Show 96 - Fatal Charm - Paris Theatre London - 1981

Fatal Charm were formed in 1978 in Nottingham and made a name for themselves in support slots for both OMD and Ultravox in 1980. They continued to write and record in various lineups through the 1980s.

I was lent a cassette with this recording on it, along with the 2 tracks from the flexi disc they used to give out at gigs. Those 2 tracks are included on the compilation album "Plastic", which can still be bought from the shop on the band's website, so I've taken them off the recording here. What you have left is this rather short recording from an FM broadcast of excerpts from their 1981 live set recorded at the BBC's Paris Theatre, in Lower Regent Street, London.

Anyway, the recording was good quality and hadn't really degraded with age, so no major repairs were needed other than some noise reduction and volume balancing. Then it was out with the trusty 30 band EQ to improve clarity and space between the instruments and improve the bottom end somewhat of what was a rather flat recording; hopefully its a far clearer mix now than it ever was.

The show is available for free download here as 1 MP3 file (you may be temporarily redirected to an ad - if you have adblocking software, please disable it for this page - the link will be available very shortly after). Or, if you would like to have separate tagged MP3s, or even lossless files in FLAC format, head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs.

Setlist
Western Laughter
Le Boulevard
Christine
Dark Eyes
The Dark
Paris

Special thanks to Dave Barker (Fatal Charm's keyboard player) for clarifying one of the song titles.

Paper Toys - The High Touch

 

A bit of a one off for me this one. Many many years ago (1988) I played in a band and at our first gig, the support was a duo called Paper Toys. We've known them on and off ever since. They went through other incarnations and several personnel changes, including being known as Desire and Eden's Rage, before splitting up in the mid 1990s.

In 1988 they went from supporting my band to supporting Gary Numan on his UK tour that year. This tape is a recording of that tour, recorded at The Astoria, London, 12 October 1988.

The lineup at that time featured founder members Joe Quinton on guitar and lead vocal, Paul Nichols on bass and vocals, with Jenny Startin on keyboards and also Ultravox drummer Warren Cann who came on to play guitar on their last song.

Originally released officially by the band at the time, I was approached by Paul and asked if I could tidy it up a bit.  So with a fair bit of 30 band EQing and a bit of noise reduction, and a little editing here and there, here's the result.

With the band's permission, it now exists for download as 1 MP3 here. There seems to be a temporary fault accessing this file - if it doesn't correct itself, it will be fixed by me shortly.


Side 1
Too Much Of A High Touch
Love Off The Rebound
When There's Two Of You
Someone Like Myself
Roman*

Side 2
Cold Surrender
Truth Unblessed
Feeling Good Now
Love In Me
When There's Two Of You (Double Mix)**

*4 track demo
**Mix produced by Warren Cann

Show 95 - Dramatis - Paris Theatre London - May 1982

Dramatis were Russell Bell, Chris Payne, Ced Sharpley and Denis Haines - all members of Gary Numan's backing band from 1979-1981 and during 1981/2 were signed to Elton John's Rocket Records label, releasing 7 singles and an album.

This is a remaster of an FM broadcast of excerpts from their live set from 1982 recorded at the BBC's Paris Theatre, in Lower Regent Street, London - they were a 3 piece at this point, with Haines having left after the album was released. I had a copy of this recording, taped off the radio back in the day which disappeared over the years. Many years later, I was able to replace it with an mp3 copy which really wasn't very good - very muffled and dull sounding but at the time I couldn't find better.

I recently had a request to remaster this gig and upload it to Live and Loud! and I wanted to do better than resurrect my mp3 copy - someone must surely have a better source! So I asked around. Another copy was forthcoming which was much clearer but had a lot of hiss on it (unremovable amounts of it, in fact, as it turned out). But then! Someone got in touch who had a copy on cassette recorded at the time - and that was better still. Result!

So after collecting it, I transferred it to a lossless audio file and got to work. It was a typical radio mix from the time - very flat, dry and sparse sounding. I removed the small amounts of tape hiss and spent much time putting it through a 30 band EQ to enhance the bass, drums and guitar and create space between the instruments (as per usual). I'm pleased to say it sounds much more punchy and clear now, with everything rather more "live".

The one album released, For Future Reference is worth tracking down - its been released on budget re-releases a couple of times since 1981 credited to Gary Numan/Tubeway Army as "The Dramatis Project" among other names which does a big disservice to 4 great musicians, frankly. In more recent times, there were plans for Dramatis to reform and get their back catalogue re-released but drummer Ced Sharpley sadly passed away a few years ago and it seems enthusiasm from the remaining members to continue has dissipated since. Which is a shame.

So that leaves this - as sometimes happened with the BBC recordings, it wasn't an especially good sound mix but hopefully with what I've done its far more listenable now than it ever was.

The show is available for free download here as a single 320kbps MP3 (you may be temporarily redirected to an ad - if you have adblocking software, please disable it for this page - the link will be available very shortly after). If, on the other hand  you would prefer to have separate tagged MP3s, or even lossless files in FLAC format of the new version, head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs.


Setlist
Sand And Stone
I Only Find Rewind
Face On The Wall
I Can See Her Now
Turn
Love Needs No Disguise
Pomp And Stompandstamp
The Shame

Show 94 - The Skids - The Odeon, Edinburgh - 7 September 1979

There seem to be very few recordings available for The Skids and most of those are audience recordings. However, I did find online a good stereo recording of a full gig from 1979 a month before the first release of Days In Europa.

However, the copy online is damaged - the cassette it was stored on had deteriorated to the point that at several points the sound drops in places. So this one currently takes the prize for longest time spent restoring and repairing! I spent several hours going through and trying to restore what I could - some parts I could fix completely, some only partially fixed - ultimately there are still faults here and there but they're far less than before.

After that, I used the 30 band EQ to enhance the bass, drums and guitar and create space between the instruments as per usual. The keyboards are still a bit too loud in the mix (not much I could do about those) but this is a great gig and well worth downloading. You can hear the band warm up as the gig continues and after the first few songs they're on fire.

UPDATE.  While preparing this old show as separate files for a donator to the site, I found I could now improve the sound quality further, over what I’d originally done to the recording several years ago. You can now download this new version (as of 2019) HERE as 1 new 320kbps MP3 file (you may be temporarily redirected to an ad - if you have adblocking software, please disable it for this page - the link will be available very shortly after).

Or, if you would like to have separate tagged MP3s, or even lossless files in FLAC format, head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs.

Setlist
Intro
Animation
Out of Town
Melancholy Soldiers
Working for the Yankee Dollar
Dulce et Decorum Est (Pro Patria Mori)
The Olympian
Pros and Cons
Scared to Dance
The Saints Are Coming
Vanguards Crusade
Home of the Saved
Charade
Masquerade
A Day in Europa
Thanatos
Of One Skin
Into the Valley

Encore:
All the Young Dudes
Charles

Encore 2:
Panic In The World (with Bill Nelson)
Into the Valley
Charade


Incidentally, there's a page about the venue (long since closed) here