US Festival '82, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 9-4-1982 - Day 2, Part 3: The Cars

The third act presented here from Day Two of the 1982 US Festival is a set by the Cars.

Unfortunately, after the great sound quality of the previous set, by Santana, we're back to just okay sound quality. This comes from another audience bootleg. Basically, pretty much the entire festival is only available via audience boots, but were lucky the festival had a stellar sound system for such a massive audience, so all of those are much better than the typical poor audience boots.

In an interview before the Cars' performance, the band's lead singer Ric Ocasek said, "The first time they pushed me to do this, I said no. But they, uh... they talked me into it. We haven't played in months, so this show could be anything."

I looked it up, and the band's last concert prior to this one was in March 1982, when they were still promoting their 1981 album "Shake It Up." So it had been about six months. They wouldn't play another concert until mid-1984. It seems the money offered was just too good to pass up. There didn't seem to be any problem with their performance, despite the time off.

As I've done with all the other audience boot-sourced albums from this festival, I used the UVR5 and MVSEP audio editing programs to improve the sound quality as much as I could. But I could only do so much.

This album is one hour long.

030 Good Times Roll (Cars)
031 Bye Bye Love (Cars)
032 Touch and Go (Cars)
033 Misfit Kid (Cars)
034 Cruiser (Cars)
035 Since You're Gone (Cars)
036 Candy-O (Cars)
037 Moving in Stereo (Cars)
038 Nightspots (Cars)
039 Let's Go (Cars)
040 My Best Friend's Girl (Cars)
041 Dangerous Type (Cars)
042 Just What I Needed (Cars)
043 Shake It Up (Cars)
044 You're All I've Got Tonight (Cars)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17497721/VA-1982USFstvlDay0203TCrs_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zCKnmj2H

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/sMLVpx6ZUExIrVH/file

The cover photo of lead vocalist Ric Ocasek is from this exact concert.

The Cars - The Cap'n Swing Years (1974-1976)

This is basically a completely unreleased, and rarely bootlegged, studio album by the Cars. Not a great one, mind you, since the band was still finding its sound, but if you like the Cars you should like this.

Get comfortable, because in order to explain this album, I need some time to explain the basics about the pre-history of the Cars. The two lead singers in the band, Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr, were lifelong best friends (though they had some estranged years after the Cars broke up). They met way back in 1968, while they were both living in Cleveland, Ohio, as teenagers. They began collaborating musically, and were involved together in numerous bands that had little success. 

Their biggest success came in 1972, when the band they were in, "Milkwood," put out a studio album called "How's the Weather?" This album soon went out of print, and has stayed out of print. If you listen to it today, it's strange, because the voices are clearly recognizable as Ocasek and Orr, but the music is totally different. Blowing with the musical winds of the time, they sounded very much like a mellow Crosby, Stills and Nash, with lots of vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars. I considered putting a song or two from that album on this album, but it's average stuff and the style would be wildly out of place. However, note that one song here, "Dream Trader," was originally on the Milkwood album, but the version here is a 1976 remake with a drastically different, and more rocking, arrangement.

Milkwood, a trio, fell apart soon after their album failed to sell. Ocasek and Orr moved to Boston, and they continued trying to make it in the music business, but still without music success. The timing isn't clear, but sometime between 1973 and 1975, they were joined by Elliott Easton, who would stay as the lead guitarist for the Cars. 

The first three songs here come from 1974. I know very little about them. I don't even know what band name they were using at the time, although "Richard and the Rabbits" is a possibility, since that was used for a while in this time period. But presumably these three songs are originals by Ocasek, who wrote the vast majority of songs for the Cars, especially in the early years. The mellow Milkwood sound was gone and the Cars sound was starting to form.

Some time in early 1976, the band changed their name again, to "Cap'n Swing." By this time, Greg Hawkes had joined them. He'd been occasionally playing with Ocasek and Orr for a couple of years, but he'd had other musical commitments to fulfill for a while. He would become the permanent keyboard player for the Cars.

At first, the band was completed by a drummer named Glenn Evans and a bass player named Kevin Robichaud. Neither would last to the Cars. (Orr would eventually take the bass player spot while continuing to sing.)

This five-member band began having lots of success in the Boston area. They recorded some demos and got an opportunity to take them to New York City, with hopes of getting a record contract. But this didn't go well. Easton later recalled, "We took [the tape of demos] back to Boston with our tails between our legs." It's likely that most of the songs here are from that demo tape. The first three songs are from 1974, as I mentioned previously, and "Lover and a Holiday" was recorded by Cap'n Swing in 1976, but at a different session. Versions of most of these songs appeared on the Internet, but only since around 2020 have most of them shown up with the excellent sound quality you hear here, after a band member leaked better versions to the public.

