A  mirror of the seventies touring life...
926961
A great album...I haven't any doubt. This album may be considered as a crossroad of the seventies' life of many artists (such as The Eagles). For first, the touring life, wich means to travel along many thousand miles away from home and family. For second, the drugs (problem already reflected in the Eagles' album "Hotel California" of 1976). For third, the emotional mixture of happiness and pain. This album reveals an important message: To enjoy as much as possible the life's best moments, wich are usually very short and pass very quickly...Think about a live concert. When the live concert of your favourite artist is over you can always remember it as an emotional experience, you can listen to the records and watch videos..."and you wake-up in your town" (the final verses of "the load-Out"). By the artist's side things are different. He moves through many towns wich begin "to look the same". When the live concert finishes "is just another town along the road". The only moment of relax and happiness is when the artis plays his songs on the stage, like a dialog between him ad his public, his fans, his friends. The touring life has its lightly moments during these meetings with millions of friends through the world, who love his music "tonight the people were so fine"..."We just pass the time in our hotel rooms and wander'round backstage...TILL THOSE LIGHTS COME UP AND WE HEAR THAT CROWD AND WE REMEMBER WHY WE CAME!" (from the song "the load out"). The same aspect it may be found in te song "the road", wich reflect a static moment of the touring life, when "the load out" reflects a dinamic, a traveling aspect (driving all night to another town)of a rock band's life. The indicated songs are the main guideline to enjoy the album...The other songs speak by themselves...specially by guitar, piano and vocal performances. One thing is for sure: Jackson Browne in this album sings by his heart.
I own it on CD and recently I recovered my uncle's 30 years old vinyl, wich I cleaned as best as possible and this one actually I use to play, to sense the past nostalgic seventies feeling.
2112640
Wow, totally impressed listening to this CD took me back to the late 60's and early 70's. When I was on the west coast and life was cool or so I thought. Still it brought alot of great memories from days gone by so turn on the way-back machine.
2270512
I have a very intimateness for this concert I had my birthday 2 days before this show,10 years old,my friends in my neiborhood:Sunnyvale had older brothers that I would quiz them on good music,one of the bands in perticular was the Dead,they would show me there Albums and yes,8 Tracks and I remember being hyptmotized my the trippy viberant art of Rick Griffin and Stanley Mouse,and secretly hiding the albums from my dad because he would say "Oh that a druggy band",I didn't care the music came first and the feel of this C/d is warm and trinkles with life,to me it sounds really clean,very worthy!!I would go for the Live stuff by the Dead it will take you places,celebrating  the 10th anniversary of Jerry's passing,Damn I miss that guy,if you like this get the Soundtrack to the Grateful Dead Movie,it has the most exotic Eyes of the world,trust me and my Favorite Song:New Potatoe Caboose,see the C/D from the Shrine Auditorium 1968,alot of Juicy play'n Anthem material,if you like the DEAD *Get it!! Peace Thru Music :} Larry {DEADHEAD}
2122283
They were actually one of the better local bands in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) at the time. Some of the others were Stillroven "Little Picture Playhouse", The Litter "Action Woman", The Castaways "Liar Liar" and The Trashmen "Surfin' Bird". "A Trip Through Hell" actually is a good album considering on how the recordings were done in those days, and it sounds pretty good now. No, they were not Love, The Blues Magoos or The Seeds, but they were a good band for what we had here in the 60's.
4969908
Good inside stories from all of these great 70's bands.  I love it.  I knew about all of these bands and it was awesome reading about the events that surround these wonderful songs.
379353
If you are a tangerine fan like my friend Scott (he has tattoos of the Optical Race and TDI on his legs and arms) you'll love this album. To complain about it being recorded in the 70's doesn't tell us anything about  it's content, besides everthing is being re-released (ie Bladerunner on  DVD, Jaws is to be in theaters this summer etc...) Soundmill is only one  night of the concert, so a second night is sure to follow. It is a great  glance at Tangerine Dream of the 70's as Riskey Business and Legend is to  the 80's. No this is not Polland or 2000 volts or live miles for that  matter. It's what T.D. was and how they evoled to The Great Wall of 2000.  The album flows perfectly and is topped of by a roaring crowd at it's  conclusion. This is not being disguised as a new release but a first time  release of a concert from the 70's (see album cover). My favorite T.D. is  LeParc, Exit and Underwater Sunlight. TDI The Soundtrack to MY LIFE.
3112240
Olde timey 70's Blues
Rocks your head to a time & place long gone
4058474
Written in a beautiful poetic style, Patti Smith's touching memoir recreates the entry level NY art scene of the late 60s to the 1970s.  We see the world as Patti saw it - wonder without judgment.  Worth the price of admission just to experience Patti crossing paths with the icons of the age.  A quick read that you will want to savor.
2575321
Michael Lang takes you on a trip....to get a taste of what it took to create the Aquarian festival of Woodstock. It shows some harsh realities, and the many barriers that had to be overcome, in order for him and his collaborators to fulfill the dream! It also reflects on the ideals of the sixties generation that are long gone.
432411
This movie brought back memories of the early 70's for me.  The acting was fantastic .  You get to see a glimpse of how it's like touring with a group and what goes on behind the scenes.  I loved this movie.
3871927
If you were in your twenties in the sixties (as I was), and can't remember what it was like (as I can), this book will bring it all back.

