Cactus World News is an Irish rock band that put out three albums between 1986 and 1989, and they have a sound similar to that OTHER big Irish rock band of the 1980s (and no, it's not the Waterboys). That comparison does them a bit of disservice, as that OTHER band became so big that most of us tend to discount them these days. Cactus World News wrote in a similar anthemic arena rock style and do a pretty good job of it. I'm not familiar with their albums, but I like this live show. Of note, they cover Simon & Garfunkel's "America". This is a syndicated live show that I've just digitized from the original LP, I've gone through it several times to clean up the clicks 'n pops in Audacity, and I hope it is to your liking.
It's hard to keep track of everything the various Authors have posted here over the years, but I think this is a "debut" for Voodoo Wagon. I've also included a bit in the text file about the other shows in this series...while the custom cover says "SPIN Concert Series," this was actually a "Special Forces Concert" as SPIN had severed their relationship with Entertainment Radio, Inc. at the time.
Did any of you buy SPIN back in the day? I did.
Cactus World News
Special Forces Concert NC-014
Live At The Whisky A Go-Go, Los Angeles. Recorded August 20, 1986
01. Special Forces Concert Intro - Bob Young
02. Church Of The Cold
03. Special Forces Concert Break
04. Years Later
05. Tables Overturn
06. Frank Kearns Interview - Special Forces Break - Eoin McEvoy Interview
07. The Bridge
08. Frank Kearns Interview
09. Hurry Back
10. Special Forces Concert Break
11. The Other Extreme
12. Frank Kearns Interview
13. Maybe This Time
14. Special Forces Break - Eoin McEvoy Interview
15. America (with interview segment with Frank Kearns & Eoin McEvoy)
16. Jigsaw Street
17. Special Forces Concert Outro - Bob Young
Flac files of wavs. I've included a 300 dpi scan of the front and back covers,
along with the cue sheet and the disc label.
This is epic!! Thank you!!!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Jeff, and I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the show. I was unfamiliar with their music when I started work on cleaning this up. Do you have any recommendations on their albums? Did you ever see them play live? I see they have a recent album out (2015). Have you heard it?
ReplyDeleteI never saw them play live. They put out two albums, "Urban Beaches" (1986) and "No Shelter" (1989). While Urban Beaches was a hit on college radio, the record company refused to release the follow-up (the band self-released it a few years ago). Urban Beaches is a "desert island" disc for me. You can find the video for Years Later on Youtube. My brother was a college d.j. back in the mid 80s and introduced me to CWN. He had this vinyl, so, I'm going to give a copy of this to him. Again, great post and thank you!
ReplyDeleteBtw, the guitarist Frank Kearns put out an album this year with Steve Kilbey from The Church...Speed of the Stars. ..highly recommended!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, Jeff! I'm familiar with Kilbey (and the Church...). There are a lot of great bands that only got one LP out back in the '80s. I hope your brother likes it, too...I took a look around the Internet and couldn't find any other live shows our there for Cactus World News, so this may be the only show out there. Does anyone else have other live shows by this band?
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome share. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteGreat band. I saw them twice supporting The Cult in 1985 on the Cult's Love tour. There were quite a few of us went out and bought everything we could get our hands on by them afterwards. Sadly those purchases are long gone but the first album was amazing and had so much energy. I've heard the second album and there was just something missing but that's just my view.
ReplyDelete