Brinsley Schwarz - A. O. R., Tilburg, Netherlands, 5-18-1974

Brinsley Schwarz were one of the best and best known "pub rock" bands in the early 1970s. Their main singer and songwriter Nick Lowe would go on to greater fame with Rockpile and his solo career. (Strangely, Brinsley Schwarz was the name of one of the band members as well as the band as a whole.) I think they're very underappreciated. They wrote a lot of fun originals, and also had a habit of playing unjustly obscure songs.

I plan on posting a lot more from this band soon. But while I getting some other things ready, I decided to post this concert because I feel it's the best live recording of the band. There's one official live album called "Live Favorites," but this one is better, even though it's a bootleg. The sound quality is excellent, and it's a full show that's slightly shorter than two hours long. ("Live Favorites" by contrast is also from a single concert, but it's only 45 minutes long.)

I didn't have to do much to improve this recording, but I did do a couple of things. The main thing was that I broke the banter between songs into separate tracks and then boosted the volume of that banter. (Lowe does nearly all the talking.) Also, the last fifteen seconds or so of the song "(It's Gonna Be A) Bring Down" was missing. I restored much of that from a similar musical section earlier in the song, then finished it off with a bit of the same song from a bootleg of another concert. I also made a couple other fixes here and there, for instance getting rid of a squall of feedback in the middle of a song by patching in a bit of another part of the song.

This band was in its natural element playing live. The very name of the genre they're closely associated with, pub rock, is all about playing in pubs and other small clubs. If you've never heard this band before, this is a good place to start.

01 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
02 You Been Cheating (Brinsley Schwarz)
03 Small Town, Big City (Brinsley Schwarz)
04 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
05 I'll Be Doggone (Brinsley Schwarz)
06 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
07 Love Is Gone (Brinsley Schwarz)
08 It's Been So Long (Brinsley Schwarz)
09 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
10 I've Cried My Last Tear (Brinsley Schwarz)
11 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
12 Happy Doing What We're Doing (Brinsley Schwarz)
13 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
14 I'm Ahead If I Can Quit While I'm Behind (Brinsley Schwarz)
15 Don't Lie to Me (Brinsley Schwarz)
16 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
17 Surrender to the Rhythm (Brinsley Schwarz)
18 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
19 Country Girl (Brinsley Schwarz)
20 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
21 Range War (Brinsley Schwarz)
22 [It's Gonna Be A] Bring Down [Edit] (Brinsley Schwarz)
23 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
24 Save the Last Dance for Me (Brinsley Schwarz)
25 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
26 Down in the Dive (Brinsley Schwarz)
27 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
28 Down in Mexico (Brinsley Schwarz)
29 Ju Ju Man (Brinsley Schwarz)
30 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
31 Wonder Woman (Brinsley Schwarz)
32 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
33 Home in My Hand (Brinsley Schwarz)
34 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
35 Run Rudolph Run (Brinsley Schwarz)
36 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
37 Brown Sugar (Brinsley Schwarz)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15275556/BrinsleyS_1974_AORTilburg__5-18-1974_atse.zip.html

There are very few good color photos of this band, but I managed to find one of them in concert. This comes from an appearance at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in May 1973.