What's Going On? Is Live Over? Options

[Cardiff_Giant]

Long time, first time.

FWIW, as recently as February 18 (a month after announcing his divorce), CG posted on Instagram about Secret Samadhi and he tagged all the band members in his post ... including CT.

[Voodoo Lady]

Long time, first time.

FWIW, as recently as February 18 (a month after announcing his divorce), CG posted on Instagram about Secret Samadhi and he tagged all the band members in his post ... including CT.

Welcome.

Perhaps for appearance’s sake?

[mattyeagles]

Welcome.

Perhaps for appearance’s sake?

Seems like CG rarely does things for appearances.

I’m not doubting any of this, but there are many holes in the timeline, etc

[MightyHet]

It's just another layer of shit added. If anything, to me, this band died after The Distance to Here.

Totally agree. This band did die after The Distance to Here. That was totally the beginning of the end. V had some ok tracks, but nothing close to the first 4 albums. Everything after has been mostly garbage. This is just musically speaking, not even talking about the first break up, lawsuits, and this current shit show.

This post has been edited by MightyHet: Jun 9 2022, 4:06 pm

[JonSnow]

Totally agree. This band did die after The Distance to Here. That was totally the beginning of the end. V had some ok tracks, but nothing close to the first 4 albums. Everything after has been mostly garbage. This is just musically speaking, not even talking about the first break up, lawsuits, and this current shit show.

BOP had some good stuff too. I'd say BOP had better stuff than V. They said V was never intended to be an album but that the label insisted on them releasing it as one. It's SFBM that really lost the plot, imo.

[Bob]

BOP had some good stuff too. I'd say BOP had better stuff than V. They said V was never intended to be an album but that the label insisted on them releasing it as one. It's SFBM that really lost the plot, imo.

If I remember V's history correctly (and according to CT on the wikipedia entry for the album), it was intended to be a release "for the fans", which I still feel was a BS backpedaling answer after that album was released as a way to deflect the album's mostly poor song quality. If I remember right, it was also leaked before it was released as well; I vaguely remember listening to it before it came out and was pretty disappointed, especially after the stellar TDTH.

Live has never released anything decent "for the fans" and we're supposed to believe that they'd give us ~15 songs for free? I'm not buying that for one second.

That said, we did get a few good ones. I can't discount Overcome's message and success after the world events that transpired during that time, even though I'm not a huge fan of the song. Simple Creed and The Ride are pretty solid. Transmit Your Love is decent. They butchered Deep Enough when they recorded it and I'm still salty about it. The live version is so much better.

[Bremang]

Live has never released anything decent "for the fans" and we're supposed to believe that they'd give us ~15 songs for free? I'm not buying that for one second.

. Churchbox

[Bob]

. Churchbox

Good point, but I'd counter that it wasn't very easy for even us hardcore fans to get. I think I had to ask someone else to hook me up with the link via PM on this site. It wasn't like it was on Live's official page with "COME ALL YE FANS AND DOWNLOAD 4 FREE" on it.

[Bremang]

In the 90's Live was pretty generous with putting stuff out there. Live.cerf.net was updated with things like Love my Way, and they always had a holiday gift even though you had to pay membership dues. I could see them wanting to put out V for free. Napster had already sort of made it's mark and they probably wanted the exposure.

[Tips]

When I said that the band died after Distance to Here, I wasn't just talking about the music but also the soul of it. The first 4 records had a... thing... a feeling... I can't really describe it. It felt honest, soulful, real.

Then... V...

Now I listened to V a LOT. It's an enjoyable record. I have to admit I haven't listened to it in nearly 20 years though. But I remember singing the songs in my car at the time. And of course Overcome is an undeniable classic, written during the Distance to Here era which might explain why it's the only song on the record that has soul. But V didn't have the same feel as the other ones. The whole thing felt wrong and manufactured and produced some of the most cringy, force trying to be cool, lyrics the band ever sang. I remember my jaw dropping when I heard Ed in an interview from the V era kind of mocking the way "some" songwriters wrote their songs but going on to describe the way he said he wrote The Distance to Here...

