AntiCurrent Archive Vol 9: Hunter S Thompson- Lecture at Boulder University, 1977

This is the ninth edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Archives", a collection of rare albums I'm releasing through this blog.  Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

WTBR One Sheet

Hunter S Thompson man, that crazy creature of a beautiful human being was in my opinion, the last great literary hero that this country has seen. Last week I was watching the bastardization "Where The Buffalo Roam" in which Bill Murray does his best to save a horribly scripted HST film. During it, my friend walked in and asked me "Why did people care about Hunter S Thompson?"

Well, I was so dumbstruck by the question (and quite possibly drunk) that my answer came out in short, disconnected doses. Afterall, the meat of this man's career took place over several decades in which he managed to cover everything from riding with the Hell's Angel's to traveling as press in the '72 election. He blew apart the up-its-ass notion of Timothy Leary's teachings of ingesting drugs and siting on a Persian rug by vividly describing the reality that some really horrible shit occasionally happens on drugs. But the man wasn't just some drug addled guru-product belonging to the 60's/70's, this was a man who was an instrumental part in getting Jimmy Carter elected President. Even at the end of his career he managed to write a piece that absolutely nailed the 9-11 situation in regards to what had, and what was going to happen... as the information was unfolding no less.

The Good Dr.

But I suppose what I admire most about the man is that he helped reinvent the written news format by being one of the originators of the "New Journalism" movement. "New Journalism" is where you actually write about your active part in the story. He wrote the trilogy of classics "Hells Angels", "Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas", and Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail" NOT about the subjects solely themselves, but about his interaction with them. Covering a subject with the notion of so-called "Objective Journalism" is an impossible task to attempt as the author will always put their bias all over the wording and portrayal of the information. Thompson knew this and made it a point to never attempt to sway his readers with such an archaic, bullshit delivery system. When you read his words, you knew that you were getting his direct interpretation of the facts as he saw them, making him more honest and real than any of his peers.

Speaking on stage

Regardless, you are not here to be lectured on the merits of Hunter S Thompson. Or perhaps you don't know much about the man other than he was legendarily wild and occasionally bordering on insane. If that is the case, go watch Alex Gibney's "Gonzo", Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter Pt.1 & 2" and even Tom Thurman's "Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride". Those will do a much better job describing who he was and what his accomplishments were.

Front Cover

For much of his career, Thompson would tour around college campuses during his freetime to give "lectures" to schools. Now, those that know will tell you he was quick to accept their invitation and money, but horrible for showing up on time. This got worse in his later years as it got progressively harder for him to travel on plane with the drugs that were so necessary for his day to day functionality (or lack thereof). This was occasionally remedied by the borrowing of his friends private planes, but if you were at one of these shows, you were among he few graced with luck and timing . During these "lectures" Thompson would show up and field questions ranging from the brilliant to the insane. The genius of these discussions is that whether it was an on topic question about politics or some lunatic talking about alien-abduction, you were liable to get a similarly hilarious and genius answer.

There are not many recordings of these shows, but this bootleg, if not the best known example, is at
minimum the best sounding example known to exist. After years of hunting, I came across a lossless capture of the reel to reel tape from the soundboard that had been ripped to FLAC (See more about the audio codec in my other blog here) and I in turn compressed it down into the highest quality MP3 for ease of download. If anyone would like the original FLAC files, be sure to hit me up via my website.

Back Cover

The year was 1977 and Colorado University booked Hunter to come and give a lecture. He of course, showed up late, but that did little more than stir the crowd into a frenzy. Thankfully, some amazing human had the forethought to not only document the night from the soundboard, but to put it out into circulation for the rest of us. The night was a spectrum of everything from hot-button political conversation, to comparing the disco movement to venereal disease. Anything and everything was game.

This bootleg is a great insight into the public persona of one of the greatest modern writers of our time. If you enjoy this, I encourage you as always to not stop here. Go buy his books, go watch the movies, and go see the documentaries about him. Hell, if you can't get enough of the good Dr's vocalizations, there was an amazing 4CD boxset released a few years ago titled "The Gonzo Tapes". In it you can actually listen to his recorded notes that he used to tape for his later research when writing.

