Pissing in Action


Well, we wandered into the murky swamp of Bottle's Bootlegs a few days ago, might as well keep going. I have the 2nd run copy of Pissing in Action, a compilation of 3 concert bootlegs (including their headliner set from the 1992 Reading Festival) from Italian label Little Capone. The first batch was cooked up in March of 1994, this batch in July. It's one of several items in my collection specifically banned from sale on Discogs. None of that matters, when we pull the cork out of this particular bottle we get the entire ant colony of intricately woven hallways that is my experience of visiting Moscow when i was 14 or 15. I'm fuzzy on when that trip actually took place, but the images in my mind are spectacularly vivid. 

Your old friend Bottle has literally bartered with packs of cigarettes, ordered "water without gas," sat quietly through a police search of our chartered bus for stowaway Chechnyans, been showed the price of things i ordered on a calculator because communicating thousands of Rubles to tourists who speak broken child-like Russian is a massive waste of time and energy, seen a field being scythed, seen Lenin, been to the Bolshoi Theater. 

Buying this particular album was really interesting. Pick it out from photos, wait in line to pay for it, take the receipt from paying for it to the next window and wait for them to get it, then leave. I bought some other CDs from a flea market as well. 

Thousand other memories, but we're here to hear crappy back of room recordings from the early 90s. That Reading set did eventually get a properly mastered release, but i'm not sitting here with my pirate juice for anything less that the real deal. 

That 1990 Michigan concert is basically Bleach and a couple other tracks. It's a great performance and the audience really doesn't detract even though you can hear them the whole time. 

The Delmare concert is much less enjoyable. The performance is still great, and the mix gets better as the set progresses, but it's so much farther away and out in the open and it just sounds faded. 

The Reading set is a bit like that too, far away and fuzzy, but you can hear how much bigger and louder the whole thing really is. Plus you can hear how much fun they are having after the very not good rehearsal Krist mentions they had the night before. 

This bootleg, and the two previous bootlegs it was stolen from is really  unnecessary for casual listening, mostly because you can go find the properly mixed and mastered official Reading release, but for a long time this was all that existed as far as live mostly full concerts. It's not as rare as the original two bootlegs or the 3rd run. I personally think the terrible cover is part of the charm. 

But you know what's really important? 

No, Bottle, what? 

What's really important is that i twist the whole thing around and remind you how i'm so happy because my friends (that's all of you guys) are actually in my head, and Sunday morning is every day for all i care. Are you scared? I'm not, i excited. I can't wait to meet you there everytime i pop in an album and put on the headphones. That all sounds like this is my last review and i won't wake up tomorrow. You know me, i'm just getting ending this 4th book out of the way somewhere in the middle so i don't have to worry about it later. We'll find a new adventure, or an old adventure, or actually produce some albums or something. I never know until i do it. Tomorrow, though. Now it's beddy-night time for Bottle, catch you on the flip side.

Rest Repose

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