Jag kommer ihåg när liveplattor var någonting speciellt och någonting som man såg fram emot när man hade hört att det skulle släppas. Känslan när man för första gången hörde ”Decade of aggression” med Slayer eller ”Live after death” med Iron Maiden är oförglömlig. Men jag får känslan av att liveplattan idag inte är en lika stor grej. Gissningsvis så beror det på att band turnerar mer idag och vi musikälskare är lite mer bortskämda med att få uppleva våra favoritband live. Plus att idag så finns det ju ett outtömligt utbud av livevideor på youtube som man kan ta del av.
Lyckligtvis så finns det ju människor därute som liksom jag gillar det här med liveplattor och som dessutom har den goda smaken att förse världen med limiterade sådana på vinyl också. Det franska skivbolaget Kick Rock har en serie med liveplattor och har hittills gett ut sex utgåvor i den serien. Det som jag tycker är kul är såklart att alla detta skivor är med punkband. Men inte bara det. Det är både hårdare band såsom Destruct, Nightfeeder och Bombardement till lite lugnare mörk postpunk från Bleakness och de rockiga oldschool punkarna i Syndrome 81. Det finns nåt för de flesta punkälskare här kort sagt. Jag drog iväg ett mail till Befa som driver Kick Rock och frågade om han ville svara på några frågor om Live-series vilket han hade vänligheten att göra.
Hi Befa, please introduce yourself and the Kick Rock Label?
Hej hej! I am Befa, 45 years old, I live in the lovely city of Saint Etienne in France. I played in a few bands in the past, the one I am active now, playing guitar, in DELETÄR. Kick Rock is the label I run on my own, so I do what I want, and that's the best thing about punk rock labels !!
How come a live series?
Well, during Covid, I was really missing gigs (like all of us right ?) and I was trying to listen to live recordings of bands I like. I figured out that they weren't many bands that I really liked, in the hardcore punk genre, that released live records. So I decided to start the live series like that. The common point of the releases is the silkscreened sleeve, that looks good and since I wanted to do 200 copies only, I had to find an "alternative" to printing regular sleeves.
How do you choose the releases for the live series?
The first one is a DESTRUCT live LP. It came out earlier on tape, and that wasn't a big effort to offer them to release it. What was really cool about this one, is that I already loved DESTRUCT since they started, and it gave me a reason to get to know them, same with Usman from Raleigh, NC would did the artwork, and in the end we got to tour the USA and play with these guys. Punk is beautiful for that. The CRUDE live... well, I always loved this band, and they had an absolute golden period from 1998 to 2002, when they started to tour outside Japan. Funny story, I drove 1000 km to see the show the day after the live LP was recorded. This is the only raw sounding record from the series, but tracking a nice recording from that period wasn't easy. I found the tape when staying at the drummer's house, after he had our band play with them in their city, woke up in the morning and browsed his tape collection and found this. Then we had a nice breakfast talk about releasing that on vinyl. SYNDROME 81, well, just like the others, I loved the band from the start, and they had a nice video released online with a great sound quality. The three later records from the series are much better quality, multitracks recordings that were mixed and mastered for the purpose of this live series. BLEAKNESS played in Georgia (former Soviet Union, not Atlanta) and they had a great recording of that, I thought that would be cool to document the experiment of playing in such a place. The other 2 are BOMBARDEMENT and NIGHTFEEDER, they played together in my city with my band at a gig that I organized... I recorded the bands myself, multitracks, they got mixed and mastered in different places... but they both sound amazing !! ///sorry if it's too long, but each project is different in fact !!//
What makes a good live album in your opinion?
Ah. Good question. To have a good live record, you need a good band, then a good set of them, and good recording conditions. But yeah... mostly a good band helps a lot !!
Name your three favorite live albums ever? Besides the ones on Kick Rock of course…
1 - THIN LIZZY - live and dangerous
2 - BLACK SABBATH - live at last
3 - JUDAS PRIEST - Unleashed in the east - Live in Japan
What's next in the live-series?
Well... it's not that I don't want to tell you, but it's that I don't know yet, haha !! With the experience of recording the gigs myself and releasing them on vinyl, I think it makes much more sense to do that. And quality control-wise, it's perfect. So I might record some bands that are playing my city... when something excited comes up ! Follow Kick Rock for more news. Thanks for the questions mate !
/Anders Bergström
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