The Knitters - The Ritz, New York City, 10-24-1985

Have you even heard of the Knitters? Maybe not. But it's more likely you've heard of the punk band X. The Knitters are a basically an X side project, featuring three out of four members of X, including their two singer-songwriters, Exene Cervenka and John Doe. But there are two other members, including Dave Alvin, a singer-songwriter from the Blasters. The reason for this side project is because the Knitters play a very different style of music. They were alt-country about five years before the alt-country movement even began.

The Knitters were formed around 1982, and they generally perform a handful of concerts each year. They only released two studio albums, "Poor Little Critters in the Road" in 1985 and "The Modern Sounds of the Knitters" in 2005. They've never put out an official live album.

So if you're a fan of this band, as I am, this album is really great. It's double the length of their debut album, so it contains lots of songs that they never put out on either album. They played a couple of X songs redone in a country rock style ("The New World" and "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts") as well as some Knitters originals. But mostly they did classic and obscure folk or country covers. So not every fan of X is going to love this. But if you're open-minded about country rock, you should really like it. They were way ahead of their time back in 1985.

This is a soundboard bootleg. It's the only Knitters bootleg that I know of, so it's a lucky thing that the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

01 talk (Knitters)
02 Silver Wings (Knitters)
03 talk (Knitters)
04 Cryin' but My Tears Are Far Away (Knitters)
05 talk (Knitters)
06 Poor Little Critter on the Road (Knitters)
07 talk (Knitters)
08 The New World (Knitters)
09 Someone like You (Knitters)
10 talk (Knitters)
11 Hand Me Down My Walking Cane (Knitters)
12 talk (Knitters)
13 Poor Old Heartsick Me (Knitters)
14 talk (Knitters)
15 Mama Tried (Knitters)
16 talk (Knitters)
17 I'm Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail (Knitters)
18 I Can't Hold Myself in Line (Knitters)
19 Pipeline [Instrumental] (Knitters)
20 Long White Cadillac (Knitters)
21 talk (Knitters)
22 Love Shack (Knitters)
23 talk (Knitters)
24 The Call of the Wreckin' Ball (Knitters)
25 I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts (Knitters)
26 talk (Knitters)
27 Jackson (Knitters)
28 Rock Island Line (Knitters)
29 talk (Knitters)
30 The Trail of Time (Knitters)
31 talk (Knitters)
32 Tennessee Border (Knitters)
33 talk (Knitters)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16625127/TKNITTRS1985TRitzNwYrkCty__10-24-1985_atse.zip.html

 I couldn't find any photos of the Knitters in concert back in 1985 (or any year around then, for that matter). So I used a photo from an X concert taken from a TV appearance in August 1985. The two singers shown here, Exene Cervenka and John Doe, are also the two main singers for the Knitters.

X - My Father's Place, Roslyn, NY, 12-11-1983

I think X is a great band. Technically, I supose they're considered a punk band, but unlike most punk bands, I appreciate how they've had deep roots in older music forms, like folk and country. (This can best be seen in their alter ego band, the Knitters.) They put on a new album last month called "Alphabetland." It's their first album in 27 years. I haven't heard it yet, but it has all their original members on it, and it's been getting surprisingly good reviews. I figure that's a good excuse to post something by them.

In my opinion, the "golden age" of X was their first four albums, from 1980 to 1983. Let me quote from an allmusic.com review of one of their albums:

"X were undeniably not just one of the greatest punk bands, but one of the greatest live rock acts of all time. [But] they never issued a true live set featuring the stellar, original lineup with guitarist Billy Zoom."

Indeed. Zoom left the band (for the first time) in 1986. Their 1985 album was disappointing, where they tried for a different sound, so in my opinion the ideal time to have a live album from them would be 1983. Luckily, although no live album from that time has ever come out, there is an excellent bootleg of a concert that was played on the radio at the time, which is presented here.

That means it was professionally recorded to sound good for the radio. I didn't have to do much tweaking for this one. All I did was break was little talking there was between songs onto their own tracks, and lower the overall volume level, to put it in line with all the other albums I post on this blog.

There was one major snag with the recording in that the first song, "True Love, Part 1," fades in right as it was ending. I'm especially bummed since that's a really good song. It also suggests there could have been more of the concert that either didn't get on the radio or didn't get recorded by whoever captured the radio show. The concert is slightly less than an hour long, whereas they played well over an hour in other 1983 that are on bootleg, suggesting that a portion of the show is missing. At least we know the ending is correct, since the show finishes with a few parting comments.

I didn't want to start this off with just part of a song, so I found another bootleg from 1983 where "True Love" was played and I inserted that instead. While I was at it, I also included "Blue Spark" since that's one of my favorites of theirs, as well as a spoken introduction. I was tempted to include more, but I decided against it since the sound quality from the other show is less impressive.

If you want just one live X recording, I recommend this one, even though it's a bootleg. It beats all their official live albums, in my opinion. And it also kind of doubles as a "best of" for their early years, since they play most of their best known songs from that era.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 talk (X)
02 Blue Spark (X)
03 True Love, Part 1 (X)
04 talk (X)
05 In This House that I Call Home (X)
06 talk (X)
07 Hungry Wolf (X)
08 talk (X)
09 The New World (X)
10 Universal Corner (X)
11 True Love, Part 2 (X)
12 Beyond and Back (X)
13 talk (X)
14 Los Angeles (X)
15 Make the Music Go Bang (X)
16 Some Other Time (X)
17 talk (X)
18 Hot House (X)
19 Soul Kitchen (X)
20 Breathless (X)
21 Johnny Hit and Run Paulene (X)
22 Motel Room in My Bed (X)
23 talk (X)
24 Poor Girl (X)
25 talk (X)
26 Devil Doll (X)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15258782/Xx_1983_My_Father_s_Place__Roslyn__NY__12-11-1983_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is of the band performing for "American Bandstand" in October 1983. I cropped it to focus on Exene Cervenka and John Doe. They're the band leaders and lead vocalists, and the other band members were mostly hidden in the darkness.