Music

Live at the 40Watt Year: 1998 | Run Time: 1:02:29

Track List

It Could Be A Lot Worse (live) [4:43]
But Not for Long (live) [2:57]
Taking On Water (live) [3:42]
Blister Soul (live) [4:06]
Locust Years (live) [3:24]
Run Through My Veins (live) [3:48]
To the Roof of the Sky (live) [4:57]
Avalanche (live) [6:09]
Doin' Time (live) [3:41]
Glory and the Dream (live) [4:09]
Offer (live) [4:54]
The Opposite's True (live) [4:20]
Double Cure (live) [5:40]
The Ballad of Russell Perry (live) [5:47]

About Live at the 40Watt

For years people had raved about VOL live shows, and for years fans had hoped for a live album, and in 1998, when the band was free of label constraints, they finally recorded and released a live album which was made available only through mail order. Recorded in VOL's home town of Athens, Georgia, at the 40Watt among friends and fans who came to celebrate the release of To the Roof of the Sky, it's a snapshot of the Mallonee / Hutson / Klopfenstein / Bradley band playing without a net. The band rarely plays a live show without including some brand new songs, so it's fitting that the live album includes a few. "It Could Be a Lot Worse" is a new rocker, and fans will recognize "The Ballad of Russell Perry," which appears on 40Watt in studio form, from many VOL acoustic sets. Live at the 40Watt was released on December 7, 1998.

Did you know?

This first live Vigilantes of Love album was recorded at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, GA on May 16, 1998. It was released on December 7, 1998. The original master for this live album contains three additional songs which were cut from the final. The songs are "Extreme North of the Compass," "Perishable Goods" and "Starry Eyed." Only one new song appeared on the project: "The Ballad of Russell Perry." On this recording, VoL is joined by Randall Bramblett on the Hammond B-3 for three songs. So who is Randall Bramblett? He's a keyboard and saxophone player who has played with Gregg Allman, Steve Winwood, Traffic, Widespread Panic and Government Mule. He was also an original member of Sea Level. The 40Watt is located in VoL's hometown of Athens, GA. Useless tidbit: Barrie Buck, half owner of the 40 Watt, was formerly married to R.E.M.'s Peter. On the first eighteen seconds of this album you'll hear a snippet of a song called "The Vigilante Man." VoL opened many of their shows with this recording during the To the Roof of the Sky era.

A Review by i_ate_the_worm / Dec 11, 2004

Very good album. Glory and the Dream my personal favorite from this album. This live song really started to turn me on to VOL.

Credits

Bill Mallonee: acoustic and electric guitar, vocals

Kenny Hutson: electric guitar, mandolin, pedal steel, backing vocals

Jacob Bradley: bass

Scott Klopfenstein: drums

Randall Bramlett: hammond b-3 ("The Glory and the Dream," "Offer," "Double Cure")

Executive Producers: Nick Purdy, Jordan Feibus and Josh Jackson. Engineered by Brian Beatty and Herb Guthrie. Art direction/graphic design by Bradley Hutcheson. Photography by Dinah Bauer, Marla Campbell, JJ Johnson.

Liner Notes

Thanks and love to... Vigitarians everywhere... the 40Watt... Brian Beatty... the guys at Paste... JJ Johnson... Dan Russell... Lee Beitchman... Phil Walden Jr... Chuck Long... Brenda...

Hello...this is our first live album...our good friend Brian Beatty flew to town and tapped into the board on this particular night with no idea that what would surface from a single sweaty night of summer work for our little rock band from Athens, GA, would yield its first live CD...For us, it was an interesting find...some bands do live records by recording only the best of say, a tour's worth of shows, multi-tracking every instrument and then "pro-tooling" through computers out the "indiscretions." Not so here...one night, one stage, one show, one band, a simple recording device tapped to the board...and a lot of good old fashioned pluck.

So here's a bit of blue collar, working (and hopefully thinking) man's rock and roll delivered like a snapshot in time...at a particluar locale...in this moment of many unstable variables (such as bad monitors, temperamental tunings, stamina, health, etc.) if the band is "on" and the songs are there and the sound somewhat near bearable...well, that's when the magic can happen. And I think, at least with the 13 songs (plus a little bonus track from England) we've got here, some of that magic appeared ...for me anyway, it's a joy to feel this on stage...because good songs are organic and raw. Live recordings can show to my mind, the power and passion of rock and roll...in all of this there is nothing complex...it's not mysterious and the longer we do this it seems as obvious as plugging a Duo-Jet guitar into an old Fender Tweed amp (1955)...voila!...For me it's simply writing about what grace looks like in your rather humdrum, mundane, life...it's not setting yourself up to pontificate from some supposed highter moral ground like a minister with a stack of Marshalls...it's not "relating" to other people's broken gen-X advertisers...NO, NO and a thousand times NO!... it's just honestly (brutally?) telling your part of the story about the state of our twisted world, the state of our loved ones' lives...and (those very fellow humans among whom we daily live with, eat, work, play, weep and rejoice with) is to taste something of their despair and hope, their slavery and freedom, their sin and hunger for redemption all rolled into one...and when you step up to the microphone under those conditions before your own little cross-section of whatever part of struggling, beautiful humanity that stumbled in to listen to you, is to be given a gift of sorts (perhaps beyond words) that makes your singing and playing the only real reward. -bill mallonee