True Believers
Club Lingerie
Los Angeles, CA
July 2, 1986
RG First First Generation Cassette via JEMS
New Wave LA Series Vol. 45

Recording equipment: unknown stereo microphone and unknown cassette deck

JEMS 2021 Transfer: RG First Generation Cassette > Nakamichi RX-505 (azimuth adjustment) > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 capture > iZotope RX6 > iZotope Ozone 6 > CD Wave > ffmpeg > FLAC

01 Rebel Kind
02 Hard Road
03 Who Calls My Name
04 The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over
05 Lucky Moon
06 Ring the Bell
07 Train Round the Bend
08 Marianne
09 Wild Eyed and Wound Up
10 Alone in a Crowd
11 We're Wrong
12 All The Places That I Long to Go? (cuts out)
13 (cuts in) I Get Excited
14 Foggy Notion
15 Ramblin' Rose
16 Walking With a Mountain

JEMS is pleased to extend a range of historic recordings made by our longtime friend and diehard music collector RG. He was on the scene in LA as a teenager, began recording shows in 1977 and continued on well into the 2000s. Our series will focus on tapes he made between 1977 and 1987.

What sort of music was he into? Well, one simple way to put it is KROQ music, meaning the bands that LA's "world famous" new wave radio station was playing were the bands he saw and recorded. First wave if you will, with forays into indie and punk(ish) artists. The early years are dominated by UK artists breaking in the US. Over time his work expands to US bands in the second wave. Some of the artists RG taped include:

Siouxsie & the Banshees (Vol. 4)
Madness (Vol. 8)
The Specials (Vol. 6)
OMD (Vol. 10)
The Damned (Vol. 25)
The Stranglers (Vol. 1)
Public Image Limited (Vol. 3)
John Cale (Vol. 9, Vol. 30, Vol. 44)
Magazine (Vol. 21)
The Buzzcocks (Vol. 7)
Orange Juice (Vol. 13)
U2 (Vol. 28)
Wreckless Eric (Vol. 27)
The Cramps (Vol. 22)
Johnny Thunders (Vol. 18)
Talking Heads (Vol. 24)
Iggy Pop
XTC (Vol. 2)
The Jam (Vol. 31 and Vol. 40)
The Only Ones (Vol. 19)
The Undertones (Vol. 17)
Boomtown Rats (Vol. 5)
The Birthday Party (Vol. 15)
Penetration (Vol. 26)
The Bluebells (Vol. 12)
The Plimsouls (Vol. 11)
Athletico Spizz '80 (Vol. 29)
Killing Joke (Vol. 14)
Jonathan Richman (Vol. 16)
The Records (Vol. 20)
Robert Fripp (Vol. 23)
Bram Tchaikovsky (Vol. 32)
Peter Gabriel (Vol. 33)
R.E.M. (Vol. 34 and Vol. 42)
Elvis Costello (Vol. 35)
HÃ¼sker DÃ¼ (Vol. 36 and Vol. 39)
Alex Chilton (Vol. 37)
Style Council (Vol. 38)
The Replacements (Vol. 41)
The Smiths (Vol. 43)
True Believers (Vol. 45)

RG used good, not Millard-level recording gear, which means his tapes are mostly solid and listenable, with the occasional very good one and also sorta crappy one. What makes his tapes compelling is that RG was recording in a particularly vital window of time. In many instances these were the first or second times these acts played Los Angeles. Some never did proper US tours, only playing select dates in key markets like LA or NYC. Also, for many of these gigs, RG was the only taper. He grabbed a few local radio broadcasts along the way, too.

Because these shows were almost exclusively at clubs like The Whisky and The Roxy, the sets are generally short, 45 to 60 minutes because that's what you did at The Whisky. On occasion, RG would copy his own masters to save tape and we have done our best to distinguish what's a true master and what's a first generation copy. If there's a doubt, we will note it. Regardless, the series will offer the lowest generation copies available of his recordings, digitized directly for the first time from RG's tapes which had been stored in boxes for the last 15+ years.

After a week off to catch our breath, New Wave LA returns with what for me is a special treat, a soundboard recording of Alejandro and Javier Escovedo's True Believers. The Austin band might best be described as a kind of roots-rock Replacements, with more focus and less drunken antics. They were the next big thing out of Austin, seemingly poised for alternative success in the same lane as Lone Justice, but the Believers got caught up in politics and executive changeover at their label. After a sparkling debut album, they never completed a second record and broke up, though there have been occasional reunions.

In July 1986, following the release of their self-titled debut, they were still very much a buzz band and this date was their first in the LA market.

Some 28 years later, Alejandro Escovedo recalled the shows in a 2014 interview with the Austin Chronicle: "The True Believers played a sold-out show at Club Lingerie in Los Angeles. Our record had just come out and we were on top of the world. We were playing â€œI Wanna Be Your Dogâ€ and Iggy Pop was dancing with his shirt off in the audience. When we got into a limo for the airport and a double-decker plane to go on our first tour, our single came on the radio. That was so amazing. All of our dreams had come true."

RG was on the scene, and he was friendly with the sound man at Club Lingerie, who let him plug into the soundboard after recording first two songs of the show from the audience. RG's resulting tape is not complete (sadly it doesn't contain that cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog"), but what he does get is a lively and excellent representation of the True Believers in their prime. Those of you familiar with Alejandro from his solo career will recognize some of this material which remained in his sets for years. Samples provided.
 
We're grateful to RG for letting JEMS dig through his tape boxes and pull out the assets for this series. He witnessed amazing LA music history. Tip of the hat as well to cpscps who volunteered to handle post-production on our series which is a huge help to us and makes it possible to get more music in your hands. Stay tuned for more New Wave in LA.

BK for JEMS
