Hux Records
2007
The John Peel Sessions
About This Album
As pub rock excavations go, Hux's 2007 release of Ducks Deluxe's The John Peel Sessions is pretty major. Like all pub rockers, the stage was where the Sean Tyla-led quintet thrived, but there have been precious few live recordings of the band at its prime; the closest is the 1982 LP Last Night of a Pub Rock Band, but that has never been on CD and it didn't capture the original organ-less lineup of the group, which had a harder feel more reminiscent of Dr. Feelgood than the lineup that recorded the 1975 Taxi to the Terminal Zone. This lean, mean incarnation is captured on the first four songs of this 12-track comp, as they tear through the classics "Fireball" and "Coast to Coast" before settling into an easier groove for the previously unreleased "Pensacola Blues" (played quite a bit in the early days according to Nigel Cross' terrific liner notes, which also contain the revelation that guitarist Martin Belmont has no memory of the song) and the B-side "Bring Back My Packard Car." The fidelity on this early session is a bit rough -- Hux does not hide the fact that they couldn't find the original masters, and it's better to have this session in thin sound than not at all -- and the band sometimes sounds a little ragged but it's exciting, the closest thing yet to a document of what Ducks Deluxe sounded like at their early peak.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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