropriated from here. |
It looks like the fine folks at New Orleans Punk Rock /New Wave Scene 1976-82 finally discovered my published correspondence with one Arthur AG Parr aka "Freezer", who had passed away in June 2012.
He seems to be described as very intelligent...and cranky / ill-tempered, maybe did not suffer fools gladly and had his own twisted sense of honor / justice.
This is all very strange 15 years on (10 years on from the writeup) looking back how I got hooked in, as I had shared a Sex Pistols recording that you would have thought was his, with the voluminous commenting at his end about it, but turns out to have been taped by someone else....who is very much still around and sharing their reminiscences.
Going to see if I can get the DIME PM look going too.
This is from 2009-02-28....
Okay, before finding more Parr vitriol, here's one such message from 2008-04-14, completely unrelated to this, except that I was trying to look back from 2009-01-17 when the long message from Freezer was shared.
I miss this aspect about DIME, what I don't miss was the 16-bit repost requests when sharing 24-bit or people sending your their long lists of stuff you had no interest in...I went back to look for more messages, and realized I may have just cleared them out, though I may have archived them *somewhere*...maybe this will be part three.
I went into my old messages to actually get your name to ask you a recording question, and I found this message that I don't think I ever saw.
The band I was in was called Convalescent Surprise. We broke up awhile back and no one noticed. It was fun while it was lasted. I'm not sure if there's anything to listen to online. Probably somewhere. A radio station in Davis kept playing us long after we broke up. [ed note: Probably KDVS and Artful Spastic] -Josh |
Here's another message from peyotero (in blue, italicized) with my responses underneath in green.
Hi Sam, I seem to recall that guy Freezer doing the same thing over a Zeppelin recording of his from New Orleans, there was (& probably still is) reams of pages of it on the Traders Den, disputing lineages, claiming the tape had been stolen from him etc. Yes, I've read much of that thread and it's a downright mess. I'll say that Freezer (Arthur) is very atypical, and may have other issues in his life going on. So best to leave it at that. It may well be that when he saw the Pistols they weren't that good, Matlock had gone, the band was starting to fall apart, and they were often dealing with hostile audiences., the Lesser Free Trade Hall gig however was of a band at the start of it's career, eager for success & putting everything into their performance. The audience at this gig were enthusiastic even though most were not punks, many were fans of bands like the Stooges, MC5, Elevators etc (myself included)... What's striking to me is the sense of continuity between what had gone on before and what the Pistols were doing...all the cover songs are a good clue to attest to that. The separation from preceding eras of music (the whole 'Year Zero' concept) seems to have been more retrospective...or maybe it developed as "Punk" ethic developed, with the battle lines getting drawn. Looking back now it's probably pretty silly but back then people were getting beat up over it. As well as interest in this era of music, I also knew Pete McNeish as we were at school together in Leigh, and still saw him & Howard regularly at the BIT students union on Saturday nights which used to put gigs on every week - if only I'd taped some of those bands! - Arthur Browns Kingdom Come, Judas Priest (pre 1st album) Wild Turkey, Fruup etc. Given the connections it was inevitable I would go to this gig, The recorder came along as there was nothing available by the Pistols at the time, so I decided to record something for myself, never thinking that 34 years later I'd still be talking about that tape!!! Cool. I was reading that the tape of this show became the first Pistols bootleg in August '77...and I think even by then their album hadn't come out yet. I bet the original bootleg only contains the first 10 songs due to having to fit the songs onto the platter...but there must be later bootleg issues that have 12 or all 14 songs. I bet all the remastering was probably done by the silver CD compilers... I'm curious if you taped other things onwards or if your Pistols effort was a one-off...I'm an active taper myself, but have the luxury of using compact digital recorders and cardioid mics tucked underneath the shirt rather than the gear you guys had to cobble together. :) The tape was the first ever Pistols release, it came out very quickly and I soon worked out the route by which it reached the pressers, as my vinyl copy came from the guy who passed on the 2nd gen!! with hindsight its fortunate that that 2nd gen was done as otherwise we could have lost the recording completely. At the time I was a bit annoyed to find I'd bought an album of my own tape, but also rather pleased to have it on vinyl. I did tape quite a number of gigs back then, almost all of which are in circulation, the only ones that come to mind that haven't gone out are a couple of Johnny Thunders, Ted Nugent at Reading Festival with a classic mistake on the Intro ... Hello London!!! whoops wrong city!! A couple of Hawkwinds & a Pink Fairies. I gave up recording in the mid - late eighties, but about 3 years ago I went to see the Stooges in Leeds & the bug bit again, I had a phone with the ability to record in wav, so I decided to test it out & got half of the gig in listenable but not great sound, this soon led to me purchasing an Edirol R09 and I'm back taping again, the last things I got were Acid Mothers Temple in Oxford & Wilko Johnson in St Helens. Cheers John |
Hello Sam..... There was a reunion on the anniversary of the founding week of WTUL at Tulane. NOBODY there knew "Skull" or "Reed". Nobody remembered either. (at least on the nights I was there) However, I can send you a link to a site here 'tis: http://lipwak.blogspot.com/2009_03_08_archive.html I'm mentioned by name. AND: I have agreed to be in a new band/project now with the Normals' drummer, Chris Luckette (whom you postulated that "Reed" might have gotten recordings from -- of the Normals' 9/8/79 show at the Warehouse.) From my conversation with him last week: He doesn't know either Skull or Reed either, so he says. Your copy of the Sex Pistols tape may be even further removed from the master than we earlier suspected. Now you know why I don't trust anyone whom I never traded with when they claim to have a specific lineage on one of my recordings. Especially someone who doesn't want to converse with the taper, as "Reed" didn't want to clear the issue about his bogus lineage? How many people are now passing around a copy of the Sex Pistols show with bogus lineage thanks to "Reed"? Wanna hazard a guess? oh well......... best regards, |
And all I would have to say to Freezer is "better a show with 'bogus' lineage heard than ones rotting away on tape, unheard". About the only legitimate reason(s) to withhold material involve pre-release live recordings artists haven't even *recorded* yet or something that would embarrass them greatly due to being in a bad state. I've encountered both scenarios and have done the human thing and honored their requests.
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