Like a double-negative Eat The Document, Live 1977-1978 is a staggering audio verite report of a year in the life of the early Suicide, 12 tumultuous months that saw them bottled off-stage with The Clash, inciting riots in Europe, hanging out with various scene creeps, punks and, uh, Elvis Costello, regularly gigging at CBGBs and laying down the blueprint for much of the two-chord electro punk threat that has happened since. Compiled from recordings made mostly by Bronze A&R man Howard Thompson as a kind of personal note-taking, the sets were captured with a then-cutting edge home cassette recorder/Dictaphone that he carried everywhere and as a result it feels more like an extended time capsule than a archival run of concert releases, with Thompson standing in the middle of the crowd, picking up conversations, snippets of the mysterious "Shouting Man" who seemed to be at virtually ever Suicide show back then, after-gig dressing room de-briefings with Rev, Vega, then Red Star press officer (ex-Cramps/Zantees now Norton/Kicks honcho) Miriam Linna, Marty Thau and others, brief soundchecks etc as well as the complete gigs. Despite the warnings on the box that the sonics are not for the fainthearted or the casual fan, there are no fidelity issues that are likely to trouble the average VT hound. The gigs run from a bunch of CBGBs shows across 77/78, Max's Kansas City 78, The Palladium 78, Brussels/Paris/Berlin/Hamburg 78, a jaw-dropping radio ad for Our Price records advertising the Suicide and Real Kids LPs for 3.40 (those were the fucking days) and UK Clash tour shows from London and Liverpool. Heard in this context, live in front of a bunch of punks, the music sounds insane, brutal, stripped down to its most primal phonetics, with Rev’s monomaniacal keyboard and drum machine extended at points to long single pulse solos while Vega's vocal gets all the way out, crooning like a sci-fi Elvis one minute, convulsing in pure meat joy the next. There's a remarkable degree of freedom and improvised flash too, with the songs morphing from night to night, now extended, now sucker punch tight. The London show is a real high-wire walk and highlights just how dumb the average Clash fan was - and continues to be - with chants of Clash Clash Clash between tracks, their version of punk strictly rock/roll specific, while Vega's on-stage persona differs from night to night, here conciliatory and engaging, there violent, confrontational, looking to kick things off. But the fact that this still sounds like music from another age - past or future - is testament to just how singular their was vision was and is. I can't imagine a more gripping, dramatic and historically potent archival release this year and the whole deal is sealed with an excellent booklet with pics, old Red Star press kits and memorabilia, extensive liners by Thompson and more. Been looking forward to this release for so long, I'm about ready to retire for a whole weekend with nothing but this on the phones and copies of Black To Comm, From The Velvets To The Voidoids and Please Kill Me on my lap. You might wanna do the same. Very highly recommended.