LOU REED : THINKING OF ANOTHER PLACE

 

Disc One (71:32)

  1. Intro Jam (Steve Marriott)
  2. Sweet Jane
  3. Coney Island Baby
  4. I Believe In Love
  5. Lisa Says
  6. Kicks
  7. She's My Best Friend
  8. I'm Waiting For The Man
  9. A Sheltered Life
  10. The Kids
  11. Claim To Fame
  12. Vicious Circle

Disc Two (63:37)

  1. Walk On The Wild Side
  2. Rock And Roll Heart
  3. Charley's Girl
  4. Kill Your Sons
  5. Satellite Of Love
  6. How Do You Think It Feels?
  7. You Wear It So Well
  8. Oh Jim
  9. Berlin
  10. Ladies Pay
  11. Heroin

Label : Easy Action

Venue : Civic Theatre, Akron, Ohio, USA

Recording Date : October 23, 1976

Quality : FM Recording (A-)

Review (Amazon) : Classic live performance from Lou Reed, totally unreleased and not bootlegged before combining key classic tracks from his previous solo albums Transformer , Berlin, Sally Can’t Dance & Coney Island baby. This is an FM Radio broadcast from Lou’s 1976 Rock N Roll Heart Tour in its 30th anniversary year restored and remastered in 2006. Presented in full colour glossy deluxe gatefold sleeve with shots of Lou from the tour and liner notes by Nina Antonia. Recorded at Civic Theatre, Akron, Ohio, October 23rd, 1976.

Review (AllMusic) : Recorded live at the Civic Theater in Akron, Ohio on October 23, 1976, Thinking of Another Place appeared first as an FM radio broadcast before getting remastered and restored in 2006. The two-disc set draws heavily from Reed's seventh solo album, Rock and Roll Heart, for which he was touring in support of, but the set list draws from his entire career, including his Velvet Underground days.

Review (Ruta 66) : The Rock’n’roll Heart tour, launched in October 1976, was Lou Reed’s first to receive extensive radio airplay, as his new contract with Arista provided the necessary promotional push. Among the dates documented in semi-official releases that appeared after his death, the canonical one is the Los Angeles show in December, thanks to the superb participation of trumpeter Don Cherry—although its various editions—the best being At the Roxy (DFMK, 2015)—do not include the complete gig, which is kept in the official archives and will eventually see the light of day. However, there is a full recording of the twenty-two songs from the concert, plus a long instrumental prologue. Thinking of Another Place—a title taken from one of the most dramatic tracks on the featured album, “Ladies Pay.” This double CD, exquisitely released by Easy Action in 2014, now reappears as a triple vinyl pressing of optimal quality. It captures the tour’s opening night, October 23 in Akron, Ohio, heralding a new stylistic phase where the protagonist’s amphetamine-driven urgency and his ventures into the wildest edges of jazz result in dense interpretations and protean reworkings of Velvet Underground classics, his solo hits, and the core of Rock’n’roll Heart. “Waiting for the Man” and “Kicks,” “Lisa Says” and “Satellite of Love,” “Vicious Circle” and “Charley’s Girl,” “Kill Your Sons,” and a chilling closing “Heroin” all sound revitalized, shaped by the band that would accompany him until 1980—a lineup led by keyboardist Michael Fonfara and colored by Marty Fogel’s saxophone. The original design and Nina Antonia’s liner notes are joined by Spanish-language context and period memorabilia on the inner sleeves, but the real meat—and there’s plenty of it—is in the grooves.

Review (The I-94 Bar) : Lou’s semi-lost period of the mid-‘70s - post-“Coney Island Baby” and before “Street Hassle” - gets a lot of bad wraps. Not without reason. A big part of why is “Rock and Roll Heart”, an album in the Reed canon that receives little love. Why? Maybe it wasn’t seamy enough, maybe the production was so-so. The songs seemed weak. Lyrically, it was wishy-washy. The list could go on. Maybe Lou talked everybody out of listening to it when he thoroughly dissed “Coney Island Baby” for being commercially successful. My own take is a little of all of the above. Second-guessing Lou is pointless - and not just because he’s dead. So you might approach this double CD live release from the esteemed UK label Easy Action with a degree of trepidation. Rest easy. It’s not the born-in-Detroit, Wagner and Hunter-fuelled thunder-and-lightning of “Rock ’n’ Roll Animal”, or the boozy, coked diatribe fest of “Take No Prisoners”, but it’s not without its own considerable merits. Recorded for radio in Ohio in October ’76, the line-up’s the one that recorded “Rock and Roll Heart” - which means longtime sideman Michael Fonfara’s keys and Marry Fogel’s sax are front and centre in the arrangements. The gig's been given a re-master and sounds magnificent. Just five cuts from “Rock and Roll Heart” figure among the 23 on “Thinking of Another Place” with the balance of the setlist fairly typically drawn from the gamut of Reed’s career to date. That means a little “Berlin”, a few Velvets tunes. Some He might have hated “Coney Island Baby” but it contributes three songs. If you didn’t know this wasn’t the “Rock ’n’ Roll Animal” band you will by the time the lengthy instrumental jam that opens the album is over. No searing guitars but a downright funky introduction for The Prince of Darkness. This band could play. True to form, only bassist Bruce Yaw would survive from the line-up by the time Reed made it to Australia the following year. The rendition of “Sweet Jane” that follows is surprisingly weak, but if the wordy bleakness of “Kicks” doesn’t get under your skin, you’re not listening. In these hands, “Waiting for My Man” takes on a vastly different feel to the original, with Fonfara’s jazzy keys sparking off Reed’s wiry guitar. Michael Suchorsky’s syncopation is such a contrast to Mo Tucker’s primal thumping that you have to ask if it’s even the same song, any more. But so what? Re-invention is usually a by-word for the greats and Reed was no exception. Anyone still angsty about the man re-interepreting his old songs back then needs to pay more attention. Fogel’s persistent sax and Fonfara’s cheesy synth dates “Kill Your Sons” and robs it of its menace and “Satellite of Love” plods, coming across as faltering. Conversely, the band pulls off “Berlin” and does funky justice to the closing “Heroin”. Reed sounds not only engaged but passionate throughout - which was probably no mean feat given the many and varied substances that he was consuming at the time. Nina Antonia’s top-notch liners make some interesting points - especially about the juxtaposition of “Charley’s Girl” and “Kicks” in relation to the Manson Family. It’s not too much of a stretch - Reed was the king of lyrics that were “open source”; they laid out the platform and it was up to the individual to add interpretation. The Les Clark packaging is the usual high Easy Action standard, too. There’s been a shortage of new, endorsed Lou Reed releases since the man’s passing (box set re-issues of the back catalogue don’t count) so there’s a gap to be filled. This one might primarily be for Louphiles but there’s enough familiar material to catch the ear of the curious dabbler too.