Friends of Dean Martinez -- Live

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! A few goodies to start you off rightaway. Get ready for an amazing journey through the Lounge in '08. Starting now. All three of these posts will take you on trips not soon forgotten.

Four years after it was issued by the German label Glitterhouse, Friends of Dean Martinez's Live at Club 2 got its first stateside release, thanks to Aero Recordings. Recorded at the now-defunct Munich club for Bavarian radio in spring 2001, the album features a small but carefully chosen set list that represent the very best material from their studio albums, performed live. All songs were recorded at a single show, though I suspect the CD probably doesn't contain quite the whole show. There is no talking between the tracks (which doesn't necessarily mean it was edited out - they really didn't say anything at all, besides a closing "Thank you" when I saw them perform live myself), and personally I consider that a good thing. While I like the studio albums, each one has a few tracks that don't really appeal to me and I find myself skipping, but "Live at Club 2" is very good straight through. More importantly, it flows as a performance: beginning with the sweet, sleepy "For All Time" (from that year's On the Shore and cresting with Atardecer's "Inner Sanctum" and "Ethchlorvynol," the intimate setting really allows the band to play with the peaks and valleys of their sound. Live at Club 2 was recorded on Friends of Dean Martinez's first tour after they became a trio again, and the sense of space and dynamics on the album are almost tangible. Particularly on slow-burning tracks like "Main Theme" -- which features gorgeous, shivery rhythm guitar -- and their smoky reworking of "Summertime," the live setting makes the band sound less "filmic" and more immediate than on their studio albums. The title track from their masterpiece "A Place in the Sun" and "Chunder," which dates all the way back to their 1995 debut, "The Shadow of Your Smile", are two of the other highlights from this concise but powerful set.

If you already own their studio albums and are afraid that this one may be redundant, I definitely don't think it is, since their live sound and the versions of the songs are quite different than the studio tracks.

I highly recommend this CD to anybody with an interest in twangscapes. If you like The Mermen, you’ll love this – even if the pace is a little slower than your average surf sound. As if this wasn't enough, there is a bonus disc included, with another recorded show. This one is several years more recent (2004) from a concert in Berlin, so it contains quite different tracks from their newer sets and isn't redundant with the main disc. It is longer and allows the music to stretch more fully. Turn up “Summertime” from show 1 really loud and fell Bill Elm’s steel guitar rip through your flesh. Simply beautiful in a sort of terrifying way.

1. For All Time 2. Main Theme 3. Inner Sanctum 4. Ethchlorvynol
5. Cabeza De Mojado 6. Summertime 7. Tennesee Waltz 8. Chunder

9. A Place In The Sun 10. All The Pretty Horses

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Bonus -- all unknown tracks

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