The Ladybug Transistor - Live at the Amigo 99
(Amigo)
Last year, The Ladybug Transistor released a great pop album, Albemarle
Sound, an indie pop rendition of The Mamas and The Papas as orchestrated
by Brian Wilson, which turned out to be one of my favorite albums of
the year. The most unfortunate thing about this new live album, Live at the
Amigo 99, is that the band decided to "endorse" it and take a cut of the
profits; otherwise it would just be a disposable bit of music that fans could
trade and enjoy but would remain irrelevant in the band's history. While the
recording is very good and the performance is average, the package is poorly
put together, and, overall, the release doesn't offer the listener very much
at all.
The CD has the look and feel of a bootleg: the disc itself is a CDR, the
covers are single-sided, bubblejet-printed cardstock, and there are numerous
spelling errors, showing the band had little part in the release other than
simply saying "Okay." Granted, I wouldn't expect a Swede (the recording is
of a festival in Sweden) to have perfect command of spelling English words,
but at least he could correctly spell song titles off other official The
Ladybug Transistor releases. I'd hope he'd at least be a big enough fan of
the band to own the other releases. Maybe he isn't, or maybe he just
didn't care.
Nine of the 12 songs on Albemarle Sound appear here, and the renditions
are not tremendously different, other than perhaps being slightly rushed and/or
more sparse. Two songs from 1997's Beverly Atonale, the b-side to the "Today
Knows" 7", and 3 (what I suppose to be) new songs are also included. If you
already have their two albums on Merge (which, if you are a fan of indie pop,
you really should), are these 3 or 4 songs alone worth your $10? No.
This release offers little to the The Ladybug Transistor fan, and I hope that
those new to the band will find Albemarle Sound instead of this release.
A live album can work, but, really, The Ladybug Transistor doesn't have the
catalog to pull it off, especially when they concentrate so heavily on their
newest released material. You can't blame the band for decided to "endorse"
the bootleg and take money from the sales as it probably would have been made
and sold without their endorsement. However, it is unfortunate that such
poorly put together material was released in their name.
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