Down To Kill: Complete Live At The Speakeasy
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
Down to Kill: Complete Live at the Speakeasy is the definitive edition of the live recordings captured at London's Speakeasy Club on March 15, 1977, when Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers — the band Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan had formed after departing the New York Dolls, rounded out by guitarist Walter Lure and bassist Billy Rath — played two short sets as a warm-up before entering the studio to record their landmark debut album L.A.M.F. The recordings were originally issued in 1982 by Jungle Records as D.T.K. — Live at the Speakeasy, a ten-track single-set release; in 2005 the tapes were remixed and five additional tracks were recovered from the original two-inch multitracks, allowing the complete picture of both sets to be presented for the first time — fifteen tracks in all, with significant overlap between the two sets, as the band performed much of the same setlist twice in the same evening. The CD edition was later reissued with a sixteen-page booklet featuring original liner notes by rock journalist Kris Needs and a lengthy interview with Walter Lure — the last surviving Heartbreaker — conducted by Thunders biographer Nina Antonia.
The setlist draws exclusively from the Heartbreakers' core catalog, cycling through "Chinese Rocks" (co-written with Dee Dee Ramone), "Born to Lose," "All By Myself," "Let Go," "Can't Keep My Eyes on You," "I Wanna Be Loved," "Get Off the Phone," "Going Steady," "I Love You," and "Do You Love Me" — virtually the entire future L.A.M.F. tracklist delivered in raw, pre-studio form. The album is as much a document of the band's chaotic stage persona as it is of their music: as Trouser Press noted, it presents "the darker side" of the Heartbreakers live experience, with Thunders and Lure trading insults at the London audience and each other in thick New York accents between songs, and occasional devolved lyric changes scattered throughout. As Midnight to Six put it, the record gives you "the full audio side of the Heartbreakers live experience — rock and roll chops that harken back to the '50s and '60s, cranked up with punk attitude and speed, in both its velocity and chemical-based definitions."
Down To Kill: Complete Live At The Speakeasy
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
Down to Kill: Complete Live at the Speakeasy is the definitive edition of the live recordings captured at London's Speakeasy Club on March 15, 1977, when Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers — the band Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan had formed after departing the New York Dolls, rounded out by guitarist Walter Lure and bassist Billy Rath — played two short sets as a warm-up before entering the studio to record their landmark debut album L.A.M.F. The recordings were originally issued in 1982 by Jungle Records as D.T.K. — Live at the Speakeasy, a ten-track single-set release; in 2005 the tapes were remixed and five additional tracks were recovered from the original two-inch multitracks, allowing the complete picture of both sets to be presented for the first time — fifteen tracks in all, with significant overlap between the two sets, as the band performed much of the same setlist twice in the same evening. The CD edition was later reissued with a sixteen-page booklet featuring original liner notes by rock journalist Kris Needs and a lengthy interview with Walter Lure — the last surviving Heartbreaker — conducted by Thunders biographer Nina Antonia.
The setlist draws exclusively from the Heartbreakers' core catalog, cycling through "Chinese Rocks" (co-written with Dee Dee Ramone), "Born to Lose," "All By Myself," "Let Go," "Can't Keep My Eyes on You," "I Wanna Be Loved," "Get Off the Phone," "Going Steady," "I Love You," and "Do You Love Me" — virtually the entire future L.A.M.F. tracklist delivered in raw, pre-studio form. The album is as much a document of the band's chaotic stage persona as it is of their music: as Trouser Press noted, it presents "the darker side" of the Heartbreakers live experience, with Thunders and Lure trading insults at the London audience and each other in thick New York accents between songs, and occasional devolved lyric changes scattered throughout. As Midnight to Six put it, the record gives you "the full audio side of the Heartbreakers live experience — rock and roll chops that harken back to the '50s and '60s, cranked up with punk attitude and speed, in both its velocity and chemical-based definitions."