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
MP3 Zip Archive

The Tracklist:
01 Intro, American Dream, Tex Coalson 06:56
02 Nixon and Football, Vietnam Books 04:33
03 Tom Wolfe 03:19
04 Trudeau, Running For Office 05:48
05 Rockefeller, Tri-Lateral Commission 05:58
06 Rush, Eldridge Cleever 04:21
07 VD, Disco & Rolling Stone 05:50
08 World Series, MK - Ultra 03:57
09 Kesey, Canada 04:10
10 Evil As Nixon?, Uganda, Degeneracy 05:32
11 Steadman, Gonzo 04:20
12 More Kesey, Avoiding Jail 02:36
13 Silver Platter, The Slide 03:55
14 Carter Argument 02:34
15 Drug Question, Drunk And Loud 04:42
16 Three Wishes, Fascist 05:21
17 Grateful Dead 00:42

AntiCurrent Archive Vol 8: William Elliott Whitmore- The Death Valley Sessions

For the eighth edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Archives", a collection of rare albums I'm releasing through this blog, I'm releasing the third of three collections of demos for one of my FAVORITE artists of all time.  Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

Whitmore Live in Australia

This is my third blog dedicated to the raw material of William Elliott Whitmore, and believe it or not, the well is still aplenty to draw from. The last time I saw WEW was in Sydney Australia at the Annondale Hotel. Now, for those of you who don't know, EVERYTHING is WAY more expensive in Australia. A bottle of whiskey at the store will run you around $80, and a 6-pack can run you into almost $20. No, this did not stop me from buying shots of Jameson at the bar before and during the gig, but it did definitely slow me down to the point of it being the most sober I have ever seen WEW.

Whitmore is famous for drinking with the audience at his gigs, this usually results in his taking multiple shots handed to him from the crowd. Unfortunately, either the crowd didn't know this or the cost of $15 a shot was too steep for them to care because he sat there basically sober the entire time. Whitmore sober is a fantastic player, but give him just a little booze and a little more of the Tom Waitsian emotion pours from his soul. As such, I passed him a few shots of Jameson from the crowd and he called me crazy for spending that much money on him and told me to wait around after the show and he'd buy me a few back. An incredibly sweet offer that I unfortunately didn't have time to take him up on.

If you recall my last blog on the subject of Whitmore, my good friend cried upon witnessing the depth and emotion of his performance, well this night was no different. During the time I my fiance was stranded out in Australia and the only way I could visit her until her K1 Fiance Visa went through was to come and visit, which I did several four times last year (our ordeal is detailed here). As I was set to leave for the States the next day, combined with his lyrics of love and lost, Liv began uncontrollably sobbing. That's how powerful this lone guy on a stage's presence is, he literally has the power to make people sob at his performances.

Front Cover

As to The Death Valley Sessions, once again, almost no information is available about the demo session past the point that he sold homemade copies of it on his 2002-2003 tour. There are a few websites reporting that he recorded this shortly after graduation High School while having a brief period living in San Francisco, but I have seen no real documentation as to this. Regardless, I believe it was indeed recorded in Death Valley. The album is far and away the best quality collection of demos that have leaked thus far from Whitmore, but I have been searching for a real copy of it for years so that I can make a high quality FLAC encode, and not listen to the low quality 128Kbps version that I am unfortunately supplying here.

On top of amazing early versions of what has become staples of his setlist, this album also features the swirling sounds of the desert itself. I highly doubt that such high quality versions of these songs were recorded outdoors, so more than likely someone recorded the exterior ambient sounds of the desert and laid them overtop of the recorded tracks, but I suppose anything is possible. The stand-out songs on this demo to me are the Old Lady Duet's Pt. 1 & 2. I left these titled as such due to my belief that this is how they were labeled on the original CD. Track one is a heartfelt, very melon-collie take on "My Old Kentucky Home" where the slight cracking in the old woman's vocals is as endearing as it is sad. The second is a take on "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" which is again as heartwarming as it is sad.

Back Cover

Once again, this demo album is yet another intimate look at the raw genius that is William Eliott Whitmore. Do yourself a favor and relisten to his song "Lift My Jug (Song for Hub Cale)" off of this demo, then off of the "Jarrett Mitchell Demos" (which I previously published here), and finally to the final version of the song on his studio album "Ashes to Dust". Doing this is an excellent way to watch WEW craft this song from a well written diamond in the rough, into an amazing, absolutely astounding song that is still manages to be rough around the edges in the best of ways.

As always, go and purchase his actual music, see him on tour, and meet the man himself. These releases are not meant to be the only material you take from the artists, but are intended to give you a deeper understanding and appreciation of some of the best talent that has ever been seen musically on this planet.

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
ZIP Archive

The tracklist is:
1:  Introduction
2:  Instrumental
3:  Does Me No Good
4:  Pine Box
5:  Lord Only Knows
6:  Old Lady Duet
7:  From the Cell Door to the Gallows
8:  Diggin' My Grave
9:  Lift My Jug
10: Old Lady Duet 2
11: Our Paths Will Cross Again
12: Instrumental 2

EDIT (8/18/14):
I was contacted by a nice lady named Bailey who shed some light on the sessions and where they're from. MANY THANKS!!!!

