Let me take you back to a hot and sweaty show at San Francisco’s I-Beam Nightclub. The nightclub once located at 1748 Haight Street was quite eclectic and has quite a rich history of party nights. It was well known for it’s dance and DJ nights but in the 80’s the venue would feature live bands nearly four days a week. One of those nights, a Monday in January Faith No More would deliver their high energy set. You can check out a video of that full performance here:
Audio from two of the songs performed that January 13 evening, “The Jungle” and “New Beginnings,” are included on the reissue. The original 10-song album, which has been re-mastered by Maor Appelbaum via the original reels Bill Gould unearthed in his basement, is enhanced with nine bonus tracks including demo versions (taken from the original 8-track tapes) of “Greed,” “Mark Bowen,” “Arabian Disco” and “Intro,” live versions of “The Jungle” and “New Beginnings” and new mixes, via Matt Wallace, of “We Care A Lot,” “Pills for Breakfast” and “As The Worm Turns.” Liner notes from keyboard player Roddy Bottum and behind-the-scenes photos will be included with the physical release. We Care A Lot (Deluxe Band Edition) is available now on CD/vinyl (http://faithnomore.kungfustore.com), and digital (http://geni.us/WeCareALotDigital).
Make sure to pick up this very special reissue and you can check out photos of their recent surprise performance at Chuck Mosley’s SF and Los Angeles shows: http://larecord.com/photos/2016/08/22/chuck-mosley-and-friends-the-troubadour.
We Care A Lot originally arrived in November 1985 via Maximum RocknRoll editor Ruth Schwartz’s Mordam Records. The seminal album, boasting the timeless title track, which can still be heard daily on radio stations worldwide, confounded music fans and critics alike. As Pitchfork said in a 2015 article dubbed “The Misunderstanding of Faith No More,” the unpredictable and hard-to-define band “had radically altered the parameters of popular music years before the fabled alternative revolution.” Rolling Stone called it a “raw punk album” while Select Magazine dubbed it “a lustful marriage of mutoid metal and dance floor verve.”
“When strangers ask what Faith No More is I’ve always said, ‘well, it’s kind of an art band…’ I say that mostly to distance us from the hard rock world that we’re often times lumped into. I mean, hard rock, sure, that was part of it, but our roots most definitely and pointedly stem from a specific freakout art time and place in San Francisco, a time that no longer exists. In 1982, the hippies mingled with the punks, the artists hung out with the musicians, the dance people and the punks were one and the Satanists and the sexual pioneers… all part of the same scene,” Bottum explains, colorfully setting the scene for the original inspiration for the band and We Care A Lot. “That weird SF window provided a platform from which we were free to express and cultivate a really uniquely odd sound experience. In Los Angeles, no one really cared much, but SF was always super supportive, encouraging us, directly and not, to get our collective freak on.”
“We felt like it was time to take the next step,” adds drummer Mike Bordin. “We raised as much money as we were able and booked time at Prairie Sun Studios just north of San Francisco. I can’t remember how long it took us to record the album, but not a lot, maybe a few days. The songs were sharp from having played most of them at various shows. Very stripped down, basic as could be. The place was on a farm in chicken country (Petaluma). Hard work, but a ton of fun too.”
We Care A Lot (Deluxe Band Edition) track list:
2. The Jungle
3. Mark Bowen
4. Jim
5. Why Do You Bother
6. Greed
7. Pills for Breakfast
8. As The Worm Turns
9. Arabian Disco
10. New Beginnings
11. We Care A Lot – 2016 Mix
12. Pills for Breakfast – 2016 Mix
13. As The Worm Turns – 2016 Mix
14. Greed – Original Demo
15. Mark Bowen – Original Demo
16. Arabian Disco – Original Demo
17. Intro – Original Demo
18. The Jungle – I-Beam, SF, 1986
19. New Beginnings – I-Beam, SF, 1986
Leave a Reply