Discography ================================================================================================================ Country Label Format Catalog Year ================================================================================================================ USA Tzadik Records CD, Archival Series TZ 7336 2002, May ================================================================================================================ Track Listing: ================================================================================================================ 1. Batman 02:07 2. Latin Quarter 04:06 3. You Will Be Shot 01:24 4. Shot In The Dark [Cover of Henry Mancini] 03:32 (Henry Mancini) [A Shot In The Dark, OST, 1964] 5. Skate Key 01:06 6. Erotico [Cover of Ennio Morricone] 05:24 (Ennio Morricone) [The Burglars, OST, 1972] 7. Snagglepuss 02:09 8. I Want To Live [Cover of Johnny Mandel] 01:58 (Johnny Mandel) [I Want To Live!, OST, 1958] 9. New York Flattop Box 00:44 10. Inside Straight 08:13 11. Chinatown [Cover of Jerry Goldsmith] 06:04 (Jerry Goldsmith) [Chinatown, OST, 1974] 12. Igneous Ejaculation 00:22 13. Ujaku 00:31 14. Blood Duster 00:17 15. Hammerhead 00:12 16. Speedball 00:44 17. Obeah Man 00:19 18. Den Of Sins 01:19 19. Demon Sanctuary 00:56 20. The Way I Feel [Cover of John Patton] 10:37 (John Patton) [The Way I Feel, 1964] ================================================================================================================ John Zorn – Alto Sax Bill Frisell – Guitar Fred Frith – Bass Joey Baron – Drums Wayne Horvitz – Keyboards Recorded live at the Knitting Factory in 1989 Scott Hull - Mastering John Zorn – Producer ================================================================================================================ Naked City Live is the only live album released by Naked City. All of these songs, with the exception of "Erotico", "The Way I Feel" and "Skate Key", were later recorded in the studio for the band's debut album. ================================================================================================================ Convoluted, tortuous, bizarre and demanding, Naked City's music feels like a rollercoaster-ride in an amusement park for perverse minds that are fed-up with Disney, spoon-fed revisions of the same old and other prefab excursions in predictability. It was not only an outlet for Zorn's outrage and frustration - he's of- ten said that the in-your-face-brutality of the band was a way of dealing with certain personal matters and venting anger - but also the postmodern ethic of genre-bending and cut 'n' paste tactics taken to an extreme. It all wouldn't have been half as interesting if the band hadn't been such a gathering of jazz monsters. With all the attention that's been paid to Zorn as a composer/innovator/style rapist, his enormous versatil- ity as a sax player sometimes gets lost, and the band he surrounded himself with was equally impressive, ra- nging from Frisell's awesome electric menagerie, avant-veteran Frith (an inspired guitar player as well) and NYC knuckleheads Horvitz and Baron. Like Naked City, the album, this live registration is fairly accessible, certainly when compared to later releases such as Grand Guignol or the humour-less assault of the Painkiller releases. The sound is rather clean and slick and because Frisell's guitar tone is more often a smooth delay -blanket than a weapon to smack you on the head with, the album is quite digestible to today's standards. Of course, the main reason for this is the absence of one man freak show Yamatsuka Eye, the man of a thousand spine-tingling screams, shrieks, roars and hisses. While the music already the potential to offend, Eye was the one who took Zorn's vision to a full closure. In the liner notes (skimpy, skimpy, skimpy), there's no reason given for his absence, it doesn't mention whether the live show was recorded before the studio album either, so maybe Eye wasn't part of the band yet. However, the set list basically follows the studio album rather faithfully: out of these 20 songs, 17 are also on Naked City and they're even grouped similarly, with an alternation of straightforward and jazzrock-oriented material in the beginning and a focus on the hardco- re stuff on towards the end. There's no "The Sicilian Clan," but instead you get a magnificent interpretati- on of Morricone's "Erotico," which Zorn already dissected to fantastic results on The Big Gundown with the help of Shelley Hirsch and her sensual moans. Other than that, there are still several songs that never cea- se to crack me up, like the encyclopaedic thrash of "Snagglepuss," the country-hardcore of "New York Flattop Box" and an understated, whisper-like version of "Chinatown" that's followed by the band's thrash jazz dese- rtstorm: 8 songs in five minutes. Squeals, precision bombings, sonic shrapnels, howls and buzzes, stop and start dynamics, drill sergeant mercilessness, grotesque caricatures. Funny and occasionally jaw-dropping, even though Eye's persona would've taken these to an even more insane level. His absence makes Live, Vol. 1 more accessible and perhaps the ideal introduction to Naked City, but it still feels there's something miss- ing during the songs that demand his insanity (but perhaps he'll be featured on a future Vol. 2?). It's also a bit of a pity there's no talk between the songs (except after "Demon Sanctuary," when Zorn 'introduces' the band), no interaction with the public or explanation about the why and how of the band and the music, but I guess it all speaks for itself. A nice bonus comes in the way of the final track, Big John Patton's "The Way I Feel," a fine straightforward jazz performance and an ideal showcase for Horvitz and - especially - Frisell, who wraps up the show with a heart-stopping performance. Swell! ================================================================================================================ After over ten years, Tzadik is finally releasing an exciting series of live recordings by one of the most unique and infamous bands ever: Naked City. Featuring Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Wayne Horvitz and Joey Baron this was a true downtown supergroup brought together to realize John Zorn’s twisted compositional vision com- bining jazz, movie soundtracks, rock, rhythm and blues, hardcore punk, cartoon music, country and western and just about everything imaginable—often all in the same piece! This first volume is a beautifully recorded do- cument of the band early on, performing live at the club that served as home base from their very first conc- ert series in 1988 to their very last in 1993. Captured here performing the repertory of their legendary first recording many months before they entered the studio, this is Naked City at its gritty/fast changing best. New solos, wilder improvisations and some original compositions and covers that never appeared on disc make this an absolute must for all the Naked City fans around the world.