Brand X - Black Moon
Happy Hallowdaze! We'll cap off the tombstone for this month with the anniversary of a show from a Brand I've always wanted to put on here.
The sweet symmetry is that we began October with the birthday of Funk drum deity Mike Clark, and lo and behold! Here he comes again, in a completely different context but no less Funky.
Brand X is probably most notorious for their association with co-founder Phil Collins, and a bunch of Skins Samurai drummers from Kenwood Dennard to Chuck Burgi have passed through their ranks, but it's Headhunter Mike that steals the show with galaxies of groove here.
This performance has been a legendary bootleg since the original days of vinyl, somewhat salaciously titled Rated X.
It's from the tour where band mastermind John Goodsall -- who sadly passed after a lifetime of mayhem in 2021 -- had broken his hand, and was recovering from his injury whilst Mike Miller subbed for him on guitar.
He's just dexterous enough to substitute for his substitute on a couple of tunes, so he must have accompanied the rest of the guys over from England anyway. His 64th-note axe assault sure doesn't sound hurt.
This is also the period when original keyboard player Robin Lumley had left, and they got production legend Peter Robinson in on keys.
Like I was saying it's been a bootleg LP and CD for ages, but sourced from a somewhat compressed sounding FM broadcast and then only part of the whole set.
I nicked this much-more-complete version off Graham's Crackerbox, and found upon inspection that it's one of those that goes lossless to 20 kHz, making it essentially equivalent to the preFM materials we love to trick into even more delicious treats.
I did have to patch the last little finale portion of one of the songs, which was incomplete on Wolfgang's but is all there on the bootleg.
They sounded very dissimilar and the boot was nearly a semitone fast, but after speed correcting it I did the best I could to make the transition the least jarring I could.
In addition to Mike Clark funking everything past Planet X, watch out for percussionist Morris Pert flailing mightily on all kinds of batterie.
I went through the whole thing twice, just to meticulously remove the noises from all the dozens of times he struck the microphones recording him that night... let's just say he got more hits than the Yankees just did in all five World Series games, and in just under 95 minutes.
OK, parental advisory is in effect for the deluxe edition of Rated X!
Brand X
Bottom Line
New York City, New York USA
10.31.1978
01 The Ghost of Mayfield Lodge
02 Earth Dance
03 Black Moon
04 Access to Data
05 percussion solo/The Poke
06 Deadly Nightshade
07 Nuclear Burn
Total time: 1:34:57
disc break goes after Track 03
Mike Miller - guitar
Peter Robinson - keyboards
Percy Jones - bass
Morris Pert - percussion & keyboards
Mike Clark - drums
John Goodsall - guitar, Tracks 04 & 05
Tracks 01-05 are from the late set
Tracks 06 & 07 are from the early set
320/48k audio streamed from Wolfgang's Vault
spectral analysis goes lossless to 20 kHz, making this equivalent to a preFM source
converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, denoised and remastered --
with the last 90 seconds of Track 06 pitch-corrected & patched from an unknown gen, off-air FM capture of indeterminate origin --
by EN, October 2024
632 MB FLAC/direct link
That will do it for The Tenth Month, and I shall return with November embers to warm your toes with jam, but before we lay it to rest I thought I'd fill the Jack O'Lantern with a little bit of the real X Factor.--J.