Listening to these songs, I can understand why the record companies rejected them. The band was getting better, but they still hadn't perfected their own style. On one hand, they were heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground and the similar sounding Modern Lovers. On the other hand, they were heavily influenced by Steely Dan. Apparently, some record executives specifically complained that many of their songs went on too long, with lots of jazzy keyboard noodling in a Steely Dan style that didn't suit the songs. 

Ocasek and Orr took this advice to heart. Back in Boston, they shortened their songs, cut out most of the jazzy noodling, and moved towards a more rocking direction. Unfortunately, we don't have any Cap'n Swing recordings from after they made that stylistic change. 

But they didn't stay as Cap'n Swing for long in any case. Around the start of 1977, they got a new drummer, David Robinson. This was a promising development, because he'd previously been the drummer for the Modern Lovers, which I mentioned already as one of their biggest influences. He would stay on as the permanent drummer for the Cars. He also disliked the band name, "Cap'n Swing," which is an objectively bad name. The way "Captain" gets shortened is strange, and having "Swing" in the name implied they played swing music from the 1940s, which they definitely did not. Robinson suggested "The Cars," and that name stuck. They began playing as the Cars in January 1977, and thereafter went from success to success, helped by the changes they'd made. In 1978, their debut album "The Cars" was released, and it went on to become one of the most critically and commercially successful debut albums of the era.   

So now you know all about Cap'n Swing. I'm calling this a "Cars" album because A) I think the name Cap'n Swing is awful, and B) they effectively were the Cars already, with only a change of drummers to come. (Besides, the first three songs are from before they used the Cap'n Swing name.)

Let me explain some more about the music here. I've included most of the songs from this time period I could find. However, I didn't include some songs, especially from the 1974 session, because I didn't think they were good enough. I also didn't include a few 1976 songs. I passed on "Bye Bye Love," because that was released on the debut album in a better version. Another song, "Twilight Superman," was so clearly "inspired" by "Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground that it's best forgotten. A couple more might have been worthy, but had poor sound quality.

Furthermore, after hearing all these songs, I had to agree with the record company execs who complained that their songs went on too long, with too much jazzy noodling. So to make this more palatable, I've made drastic cuts to six songs (the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles). In the most drastic example, "City Lights" originally was six and a half minutes long, but I've edited it down to three minutes. Trust me, you're not missing much with these cuts. For instance, a majority of the cuts got rid of repeated verses and/or choruses that just repeated what happened earlier in the songs. But if you want to hear the full versions, they all can be found on YouTube and other places. Oh, and also, I edited all the songs to boost the lead vocals in the mix. For many of the songs, the vocals were buried way down.

Interestingly, with the exception of "Bye Bye Love," virtually none of these songs would go on to become Cars songs. It is said Cap'n Swing played "You're All I've Got Tonight," from the Cars debut album, in concert, but apparently they never made a studio version of it. I've previously posted an album of Cars non-album tracks, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-cars-take-me-now-various-songs-1977.html

Most of those are from 1977 and 1978, and were not released at the time, Yet all or most of all of those songs are different than the Cap'n Swing songs. So at least two albums worth of songs were left unreleased. I'm sure there are more songs from the early and mid-1970s that didn't get recorded, or the recordings didn't survive. I suppose one key reason the Cars' debut album is so good is because Ocasek and Orr had spent well over a decade working up to it, and they discarded many songs along the way.

By the way, note that most Cars songs are sung by Ocasek, though there are some key exceptions sung by Orr, such as "Just What I Needed," "Let's Go," and "Drive." Their voices are very similar, so it's often hard to tell. (They claimed this was because they sang together for so long, especially through their formative years.) But back in this time period, the vast majority of the songs were sung by Orr (who arguably had the better voice). I could be wrong, but I think the only song here sung by Ocasek is "City Lights," while "Dream Trader" has shared lead vocals between Ocasek and Orr.

All of this material remains unreleased because members of the Cars consider it "juvenile" material they would just as soon forget. For similar reasons, they've never allowed the Milkwood album to be released. But while I don't hear any lost classics here, I think this is a pretty decent bunch of songs (especially after the edits and remixing).

One song, "Will You Still Love Me Tonight," is a bonus track. I actually think it's one of the better songs, but it's downgraded due to sound quality. This is one of only three live Cap'n Swing songs I've found. (The others, "Strawberry Moonlight" and "Start It All Again," sound better in their studio versions.)

