The Posies - Black Session, La Maison de la Radio, Paris, France, 3-1-1994

The Posies are one of my favorite bands that had their best years in the 1990s. I keep wanting to post more music from them, but it never seems to get to the top of my "to do list." But here, finally, is a concert from 1994, which was right around their peak of popularity and creativity, in my opinion.

Note that I have posted a couple other Posies albums, including this 1996 acoustic concert, which I posted back in 2018:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-posies-acoustic-duo-99x-fm-atlanta.html

My favorite studio album by the Posies is "Frosting on the Beater," released in 1993. So I've been wanting to post an album from just after that. Unfortunately, Posies bootlegs are rare and hard to find, since they're not nearly as popular as they should be. (In my opinion, they would have been huge if they had their careers about 20 years earlier, because their style didn't really fit with what was popular at the time.) I came across this bootleg, liked the sound quality, and decided to post it.

Unfortunately, I kind of regretted that decision, because I didn't realize how much work it would take to get it in good shape. The main problem is this was a broadcast from a French radio station. On the plus side, that meant soundboard level sound quality. But I've noticed that sometimes in continental Europe, DJs talk all over concerts like this to prevent them from becoming listenable bootlegs, and this was one such case. A DJ talked in French at every opportunity, including over the music, and sometimes even talking over the singing! Using the UVR5 audio editing program, I managed to get rid of his voice in most cases, although I had trouble with one instance of the talking over the singing. 

That's why I have "[Edit]" in the titles of three of the songs early on. Actually, I could have put that in the titles of most of the songs, but I only used it in the most egregious cases. This French DJ made the annoying BBC DJ Brian Matthew seemed restrained in comparison in the way he talked over the music. Ugh! 

But there was another big problem: about half of the song "How She Lied by Living" was missing. According to some notes about the bootleg I found, one source with the annoying talking French DJ ended right then, midway through the song. The rest of the concert is from a different source that had far less DJ talking for the remaining songs. But that second source didn't include the rest of this one song. So I found a different version from a concert in Toronto, Canada, in April 1995, and used that to patch in the missing part of the song.

Yet another problem was that the vocals were too low in the mix. So I fixed that for all the songs using the UVR5 audio editing program again. Furthermore, the applause after songs were often damaged as a result of the talking French DJ, or were sometimes missing altogether. I sometimes had to patch in good bits of cheering over bad or missing bits.

But, bottom line, the concert should be all fixed, and it makes for an excellent listen. This is the Posies in full band mode, when they were at their most rocking, as an effort to somewhat fit into the grunge sound of the time. (They were from Seattle, after all.) 

Note that four songs all covers: "I Am the Cosmos" by Chris Bell of Big Star, "Wiggly World" by Devo, "Song of a Baker" by the Small Faces, and "Black Night" by Deep Purple. (What diverse and good musical taste that shows, by the way.) All the others are originals, mostly from the "Frosting on the Beater" album.

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 Definite Door [Edit] (Posies)
02 When Mute Tongues Can Speak [Edit] (Posies)
03 talk (Posies)
04 I Am the Cosmos (Posies)
05 Love Letter Boxes [Edit] (Posies)
06 Flavor of the Month (Posies)
07 talk (Posies)
08 Earlier than Expected (Posies)
09 Solar Sister (Posies)
10 Dream All Day (Posies)
11 Any Other Day (Posies)
12 talk (Posies)
13 Burn and Shine (Posies)
14 How She Lied by Living [Edit] (Posies)
15 talk (Posies)
16 Coming Right Along (Posies)
17 talk (Posies)
18 Lights Out (Posies)
19 Wiggly World (Posies)
20 Song of a Baker (Posies)
21 Black Night (Posies)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QUnzTUL8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uif1oYWJDoz9Lrs/file

The cover image of Jon Auer is from a concert at the Phoenix Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon, Britain, in July 1994. I wanted to use a photo showing both Ken Stingfellow and Auer, the band's two lead singers and songwriters, but this was the best image I found from 1994. It's a screenshot I took from a YouTube video.

The Posies - Burn and Shine - Acoustic Radio Station Performances (1987-1993)

I'm a big fan of the Posies. I think they are very underrated. I posted one album of their music back in April 2018, but then failed to follow up. I'll try to post more soon.

Since I'm a big fan of acoustic music, I especially appreciate their acoustic performances, which highlight their great harmonies. All of the songs here were done with just the acoustic duo of Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, the band's two singers and songwriters. Most of them are from in person radio station appearances. But the first song is from a concert, and tracks five and six are demos made for their record company.

All of the performances here are unreleased, with two exceptions. Tracks one and ten come from the band's box set, "At Least, at Last."

I've had this album in my music collection, and I've always called it "Burn and Shine," after one of my favorite songs by them. So I've kept that title here.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Believe in Something Other [Than Yourself] (Posies)
02 I May Hate You Sometimes (Posies)
03 Compliment (Posies)
04 Suddenly Mary (Posies)
05 Everyone Moves Away (Posies)
06 You Avoid Parties (Posies)
07 Any Other Way (Posies)
08 Flavor of the Month (Posies)
09 Earlier than Expected (Posies)
10 Burn and Shine (Posies)
11 Solar Sister (Posies)
12 Dream All Day (Posies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271501/TPosies_1987-1993_BurnShneAcoustcRdioStationPerformances_atse.zip.html

I wanted a photo of just the band's two key members, Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, since they're the only two performing on these songs. I couldn't find any from the right time period. However, I did find a good group photo from 1993. I then used Photoshop to crop out one band member, and then edited out another who happened to be standing between Auer and Stringfellow.

The Posies - Acoustic Duo - 99X FM, Atlanta, GA, 5-5-1996

The Posies are a drastically underappreciated band. Maybe their problem is they had their heyday in the wrong place at the wrong time - Seattle in the 1990s. That was the heyday of grunge, and they tried to fit in, but in my opinion their strongest suit is there acoustic material.

For instance, this album. It's not nothing but two acoustic guitars, two voices harmonizing like angels, and excellent songwriting. Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer play songs from the latest Posies album "Amazing Disgrace," and earlier albums.

I've added two songs at the end that are also done in acoustic duo style from the same year, for a different radio show. That fleshes the album out to a pleasing 42 minutes.

01 Throwaway (Posies)
02 Please Return It (Posies)
03 Going Going Gone (Posies)
04 Golden Blunders (Posies)
05 Solar Sister (Posies)
06 Like Me Too (Posies)
07 Flavor of the Month (Posies)
08 Ontario (Posies)
09 Everyone Moves Away (Posies)
10 Fight It [If You Want] (Posies)
11 Precious Moments (Posies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271604/TPosies_1996_AcoustcDuo99XFMAtlntaGA__5-5-1996_atse.zip.html

In early 2021, I changed the photo for the cover art after finding a better one. (The original was in black and white and low-res.) I don't know when or where this photo was taken, but judging by their appearance it's from their early years.