If you weren't born yet in the sixties, and would like to visit there, not just read about it but actually GO there somehow to see what it was like in reality (whatever that is), this book is your time machine to take you there.

VD meant either syphilis or gonorrhea.  Aids hadn't been invented yet, and Herpes was just a dark cloud on the far horizon.  Hippies lived in communes and had free love and cheap pot.  Or perhaps it was free pot and cheap love.  (I'm not sure, as I never had either.)  Acid was not the opposite of alkali, but a ticket for a trip.  Also a type of guitar playing.  The only thing that could get in the way of a great sex life was your particular set of inhibitions, which you needed to shed as quickly as possible..  The only possible complication therefrom was pregnancy, and that could happen to only half of the population.

Alexandria Quartet author Lawrence Durrell (rhymes with girl) alleged that there were five sexes, not just the traditional two.  Gavin Arthur went him a few better and declared for twelve.  Hence this book.  (It's a circle that has been divided up like a clock face.)  If you had read the book and knew somebody else who did, one of the favorite sports of the time was figuring out what 'time' on the clock you were and they were and where you could safely consign other people you knew.  I was (and still am) somewhere between 11:10 and 11:15.  The person I discussed it with the most-- my wife at the time-- was pretty sure she was at exactly 5pm, though I disagreed.  (As far as I was concerned she was off the chart.)

I won't try to summarize the whole book, as that would take as long as the book itself.  Maybe longer.  I will only say that I found the theoretical stuff quite interesting, and the constant flow of anecdotes proving the author's points not just irrelevant but unsettling.

It's hard to read. (It would probably help to have at some illegal substances first.  I wouldn't know: I haven't tried that approach myself.)  But if you can light some incense, puff some occasional potpourri vapors over the pages, wear a flower in your hair, eat an Alice B. Toklas brownie or two, and just sort of let your brain go, you can get through it somehow, and be in the sixties, when everything was simple except the achievement of simultaneous orgasm.  And there were books to help with that, too.
2129347
I agree with Poonish Wholigan that this is a great coffee table book.  I've heard snippets of some of the audio recordings before.  This book really captures the zeitgeist of the 1970's rock scene.  The print quality is high and the interviews segments provide adequate samples from the interview discs.  I would highly recommend this book to fans of 1970's British rock.
2717247
An eye-opening experience for some people, like me, who are in the seventh decade of life.
681299
In the seventies, these guys would have been "the new Dylan".  Theater, Portland, Daydreaming -- these are songs that stay with you and change your point of view.
4057351
In the summer of 1972 forces that had been building for decades coalesced to give us the opening strains of the Eagles' "Take It Easy" and Country-Rock went from being a musical undercurrent to being a pop phenomena that affected music, fashion and the culture of young adults for the rest of the '70s.  Strangely, in the early '80s this musical phenomena vanished much more quickly than it had appeared leaving little to mark its passing until the Eagles reunion in 1994.  Now, over 30 years later there are any number of books telling the story of how Folk, Country, Rock and (to some extent) Blues all came together in LA's Laurel Canyon to make LA the musical promised land which bred this phenomena.  Likewise, these books explain how it all collapsed into a heap as cocaine inflated egos clashed and creativity was overtaken by monetary concerns and other realities.

