Lavis Praise

Squeeze - Take Me I'm Yours

I'm doing my death-level best to spread out the mortality memorials, so I can't be held responsible for overwhelming everyone with a grief so profound they go sprinting into the nearest woodchipper, you know?

What is it about all these drummers and bass players dying at once, can anyone fill me in? Is their some disastrous rhythm section shortage in The Great Beyond, that all these cats are being summoned home to their eternal reward at once like this?

No, that isn't Philip Glass. When he goes they'll have to pour me into a Pint Glass, I'll be so wrung out.

That's Gilson Lavis -- the drummer of postpunk/powerpop stalwarts Squeeze -- who passed away the other day at 74.

Probably one of the very few drummers who could say they backed both Chuck Berry and Dolly Parton on (unfortunately separate, imagine those two together?) UK tours in the mid 1970s, he joined Squeeze in 1976 after answering their ad when they were forming.

He was with them for their heyday, and left in 1992 to pursue painting, which he became super successful at, with all sorts of gallery shows of his portraits since he moved on from music.

Having grown up adoring Squeeze -- and having always appreciated how he served their eclectic and catchy pop confections so tastefully as their drummer -- there was no way I was not gonna give him his flowers, as the young'uns say, on here.

That's gonna be the guy's calling card as a musician, in the ten centuries from now when they're still rocking Pulling Mussels from the Shell and are again Tempted to spin East Side Story, for instance.

That all of their tunes were both the same and very different and distinct, and that Gilson Lavis never played a single note that didn't prioritize the song and exactly what it needed to both drive and support it.

Anyway, this master of sticks and, later, brushes has moved on to join the ancestors in the forever firmament. So the other day, when I saw my hero PervFesser Goody had worked on and DIMEposted this show here from the pinnacle of Squeeze in 1981, I instantly remembered it was on Bill's Bevy Of Boosted Boots, and that what they were streaming there likely went higher in the spectral analysis -- and, therefore, the audible high end  -- than the 12 kHz he was being forced to wring from a generated FM cassette.

Well, I may not be right about much, but the 20 kHz lossless the stream contained sure was a major improvement, and now -- in honor of Gilson Lavis and after running it by the PervFesser for some minimal pitch adjustments -- we can get this incredible concert circulating in its tastiest, most sonically superior iteration yet.

Squeeze

The Ritz

New York City, New York USA

6.28.1981

01 introduction

02 If I Didn't Love You

03 Another Nail In My Heart

04 Take Me I'm Yours

05 Too Many Teardrops

06 Separate Beds

07 Piccadilly

08 Someone Else's Heart

09 Farfisa Beat

10 I Think I'm Go Go

11 Is That Love

12 Vicky Verky

13 Slightly Drunk

14 Tempted

15 Cool for Cats

16 In Quintessence

17 Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)

18 Yap Yap Yap

19 Slap and Tickle

20 Messed Around

21 Goodbye Girl

22 Labelled with Love

23 There At the Top

24 Up the Junction

25 outro

Total time 1:32:04

disc break goes after Track 14

Glenn Tilbrook - guitar & vocals

Chris Difford - guitar & vocals

Paul Carrack - keyboards & vocals

John Bently - bass

Gilson Lavis - drums

320/48k audio streamed from Wolfgang's Vault

spectral analysis is lossless to 20 kHz, making this equivalent to a preFM source

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, repaired, edited and remastered by EN -- 

with minimal speed/pitch adjustments by PervFesser Goody -- November 2025
602 MB FLAC/direct link

I'll be back next weekend, as more rigor mortis sets in, with yet another fallen warrior of sound, and then again on Thanksgiving with what -- speaking of musical deities now departed --  may be shaping up to be a real Feast of St. Anthony, if I do say so.

It would, however, have put another nail in my heart not to tribute Gilson Lavis, who -- after a career supplying the beat to some of the best songs of the Rock era, as well as the portraiture to a thousand faces -- has gone up the junction, but not before leaving us in quintessence. OK, those were bad puns and I Think I'm Go Go now.--J.

6.27.1951 - 11.5.2025

Pascoal Saints Day

Hermeto Pascoal Grupo + Sadao Watanabe - Jegue

I'm sick af with food poisoning from supermarket sushi, but between trips to the porcelain throne I have come to place a true visionary upon his.

