Warren Zevon - Stand in the Fire
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Free Music Notes for Stand in the Fire
Free Music Review: Live rock and roll albums don't get any better than Stand in the Fire
Hit: 5 Stars
Reader, we have consensus. Lists of the greatest live albums often include James Brown, Live at the Apollo, Bob Dylan and the Band, Before the Flood, and recordings from King Curtis, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, and the Who. To this pantheon add the newly re-issued 1981 recording of Stand in the Fire. Among 1970s singers songwriters, Warren Zevon presented a welcome refraction of the mellow stylings of his California contemporaries. Certainly this was true in songs where Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner exacted revenge and an Excitable Boy was a really bad prom date. The production values of his early albums, though, belied such aggressive content. Not here, a magic night at the Roxy, where fierce Bo Diddley beats, nearly-New Wave stylings, unhinged vocals, a rowdy, rocking backing band, and incendiary guitar work engulf these songs to spectacular effect. Zevon himself sounds like he's having the time of his life and I hope he was. The hit, Werewolves of London, is here, of course. But it's hardly the highlight (and that's no slight) on a record where every tune absolutely burns. Zevon and band also played two previously unrecorded songs and they are as strong as the familiar tracks. It sounds like every player on stage knew this was a show for the ages. So get this recording today. And as the best rock and roll deserves, turn it up!Free Music Review: Even Jimmy Carter's Got the Highway Blues
Hit: 5 Stars
True to its title, an incendiary live record that held out the promise of the late Warren Zevon as a rival to his friend and collaborator Bruce Springsteen--if one can imagine a hard-drinking, bespectacled Boss with a somewhat sick sense of humor vying with an endearing sentimentalism.
Stand in the Fire is 180 proof Zevon, stoked by a relentless drums-bass-guitars-keyboards attack that mixes finesse and force. The man himself is in rare form, in total command of his material but always threatening to go off the edge and take the band and the crowd with him.
Zevon left us with several very strong studio albums, with the most consistent being his self-titled debut (1976) and Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School (1980). Excitable Boy (1978) has several classics including the disturbingly droll title song but is weighed down by an equal number of weaker efforts. Sentimental Hygiene (1987), one of the very few Zevon albums of the 1980s, is perhaps his most underrated work. The farewell album The Wind (2003) is indispensable and quite moving but also uneven. Revisiting Stand in the Fire in its remastered expanded version confirms my belief that this could be the definitive Warren testament.
Warren's unique career had its peaks and valleys--this is a peak that should be the envy of any and all rock and rollers.
Free Music Review: My favorite live album-Finally on CD
Hit: 5 Stars
Everyone has their favorite- the live album that seems to capture the artist at his or her best, setting free all the emotion and energy only a live performance can unleash. For me, it has always been STAND IN THE FIRE. The band is ragged, a bar band supplemented by David Landau, plays with energy and just tries to hang on as Zevon cuts loose. This is barely controlled chaos-with Zevon as a hyper kinetic ringmaster. Even when the music slows down, the intensity remains. There is always a feeling that anything can happen. Music from Zevon's first three Asylum releases is the focus here; with an outrageously ad libbed "Werewolves of London" leading the pack, each song is brought to a new life, as if performing it live has created a new song, with a new and different energy. "Excitable Boy" adds new layers of creepiness," "Lawyers, Guns and Money," adds a desperation that is palpable, and "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" should have been a hit for Zevon as well as Ronstadt. Even the newly added material with Zevon's voice cracking as he speaks to "his friends" brings a wonderful sense of intimacy so often missing from live recordings. (and from the original release of this one!)I hope the release of this and THE ENVOY on CD allows fans another opportunity to discover one of rock's great songwriters and with SITF one of rock's most magnetic performers.Free Music Review: One of the best live rock concerts ever recorded. Get it now.
Hit: 5 Stars
Zevon never surpassed these performances. He ripped the roof off L.A.'s Roxy Theatre with scalding takes on lovers and lawyers and gunslingers and other outlaws. From the first chords of the title track, the band is on fire, the house is ecstatic, and Warren rocks like he wants to break something.
A brilliant songwriter, Zevon was underrated as a performer. But you've not lived until you've thrilled to the awesome grit of his rasping howl on "Excitable Boy" and "Werewolves of London." It's an unearthly sound from a man who's been to hell and back.
This roaring wall of sound is balanced by passionate ballads of heartbreaking beauty like "Mohammed's Radio" and an exquisite rendering of "Hasten Down the Wind." Loud or soft, it's Warren's passion that makes "Stand in the Fire" one of my favorite albums of all time.
Now, after wearing out the grooves on my LP, the concert has at last been rereleased on CD -- with four previously unreleased tracks. What the hell took you so long, Rhino? An absolutely essential recording from a musical immortal.
Free Music Review: Criminally Perfect
Hit: 5 Stars
I've waited a long time for this CD. When the album arrived back in '81, it was quite a shock. Zevon had emerged from the "California rock" scene, and no one expected such a hard-rocking live album from him. It showcases his brilliant songwriting and showmanship, along with his incredible band. Each track is a gem in its own way. Contrast the hauntingly beautiful melody of "Mohammed's Radio" with the original rocker "The Sin."
Three things are criminal:
-that Stand in the Fire isn't on every short list of best all-time live rock albums,
-that Warren only got to tour with a live band for a few short years (by 1983, after The Envoy, his live performances were mostly one-man shows). Whether with a band or by himself, , Warren was incredible live.
-that he left us too soon.
If you are even a causal fan, buy this! It is accessible, entertaining, and sounds as fresh today as it did 27 years ago (did I just type that? God, I'm old.)