{"id":14742,"date":"2018-06-22T05:30:03","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T09:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14742"},"modified":"2018-06-14T09:21:25","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T13:21:25","slug":"album-review-the-shadows-of-knight-alive-in-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/22\/album-review-the-shadows-of-knight-alive-in-65\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Shadows of Knight — Alive in ’65"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sundazed and its affiliated imprints have been doing yeoman work of late, providing an astounding service to the history of rock. The label has unearthed live tapes of fabled garage-rock bands (and I use that term loosely) of the 1960s, allowing modern-day listeners a glimpse of what these groups \u201creally sounded like.\u201d The bands\u2019 studio works are fine \u2013 Sundazed has re-released some of them as well \u2013 but the raw, unvarnished live performances get to the heart of what those bands were really about. Recent titles have included live sets from the Remains<\/a>, the Standells<\/a> and the Shadows of Knight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now that esteemed list includes another<\/i> recording from the Shadows of Knight, Alive in \u201865<\/i>, a recording of the Shadows of Knight, captured onstage a year before their commercial peak.<\/p>\n

First, the bad news (and it\u2019s not really bad). There\u2019s no \u201cGloria\u201d here. Apparently, the tune most readily associated with the Shads wasn\u2019t part of their set on this night in 1965 at the Cellar in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights. The group signed with the Dunwich label and released its first singles in \u201866; this recording predates that.<\/p>\n

It also come from a period during which band founder Warren Rogers was the group\u2019s lead guitarist; in the words of liner note essayist Jeff Jarema, he would be \u201cdemoted\u201d to bass guitar soon thereafter. But there\u2019s nothing \u2013 literally no evidence at all \u2013 on Alive in \u201865 to suggest that Rogers was anything less than a fiery, accomplished guitarist. In fact it\u2019s his musicianship above all else that this recording showcases.<\/p>\n

The set list is one that will be familiar to garage-rock aficionados: Buddy Holly\u2019s \u201cNot Fade Away,\u201d Chuck Berry\u2019s \u201cCarol, \u201cI\u2019m a King Bee\u201d and the like all in versions that suggest the band listened to covers of those songs by the Rolling Stones and other British groups. The Shadows (they introduce themselves without the \u201cof Knight\u201d tag) are impressively tight, seething with energy. The group blasts through the tunes, and the between-song banter is friendly and brief, showing that the Shads had developed a professional attitude before getting a record deal.<\/p>\n

The recording quality is surprisingly good, not at all bootleg-sounding. Jarema\u2019s notes suggest the set was captured on a reel-to-reel setup. The set of covers is well-chosen, and the only possibly-original tune is a brief number played as the band prepared to take a break. Here it\u2019s called \u201cBreak Time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assuming that the record follows the actual sequence of the performance, the second set is a bit sloppy. The Shads start out in fine form with \u201cIt\u2019s All Right,\u201d and the slow-dance Rolling Stones number \u201cHeart of Stone\u201d is performend well enough with some faux-bluesy vocalizations. And the band roars back for the Kinks \u201cAll Day and All of the Night.\u201d But \u201cKing Bee\u201d feels rickety \u2013 as if the band\u2019s energy is flagging \u2013 and by the time of \u201cLouie Louie\u201d things have gotten pretty loose. The Shads barrel through \u201cRoute 66\u201d with the feel of a group that want\u2019s to start breaking its gear down and head home.<\/p>\n

But this is garage rock, after all, so there\u2019s nothing wrong with a bit of slipshod playing if the feel is right. And here it is indeed All Right. Alive in \u201865<\/i> would be an essential purchase for garage rock fans even if it was poorly recorded and indifferently performed. But it\u2019s neither, so go get it, stat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sundazed and its affiliated imprints have been doing yeoman work of late, providing an astounding service to the history of rock. The label has unearthed live tapes of fabled garage-rock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,49,62,65,73],"tags":[1934,2086],"class_list":["post-14742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garage","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-shadows-of-knight","tag-sundazed","cat-33-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14744,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14742\/revisions\/14744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}