DISC ONE:

1. Sweet Little Lisa

2. So It Goes

3. I Knew The Bride

4. Switchboard Susan

5. Crawling From The Wreckage

6. Deborah

7. Trouble Boys

8. Cracking Up

9. Born Fighter

10. Promised Land

11. I Hear You Knocking

12. Queen Of Hearts

13. Here Comes The Weekend

14. So Fine

15. They Called It Rock

16. Ju Ju Man

17. Let It Rock/Bye Bye Johnny

18. Let’s Talk About Us

(tracks 1-18 Rockpile; FM broadcast, WBCN-Boston, from Paradise Club, Boston MA 7/6/1979)

19. Endless Grey Ribbon (from UK version of 1979 LP Labour Of Lust)

20. Shake And Pop (from UK version of 1978 LP Jesus Of Cool, aka Pure Pop For Now People)

 21. Younger Girl (Kippington Lodge; BBC broadcast)

22. It’s Just My Way Of Saying Thank You

23. I’m Ahead If I Can Quit When I’m Behind

(tracks 22-23 Brinsley Schwarz; from Live At The Greasy Trucker’s Ball 1972 LP)

DISC TWO:

1. Cruel To Be Kind

2. Raging Eyes

(tracks 1-2 from David Letterman Show 1983, TV broadcast)

3. Wish You Were Here (Noise To Go on “Rock & Roll All Night”, TV broadcast)

4. What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding

5. Wanna Build A Jumbo Arc

(tracks 4-5 from VH1 New Visions with Nile Rogers, TV broadcast)

6. So It Goes

7. All Man Are Liars

8. Refrigerator White

9. Heart

(tracks 6-9 from unknown record store appearance promoting release of 1990 album Party Of One, audience recording)

10. Blue Moon Of Kentucky

11. The Race Is On

(tracks 10-11 Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds acoustic live on BBC circa 1979, FM broadcast)

12. Rocket Ride (bonus track from UK version of Party Of One 1990 album)

13. How Do You Talk To An Angel/Born Fighter (Lowe/Edmunds BBC demo circa 1979)

14. When I Write The Book

15. From Now On

16. Cruel To Be Kind

(tracks 14-16 live at C.W. 1991, audience recording)

17. Is It You

18. Maureen

19. Raging Eyes

20. Half A Boy, Half A Man

(tracks 17-20 Nick Lowe & His Cowboy Outfit live Paris Theatre, London BBC broadcast 1984)

 21. If The Shoe Fits (Carleen Carter B-side w/Lowe)

22. Let’s Eat (from Stiffs Live Stiffs 1978 LP)

23. Shy Boy

24. Younger Girl

(tracks 23-24 by Kippington Lodge; BBC broadcast)

25. ??? (unknown fragment)

Not to sound unnecessarily unprofessional, but – whew, what a chore to transcribe all the above tracklisting info. Particularly since some info supplied on the Livewire sleeve was incorrect; I’ll spare you the details other than to say that the Kippington Lodge material on Disc 2 wasn’t even listed, while the tracks “The Beast In Me” and “Teacher, Teacher” which ARE listed for Disc 2 don’t appear. (Accuracy does seem to take a back seat in the bootlegging world sometimes.) But hey, at Hot Wacks we CARE about you, gentle readers, so we go the extra mile when we can.

That off my chest, if you’re a Nick Lowe fan this collection, while certainly not complete as a rarities collection, is pretty indispensable. The bulk of Disc 1 is given over to an ace FM broadcast (long a favored item among tape traders) of Lowe with his Rockpile cronies in top-notch form, doing Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Rockpile proper material. Timely enough, given the recent remastered/expanded Sony Legacy release of the lone Rockpile album, 1980’s Seconds Of Pleasure.

The remainder of Disc 1 and all of Disc 2 is an odds ‘n’ sods selection of varying interest. You can consult the tracklistings above for the source details; I’ve tried to include as much info as I could come up but a lot of the actual dates are still missing, and in some instances all I could include was what is listed on the CD sleeve. It probably would have been of more benefit to fans and collectors if the material had been arranged chronologically; Disc 2 jumps around from a terrific ’83 Letterman appearance to a 1990 record store appearance to an ’84 BBC broadcast and so on. The Kippington Lodge tracks are from an undated BBC broadcast but most likely were done in late 1968 or 1969; KL was the band that Lowe joined in ’68, it subsequently mutating into pub rock heroes Brinsley Schwarz. A bit more detail on that material would have been helpful. And why not include the Stiffs Live Stiffs  version of “I Knew The Bride” since the song “Let’s Eat,” also from that album, was tapped for this release?

Overall, though, I can provisionally recommend this release, mainly for the live Rockpile material but also for the general rarity of most of the Lowe solo stuff.  -- OSWALD