Bitch Magnet - Live in OKS, Osijek, 1990

Picture stolen from this blog. Get another BM live recording there.

This here recording means A LOT to me. It is a recording of a show by an important, influential and well-known American band - held in the little student's club of my hometown, the place where I spent much of my early youth, and even played with two of my crappy bands. I was only nine at the time when foreign bands actually visited Osijek (the same year Cows and God Bullies played the same venue), and the war that started in 1991 killed all "alternative" momentum that was building up throughout the Eighties. When I came of age and started going to shows roundabouts 1996/1997, OKS was still a place punk bands could play, but the roster went down a few levels - out-of-town acts were limited to Croatian demo or DIY-tape-level punk bands, while the local ones went from excellent, yet forever underground bands like Cog, to high school punk-as-fuck excuses for getting drunk, all the way down to guys from nearby villages in their thirties playing rock standards, local pop underachievers, and a vomit-inducing Hare Krishna-type hippie bullshit called Tattva (these last three types of bands tried their best to ruin my childhood and I hate them all for this). After a few years, at the beginning of the 21st century, the place managed to go even lower, and is now a mecca for local "Golden Youth", a term which I can't even begin to describe without wasting tons of precious black ink on my monitor, so here are a few pictures which might give you an idea of how a Bitch Magnet show in OKS in 2011 would look:

The owner, a local mogul and martial arts enthusiast.

Some kind of tit-fest, I guess a beauty pageant.

Bosnian folk singer Mile Kitic (roughly translated as "Lovable Little Cock"), being a bitch magnet.

Anyway, let's get back to the topic, that is, this Bitch Magnet show. This is a soundboard recording, meaning that aside from some clipping due to a too high volume setting, it's pretty excellent-sounding. It was obviously recorded on a 60 min tape, and therefore features most of the show, sans the better part of "Valmead", and I'd say about half of the Mission of Burma cover "Dirt", after tape sides ran out (which is sad because this is the only recording of this cover I know of). Instead of that, you get a three-and-a-half minute bass string replacement, including a pointless drum solo, a failed Albini-style Q&A-session, and lots of nerdy voices (check out the most inappropriate "Born to rock!" ever). A fun detail is how Sooyoung keeps making remarks about the audience being incredibly quiet - well, if he'd come to play Osijek these days, there'd be fifteen people in the venue, with another hundred outside, complaining at the shocking door price of roughly three beers. But I digress - all in all, this is a really nice piece of local history for my friends from Osijek, and a quite good live document for any Bitch Magnet fan, to get you through the waiting for their reunion later this year (confirming my long-time prediction that we are nearing the moment when every band that ever existed, will reunite and play shows. Can't wait for that Robert Johnson gig at Pitchfork Festival 2036!)

Track listing:

1. Dragoon (12:02)
2. Punch and Judy (2:40)
3. Big Pining (5:23)
4. Motor (4:17)
5. Lookin' at the Devil (4:14)
6. Valmead (cut) (1:13)
7. Ducks and Drakes (5:50)
8. Mesentery (3:34)
9. Goat-Legged Country God (3:07)
10. Drum Improvisation (3:31)
11. Americruiser (7:56)
12. Sea of Pearls (4:05)
13. Dirt (Mission of Burma - cut) (2:42)

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