Worth the Effort: L.A. Woman & Why Be Something You're Not?/Halloween 1982 - Misfits

With the multitude of avenues available for fan-made unsanctioned recordings online the good, old-fashioned bootleg appears to be rapidly going extinct (if it's not already there). While I wince at the dollars stolen from the artists I cannot help but fondly recall visiting a certain music store in Parkersburg, West Virginia in my high school days where there were no records or CDs, only instruments. Unless, of course, you were introduced to the proprietor by someone in the know and then, just like in a movie, you could be invited into a backroom and permitted to sort through bin after bin of bootleg albums. At the time I was heavy into Neil Young and threw a lot of cash toward this particular store for Buffalo Springfield's unreleased Stampede album as well as a four-disc collection of never-before-released songs by Mr. Young on Great Dane Records (think it was called Rock and Roll Cowboy...). Later, in college, there were otherwise reputable music stores - some even based in shopping malls - that stocked straight-up bootlegs under the label "Imports." I remember grabbing Pink Floyd's Live at Pompeii ported to CD by Baby Capone Records as well as the U2 straight-to-DAT scandal that was Axtung Beibei. Along the way I also grabbed everything I could by Danzig and, of course, the Misfits. With the advent of DVD there were also pre-YouTube unseen videos to be had as well (Nine Inch Nails' Broken movie was a holy grail of sorts). Two bootlegs that still haunt my collection today are the Misfits' L.A. Woman CD and the double-DVD, Why Be Something You're Not?/Halloween 1982.

L.A. Woman, like many CD bootlegs, simply collects and reproduces material previously bootlegged on vinyl. In this case, you get two L.A.-based live shows across the span of four days: Live at the Whiskey from 4/13/82 and Live at Al's Bar from 4/17/82. I have no idea if either of these are "complete," with the Whiskey portion providing fourteen tracks and Al's Bar giving us twenty-one. There's a lot of overlap in set lists and both sound as unpolished and raw as one would expect from the 'Fits in their prime but, for audience recordings (I assume), they sound damn good. Track listing (copied from Misfits Central to save me some typing):

LIVE AT THE WHISKEY A GO GO
 
       20 Eyes | I Turned Into A Martian | Horror Business
       Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight? | We Bite | London Dungeon
       All Hell Breaks Loose | Halloween | Skulls | We Are 138
       Astro Zombies | Hate Breeders | Braineaters | Bullet

AL'S BAR '82  
  
       Nike A Go Go | 20 Eyes | Attitude | Bullet | All Hell Breaks Loose
       Where Eagles Dare | Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?
       London Dungeon | Braineaters | We Bite | Last Caress
       Horror Hotel | Ghouls Night Out | Halloween | Hate Breeders | Skulls
       Vampira | Teenagers From Mars | I Turned Into A Martian | Demonomania 
       Devils Whorehouse 

I picked up my Misfits DVD in 2004 before independent record stores had more or less been wiped totally off the map and, to this day, watch it more frequently than most of the legitimate music DVDs in my collection. The Halloween 1982 segment is actually from a 10/29/82 show at the Northampton Community College Arts Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It runs under 45 minutes and is a decent video rendering of the following (again, thanks Misfits Central):

    Halloween | 20 Eyes | I Turned Into A Martian
    Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight? | Skulls | Violent World
    London Dungeon | All Hell Breaks Loose | We Bite | We Are 138
    Demonomania | Attitude | Wolfs Blood | Hate Breeders
    Vampira (segment) | Bullet | Devilock

Added as a bonus is a nine-song live Samhain set whose date I have not been able to determine.

The treasure on this set is Why Be Something You're Not?, one of two episodes filmed for a public access show out of Dearborn, Michigan on 1/7/83. It runs 25 minutes and features the Danzig/Jerry/Doyle Robo lineup as they entered the Earth A.D./Wolf's Blood era and, in addition to the live tracks below, also features what I believe is the only Danzig-era music video, a promo for "Braineaters:"

    Earth A.D. | I Turned Into A Martian | Skulls | Devilock
    Queen Wasp | Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight? | Hate Breeders
    Braineaters | Halloween | Bullet | Horror Business | We Are 138

Great stuff and now, as a fan of music and supporter of musicians, something I really cannot condone. But, hell, if you're lucky enough to find either of these, grab 'em.