Published on May 25, 1998
Good Lord, has it
really been over 16 months since we featured Live on “The
Daily Vault”? I saw that information on the spreadsheet, and
immediately headed into the Pierce Archives (“bring a bucket and a
mop”) and grabbed their 1994 release
Throwing Copper, the album that turned Ed Kowalczyk and crew
into rock stars.
Had this Pennsylvania quartet stopped after their previous album
Mental Jewelry, they would have been remembered as a quirky
pop band with elements of funk thrown in. However, thanks to
singles like “Selling The Drama,” Live became the next great hope
for the field of alternative music. A killer set at Woodstock ’94
sealed the deal, and Live was now the next big thing.
Follow up singles such as “I Alone,” “All Over You” and
“Lightning Crashes” all further Live’s case; indeed the whole first
side of
Throwing Copper is always a pleasure to listen to, even
though some of these songs have been overplayed like many of their
brethren. Of these seven songs, “Top” is possibly the closet
classic that didn’t get the attention it deserved, fusing the sound
of
Mental Jewelry with the energy of Live at that time. This
was a truly remarkable song.
If the first side of
Throwing Copper is the revelation for alternative music,
then side two is the humongous dose of reality, featuring three
songs that couldn’t be played on the radio for fear of violating
the infamous “7 Words” rule that George Carlin made famous. “Shit
Towne” is an interesting way to open up the second half of the
album, losing none of the power that the first portion displayed
while adding a slightly harder edge to the lyrics. “Stage” and
“Waitress” do the same thing.
“Wite, Discussion,” a song which got some minor airplay in this
area, seems to be a fitting way to close the album, a song that
merges the funkiness that Live had shown in their past with the
harder edge of the lyrics, a song meant to be a slap in the face
against political correctness. However, just when you’re about to
turn the tape player off, here comes a hidden track! (Thankfully,
Live chose to start the song immediately after “White, Discussion”
faded out – none of this ten minutes of silence bullshit.) This
tune has a country sound to it, and admittedly isn’t as strong as a
lot of the material on
Throwing Copper. It is interesting to note that the song did
offer a peek at a bit of the sound that was to come on the
followup,
Secret Samadhi.
Throwing Copper quite possibly was one of the best releases
of 1994, and it did make alternative radio fun to listen to again.
It also spawned a whole slew of bands that tried to follow in the
vein of Live without directly copying their sound; the results were
pretty predictable. But in Live’s short career,
Throwing Copper strikes gold.