But of course V was a failure. So BOP came out... and again, to me, it sounded like forcing themselves to sound like they did before. I can't stand that record and there are exactly 0 songs on it that I remotely like. They're Live by numbers song. They're missing that thing that made Live special before. And then SFBM... eww... just no... that record along with Ed's solo records never felt genuine to me.

That's what was missing on every album after The Distance of Here: genuineness.

When The Turn came out, the music felt like it did before V. It could have been under another name because it wasn't the same without Ed but still I loved that record. CCP are brilliant musicians and those songs were solid. The fact that it was surrounded by a lot of positivity, which of course seems to be classic Chris Shinn. But there was a feeling of rebirth of the band and I loved it.

Then the shit hit the fan... and the EP that came out was, again, forced rock. Just like the whole Ed reunion thing, that new music didn't feel genuine.

And of course, the bullshit just keeps coming out with this latest installment... it's just a joke at this point.

[Tips]

Unrelated to my diatribe, Ed's website has been updated on June 7th and says "WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION". So I guess he's going back to his solo career.

I know the date because it's a Squarespace website and in the code, there's an HTML tag with "data-updated-on" and there's a Unix timestamp. The value of the timestamp is 1654638912510. I converted that using

https://www.epochconverter.com/

And it converted to GMT: Tuesday 7 June 2022 21:55:12.510

https://www.edkowalczyk.com/

[Cardiff_Giant]

When I said that the band died after Distance to Here, I wasn't just talking about the music but also the soul of it. The first 4 records had a... thing... a feeling... I can't really describe it. It felt honest, soulful, real.

Then... V...

Now I listened to V a LOT. It's an enjoyable record. I have to admit I haven't listened to it in nearly 20 years though. But I remember singing the songs in my car at the time. And of course Overcome is an undeniable classic, written during the Distance to Here era which might explain why it's the only song on the record that has soul. But V didn't have the same feel as the other ones. The whole thing felt wrong and manufactured and produced some of the most cringy, force trying to be cool, lyrics the band ever sang. I remember my jaw dropping when I heard Ed in an interview from the V era kind of mocking the way "some" songwriters wrote their songs but going on to describe the way he said he wrote The Distance to Here...

But of course V was a failure. So BOP came out... and again, to me, it sounded like forcing themselves to sound like they did before. I can't stand that record and there are exactly 0 songs on it that I remotely like. They're Live by numbers song. They're missing that thing that made Live special before. And then SFBM... eww... just no... that record along with Ed's solo records never felt genuine to me.

That's what was missing on every album after The Distance of Here: genuineness.

When The Turn came out, the music felt like it did before V. It could have been under another name because it wasn't the same without Ed but still I loved that record. CCP are brilliant musicians and those songs were solid. The fact that it was surrounded by a lot of positivity, which of course seems to be classic Chris Shinn. But there was a feeling of rebirth of the band and I loved it.

Then the shit hit the fan... and the EP that came out was, again, forced rock. Just like the whole Ed reunion thing, that new music didn't feel genuine.

And of course, the bullshit just keeps coming out with this latest installment... it's just a joke at this point.

I agree with a lot of this. Although I disliked everything about V, from Ed's hair to the music. I thought BOP was OK, a couple catchy tunes, but still far away from the kind of stuff we all fell in love with. SFBM sounded forced to me. I've tried to listen to it a few times and it just sounds like they mailed it in, which is likely far from the truth. But my ears and brain just can't go along for the ride.

I thought about the band a lot yesterday when I read through the posts and got caught up on all the drama. I listened to a bunch of the music all day. It made me sad because from about 1992 to 1999, Live was the soundtrack to my life.

The thing is, as the band members matured, their music obviously did, too. This happens to most artists, although not all. But the songs they wrote for MJ when they were 19 don't feel the same when they're sung by Ed at 50. There's something about that urgency of youth that we all latched on to that isn't in anything they've done since TDTH.