His isn't porcelain, though. Pure Platinum.

Most music aficionados know him from a lone cameo he did on a Miles Davis -- it should say all you need to know that MDIII positively worshiped this cat -- record. Although we know that's just the tip of the trip.

When you get into iconic figures like this -- this person is easily one of the most revered musicians ever to come from Brazil, a country that has produced a whole lotta top-ranking players and composers -- it's almost impossible to find adequate or even half-assed words to do them any kind of reasonable justice.

I will say this, however: When I think of music today, and I think of what it's so manifestly lacking, I think of the word organic.

And there's never, ever been, and likely won't ever be, a music person whose output and approach embodied that organic quality more than Hermeto Pascoal, who died at 89 about six weeks ago after an extensive career putting the organic, natural Muse into every iota of sound he made.

An albino from birth and thusly socially challenged by the taunts of other kids, his dad gave him an accordion at age 4 and, well, I'm pretty sure he was glad he did.

PSA: Seriously, if you're a parent reading this, please run out immediately and get your child their musical instrument of choice ASAP, I am just saying.

By seven, he was onto the million flute varieties that would become a main axe for him as his art arc trajectoried through the decades.

From there it was (here comes that word again) an organic progression to the various wind and reed instruments he'd add to his formidable arsenal.

During his come-up he also learned piano, as if he needed to be a virtuoso on yet another thing.

PSA II: Listening parents? This phony AI Autotune assholery may go outta style soon, and you don't want little Johnny and poor l'il Janey to be left out in the cold cutout bin, do you? Hie thee! To thy nearest Music Instrument Emporium forthwith!

Because if you look around you, what you're seeing is what happens when Music is taken out of schools.

Anyway Hermeto Pascoal is a whole lot more than just a nice tune on a wild Miles Electric platter, and I'm bringing you some proof from under a Tokyo sky at the close of the Sizzlin' Seventies.

Hermeto Pascoal Grupo + Sadao Wantanabe

Live Under the Sky '79 

"Brazilian Night"

Denen Coliseum

Tokyo, Japan

7.29.1979

01 introductions

02 Birds

03 Just Cruisin'

04 Manha de Carnaval

05 Samba Em Praia

06 Samba Do Marcos

07 Serenade

08 Jegue

09 California Shower

10 Instant Tokyo

11 Suite Paulistana

12 Montreux

13 Susto

14 Lagoa da Canoa

Total time: 1:55:53

disc break goes after Track 06

Tracks 11-14 are bonus tracks from the Montreux Jazz Festival, Montreux CH 7.20.1979

these are unissued outtakes from the classic 1979 "Ao Vivo Montreux" album on the Atlantic label

Hermeto Pascoal - keyboards, flutes, reeds, pianica, vocals & percussion 

Claudio Araújo Chamie de Queiroz - reeds & flutes 

Antonio Luiz de Santana (Pernambuco) - percussion 

Jovino Jose Dos Santos-Neto - keyboards 

Realcino Lima Filho (Nenê) - drums & percussion 

Rosemarie Pidner (Zabelê) - percussion 

Itiberê Luiz Zwarg - bass 

Nivaldo Ornelas - reeds & flute

Sadao Watanabe - alto & soprano saxophones (Tracks 01-10 only)

the Tokyo portion is sourced from a (likely 1st or 2nd gen) off-air FM cassette capture of the original NHK-FM broadcast

the Montreux portion is sourced from a master off-air FM cassette capture of a broadcast from WBUR-FM in Boston, MA

edited, repaired, slightly remuxed, assembled and remastered for unity by EN, October 2025
725 MB FLAC/direct link

This one has circulated forever, but it's not hard to understand why when you hear this mega-band Hermeto Pascoal is leading, as the audience goes justifiably buck wild.

I will try to sneak in the other death post I have ready after Daylight Savings time hits here in a few hours, but I was compelled to memorialize HP and worked on this show for a bit -- which also features Japanese reed god Sadao Watanabe blowing his mind throughout its two hours of Samba Fusion mayhem, as well as all the Montreux Jazz Festival takes that didn't make HP's 1979 burning live album Ao Vivo -- so it might be in a state worthy of such a galaxy-class Maestro!--J.

6.22.1936 - 9.13.2025