TVD's Daily Wax | The Plimsouls Debate

I'd like to postulate that there are some bands who should never enter a studio and simply play live - forever. Like, just never record. Producers most often simply don't know how to harness the energy and power of a killer live act. The results are too clean, glossy, and well, commercial. Case in point (no pun) are The Plimsouls -- a band I first heard live for the most part via a cassette of the LP right up there. "One Night In America" is a much better example of how the band really sounded, with swagger to its rhythms, grit in the vocals, and spectacularly honed and inventive vocals from Peter Case, who also gets some good duel guitar action with Eddie Munoz on every track. Not only doesn't the band sound slick, like their one Geffen album does, it sounds dangerous, in the best rock 'n' roll tradition.

So, today, a little TVD experiment: The Plimsouls live from 1981 at The Whiskey A Go Go -vs- The Plimsouls' 1983 Geffen release "Everywhere at Once" produced by Jeff Eyrich -- who for today's purposes I'll dub "The Cleaner." (I guess my leanings are uh, rather apparent...)

From 1983's "Everywhere at Once":
The Plimsouls - A Million Miles Away (Mp3)
The Plimsouls - I'll Get Lucky (Mp3)
The Plimsouls - Inch By Inch (Mp3)
The Plimsouls - Shaky City (Mp3)

Live at the Whiskey, 1981:
The Plimsouls - A Million Miles Away (Live) (Mp3)
The Plimsouls - I'll Get Lucky (Live) (Mp3)
The Plimsouls - Inch By Inch (Live) (Mp3)
The Plimsouls - Shaky City (Live) (Mp3)