The intensity and messaging of Mental Jewelry was what we needed in 1992. Then we congregated around Throwing Copper because it's just a great record, and if anyone says otherwise, they're just being a dick. Secret Samadhi came along and some people jumped off the boat. The Distance to Here was like a weeding-out process that pared down the audience (although it's also a great record).

So when I listen to Mental Jewelry, I can hear why I first gravitated toward Live when I was a freshman in college in 1992. Throwing Copper will always be one of my go-to records as long as I am breathing. But my life changed around the time V came out, and my musical tastes didn't match up with what the band was doing anymore. I feel sad about that, but I'll always have the music in my head and in my speakers.

Sorry for the blabbering. But like I posted yesterday: Long time, first time.

[Pingfah]

Good point, but I'd counter that it wasn't very easy for even us hardcore fans to get. I think I had to ask someone else to hook me up with the link via PM on this site. It wasn't like it was on Live's official page with "COME ALL YE FANS AND DOWNLOAD 4 FREE" on it.

Didn't you have to download some stupid Mark Cuban app to get that? I thought CT was being paid to hawk it personally, and Churchbox was just a way of doing that.

[Srx17]

When I said that the band died after Distance to Here, I wasn't just talking about the music but also the soul of it. The first 4 records had a... thing... a feeling... I can't really describe it. It felt honest, soulful, real.

Then... V...

Now I listened to V a LOT. It's an enjoyable record. I have to admit I haven't listened to it in nearly 20 years though. But I remember singing the songs in my car at the time. And of course Overcome is an undeniable classic, written during the Distance to Here era which might explain why it's the only song on the record that has soul. But V didn't have the same feel as the other ones. The whole thing felt wrong and manufactured and produced some of the most cringy, force trying to be cool, lyrics the band ever sang. I remember my jaw dropping when I heard Ed in an interview from the V era kind of mocking the way "some" songwriters wrote their songs but going on to describe the way he said he wrote The Distance to Here...

But of course V was a failure. So BOP came out... and again, to me, it sounded like forcing themselves to sound like they did before. I can't stand that record and there are exactly 0 songs on it that I remotely like. They're Live by numbers song. They're missing that thing that made Live special before. And then SFBM... eww... just no... that record along with Ed's solo records never felt genuine to me.

That's what was missing on every album after The Distance of Here: genuineness.

When The Turn came out, the music felt like it did before V. It could have been under another name because it wasn't the same without Ed but still I loved that record. CCP are brilliant musicians and those songs were solid. The fact that it was surrounded by a lot of positivity, which of course seems to be classic Chris Shinn. But there was a feeling of rebirth of the band and I loved it.

Then the shit hit the fan... and the EP that came out was, again, forced rock. Just like the whole Ed reunion thing, that new music didn't feel genuine.

And of course, the bullshit just keeps coming out with this latest installment... it's just a joke at this point.

Everyone is totally entitled to opinions, but I don't know if it's all just so simple.

There's a lot of plausibility that V was something Ed was tinkering with and it was intended to become a free giveaway to fans. None of truly know what was going on. What is known is that LIVE wrote over 50 songs and stop-started production a couple of times when making TDTH -- which was their deepest period of creative exploration. Perhaps, they were fried and trying to figure things out beyond that.

I can agree V and SFMB are totally my least favorites from their catalogue. Both have a couple of cool tracks, but what is ultimately missing is any feel or footprint of LIVE on them. In fact, these were the first traces of Ed solo and echoed a bunch on his first LP. I will argue, however, that The Flood And The Mercy was a solid release and really felt in moments like a modern TDTH. Peter Buck's inclusion is extraordinary as Ed and the guys really looked up to R.E.M.

