Rolling Your Third Eye
Thoughts on live albums, acknowledgement of our latest live release, and a wicked bonus track
Our latest release, a live record called Rolling Your Third Eye, is almost 3 weeks old. Every tune is from our April run in 2025 except for House Parties which is from our Ryman show in 2021.
I really love live albums. As I’m looking at our catalogue on DSPs I’m realizing we don’t have enough of them out there. I always find them to be such stronger indicators for who and what a band is over just the studio records. At least within the musical universe we come from. Before you disagree completely, I implore you to give some of these a listen and see if you don’t find yourself with a little more understanding of all these artists mentioned…
Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out - The Rolling Stones
At Fillmore East - The Allman Brothers Band (duuuuhhhhh)
Shadows and Light - Joni Mitchell
The Rolling Thunder Revue - Bob Dylan
Without a Net - Grateful Dead
Dire Straits - Live 1978 - 1992 (the first two “discs” of this collection used to be a live record called “Alchemy” except they’ve added a few more tracks from that concert. Alchemy is a sacred text for me. Can’t recommend highly enough)
Zappa in New York (be careful with this one. It’s pretty intense and at times even offensive. It’s also incredible.)
Wilco - Kicking Television, Live in Chicago
Warren Zevon - Learning To Flinch (his 12 string is pretty piercing, but hearing the songs in this basic form makes it worth it)
Bonnie Prince Billy - Summer in the Southeast (I don’t know where you can stream this one, but I sure learned a lot from it back in the CD days)
Live Rust - Neil Young (there are seemingly thousands of live Neil records at this point, and I’d wager that they’re all great but here is a good place to start if this is your maiden voyage into his live world)
Disc 3 of the Armed Forces Super Deluxe - Elvis Costello (their entire set from Pinkpop 1979)
Live at Hammersmith Odeon, London ‘75 - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
So there’s your starter kit, if you feel so inclined…
There are several reasons why I believe a live record can deepen the relationship between artist and listener…
For one - song selection. The collection typically spans their entire catalogue up to the point of the live release; not necessarily their biggest songs, but the ones they feel most represent who they are and/or what their live show is all about in their current moment. What songs from the early records are still regulars in the sets? Which songs from the recent releases feel like new mainstays? How does all the material (spanning decades in some cases) interact with itself? I find it endlessly fascinating and feel like deciding what songs end up on the live album is a big contributing factor to the statement the artist is making.
Secondly - How the live versions of their songs are reimagined/rearranged/embellished upon. I believe songs are living and breathing entities that change their meaning and change their attitude as time goes on, sometimes even from night to night. What started out as a burner might find a new life as a ballad, and vice versa. I love hearing how new interpretations of songs can totally reshape my relationship to them. For some examples of what I’m talking about go look at Atlantic City from Bruce’s Live From New York or A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall from The Rolling Thunder Revue. They’re almost brand new songs, at least how they hit emotionally from what we’re used to in their recorded versions. I know some people just want to hear what they’re already familiar with, and I do too sometimes, but with all due respect to folks clinging to that outlook, I feel like a live show can be something so much richer. These versions can add dimension, inspire new emotional responses, keep us guessing, all by the artist simply staying engaged with the material enough to make sure it continues to suit them, wherever they are at in their creative life.
A different kind of example of the reimagining that I’m talking about is Once Upon a Time in the West by Dire Straits from that collection I mentioned above. The studio version is 5 and a half minutes. This particular live one is almost 13. And the band doesn’t merely jam (although I’m not opposed to that at all), but rather through composes all sorts of new melodies and sections. It makes you feel like Mark Knopfler decided he wasn’t done writing it, even well after releasing it into the world. It makes the song feel 10x more formidable and powerful than it already did. But not in a way that makes you wish the studio version was just as elaborate. It just highlights what kind of opportunities the concert experience affords; how certain moments aren’t possible in any other context.
Lastly, how loose or tight an artist/band is. Some groups don’t mind showing how scrappy they truly are (I’m thinking of Neil, Pearl Jam, Grateful Dead etc). And some bands bring onboard enough exceptional members and/or play along to tracks and/or rehearse enough to where everything sounds perfect. Wherever an artist lands on this spectrum I think is indicative of some kind of tacitly held philosophy. When the Grateful Dead (*in a Substack post about live releases, you had to know we’d end up here for a minute*) release anything and everything, including some pretty hairy nights, I think concluding that that means they’re “bad” isn’t really getting to the bottom of what’s really going on. I personally think that it means that they want to be as vulnerable and intimate with their audience as they possibly can be. Every band sucks sometimes when they go deep enough into that kind of exploratory mode - the Dead were just comfortable enough with themselves to pull back the curtain and share that experience with anyone willing to listen. I’m not saying that I therefore think everyone should like their music. I just think it’s worth acknowledging the deeper dimensions of what they were getting up to. And this is not to say that I believe every artist should take a page out of their book. Far from it. I’m exceedingly grateful (no pun intended) that Joni or Dire Straits or Peter Gabriel or Paul Simon or any other number of artists curate a much more refined live product. It’s not a better or worse thing. It’s just another layer of how a live presentation has deep implications on how artists sees themselves - on a scale much broader than on an album. At least that’s how I am feeling about it at the moment.
For all the paid subscribers I included a nine minute version of From A Window Seat that we almost included on Rolling Your Third Eye. A bonus track, if you will. Took it off last minute for pacing’s sake and the fact that we got a good Window Seat on Were All Gonna Live back in 2017. This one burns though. Hope you all enjoy. And talk back soon!
P.S. - don’t forget - anyone who subscribes (or reups) for a whole year is gonna get our deluxe 10 year anniversary vinyl of All Your Favorite Bands which includes 4 previously unreleased tracks. 😚
