Live At CBGB's is of course the latest in a very long line of albums with the same name from the Legendary New York Club this time it documents Rochester New York's finest Paisley underground band Absolute Grey, playing at the legendary club on April 12th 1985, this show is previously unreleased and was recorded in the same time period as part of the bands Greek album A Journey Through The Past.
Absolute Grey were Beth Brown, Mitch Rasor, Pat Thomas and Matt Kitchen. Most of the songs in this live set are not from the bands legendary Greenhouse debut album, like with the 20th Anniversary edition of Greenhouse once again Jim Derogatis provides the liner notes. Absolute Grey were still very young, Matt and Mitch were still in High School and underage for drinking at CBGB's.
The album opens with Gardens with Beth Brown's vocals upfront over the slow twisting guitars and Pat Thomas cool deliberate drums. Umbrella has gently psychedelic guitars and Beth's intriguing vocals that are similar to Salem 66 or Get Smart! The song slowly evolves and builds.
They then thank Jim & Claudia for coming down, by way of an intro to the song that is listed as Untitled, where they try to change the world one song at a time, wondering why you only talk to men and ghost women like you do, the lyrics on this song seem extremely relevant to our current sexual politics.
More Walnuts has a crescendo style drum solo intro, to the lead song from the bands legendary Greenhouse album and sounds a little bit fuller than the Live at Scorgies version on the 20th Anniversary expanded Greenhouse cd, Beth's sense of longing for that lover they want to have another chance with.
A Joke is for those things you should never say or do out loud, the words that should always be verboten no matter what company you keep, if they can persuade us to behave decently the world could still be a wonderful place, this has a downbeat sense at the futility of trying to stop all the hatred, while knowing you have to try, shines through the almost diffidently jangly guitars.
No Mans Land in the grey area between love and hate, happiness and depression of spending time with all the fallen angels, who torture you as easily as they enchant you, with their genius while the bass and drums evoke the conflicted feelings perfectly.
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Beth then gives a shout out to the Rochester hard core fans who have followed them down to New York during the intro to Memories Of You easily one of my favourite Absolute Grey songs from Greenhouse, it's a great kiss off, they can never forget you and the punches you threw, truly a last goodbye, they are never going back to all the hate and violence and scars they will always carry with them, The strength they take that they have survived and moved on hopefully never to see or hear from you again.
They close the set with Willows that is introduce as being a dream about Annie Lennox, they slowly try to escape the prison of their own jealousy, Beth is draining every emotion she can while the guitars rise twisting the knife once more, getting ever more intense swirling, tripping and trying to move on without too much bitterness, that you got a new haircut, they build to one an emotional ending.
They come back for the encore and open with White Rabbit allowing Beth the chance to go full on Grace Slick style enchantress over the almost military beat and frazzled guitars. They close the show with Killing Birds a dark dirge like song for the hypochondriacs and sorrow filled nights alone in your room, wanting to keep everyone out, the need for isolation, while the roomie just wants to be friends and the snarled, Is your daddy in town, pleading to just be friends and not have to have sex with you, keep your dick in your pants mate and whatever you do don't get violent because she says no, in many ways this should be a Riot Grrl classic and should have been much covered classic, that is sadly an obscurity, that I loved when I first heard it on A Journey Through The Past which is just what this live album is.
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