Also, yes BOP was a return to form. And, yes, maybe they tried extra hard to get "it" back ... but that doesn't shut it down as a bad effort. Heaven (though a lot of fans here hate it) was a noted song and at least Charted in The States. Like I do, She, and Lighthouse are quick paced and made for excellent concert pieces. Not to mention, there's several of shows from 2003 where the guys brought it and had a total spark. You almost wonder what happened from the middle of 2004-2009?! Weirdly, the 2009 tour saw some of the absolute best setlists including Gas Hed and Hold Me Up.

When LIVE reunited in 2016 on NYE, that didn't feel fake. Ed was sick and still sang with full emotions. The festivals and stops in 2017 was classic LIVE, totally rocking. It was from 2018-the pandemic when they took a weird turn. I think it started with Gracey getting hurt, which called for a back-up drummer and parlayed into two drummers at shows ... no disrespect, but Gracey is good enough on his own!!!!! The sets became solely greatest hits with a couple of covers and The Throwing Copper Anniversary stuff really seemed fumbled (which if this was the heartline of the big problems showing up internally, it's not surprising ... they didn't even plays the most coveted LIVE song in celebration of milestone HOLD ME UP ... wow!!!!). In 2019 we got tired sets and the performances were by the numbers and felt like they were going through the motions. This makes me wonder.

Also, there's has constantly ... from '17 on been mention of the new LP that was to come. It must've been shelved or something. If indeed Chad is a narcissist and Ed clearly shows he can take charge too, maybe it's as simple as they couldn't get fluid together.

The bottom line is we don't know. I'm grateful I got to see them in 2017 at the Park West in Chicago, that show awesome and filled with energy. It was a ROCK show and they were jamming.

With the personal stuff going on, I hope for the best for all involved. I guess, we'll have to all just wait now ...

[Srx17]

I agree with a lot of this. Although I disliked everything about V, from Ed's hair to the music. I thought BOP was OK, a couple catchy tunes, but still far away from the kind of stuff we all fell in love with. SFBM sounded forced to me. I've tried to listen to it a few times and it just sounds like they mailed it in, which is likely far from the truth. But my ears and brain just can't go along for the ride.

I thought about the band a lot yesterday when I read through the posts and got caught up on all the drama. I listened to a bunch of the music all day. It made me sad because from about 1992 to 1999, Live was the soundtrack to my life.

The thing is, as the band members matured, their music obviously did, too. This happens to most artists, although not all. But the songs they wrote for MJ when they were 19 don't feel the same when they're sung by Ed at 50. There's something about that urgency of youth that we all latched on to that isn't in anything they've done since TDTH.

The intensity and messaging of Mental Jewelry was what we needed in 1992. Then we congregated around Throwing Copper because it's just a great record, and if anyone says otherwise, they're just being a dick. Secret Samadhi came along and some people jumped off the boat. The Distance to Here was like a weeding-out process that pared down the audience (although it's also a great record).

So when I listen to Mental Jewelry, I can hear why I first gravitated toward Live when I was a freshman in college in 1992. Throwing Copper will always be one of my go-to records as long as I am breathing. But my life changed around the time V came out, and my musical tastes didn't match up with what the band was doing anymore. I feel sad about that, but I'll always have the music in my head and in my speakers.

Sorry for the blabbering. But like I posted yesterday: Long time, first time.

You're not blabbering. Your insights here are cool and valued.

Music is a journey and everyone's interpretation of songs and albums varies. I'm sure a bunch jumped off the boat when SS wasn't the awaited sequel to TC. And I guarantee folks were not all thrilled with the classic rock/Doors' leaning TDTH. Nowadays -- the first four albums are considered cannon and the rest of the catalogue is up for debate ... especially LIVE 2.0 era and the return of Ed.

Here's some intrigue ... what would a sophomore album with Shinn have looked like? Also, what was the sound of the hinted at 6-7 songs that LIVE made for the return album with Ed; what was that effort going to sonically equal?? There's got to be a bunch of tracks just sitting that we're oblivious to. Not to mention, I really hope to get 25th Anniversary efforts to SS and TDTH.

Rock On!!!