Of the books I've read on the subject of the LA music scene in the '60s and '70s this one perhaps best explains the poisonous effects of cocaine and other vices on the whole scene yet he seems to resist the conclusion that the absolute freedom of the times opened the door to its eventual demise.  Michael Walker refers to the culture of the '50s as if it were a nasty communicable disease and he seems genuinely surprised that the free spirits of Laurel Canyon weren't able to change the world to their liking and eventually they too had to conform to reality just as their forebears did.

This brings me to my greatest problem with this book, it seems to be written from the viewpoint of someone who wishes he was there and feels as if he missed out.  While he is honest in pointing out that drug-related crime and prostitution surfaced in spite of the tidal wave of idealism that existed at that time he seems to write from a viewpoint of wistful nostalgia for something he never actually was a part of.  He seems to believe in the fantasy even though he is chronicling its failure.  Accounting for the fact that the author is a Chicagoan that relocated to Laurel Canyon helps to explain this; at least to me.  The author (and this book) seem divided; one foot rooted in the past "glories" of the era he writes about while the other foot cautiously treads the reality of the present.  It's as if part of the author is wishing that some of the old crew would show up in his yard and start partying while the other half of him would call the police in a heartbeat if they did.

I wouldn't warn anyone off of buying this book, it is in fact very informative, but it is nonetheless uneven.  It is a book I would recommend to a true afficinado of the subject but not as a sole purchase if you want to read about Country-Rock.  A few other books you might enjoy are:&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Desperados-The-Roots-of-Country-Rock/dp/0815410654/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Desperados: The Roots of Country Rock</a>,<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Hotel-California-The-True-Life-Adventures-of-Crosby-Stills-Nash-Young-Mitchell-Taylor-Browne-Ronstadt-Geffen-the-Eagles-and-Their-Many-Friends/dp/0470127775/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Hotel California: The True-Life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/To-The-Limit-The-Untold-Story-Of-The-Eagles/dp/030681398X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">To The Limit: The Untold Story Of The Eagles</a>.
2345774
A comprehensive look back at one of the great grunge bands of the 90's.  Includes background on Layne Staley's (relatively happy) childhood, but not too much on Jerry Cantrell, the band's dynamic singer/songwriter/guitarist.  It was fun tracing Alice's history back to the time it was Diamond Lies and actually lived at the Music Box, in a rehearsal space.  The book follows the band until the drug-related deaths of two of its members, and its current renaissance with a new lead singer.  My main objections to the book are a somewhat pedestrian style; and guessing certain facts instead of researching enough to know them (as when Layne first met his longtime girlfriend Demri).
But for fans, this is a fascinating look back at a truly substantial band and its enigmatic frontman.
206470
There are two concerts on this DVD, one from '81 and the other from '98.

While both are good, the '81 concert is truly something special.  While I must admit it's funny to see Peter Hook in an ultra skinny "new wave" tie and Gillian with HUGE hair and Siouxie-esque makeup, the intensity of the band at that time is incredible to see.  They're focused and absolutely pound out their early tunes with a fervor that just doesn't come across in their studio albums.

Seventeen years (and thirty pounds) later, the band's outdoor Reading concert was good, but lacked the tension and pensiveness of the earlier show.  The insecure, wound-up band of '81 had given way to a confident but less serious band in '98.  Bernard Sumner goes from practically leaning on the microphone for support in the earlier show to doing aerobics, jumping and leaping about whilst they play songs from their late '80's "Low-Life" album heyday in the later one.  I really wish they had a concert from that time period instead of circa '98, but hey, I'm grateful just to be able to see these guys again.

There's also a "documentary" that's actually just an interview of the band with flashbacks of their old videos and some concert footage.  It isn't really a documentary and comes off as an afterthought.

It may not sound like a rave review, but for New Order fans, a flat out five star rating.