Customer Reviews

Live at Max's Kansas City 79

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Heartbreakers just might have been the best band in the world in the late 1970's. Unfortunately, they were shunned by record companies and were never widely known. Today, they are almost forgotten. You can hear them here at their best, in front of a delirious home-town Max's Kansas City crowd. Scorching Johnny Thunders-Walter Lure guitar duels are punctuated with hilarious lewd banter. This CD release includes tracks with Jerry Nolan and a truly heartbreaking version of So Alone. Absolutely essential for the Johnny Thunders enthusiast, and a warning for the uninitiated: The Heartbreakers might change your world.

All the songs on here rock and the on-stage banter is really funny and amusing. If you love rock and roll then this album is a must have. It captures the Heartbreakers at their sloppy greatest. I'll never know why they never got the attention they so deserved.

This in my opinion is the best live album of Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers. Wild and intense, in the same time vulnerable and melodious, really far out. It also doesn't disturb that much, when the beginning of a song doesn't work out and they need a second start. My favorite songs are „Chinese Rocks", „Get Off Of The Phone", „One Track Mind", „Can't Keep My Eyes On You" and „I Wanna Be Loved".

This is a must own album. Johnny and Walter again show how powerful and simple rock-n-roll should be. Great audience participation also. Like V.U. "1969 Live" you will never tire of this collection.

I have over 50 Johnny Thunders CD's. Most of them are either technically or musically (frequently both) crappy. This is one of the 5 or so real treats among them.

Johnny and Walter Lure (the safety net) drag their Heartbreakers through a set of punk classics in a dynamic and energetic set. The same cannot be said of many other Thunders releases.

This along with So Alone, L.A.M.F. and possibly Que sera, sera make up the real gems in JT's catalogue. Pick this up now if you haven't already!

There are several Johnny Thunders live albums out there. This is one he made with Walter Lure under the rubric "Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers."

Johnny was a brilliant performer, even though he was pretty erratic. (And so was/is Walter Lure.) The sound is pretty good on this disc (originally recorded at Max's in NY City, not longer after he and Walter Lure lost the Heartbreakers' record deal), the low points aren't as low as usual, and the high points aren't as high. Jerry Nolan is missing from this particular edition of the band, but Billy Rath is present. The later recordings from the 1980s are generally more interesting (albeit much less professional than this effort.)

One good thing about this live set is that he isn't constantly stopping the show to tell the soundman to turn the ****ing PA up. (Why was Johnny always hassling the soundmen? I wonder if he was suffering from hearing loss? It's possible...) Another good thing is that most of his best tunes are present.

You can't put your arms around a memory, it's true, but every once in a very long while I'll break out my original vinyl copy of this and remember a little about what the hell I was doing falling apart in New York rock clubs back then. Leather, alcohol and drugs, glam, rock and roll, a toilet seat you couldn't sit down on. Hair. Graffiti. Sex. What do you want. It was existence boiled down to some squalid basics. It's all here in a rambunctious Max's set. You had to be there, but this rocking set gets you halfway home whether you were or not. If Johnny asks you for a fiver, give it to him. You're lucky he's not passed out in the lobby.

This post-Heartbreakers release does have 3/4 of the classic line-up going for it, but in truth, it ain't the Heartbreakers we love, and the problem is the tempo of the songs.

Ty Styx fills in adequately enough for Jerry Nolan, but he doesn't have the chops to really get into the songs the way they should be played. So we've got almost proto-metal versions of 'L.A.M.F.' which also get a bit muddled in the mix.

That being said, it's still a great performance, and more worthwhile than subsequent Johnny Thunders' live albums, even though they have their moments as well.

For a better example of how the Heartbreakers could tear down the roof, pick up 'DTK live at the Speakeasy' instead. Just over half an hour, and greasy as hell--it hits like a terrorist action and is over before you can possibly be sick of it.

it will only take one listen to this album and you'll be hooked.it was really too bad more people didn't realize this band back in their day.buy it for your collection you wont be disapointed.

My favorite of the early NYC punk bands. The most organic, the most grooving. Johnny Thunders is testament to the fact that you don't have to be a genius or even a swell guy to produce fantastic rock music. This, LAMF Revisted, and So Alone are all necessary purchases. This band's continued semi-obscurity has always puzzled and depressed me.