Description
Liver is the second live album by the American singer, songwriter, and producer Steve Taylor, released on Warner Alliance in 1995, a CCM imprint of Warner Bros. Records. The album was recorded in one take during the Squinternational Tour – on October 22, 1994 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania – and was released with no overdubs at all. Engineered and mixed by Russ Long with Steve Taylor and Long producing.
Steve Taylor’s live band features Greg Wollan and Mark Townsend on guitars and backing vocals, and a rhythm section consisting of Wade Jaynes and Chris Kearney on bass and drums respectively. The album’s contents cover all of Taylor’s career, including his time with Chagall Guevara.
For better or worse, it’s as live as it gets… I don’t know if most people know that there’s really no such thing as a live record these days, because on just about everything that you hear, even an ‘MTV Unplugged,’ everybody goes back to the studio and fixes things. You do a concert, you get some audience on tape, maybe you keep the drums, but most everything else is fixed or replaced, so the whole sense of an actual live record gets taken away. Of course, the downside of the way we did it is that the guitar player might break a string, or the singer occasionally sings out of tune, though, for myself, I like to think of it as non-pitch-specific… No overdubs at all. We recorded most of the shows on the tour, but picking the best performances from different nights seemed like cheating, too, so we just went with one night’s concert. I had to be doctrinaire with it, otherwise I knew I’d start second-guessing everything… [Steve Taylor, Liver Press Release, May 1995]
Steve Taylor loves to make a statement. With his latest release, he is questioning the honesty of live albums that are overdubbed and edited in the studio. Thus the title, Liver – it’s more live than other live albums. Or, is it really named after Taylor’s favorite after-concert snack? However you pronounce it, it is an exciting album.
After a quick introduction – very quick, in which you get to hear Steve’s hello to every city on the Squinternational Tour pressed down into about 30 seconds – the project starts at full-speed with a one-two punch of «Jim Morrison’s Grave» and «The Lament». Taylor’s voice is a little rough in the early going, but sharpens nicely as the concert moves on.
After the blazing opening, Taylor announces that he will next perform two cover tunes: one from I Predict A Clone and the other from his favorite band – whose name he can’t pronounce. The first is «I Wanna Be A Clone» in the arrangement by Dig Hay Zoose on ‘I Predict A Clone’, which pushes the speed of the players and Taylor’s motor-mouth to the limit. The second “cover” tune is «Escher’s World» from his Chagall Guevara days. Both are well done with few surprises. The fifth song, however, is a total shocker. A slow, downbeat introduction is puzzling as to it’s identity at first, but leads to a remake of «On The Fritz». The verses are very down-scaled with a simple bass and drum beat accented by a few electric guitar notes, while the chorus is very aggressive, forming an interesting contrast.
After telling how no one takes him seriously after all his satirical work, he offers his tribute to those “brave banner men and women,” «Bannerman», which for me, was one of the most accurate renditions on the project. Taylor then slows the pace for a few tunes, the first a very slow, almost melancholy remake of «Hero». The first verse sports only Taylor singing with a distorted electric guitar. To me, it sounded more like something you’d hear him perform sitting around a campfire than on stage – well, maybe if it were an acoustic guitar… The pace remains moderate for «Jesus Is For Losers» and «The Finish Line» before picking up again on «Violent Blue».
The album lives up to its name. It is as “live” or even Liver than any I’ve heard. Most live albums show serious limitations in the recording quality, vocal reproduction, and lacking background vocals – but this project suffers only slightly on the technical end and Taylor’s vocals only falter in a few spots in the early going. I had hoped for a little more – like another song or two – but that’s just me. [Roger Appelinski, The Lighthouse Electronic Magazine, 1995]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/liver/1446812869)
CD tracklist:
01. Jim Morrison’s Grave – 3:19
02. The Lament Of Desmond R. G. Underwood-Frederick IV – 4:37
03. I Want To Be A Clone – 2:05
04. Escher’s World – 3:33
05. On The Fritz – 6:31
06. Bannerman – 3:19
07. Hero – 5:14
08. Jesus Is For Losers – 4:13
09. The Finish Line – 5:41
10. Violent Blue – 4:29
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by Warner Alliance. “Jim Morrison’s Grave” and “On The Fritz” were changed from the original set order to accommodate the sequencing of the cassette; the fire alarm incident was borrowed from the 10/7/94 concert at Judson College.
A full-page advertisement for Steve Taylor and Some Band’s Squinternational Tour ’94 was featured in the October 1994 issue of Syndicate Magazine.
Steve Taylor, Live at Cornerstone 1996. Steve Taylor (Lead Vocals), Mark Townsend (Guitar), Greg Wollan (Guitar), Wade Jaynes (Bass), Mike Mead (Drums). Setlist: 01. Murder In The Big House (Chagall Guevara) / 02. The Lament Of Desmond R.G. Underwood-Fredrick IV / 03. I Want To Be A Clone / 04. Curses / 05. Escher’s World (Chagall Guevara) / 06. The Moshing Floor / 07. Smug / 08. Bannerman / 09. Easy Listening / 10. Elle G (Newsboys) / 11. Hero / 12. Jesus Is For Losers / 13. The Finish Line / 14. Jim Morrison’s Grave / 15. On The Fritz. / Encores: 16. Cash Cow / 17. Violent Blue (Chagall Guevara) / 18. We Don’t Need No Colour Code.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.