Brian Eno Live In 1974

Brian Eno's early 70's work after he departed Roxy Music is some of his most beloved.  During those years, he created a number of seminal records that served to inform glam, the avant garde, and the experimental for years to come.  Two of those records in particular, Here Come The Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy, yielded rock opuses the likes of which Eno has never achieved again.

Studio masterpieces of colliding textures and stylistic juxtapositions, the records offer not only some of the most creative rock music of all time, but also one of the masterful realizations of "studio as instrument".  With the help of overdubs, synthesizers, and other custom devices, Eno created records that are seemingly unachievable in a real world environ.

This made it all the more surprising, then, when we discovered that in 1974 Eno created a band called The Winkies, and took some of the tracks from Here Come The Warm Jets on to a live stage.  Interestingly, the live show works perfectly:  the carefully-crafted synth guitar interplay is replaced by a more crunchy blues guitar lead, odd solos are even odder in a live capacity, and Eno's vocals are dead-on at every turn.  In short, it's totally killer.

We managed to turn up a compilation of seven live tracks (one below) through various online sources, and we imagine you can do the same.  We guess that you'll come to the same conclusion we did.  Namely:  Why didn't Eno do this sort of thing more often?

mp3: Brian Eno - The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch (Live 1974)