Occasional Albums Thing 017 - 10,000 Maniacs “MTV Unplugged”

You don’t have any then two come along at once…”MTV Uplugged” albums that is…

My love affair with 10,000 Maniacs and in particular the angelic voice of Miss Natalie Merchant goes back to the very beginnings of my writing this Albums Thing blog, in fact the first piece I wrote for it was about their album “The Wishing Chair” and just a day later I wrote about a record that would become my soundtrack of 1989 and many years since, “In My Tribe” (https://www.whiterabbitrecords.co.uk/blog/read_202756/2023-albums-thing-002-10000-maniacs-in-my-tribe.html). It was ex-Clash and Wonder Stuff roadie Digby Cleaver that introduced me to 10,000 Maniacs, he had worked for them a lot and had an almost brotherly relationship with guitarist Rob Buck, and that’s a thing I will eternally thank Digby for, amongst much else.

This MTV Unplugged session was recorded in New York City in April 1993 and when broadcast was the bands last TV performance with Natalie Merchant who left the band in between recording and broadcast. Also appearing as a guest was Talking Heads David Byrne but his contributions were not included on the original release of this album.

I’ve owned this on CD for longer than I can remember and, every now and then, I’ve checked around to see if it had finally been issued on vinyl, which it wasn’t at the time of release. It’s one of two albums I’m usually regularly checking for a vinyl release of, the other being Counting Crows “Hard Candy”. So when it was finally released on Cobalt-Blue double vinyl including those previously unreleased bonus tracks from the gig, on September 6th 2024…that release completely passed me by ! Fortunately as part of an exchange with my friend Phil in Australia around my recent Springsteen MTV XX-Plugged post (he’d mistaken the bottom part of that sleeve for this sleeve, I said can’t be cos this has never been released on vinyl, he said it has now !) I now have a copy of this beauty.

I’ve said before that likely the last thing I was looking for in 1989 was a Folk Rock influenced band with a fey girl singer produced by Fairport Convention’s producer. But when I found the Maniacs, or they found me, I was instantly smitten. 10,000 Maniacs were at their peak when this performance was recorded. Their previous three albums (“In My Tribe”, “Blind Mans Zoo” and “Our Time In Eden”) had all hit the US Top 40 albums chart and all 3 were awarded Platinum status for sales in excess of 1 million copies, but the cracks were beginning to get bigger. Natalie Merchant had had a longstanding fractious relationship with another member of the band (who shall remain nameless) over his excessive drinking habits. Just take a listen to the song “Don’t Talk”, here delivered quite gently, but where Miss Natalie lays out her position quite plainly (“I know that if you think of it, both long enough and hard, The drink you drown your troubles in, is the trouble you're in now”).

“Unplugged” opens with 3 songs that were maybe their biggest US hits. “These Are Days” had reached #1 on the US Modern Rock Chart when released as a single, “Candy Everybody Wants” reached #5 and those two sandwich “Eat For Two” a tale of teenage pregnancy. Side 2 features 3 songs from what I think is the Maniacs best album “In My Tribe”. The versions of the previously mentioned “Don’t Talk”, the road story “Hey Jack Kerouac” and a scathing commentary on child abuse, “What’s The Matter Here”, are the equal of their studio versions. We get a cover of Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith’s “Because The Night”, which was released as a single and was also a sizeable hit. David Byrne’s contribution is to join the band for 3 covers at the end of the set including Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”.

And then I have to make particular mention of the performance of “Stockton Gala Days” that is included. I bought “Our Time In Eden”, the album on which it originally appeared, when it came out and the song had never jumped out at me. But here, it may as well be a different song, never doubt the power of arrangement or a band locking together and magically taking a song somewhere it has never been before. This is one of those occasions. Please have a look at the video below, it all makes much more sense when you see it, it’s utterly joyous. I have no idea what the song is about (but many Maniacs fans have their suspicions) but whatever it is, it seems to take Miss Natalie somewhere she is very happy to be. This Unplugged version of “Stockton Gala Days” can reduce me to tears just thinking about it, so if you do listen and feel like telling me you don’t like it, keep it to yourself, cos you’re wrong.

On a side note…I try never to get involved in the “vinyl sounds better than…” argument…what sounds best to you is entirely your business…but, to me, listening to a record is quite simply a very different experience to listening via any other format…I’ve owned this album on CD since it was released and now, 30+ years later, finally hearing it on vinyl has been like hearing it with different ears and for the first time again…listening to Miss Natalie sing the opening to “These Are Days” was “quite breathtaking…“Stockton Gala Days” was positively emotional…I’m sending out special thanx (not that either of them will ever receive them) to Stephen Marcussen who mastered this ready for release and to Bernie Grundman who cut the lacquers this was pressed from…if either of them made a mistake I’m not writing any of the above paragraph, you guys did a magnificent job.

Just a month ago I didn’t own any MTV Unplugged albums, now I have two, this one and Springsteen’s, I have no designs on any others. Both are great individual performances and I guess for all its faults (and they are/were many) we have to thank MTV for the Unplugged concept that gave us these records.

Stockton Gala Days - https://youtu.be/fVIRBw_8ZQQ?si=D4GRDZ6rtMlQWycd