RICH BITCH
I have already discussed Metallic K.O., a 1976 release on the French label Skydog Records that was taken from live performances by the Stooges at Michigan Palace in Detroit on October 6, 1973 and February 9, 1974. Allmusic gives the album a 5-star rating, with Dave Thompson’s review of the double-CD reissue Metallic 2xK.O. stating: “Metallic K.O. means the world – to anyone and everyone who ever sat down and unsuspectingly dropped needle onto wax and then reeled back in horror; this ain’t rock & roll, it’s a snuff movie. And the fact that it all sounds so tame these days just shows how much it’s become a part of the language. . . . [T]hrough lurching takes of ‘Open up and Bleed’, ‘Heavy Liquid’, and the ever-inspiring ‘I Got S--t’ (all of which are new to the package), past the familiar dissolution of ‘Head on the Curb’, ‘Rich Bitch’, and ‘Cock in My Pocket’, and into the nightmare closure, this remains rock & roll so far out on the edge that you get dizzy just listening to it. And, by the time the last glass explodes at the end of the world’s greatest ‘Louie, Louie’, you’ll be ready to take on anything.”
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The next three songs on Open Up and Bleed! – “Rich Bitch”, “Wet My Bed” and “I Got Nothing” – were recorded at the Latin Casino in Baltimore in November 1973. “Heavy Liquid” / “New Orleans” is another live performance that was made at the Whisky a-Go-Go in Los Angeles in September 1973.
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Double Danger includes two other full-length concert tapes by the Stooges. Disc One is the November 1973 performance at the Latin Casino in Baltimore; three of the songs from Open Up and Bleed! – “Rich Bitch”, “Wet My Bed” and “I Got Nothing” (and in the same order) – are taken from this concert. The liner notes call this “perhaps the best Stooges live show captured on tape so far”.
Disc Two is a concert on New Years Eve 1973 at the Academy of Music in New York City. Also on the bill that night, according to the liner notes, are “KISS (supposedly their first gig), Teenage Lust, and Blue Öyster Cult.” While the concert was professionally recorded by Columbia Records, this tape was made by someone in the audience, though the liner notes say: “Although in the world of Stooges live tapes, this is certainly among the best.” The concert is notable for including several comparatively rare post-Raw Power songs – “Rich Bitch”, “Wet My Bed”, “I Got Nothing”, and “Cock in My Pocket”. It should be noted that all of the songs on Disc Two of Double Danger also appear on Disc One.
(December 2017)
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Items: Rich Bitch