01 Harlequin (Cars)
02 I Need Spring (Cars)
03 Start It All Again (Cars)
04 Strawberry Moonlight (Cars)
05 Jezebel [Edit] (Cars)
06 Goes On Sleeping [Edit] (Cars)
07 You're Always Brighter [Edit] (Cars)
08 City Lights [Edit] (Cars)
09 Dream Trader (Cars)
10 You Can Have 'Em [Blue Moon Saloon] (Cars)
11 Come Back Down [Edit] (Cars)
12 Magic Pants [Crazy Rock and Roll] [Edit] (Cars)
13 Lover and a Holiday [See Through My Eyes] (Cars)

Will You Still Love Me Tonight (Cars) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17362752/TCARZ1974-1976ThCapnSwngYers_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KBTRPBU8

The cover photo is a bit of a mystery. From right to left, it shows Ben Orr, Elliott Easton, Greg Hawkes, Ric Ocasek, and Danny Lewis. The first four would go on to be members of the Cars, but Lewis was the drummer briefly, before David Robinson became the drummer. So this probably is from late 1976, right before Cap'n Swing was renamed the Cars. It's the only photo of the band that I could find.

The Cars - The Summit, Houston, TX, 9-11-1984

One of the main purposes of this blog is to help you, the listener, find the gems out of all the bootlegs out there. Tons of them seem good based on their titles, but turn out to have crappy sound quality. This is a case in point. I would have liked to hear a concert by the Cars in 1984, because that was a particularly strong year for the band, with their huge hit album "Heartbeat City." They petered out after that, with a sub-par album in 1987 and then a break up. Anyway, I would have liked to hear a 1984 concert from them, but I never came across an excellent sounding one. 

Until now, that is. This concert recording has to be the best from the 1984. It was professionally recorded and then broadcast for the Westwood One radio network. Later, some songs were released on a DVD, called "Live 1984-1985." Most of this comes from the radio broadcast, but at least one song comes from the DVD.

To be honest, the Cars stayed very close to the studio versions for all the songs here, and there's absolutely no banter between songs whatsoever. But still, one can hear they put on a flawless concert. And this would be a good album to play at a party, because it's hit after hit after hit, pretty much all with a driving beat.

This album is an hour and 14 minutes long.

01 Hello Again (Cars)
02 It's Not the Night (Cars)
03 Touch and Go (Cars)
04 Candy-O (Cars)
05 Good Times Roll (Cars)
06 Jimmy Jimmy (Cars)
07 Moving in Stereo (Cars)
08 Just What I Needed (Cars)
09 A Dream Away (Cars)
10 Cruiser (Cars)
11 Drive (Cars)
12 You Might Think (Cars)
13 My Best Friend's Girl (Cars)
14 Magic (Cars)
15 Let's Go (Cars)
16 Heartbeat City (Cars)
17 You're All I've Got Tonight (Cars)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15998809/TCar_1984_ThSummtHoustnTX__9-11-1984_atse.zip.html

Pretty much the only good photo I could find of the band in concert only features lead singer Ric Ocasek. This photo was taken at East Rutherford, New Jersey, in July 1984. Regarding the text, I was struck by the vivid colors in the photo, so typical of the 1980s. (Think "Miami Vice.") So I tried to keep that up with the font type and colors.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 4: Ashford & Simpson with Teddy Pendergrass, Madonna, Tom P*tty & the Heartbreakers, Kenny Loggins, and the Cars

This is Part 3 of the Philadelphia portion of the 1985 Live Aid benefit concert. There are seven parts in total for Philadelphia, so I'm not more than halfway finished. The London portion will follow.

The first act up in this part was the soul duo Ashford and Simpson. For their second and final song, they were joined on stage by soul singer Teddy Pendergrass. This was a very emotionally moving moment for the concert. Pendergrass was injured in a car accident in 1982, and permanently paralyzed from the waist down. His musical career was put on hold for a while. He was still able to sing though, and he put out an album of new material in 1984. But this appearance in Live Aid was his first time on a public stage since the accident.

 Madonna was the next act. She was a very big deal, and a cultural phenomenon, at this time, after becoming a superstar in 1984. The same month of this concert, Playboy and Penthouse magazines published nude photos of Madonna, taken when she moonlighted as an art model in 1978. As a result, she made a jokey comment between songs about how she was going to keep all her clothes on.

Tom P. and the Heartbreakers came next. (Note I'm not using his full name due to copyright issues.) They were followed by Kenny Loggins. But he only got to play one song. The last act on this album were the Cars.

