i do really miss francombe's iridescent sheets of guitar, i'll say that right off the bat. at the same time i love 'future songs' & the recent mellower sound, though i probably would've mixed the drums a bit differently, a bit denser... but then of course i'm not jim shaw. i just received my copy of 'live in italy' yesterday (sadly just missed the first 200) and finally got a chance to listen to it today, straight through, on a long drive. it sounds lovely, and i think it's a pretty good mix of old & new tracks. it would be great to hear them play "tomorrow's tears", i agree; that's a longtime, almost sentimental favorite of mine, and i think it would actually blend in pretty well with the newer material. as for "starblood"... it would be kind of odd to hear that one without mark on guitar, and i'm thankful to have seen them play it live before he left the band. but what if they reinvented the song to fit the new idiom? --sort of the way bowie took some of his old rock tunes & completely re-imagined them as electronicky pieces when he toured w/ nine inch nails in '95 (sometimes with startlingly good results, sometimes not)... good idea or musical heresy? i think it depends upon the execution. i'm very curious to see where jim & ali go from here...
-- jack smiley :D
