Slicker Than A Weasel

[jacknifejohnny]

What are people’s thoughts on this album ? Imo it’s the best live album I’ve heard from our man’s solo career

[Marcelocooper]

I like this show very much. May not be the best for me, but certainly on top 10. I don’t understand why it is so hard to find complete set, Lace and Whiskey is so good live, but most albuns from that night keep it out

[Si]

I don’t understand why it is so hard to find complete set

Because it's a bootleg from a radio broadcast and the complete set was never aired. There WAS more then one broadcast and I think slightly different song lists were played at different broadcasts but a few songs have never been aired at all (ie Sick Things, King Of The Silver Screen and the "adverts"). Whether these tracks still even exist I have no idea.

AFAIK The most complete version you can get includes:

1 Under My Wheels
2 Billion Dollar Babies
3 I'm Eighteen
4 Is It My Body
5 Devil's Food
6 The Black Widow
7 You and Me
8 Only Women Bleed
9 Unfinished Sweet
10 Escape
11 I Love The Dead
12 Go To Hell
13 Wish You Were Here
14 I Never Cry
15 It's Hot Tonight
16 Lace & Whiskey
17 School's Out

[jacknifejohnny]

Are “Back On Blacks” all bootlegs ? On the inside slip cover they are listing the “Live In Montreux”

[Si]

Are “Back On Blacks” all bootlegs ? On the inside slip cover they are listing the “Live In Montreux”

I believe if they are re-releases of officially released material (like Montreaux) they are generally legally licenced and so could be considered official.

Radio shows like the Toronto 69 (freak out), LA 1975, Saginaw 78 (weasel) have never been officially released and are generally bootlegs - despite being available for sale on Amazon etc.

Of course that doesn't mean all re-issues are licenced/official, but that seems to be the general rule.

[cooperrocks]

I have often wondered what the various versions of the "Freak Out" album (which I have seen listed under various titles like Alice Cooper in Toronto, etc), how many copies through the years those albums have sold.

[jacknifejohnny]

Are “Back On Blacks” all bootlegs ? On the inside slip cover they are listing the “Live In Montreux”

I believe if they are re-releases of officially released material (like Montreaux) they are generally legally licenced and so could be considered official.

Radio shows like the Toronto 69 (freak out), LA 1975, Saginaw 78 (weasel) have never been officially released and are generally bootlegs - despite being available for sale on Amazon etc.

Of course that doesn't mean all re-issues are licenced/official, but that seems to be the general rule.

So “Slicker Than A Weazel” is a Black On Black issue…so should be considered official then ?

[jacknifejohnny]

BTW…the sound is superb

[Si]

Are “Back On Blacks” all bootlegs ? On the inside slip cover they are listing the “Live In Montreux”

I believe if they are re-releases of officially released material (like Montreaux) they are generally legally licenced and so could be considered official.

Radio shows like the Toronto 69 (freak out), LA 1975, Saginaw 78 (weasel) have never been officially released and are generally bootlegs - despite being available for sale on Amazon etc.

Of course that doesn't mean all re-issues are licenced/official, but that seems to be the general rule.

So “Slicker Than A Weazel” is a Black On Black issue…so should be considered official then ?

No... It's never been officially released to my knowledge... It's from a radio broadcast (King Biscuit Flower Hour) that has been bootlegged many times. It's unlikely they got permission to release it from Alice and co (they don't need it) and also unlikely anyone is getting paid royalties for it.

The Black on Black release of 'Live In Montreaux' *MAY* be legit - I thought it was - if they have licensed it from the relevant owners (Eagle Rock originally I think).

I must admit I thought that Back On Black DID legally licence everything they did. If they did Weasel then that throws a spanner in the works on that! But nowadays there is a scenario where something IS legally licenced but still unofficial (I call it a grey area), in that the company has paid to use the material legally, but Alice and co haven't given permission for it to be released. This happens when AC and co don't actually own the material and so legally don't need to be asked.

It can be a minefield nowadays working out what is an officially licenced/authorised release and what isn't at times. I'm just saying that as a general rule if it's from a radio show it isn't official, but if it's officially released material it likely IS official - but that is very much a general rule of thumb as obviously official albums have been pirated around the world for decades.

[Dannorama]

I guess I'm a bad fan. I had never heard of "Slicker..." until this thread. I checked it out on You Tube, and the performance is surprisingly good. The band members were unusual, so I had to look them up. Jefferson Kewley's guitar sounds remarkably good. I'd never heard of him until now. The things you learn here on Si's great website.

[revinkevin]

I actually saw the concert back in the day and you are correct, the band did seem unusual. Extremely talented group but it had the feel of a hired gun performance. Sort of a Ringo Star All Star band feel to it. The edge was missing. A mainstream event.

[jacknifejohnny]

I actually saw the concert back in the day and you are correct, the band did seem unusual. Extremely talented group but it had the feel of a hired gun performance. Sort of a Ringo Star All Star band feel to it. The edge was missing. A mainstream event.

Alice’s vocals sounded really good . Maybe Bernie Taupin got in the 2 Elton guys, as he was writing with him then too. I was actually blown away by how good all this sounded, especially after the dire L&W album

[Si]

Alice’s vocals sounded really good . Maybe Bernie Taupin got in the 2 Elton guys, as he was writing with him then too. I was actually blown away by how good all this sounded, especially after the dire L&W album

This 1978 tour was supposedly Alice's first sober tour. FTI seems to have been written early in the year, after his first visit to hospital, and he came out looking much better than only six months previously with the performances on this second leg of the &W tour markedly better than the previous year.

Unfortunately as can be seen on the Midnight Special performance after the tour (which ended in July) things had turned for the worse again, presumably the now publicly acknowledged cocaine habit coming through. The difference in Alice seen in photos between things like the Muppet show and Midnight Special is marked. While Alice's performances on the FTI tour were generally very good, his appearance had noticeably changed and he had lost a ton of weight. Amazing how short a time it took for the change to happen.

[jacknifejohnny]

A friend and I spoke to him outside Capital Radio in London after he done an interview with Nicky Horne promoting FTI…around Feb 79 , he looked ok, but had lost a little weight, but nothing like on that FTI tour .

[Toronto Bob]

I don’t understand why it is so hard to find complete set

Because it's a bootleg from a radio broadcast and the complete set was never aired. There WAS more then one broadcast and I think slightly different song lists were played at different broadcasts but a few songs have never been aired at all (ie Sick Things, King Of The Silver Screen and the "adverts"). Whether these tracks still even exist I have no idea.

AFAIK The most complete version you can get includes:

1 Under My Wheels
2 Billion Dollar Babies
3 I'm Eighteen
4 Is It My Body
5 Devil's Food
6 The Black Widow
7 You and Me
8 Only Women Bleed
9 Unfinished Sweet
10 Escape
11 I Love The Dead
12 Go To Hell
13 Wish You Were Here
14 I Never Cry
15 It's Hot Tonight
16 Lace & Whiskey
17 School's Out

Years back I put together the most complete version I could. IIRC the parts missing would be Sick Things, King of the Silver Screen and the pre-recorded TV Commercials. The inclusion of intro music to UMW and Lace & Whiskey were the parts that many versions of this show often leave out. For L&W, I had to use the version found on the vinyl boot "Babies in School", The sound quality for that track isn't quite as good as the rest of the recording but in all these years I never came across an upgrade. The running time of this version runs 60 minutes even. I torrented it at the time so it has seen circulation. I've never seen a more complete version but I haven't been on torrent sites for a few years now so I don't know what has been unearthed in the mean time.