"I thought I would tell ya a little about the  WEW recording you posted on your blog. You can purchase that album. It is apart of a book called after the gold rush by Jeremy Deller. The woman you hear on a few of the tracks is Jennie Olson. You can also purchase the 9 picture disc album for 500€"-Bailey Fryschnormeier

EDIT (5/28/15):
I really dig how much love there is for Whitmore out there. I was recently contacted by a very nice man from London named Martin who further shined information on this session and provided a hand written letter from WEW:

Hand written letter & tracklist

"...I do have something concrete to add to the proceedings with regards to "The Death Valley Sessions", anticurrent vol 8.  As your other poster reported, the album is part of an art project put together by Jeremy Deller, check it out HERE.

Before i managed to source a copy of the book with CD I actually asked William if he could let me have a copy.  Generous as always he sent me a CDR with hand drawn artwork and a note giving track listing and explanation of the project's background.  I've scanned the relevant documents and attached them to this e-mail and I hope you find it of interest." -Martin Nisbet 

AntiCurrent Archive Vol 7: William Elliott Whitmore- The Jarett Mitchell Demos

For the seventh edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Archives", a collection of rare albums I'm releasing through this blog, I'm releasing the second of three collections of demos for one of my FAVORITE artists of all time.  Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

AS I said in my previous edition of AntiCurrent.com archives, I discovered William Elliott Whitmore organically by watching him open for The Pogues. Wishing to introduce more of people to him, on May 2nd 2009 I had a close-knit group of my nearest and dearest attend his show with me at The Knitting Factory (RIP) in Hollywood California without having yet exposed them to his music. The opening band, which we also discovered and quickly came to love was Los Duggans, a punk/metal/bluegrass hybrid band with an amazing standup washtub bass player.

By the time came for Whitmore to come on, we were all drunk. My friends were largely in the back at the bar and I was coming and going from the front row of people and them, presumably annoying everyone in between. 3 songs in I went to the back to refresh my drink and I found my best friend at the bar crying. Now, being a punk-rocker himself I assumed the worst. Someone had died, his girlfriend left him, his sister was in a car-crash, something. No. This badass of a dude was SO moved by the performance he was watching by an artist that he had never heard or heard of that he was literally shedding a tear due to William Elliott Whitmore's incredible performance. This is the time of sorrow, joy, happiness, and triumph that the dude can bring just by performing a few of his songs. I never have, and will likely never again see a performer who can illicit such an emotional reaction just by doing his job. It is truly incredible.

About 3/4 of the way through the performance, someone bought WEW an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. He grabbed it from an audience member, and being the eternal badass that he is, took a few swigs and said "share and share alike my friends" and passed it out into the audience for all of us to drink. I of course had a swig, but so did my friend at the time. She had never before, nor never again drank whiskey, but the emotional weight of the gesture caused her to drink it without thinking twice.

Fast forward to the end of the show and Whitmore has just went off stage. Like, he walked off stage into the audience and proceeded to shake every hand and meet every person that wished to do so. My drunken friend then decided that she desperately wanted to meet him so we approached. Although she was annihilated, and I was no shade of sober, he was incredibly gracious at our sloppy praise. We took a picture and she immediately went ill. He asked if she was ok just as she turned and vomited in the trashcan next to him. He laughed and said "Shit, we've all been there before." and shook my hand and left for the bar. We carried her to the car, got in and all recounted our miscellaneous stories about what an amazing dude this was.

Now, from my pieced together history of what William Elliott Whitmore's catalog was before he released his first real album "Hymns For The Hopeless" I believe that "The Jarrett Mitchell Demos" otherwise known as "Born in the USA" and also "Calendar Club of Danger and Fun" was the first of his self-released collections. This is debatable based on what I have read. HERE it states that this album is known as "CCoD&F", however on Wikipedia it states that these two albums are entirely separate. IF I am not mistaken, this first self-release was later followed up by "Legalize Freedom" (Which I previously released), and finally "The Death Valley Sessions" which was demo only available on his 2002-2003 tour. "The Death Valley Sessions" is the next of the AntiCurrent.com Archives that I will make available.

The personal highlight of this album for me is "Gravel Road". Now there are three available versions of this song, but this is the first and by far, most raw. Something about the lack of quality of recording and just a barely in-tune guitar and his growly amazing voice speaks to the very depths of my soul. Live this song is amazing as before he regales you with it, he will tell you the story of packing black-powder under a bowling ball and launching it like a cannon hundreds of feet into the air, only to find it on his property years later.

Somehow WEW turns a sub-par recording, one guitar, and his voice into what is one of the best demo collections of any artist of all time. As always, go and purchase his actual music, see him on tour, and meet the man himself. These releases are not meant to be the only material you take from the artists, but are intended to give you a deeper understanding and appreciation of some of the best talent that has ever been seen musically on this planet.

