Thanks to everyone who watched the online chat last Monday. We heard today that there were at least 10,000 live viewers of the LAM interview.
Today I uploaded The Christmas Song to the music player from the 1998 LAM CD "Oddities" (available in the
LAM Online Store, and
all other online stores, your local CD shop, and
iTunes).
(EDIT: The embed option is turned on, so you should be able to add all songs in LAM's music player to your page. If you can't let me know). "Oddities" is mostly tracks recorded on tour in Europe, with some studio tracks. But the live tracks are very different. In the early days of LAM I started a "side project" to my main project (LAM), called Malleus Maleficarum. It was born purely out of frustration. It was just me playing acoustic guitar or very stripped-down and alternate mixes of LAM songs that I programmed. I did this because it was always so difficult to deal with the horrible PA systems and sound people they used in the local Los Angeles clubs. There were always problems and you could never hear me sing. So I created this "quiet" version of LAM as a way to actually be able to sing in concert and be heard (and also, this way I didn't have to deal with the live musicians I had at the time who weren't playing my songs correctly).
Malleus Maleficarum officially only played about three concerts at Helter Skelter. It was sort of Dead Can Dance meets LAM.
In 1998 I recreated this concept (though I had to deal with the other live musicians) and toured as LAM using similar stripped-down mixes and acoustic versions of songs. I also played some rare old songs (like Let Me Break You) and two new ones, The Christmas Song and Blessing (Blessing appears on the CD "Psycho Magnet"). Most of the songs played on tour ended up on the "Oddities" CD, with a few extras.
Being that I had no budget in those days, the recordings aren't top notch. But I guess they have their charm. One of my personal favorite LAM songs from that time is The Christmas Song. Being that it's that time of year, I've uploaded it to the music player on this MySpace page. Enjoy.
Sean Brennan