Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Beck - Morning Becomes Eclectic, KCRW Studios, Santa Monica, CA, 3-31-2005

Beck likes to perform for the KCRW radio station every couple of years, and I've been occasionally posting his more significant performances there. So here's another one.

This album actually has three sources, all of them unreleased. The first seven songs come from the KCRW show in 2005 mentioned in the title, played with a band. Tracks 8 and 9 come from a band performance on a German TV show sometime in 2005. I included that mainly because Beck somehow failed to play the song "Clap Hands" in the KCRW performance, and that's my favorite song he did in 2005. (He apparently didn't like it that much, since it only came out as a bonus track.) 

This album is 33 minutes long.

01 E-Pro (Beck)
02 Black Tambourine (Beck)
03 Broken Drum (Beck)
04 Hell Yes (Beck)
05 Girl (Beck)
06 Guero (Beck)
07 Scarecrow (Beck)
08 Tropicalia (Beck)
09 Clap Hands (Beck)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15492107/BeckH_2005_MornngBecomesEclecticSantaMonicaCA__3-31-2005_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from the YouTube video of the German TV show ("Sarah Kuttner - Die Show") performance of "Clap Hands" included here. I strongly recommend you watch the YouTube video, because it's lots of fun. In it, Beck sings and plays the song on guitar while his backing band sitting at a table and gets served a meal by a waiter. But as they're doing that, they're beating out complicated rhythms on the table using their silverware and glasses and other implements! It's really cool and sounds great.

Apparently, when Beck went on tour in 2005, they did this table thing at every concert. Beck would do an acoustic set in the middle of the show. His backing band would actually sit at the table behind him on stage and eat a meal while Beck sang his songs. Then when he got to this song at the end of the acoustic set, it would quickly become clear the band members had stopped eating and were playing rhythm with everything in reach at the table. People say it was the highlight of the shows.

2 comments:

  1. They did Clap Hands on SNL too. Quite awesome. https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/wkpt8x/beck_performs_clap_hands_along_with_some/

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    1. Thanks for sharing that. I just watched that. I like it, but I prefer the other version, without the snippet of "One Foot in the Grave" in the middle. And I don't think the marionettes were a help. Here's the link to that one:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXiTnsSn9wU

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