Sonic Youth/Spiritualized collaboration

[The Sprawl]

Does anyone remember an improvised collaboration between Sonic Youth and Spiritualized from Meltdown(I think) about five or six years ago? It was instrumental, if I remember correctly, and was reminiscent of the jangly guitar intro to Teenage Riot on Daydream Nation or something from Yo La Tengo's Danelectro EP, only slower.

I heard it on John Peel's show at the time and, despite the old git's typically disparaging comments, I thought it was rather lovely. I think Peelie even ran a competition on his show, with a recording of the collaboration as a prize. I seem to remember him finding the idea of anyone even entering the competition very dubious.

Does anyone know if there are any recordings of the performance and, if there are, where I could find them?

Frankly, it'd be quite comforting just to know it wasn't all a figment of my imagination.

[Starfish]

Well, they did collaborate on stage and there is a recording of it somewhere.
I downloaded it from one of the other Spiritualized sites last year, but I've just had a quick search around the various sites and can't find it anywhere.

Maybe it was a figment of my imagination as well...

[SpaceLine]

from the meltdown festival gig, july 1 1998 I believe. It's often tacked onto the end of the meltdown recording, which i think is from a radio broadcast. not sure if the song has a name, i've only seen it listed as "instrumental jam"

Meltdown Festival, Royal Albert Hall, London
July 1, 1998
FM Broadcast

01. Electric Mainline
02. Electricity
03. Home Of The Brave>The Individual
04. Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
05. Lord, Can You Hear Me?
06. Come Together
07. I Think I'm In Love
08. Cop Shoot Cop...
09. Oh Happy Day
10. Instrumental jam with Sonic Youth

[veiko]

10. Instrumental jam with Sonic Youth

but how long it is???

i have about 10-11 minutes of it.
is that the full jam??
wasn't like a half an hour or so.

that jam is the best thing on that show, the rest is kind of weak, kindly concert without a purpouse. but the jam.... THE.

[SpaceLine]

My version is 12:01 in length. Starts at the beginning, and it sounds like it ends with some audience clapping. Then DJ pops in and starts yapping. Suppose someone who was there would know best but I'd guess 12:01 is all there is to it.

[lazer_guided]

My version of said gig has this setlist:

01. Oh Happy Day
02. Shine A Light
03. Electric Mainline
04. Electricity
05. Home Of The Brave>The Individual
06. Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
07. Lord, Can You Hear Me?
08. Come Together
09. I Think I'm In Love
10. Cop Shoot Cop...
11. Oh Happy Day


I think it's the same gig??

[The Sprawl]

Would you guys say it's worth tracking down? I remember thinking it was gorgeous when I heard it, but I only heard it once...

John Peel didn't like it, but as far as I can tell, he's always been a bit snooty about Jason and his various bands. Wasn't there some friendly jibes about the length of Spacemen's Rollercoaster? Think he, rather than play it all the way through, only played snippets of it or something.

[BzaInSpace]

Yeah, all respect to Lord Peel but back in 1995 he'd rather play a tune by the shit hot likes of Elastica - or any other 'shambling indie pish'.

Spaceline is correct, the full length gig starts with 'Oh happy day' as opposed to straight into 'Electric mainline'.

Various bootlegs abound allegedly, I made my own version using masters from Radio 1 & 5.

Sonic Youth jam, 12.01 is the full length version....just as well really as one of the guitars is horrendously out of tune (could be J but it's probably 'The Youth')...as though theres a tune there anyway.

The version of 'Rocket USA' from around the same time is much better IMO...even with Vega's "FFFFUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKK"

[The Kwisatz Haderach]

Does anyone have a recording of this?

[BzaInSpace]

Yep.

[MODLAB]

Thank you!


B,

M

[The Kwisatz Haderach]

Awesome result

[redcloud]

I was at this gig. Scottish band, The Delgados also played. So, what you are hearing at the end of the gig is actually members of Sonic Youth, Spiritualized and The Delgados.

Great show, although the RFH is a weird place to see a rock gig. Every time people stood up or moved into the aisle for space or to dance (yes, there was dancing during "I Think I'm In Love") the old age pensioners who work as ushers came down and told us rock and roll young'ins off with a harsh ruler slap to the wrist.

[mojo filters]

Every time people stood up or moved into the aisle for space or to dance {snip} the old age pensioners who work as ushers came down and told us rock and roll young'ins off with a harsh ruler slap to the wrist.

We got the same thing in the Sage Hall 1, when Belle & Sebastian (with the London Contemporary Orchestra) played an all-seated gig a couple of years ago.

Stuart Murdoch also commented afterwards that while he loved the venue, he really disliked having to play to a fully seated crowd (and he'd noticed the staff making people dancing return to their seats). He described how he felt being on stage in that scenario as like a "performing monkey"!

Thankfully it didn't seem to affect the quality of the performance, and unusually I don't think he even forgot any words

[The Dr]

i never got daydream nation. goo is great but i thought i'd like daydream more but, hmm it never clicked for me

[BzaInSpace]

Playing back the original MP3 file last night, after revisiting the decade old thread (kudos Kirtswach), I was struck by how the whole left channel was so much louder in volume than the right.

The track I posted has has been equalised with software I had no access to back then - IMO it makes all the difference!

I also had to chuckle at the brutal dismissal of "indie bands" by my younger self...

[angelsighs]

this RFH show is one of my favourite Spiritualized bootlegs of them all. it's a bit annoying that half the set is mastered slightly differently (presumably a different radio broadcast) but overall I think it sounds pretty amazing.
I even quite like the Spz/SY jam. it's certainly an interesting curio in the catalogue. can anybody who was there remember which Spz members took part?