The Stranglers - Live (X Cert)
Original Release Date
1979
Release Information
UK LP 1979 (United Artists - UAG 24079)
UK CD 2001 (EMI - 7243 5 34687 2 9)
UK CD 2018 (Parlophone - 0190295892500)
1 (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) 4:08
2 Dagenham Dave 3:30
3 Burning Up Time 3:27
4 Dead Ringer 3:04
5 Hanging Around 4:42
6 I Feel Like A Wog 3:31
7 Straighten Out 2:52
8 Curfew 3:48
9 Do You Wanna? Death And Night And Blood (Yukio) 5:39
10 5 Minutes 4:33
11 Go Buddy Go 5:41
2001 CD Bonus Tracks
12 Peasant In The Big Shitty 3:38
13 In The Shadows 4:26
14 Sometimes 4:46
15 Mean To Me 2:20
16 London Lady 2:19
17 Goodbye Toulouse 3:09
18 Hanging Around (Different Version) 4:02
2018 CD Bonus Tracks:
Associated Recordings
12 Down In The Sewer
13 Something Better Change
14 Bring On The Nubiles
15 Bitching
16 Peaches
17 Nice 'N' Sleazy
18 Ugly
19 London Lady
Chart Placings
UK Chart Hit: 7, 10 wksCredits
'Grip'. 'Dagenham Dave', 'Burning Up Time'. 'I Feel Like A Wog', 'Straighten Out'. '5 Minutes': Roundhouse 5th November 1977
'Dead Ringer': Roundhouse 6th November 1977
'Hanging Around': Roundhouse June 1977
'Curfew', 'Do You Wanna? Death And Night And Blood (Yukio)', 'Go Buddy Go': Battersea Park, September 1978
Remixed and produced by - Martin Rushent
Engineers - Alan Winstanley, Doug Bennet, Mick McKenna, Laurence Diana
Outer sleeve art direction & design – John Pasche
Model Making - Terry Kemble
Photography - Phil Jude
Inner sleeve design - (Assisted Images)
Photography: Hiro Ohno and Trevor Rogers
Logo: Kevin Sparrow
___________________________________________________
Additional CD Credits:
Liner notes: Alan Parker (The Gimmick) From The Mother Ship, June 2001
Idea and Concept: Alan Parker
Re-issue Art Design: Nick Reynolds & Rob Green & The Red Room
Our Man @ E.M.I.: Steve Woof
Additional Credits
2001 CD Bonus Tracks:
12: Originally given away as a free single with first 10,000 copies of Rattus Norvegicus, released May 1977
13: From the Don't Bring Harry 7", released November 1979
14-18: Previously unreleased
Hugh Cornwell - guitars, lead vocals on chorus of 'Curfew', lead vocals on all songs except where stated below
Jean Jacques Burnel - bass, lead vocals on 'Dagenham Dave', 'Burning Up Time', 'Curfew', 'Death And Night And Blood (Yukio)', '5 Minutes', 'Go Buddy Go', 'London Lady'
Dave Greenfield - keyboards, lead vocals on 'Dead Ringer', 'Do You Wanna?', 'Peasant In The Big Shitty'
Jet Black - drums and percussion
Reviews & Opinions
RED STARR, SMASH HITS, MARCH-APRIL, 1979: I know we toads are supposed to like slugs but this is too much. The Stranglers are four unpleasant overgrown bullies who think that acting nasty constitutes a threat to society. The only threat this boring, samey live album poses is to your pocket. It's not even their best songs, and there's nothing here that's not done better on their original albums. Forget it. Best tunes: 'Grip', 'Hanging Around'. (4 out of 10)
NICK KENT, FEBRUARY 1979: 'X-Cert' has been released with their [the band's] blessing, it lives, it breathes, it demands a reaction. Therein lies the rub, because it is a thoroughly wretched revord, sloppy and samey, totally without merit.
BARRY GUSHELL (name changed for reasons of personal safety), SOUNDS, 1979: Let's face it, the Stranglers as philosophers come across on a level slightly below Stan Ogden. As musicians they were the bridge between punk rock and the HM crew, detested by punks and crritics alike. So we turn to the album, and if I didn't have any Stranglers' albums - which I haven't - this'd be the one I'd buy 'cos it strings together some of their finest moments. And it's an honest live album in so far as there's been no attempt to dress it up with studio overdubs. It sounds like it's wafting up from the sewers below and as such it's the definitive Stranglers albumm capuring them in all their dirty, doomsy anti-glory.
RONNIE GURR, MELODY MAKER, 1979: As a document of the end of part one, 'Live (X cert)' is an awesome success. Live albums, bar the true classics, are usually haphazard heaps of tired ru-runs. This works sums up the best, arguably, of the first three albums. [This] leaves 'Rattus Norvegicus', 'No More Heroes' and 'Black And White' as mere cut-outs in the deletion bin of life.
PUNK GIBBON: Plugging a gap that didn't need to be filled, this is a composite of four separate gigs, dating back to 1977. Not all that brilliantly recorded, it shows the band in fine, furious fettle and features some amusing inter-song scuffles between Cornwell and the audience: "It's good to know you've all been reading your News Of The World and spitting just like punks are supposed to do, that's really good...". "Did someone say "wanker"? Come on then, isn't he gonna own up?". The sound is okay (certainly better than yer average bootleg) and it's a nice record anyway, from the choice of songs (not just the hits) to the excellent packaging and the spirited performances.
KEVIN MAIDMENT, PUNK 77: ...a frank, ragged and savage account of the Stranglers' stage menace and arch musicality. Truthfully, only the accelerated stomp through the classic 'Hanging Around' and the bruising vigilantism of 'Five Minutes' get close to the studio versions. Even so, Live X Cert is worth hearing for the sneery condescension of singer Hugh Cornwell, who shrugs-off audience flak and stage-bound phlegm with the mastery of a heckle-proof alternative comedian.
Additional Notes
All song lengths from the CD.
Images
UK LP 1979 (United Artists - UAG 24079). Click here for more
UK CD 2001 (EMI - 7243 5 34687 2 9). Click here for more
UK CD 2018 (Parlophone - 0190295892500)
