January 20, 2007

Ted Leo: "The Sons Of Cain": First Live Performance

Photo by Kathryn Yu.

The first legal mp3 available from Ted Leo's upcoming record is "The Sons Of Cain". And it is a great song, one of those that sound like it was written during band rehearsal, you know one of those songs that just jumps out at you right off the bat, or the downbeat. And it was, written that is, one August morning as the band toured the last album, Shake The Sheets. August 26th, 2006 was the day, according to this source, and he's the one to thank for the mp3 of Ted saying "We literally wrote this this morning" before slashing away at that already familiar and welcome riff that carries throughout the song. It's amazing how the song came into being that day and still hasn't changed much over the course of a year and a half. It even had the screams of Ted rage that are on the album version. Hell, it's even the same length, at close to four minutes.

This was recorded on a digital phone (i have been corrected by the horse's mouth, so to speak, it was a digital camera, not a phone), so don't expect much, but it is the 'live' birth of a great song, and how often do you get to hear that.

First live performance - the sons of cain (south street seaport festival - 2005)
Album version - the sons of cain

GET more Ted here!

Pre-order the album from insound - release date March 20th, Touch and Go Records.
Download Ted Leo/Pharmacists albums, tracks and songs for free with eMusic's trial subscription.

4 comments:

  1. FYI, you can get a better sounding version of the same performance over at the live music archive...

    http://www.archive.org/details/tedleo2005-08-26.flac16

    Here's a direct link to the 'Sons of Cain' mp3...

    http://www.archive.org/download/tedleo2005-08-26.flac16/tedleo2005-08-26d1t02_vbr.mp3

    Cannot wait to hear the whole album...

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  2. Anonymous4:11:00 PM

    Ted and the Pharmacists performed Sons of Cain August 6th, 2006 at the Middle East, so... There's no way August 26th was the day they wrote it. MP3s from the show are still available at this Bradley's Almanac post: http://www.bradleysalmanac.com/2006/08/mp3s-ted-leo-live-in-cambridge-ma.htm

    Also, pretty good quality of the entire Seaport show on August 25th at http://www.archive.org

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  3. To be clear, I recorded that MP3 on my digital camera, not a phone. :)

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  4. hey dan, thanks for correcting my error. And a special thanks for putting that song up on your blog back in 2005.

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