As with the other albums in this series, sometimes I was able to include introductions to the acts, and sometimes I couldn't. Madonna was introduced by actress and singer Bette Midler, and Tom P. was introduced by Don Johnson.

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

075 Solid [Edit] (Ashford & Simpson)
076 Reach Out and Touch [Somebody's Hand] (Ashford & Simpson with Teddy Pendergrass)
077 talk (Bette Midler)
078 Holiday (Madonna)
079 Into the Groove (Madonna)
080 talk (Madonna)
081 Love Makes the World Go Round (Madonna)
082 talk (Don Johnson)
083 American Girl (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
084 talk (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
085 The Waiting (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
086 Rebels (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
087 talk (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
088 Refugee (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
089 Footloose (Kenny Loggins)
090 talk (Bill Graham)
091 You Might Think (Cars)
092 Drive (Cars)
093 talk (Cars)
094 Just What I Needed (Cars)
095 Heartbeat City (Cars)
096 talk (Cars)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15699785/LveAidJFKStdiumPhladlphiaPA__7-13-1985_Part4.zip.html

 There actually were five musical acts in this part, but I only had room for photos taken from the concert of four. The one that got left out is Kenny Loggins, since he only performed one song. Ashford and Simpson, with guest Teddy Pendergrass, is in the top left, Madonna is in the top right, Tom P. is in the bottom left, and Ric Ocasek of the Cars is in the bottom right.

The Cars - B'Ginnings, Schaumburg, IL, 7-1978

The Cars were one of the biggest new wave bands. So it's rather surprising to me that they never released an official live album. There has been one such album, "Live at the Agora 1978," but it was only a limited release for Record Store Day in 2017. This is from the same year as that, and has most of the same songs, but in my opinion this actually is superior, with better sound quality.

The Cars had a pretty slick sound that they perfected for their studio recordings. But that doesn't mean they were worthless live. I was particularly interested in hearing a concert from the start of their career, when they were young and hungry and had more of a raw, bar band sound. 

This concert took place one month after the release of their debut album, simply titled "The Cars." That was a great album, and even the band members themselves informally called it their "greatest hits" album, because every song on it was a hit, or could have been a hit. But one of the most interesting things here is that they played a few songs that are good but didn't make that album, or any later one: "Night Spots," "When You Gonna Lay Me Down," "Take What You Want," "Hotel Queenie," and "Somethin' Else." That last song is a cover of a 1950s classic. It wasn't sung by either of the band's usual two lead singers, Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr. Instead, it was a very rare lead vocal by the band's lead guitarist, Elliott Easton.

I listened to samples from a handful of Cars bootlegs from 1977 and 1978. All of them are soundboards, but this one sounded the best to me. Like I said above, it actually sounds better than the official album from this time period. However, there was one problem: the vocals were too low in the mix, in my opinion. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost them. I boosted the vocals for the banter between songs even more.

There were three songs on the Agora album that weren't played at this show, so I added those at the end. Also, I don't know the exact date of the show. If you do, please let me know so I can fix that.

This album is 57 minutes long. It's only 47 minutes long if you don't include the three songs at the end from the Agora show.

01 talk (Cars)
02 Good Times Roll (Cars)
03 talk (Cars)
04 Bye Bye Love (Cars)
05 Night Spots (Cars)
06 talk (Cars)
07 My Best Friend's Girl (Cars)
08 Moving in Stereo (Cars)
09 talk (Cars)
10 Don't Cha Stop (Cars)
11 When You Gonna Lay Me Down (Cars)
12 talk (Cars)
13 You're All I've Got Tonight (Cars)
14 Just What I Needed (Cars)
15 talk (Cars)
16 Take What You Want (Cars)
17 talk (Cars)
18 Hotel Queenie (Cars)
19 I'm in Touch with Your World (Cars)
20 All Mixed Up (Cars)
21 Somethin' Else (Cars)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15634175/TCar_1978_BGnningsSchaumbrgIL__7-1978_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good color photos of the band in concert in 1978. So I picked one from a concert in Hyannis, Massachusetts, in August 1980.

Ric Ocasek - Solo Acoustic- Spinhouse, New York City, 10-14-2005

I already posted the gist of this album back in 2020. But today I'm deleting that and posting this instead because I've changed most of the music. I found a new source that makes up the bulk of it, causing me to change the name as well. Before, the album was only 23 minutes long, but now it's a more respectable 35 minutes (not including the bonus track.)

