SPK

[KMusselman]

Anyone receive Field Report San Francisco or Case Study London yet?  I ordered both earlier in the week, but won't be receiving them until next week.  Being soundboard recordings, I am curious as to how well they will sound.

[HongKongGoolagong]

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2012/04/spk-live-at-oddfellows-hall-san-francisco-on-5-16-1981.html would seem to be the same recordings as Field Report San Francisco and the post discusses the ups and downs of the sound quality.

Haven't listened myself. I have nice copies of almost all their studio work and a few bootlegs of SPK live from around that time but I think the horror of what they became with the terrible Elektra and Nettwerk eras puts me off collecting their work. I noticed Brian Lustmord seemed very happy with the Case Study London release - http://b-lustmord.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/spk-1983.html

[Ritual]

Haven't bought these. I am curious about how much they actually add to all the live material in the VOD box set. Some tracks from these sets are included in the box, but are the rest of the tracks worth buying these CDs for, if you have the box already?

[Steve]

CD's are excellent standard, sound quality is superb. I have been playing them alot over the past few weeks. Recommended
VOD box set has some dubious quality recordings (I agree) but acts as a document to their live work just fine ... great booklet too.
I have a German copy of the "Breathless" 7", could be the worst single I own.! Unlike you Mr. Gooloagong I can't stop collecting!

[Ritual]

Thanks for the info, Steve. I might pick these CDs up then. Agree about the sound quality of the VOD box. Perfectly acceptable for what it is.

[HongKongGoolagong]

I have a German copy of the "Breathless" 7", could be the worst single I own.!

Now while this thread is actually about two semi-official live releases which seem to be by all accounts pretty great, I can't resist going into the horrible story of what happened to SPK, which judging from the bonus material on the official DVD release of Despair a few years ago also pissed off others involved in the band.

The material recorded under another name in 1981 (can't find my Trevor Blake unauthorised book to remind myself of it) which ended up on side two of Auto Da Fe and played live...well that was OK. Could have worked on the lyrics a bit and whoever told Revell he could sing needs shooting, but not too bad. Likewise the Metal Dance 12" from '83 sounds fine to me - obviously an experiment at being commercial but sounded good and a bit of a wild B-side.

What the hell happened for their '84 major label album? Everything turned to shit. Bad songwriting, bad production, truly horrible production and fucking saxophones - even the cover is hateful. There is a reason that the only CD reissue of this is on a label "Wounded Bird Records" specialising in major label follies and general flops of music.

Graeme Revell then retreated and recorded the Zahmia Lehmanni thing solo. Which is unobjectionable and pleasant soundtrack-ish music - alright if you like that kind of thing - marketed as 'SPK' for commercial reasons although god knows Machine Age Voodoo had killed off much of the name's pull by then. And then, shockingly, SPK came to horrible zombie life for some shows and records on Nettwerk which, unbelievably, were even worse than the WEA/Elektra record as and Steve points out above, could be some of the very worst music ever made. I don't think I can come near to describing how full of fail songs like Mouth to Mouth and Crack are. I don't even want to think about them! Thankfully, Hollywood called in the form of the Dead Calm soundtrack and subsequent lucrative career (I have a fairly unique 7" from the flop early '00s movie Goal which couples the Happy Mondays and Graeme Revell but haven't listened to his soundtrack work properly) - the world was finally free from the torture of SPK's post-1983 afterlife. 

[bitewerksMTB]

"can't find my Trevor Blake unauthorised book to remind myself of it"

I was thinking there was some sort of SPK zine/book. I never bought it for some reason but I do remember the name Trevor Blake but can't remember what else he did.

[HongKongGoolagong]

It was a book half about the real SPK, half about the band,  published by the people from the real SPK. But they made the strange decision to rush out an advance unfinished version for selling at a book fair and I guess Mr Blake was pissed off and the final version never appeared.

It's a good volume but for instance the awful Nettwerk material talked about above is described as something like "[more 12"ers, Karina Hayes, blah blah}" - very much unfinished with his notes left in. They must have printed quite a few, it was available via distros up through the end of the 90s.

Trevor Blake's excellent blog is at http://ovo127.com/ - the real SPK is at http://www.spkpfh.de/

[Brad]

Here's some text from the book: http://home.pi.be/~spk/spktrevorblake.htm

[Steve]

The two CD's came as a surprise to me too ... one has seperate track listing and one has the CD marked as just one long track - bizarre, but I can give the "spares" to friends!
It is listed on Discogs as 2 CD's per release.....

[Brad]

I bought both albums in January in "new" condition from Reckless Records in Chicago, and I only got one disc with each.  Both with the whole album as one track.  The digipaks are clearly designed to only hold one disc, so where was the second one supposed to be kept if it existed??

Discogs mentions the 2 CDs, but implies that they are identical copies.  That's a bummer if one has separate tracks, because then I could put them in shuffle on my ipod. Does anyone know which stores are giving both to the customer?  I see these CDs are in the various usual industrial web shops now (Malignant, Cold Spring, Storming The Base, IsoTank, etc.) and none of the product descriptions actually mention it being a double CD.

[Steve]

I bought my copies from Burning World Records in The Netherlands, an excellent mail order outfit ... The CD's were shrinkwrapped so it is hard to see how there are only "single" copies about.

[Brad]

Mine weren't shrink-wrapped, I think they came in those CD bags with fold-over adhesive seal.  I thought nothing of it at the time since they were bootlegs on a very obscure label, but I guess it's pretty obvious now that someone tampered with them (Reckless or perhaps whoever their supplier was).

[Brad]

I decided to ask Reckless what was up, and this is what they said: "That's how we received them from Forced Exposure (the distributor). Most import CDs are not shrink wrapped."

[burdizzo]

Hmmm. I was thinking of getting both, but it all adds up a bit. Would you say the London one was the one to go for, then?