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
MP3 Zip Archive

The tracklist is:
1: Grey Skies
2: Marrow
3: Livin' Like A King
4: South Lee County Brew
5: Gravel Road
6: On The Chin
7: The Prairie Yields
8: Diggin' My Grave
9: Going To The Moments
10: Black Iowa Dirt
11: Lift My Jug
12: Let's Call It A Night
13: Have Mercy
14: Red Buds
15: Shotgun
16: Never Forget

AntiCurrent Archive Vol 5: Rancid- Life Won't Wait Demos

For the fifth edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Archives", a collection of rare albums I'm releasing through this blog, I'm releasing the demos for my FAVORITE album of all time.  Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

This is an exciting post for me as Rancid is one of my all time favorite bands and LWW is hands down my favorite album of all time. In 1997, I was 13 years old and living in my hometown of Middletown, Ohio where there was fuck all going on. I was still figuring out exactly who I was as a person and looking for some kind of direction to take my life. It was that January that the movie "Beavis and Butt-Head: Do America" was released, and forever altered the course of my life. In it was a sequence where they used the song "I Wanna Riot" by Rancid W/The Stubborn All-Stars and I was immediately breath-taken. "What the fuck is this music" I wondered. It was loud, angry, talked about rioting.... but it was fast paced and had horns.... it was like nothing I'd ever heard and it was just what a pissed-off little 13 year old me needed.

This being the days before the internet, I immediately went out to CD Connection at the mall and guilt-tripped my father (with what a shit parent he was) into buying it for me. The soundtrack was mostly amazing, but I really just kept "I Wanna Riot" on a constant loop. It wasn't long before I went off in search of more material by this band, Rancid.... Unfortunately, living in a one horse town didn't lend to there being any sort of diverse taste available at your local store and I couldn't get my hands on ANY of their material without special ordering it for a 15% up charge on the product, and being 13, I had zero money.

I kept on a steady diet of readily available music at the time, got huge into Nirvana, huge into the Seattle scene, but was always alluded by the inability to track down any Californian based punk rock... at least that was until Rancid dropped a little album titled "Life Won't Wait" in 1998. I walked by the FYE in our mall and spotted the LWW album, not only in stock, but on the "listening machine" where you could demo the album. I was broke, but I stood in front of the machine for a solid hour and a half listening to every track of this genius piece of music. I returned a few days later with money I had either begged for or stole, purchased the album, declared my self a punk-rocker, and have yet to look back.

Fast forward to years later, I started to get heavily into the bootleg scene. Not bootlegged, readily available albums, that is just fucked up, but I became a huge collector of B-Sides, rarities, and demos. I read on some forum that a guy who's username I will not publish had not only the demos for the album that got me into punkrock, but also an exclusive acoustic show by Rancid that I was able to lie my ass off and attend. At this time, the Life Won't Wait Demos were not readily available and only 3 people claimed to have access to them. Of those 3, two were full of shit. I got the rip of this from the man who himself got it directly from Matt Freeman via a cassette tape in the early 2000's. For this, I traded him 2 bootleg Rancid vinyls, and an original pressing of their debut album.

The demos have since leaked much more aggressively and aren't quite as hard to get ahold of anymore (I may have purposefully played a role in this as I think that everyone should have access to them, not just a select few). This demo was originally accompanied with an additional 6 tracks by the band The Silencers which was Rancid with Vic and Dave from The Slackers. I decided against publishing them with these as I believe the two are best listened to independently of one another.

These demos are great quality and are sure to be enjoyed by any fan of the album. As with any demo, this is a much more stripped down very raw version of these songs. In particular, the song "Brad Logan" that ended up on the South Park soundtrack I feel is a much stronger version of the song, and actually contains female backing vocals (of whom I am only assuming to be by Brody at the time).

If you enjoy LWW as much as I do, I suggest you check out the newly remastered 45 set that just came out. The records were completely remastered to utilize the 45 sound, and although I wouldn't say they sound superior to the original record by any means, I would say that it is an entirely new experience with an all time classic punkrock album. As a side note, i own every incarnation of this album from the CD I had Lars sign in 2002, to the vinyl, to the picture vinyl (which isn't suggested for anymore other than wall-artwork, which mine is, and is signed by the entire band). See folks, I don't just put out free bootlegs in place of buying their music, get out there and support your favorite independent musicians goddammit.

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
MP3 Zip Archive

The tracklist is:
1: Who Would've Thought
2: The Wolf
3: Backslide
4: Cash, Culture & Violence
5: Things To Come
6: Brad Logan
7: Hoover Street