Ric Ocasek was the main songwriter and lead singer for the Cars, although Ben Orr had a prominent role too. I found some YouTube videos of Ocasek playing songs in the solo acoustic format. This really intrigued me. For one thing, I really enjoy acoustic versions in general (as you've probably noticed if you follow this blog). But while I like how the Cars produced their songs, it was definitely a heavily produced almost "wall of sound" approach. So acoustic versions are a drastic and interesting contrast.

All the performances here are unreleased. All of them were performed in front of audiences. However, there's virtually no banter between songs.

Ocasek very rarely played in the solo acoustic format, so I had to bring together some songs from very different years. The first song is from 1992, the next two are from 1997, and the rest are from 2005. But in my opinion, there's no way to tell, due to the simple solo acoustic format. Plus, Ocasek's voice hardly changed at all. All the 2005 songs (tracks 4 through 10) come from the single performance mentioned in the title.

In 2005, he released his last studio album, "Nexterday." Three of the songs - "Bottom Dollar," "Carousel," and "Crackpot" - are from that. "People We Know" and "Time Bomb" are from his 1997 solo album "Troublizing." The rest are Cars songs.

The bonus track, "Since You're Gone," is a bonus track because it sounds a lot rougher than the rest. It's from an audience bootleg at a club, and you can hear lots of talking and ambient noise all through it. But I thought it was interesting enough to at least merit bonus track status.

01 Just What I Needed (Ric Ocasek)
02 People We Know (Ric Ocasek)
03 Time Bomb (Ric Ocasek)
04 Moving in Stereo (Ric Ocasek)
05 Bottom Dollar (Ric Ocasek)
06 Carousel (Ric Ocasek)
07 Crackpot (Ric Ocasek)
08 I'm Not the One (Ric Ocasek)
09 My Best Friend's Girl (Ric Ocasek)
10 Drive (Ric Ocasek)

Since You're Gone (Ric Ocasek)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15505782/RicOcask_2005_SoloAcoustcSpnhouseNewYrkC__10-14-2005_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo of Ocasek comes from a concert at the CBGB's club in New York City in 2005. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any acoustic music from that performance.

The Cars - Take Me Now - Non-Album Tracks (1977-1981)

Sadly, Ric Ocasek, lead singer for the Cars, died yesterday at the age of 75. In his honor, I've put a stray tracks album together from the band's early years.

When the Car's first album, simply called "The Cars," was released in 1978, it was a big success. Just about every song on it got played on the radio, even until today. The band members semi-jokingly called it their "greatest hits" album, because it was that good.

Why was it so good? Well, it turns out that the band had a lot more original material at that time, but chose only their very best songs for their first album. Then they pretty much forgot about all those other songs, even though most of them were also very good (if not their very best). The bulk of this album is made up of songs that could be considered outtakes from their first album. Only the last three songs after from later, and this would be a full-sized album even without those.

Now, clearly, this album considered as a whole isn't on par with the Car's first album. But few albums are. But if compared with other albums from that era, even some later Cars albums, I think this is pretty solid. The songs certainly don't deserve their obscurity. (They came out many years later on archival releases.) I believe all the songs are originals except for the last two.

Two of the songs here are from a live album (a very obscure one, "Live at the Agora," that only had a limited release in 2017). But those sound as good as studio tracks, especially since I removed all traces of audience noise. For one of those songs, "Take What You Want," I had a choice between this live version or a studio version. But I went with the live version because I felt it was a more energetic performance.

Slip Away" a song written by Ocasek, actually was a top forty hit for Ian Lloyd in 1979.

01 Leave or Stay (Cars)
02 Ta Ta Wayo Wayo (Cars)
03 Cool Fool (Cars)
04 Take Me Now (Cars)
05 They Won't See You (Cars)
06 Wake Me Up (Cars)
07 You Just Can't Push Me (Cars)
08 Hotel Queenie (Cars)
09 Take What You Want (Cars)
10 Night Spots (Cars)
11 Slip Away (Cars)
12 Don't Go to Pieces (Cars)
13 The Little Black Egg (Cars)
14 Funtime (Cars)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17362743/TCARZ1977-1981TkeMeNw_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5TkUezgD

For the cover art, at first, I was going to use a photo of the band circa 1978. But before I did that, I asked myself, "What would the ultimate Cars album cover look like?" I decided it would be a drawing of a woman by Alberto Vargas sitting on the hood of a car. (They used Vargas pin-ups for a couple of their album covers.) So I found a drawing by Vargas that I liked, and a color pencil drawing of a car by the name of Willie E. Sims. I put the woman on the car and made some adjustments, including adding a shadow underneath her and some grass in the background. I'm pleased with the result. :)