Alex Chilton live at the Ocean Club NYC ’78

It is known that Alex played some gigs at the Ocean Club in ’77 when he was making his first tentative, and well received, inroads into the NYC punk scene that fitted, and appreciated, him so well. For a long time I assumed this was a tape of one of those gigs, but this seems to come from the following year. It has Chris Stamey on bass, I’m not sure who the drummer is but the announcement sounds to me like Lloyd, or Laurie…

This tape qualifies as lo-fi in the sense that it is quite hissy, and is obviously not from a first generation copy (upgrade anyone?), but I haven’t come across the same gig in any better quality and it merits posting (I hope?) because of the great tracklist - and it is perfectly listenable if you can get past the background hiss - if someone filtered that out without damaging the other frequencies, a repost would be welcomed, at least by me. There are rare live outings for Stamey’s Chilton produced single ‘Summer Sun’ and songs from Chilton’s unsuccessful post-Ork Elektra demos like ‘Little Fishy’ and ’Shaking The World’. I haven’t even mentioned Jonathon Richman, or LX singing Jody’s song…

Between the first Ocean Club gigs and this one, the ‘Cossacks’ came and apparently went - there is recorded evidence of them at CBGBs in ’77 fairly easily available on the ‘One Day In New York’ LP - Alex still admits, here, to being nervous though, so any additional information pertaining to this gig would be extremely welcome in comments. Any genuine nerves are not discernable in the performance.

Elektra’s loss was NYCs gain, and though I would have loved a finished album, the well known ‘Beale St Green’ bootleg (once a mooted title of Big Star 3) contains the demos in pristine quality for those that seek it out. For what it’s worth here is one more gig in the long and diverse career of LX. I like it!

Tracklist

01 When my baby’s beside me
02 All of the time
03 No I don’t believe in miracles
04 She might look my way
05 My rival
06 Way out west
07 September gurls
08 In the street
09 I can’t seem to make you mine
10 Summer sun
11 The letter (punky style)
12 Little fishy
13 Shaking the world
14 Government centre
15 O my soul

Sourced from cassette, copied via teac 3-head tape machine to CD-R via sony CD recorder, ripped to flac via Xact. No filters or EQ applied.