Live at the Black Cat Lounge

Soulhat (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 8, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Dualtone Music Group
• ASIN: B002U6CJRE
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,194 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Find The Time

2. Old Man Ken

3. Preacher Man

4. Neighbor

5. Revenge of the Electric Man

6. Barely

7. Garbage Man

8. Better

9. Captain Funk

10. Mailbox

11. Love Me Now

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Friendly and energetic 1991 live set from Austin favorites, December 11, 2009

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Live at the Black Cat Lounge (Audio CD)

In this live album's liner notes, Rob Patterson remarks that a locale - a scene, or in this case a club - can have a large impact on the music created within it. The Black Cat Lounge, a "ramshackle, no frills dive music bar" that lived on Austin's famed Sixth Street, made its impact both in a lack of pretension and in the owner's demand that artists fill an entire evening, often up to four hours, with music. The result, as heard in these 1991 live tracks, is a friendly and open vibe to the songs, sets and performances. It's not languor, but comfort and confidence. Artists didn't rush on, play a concise forty-five minutes and rush off. They edged into their songs with instrumental introductions that set a lyric's mood, and they made room for vocal and musical jams that gave dancers time to spin around the floor.

Fans of Soulhat will particularly relish hearing these early live performances, recorded only a year into the band's history, a year during which they'd been gigging regularly at the Black Cat. Their mix of rock, blues, country, funk, soul and jazz was well formed by this point, and with hours of time to fill, they allowed themselves to "get lost in the music," stretching a few of these songs past the seven- and eight-minute marks. But with an intimate club audience that needed to be entertained (as opposed to an arena audience that could feel more abstract from the stage), the jams never lose their way; you can hear the musicians conversing with their instruments, but they keep touch with the audience. The close-in dynamic of a club makes these live tracks a good listen at home.

Eleven of these recordings were previously issued on a limited-edition cassette, but it quickly became hard to find. Recorded on a two-track and mixed to what sounds like mono, the sound is crisp and balances the band and their enthusiastic audience. The group proves itself comfortable with country- and funk-inflected rock, funk- and jazz-inflected soul, folk-inflected pop, and more. That's a lot of inflection, which may have been the root of the group's inability to sustain a presence on radio or the charts (their biggest single, "Bonecrusher," peaked at #25). With the Black Cat having burned down in 2002, these live tracks now stand as a striking artifact of the club's atmosphere and its impact on the artists who played and developed there. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

5.0 out of 5 stars FINALLY!!!, March 3, 2010

By 

Lucas Horton (dallas, tx) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Live At The Black Cat Lounge (MP3 Download)

I got to Austin in 1995, right around the demise of Soulhat and I was heartbroken when I got there to find out my new favorite band was breaking up. I had seen them in high school twice and they were AWESOME. These guys deserved so much more than opening for Blues Traveler or whatever the pinnacle of their careers was back then. It's just sad that a band as good as this couldn't make it in the arena of commercialized garbage-pop that made money back then as well as now.

I have been looking for this album ever since and could never find it. When I saw the news I about fell out of my chair!! If you live in Dallas, they are playing at the Granada after the ST. Patty's day parade for $5...I cant wait!!

5.0 out of 5 stars Soulhat, February 1, 2010

By 

Duane Buss "Dewy" (Highland, New York United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Live at the Black Cat Lounge (Audio CD)

Great as always, hope their not done yet!!

I have them all, love the lot!!