This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Are the pictures of video store clerks, janitors and dishwashers that adorn the booklet of this live CD Built To Spill leader Doug Martsch’s way of telling us that rock ’n’ roll can be just another soul-sucking, low-paying job?
If so — and even if he’s got a point (which he does) — nobody can accuse this stellar Boise trio of being shiftless. Thanks to his plaintive yowl and loose, loping guitar lines, Martsch is inevitably likened to Neil Young. Here, he and his band come on like a hurricane, whipping up swirling cyclones of sound that carry you away on ragged wings while his vocals rise above the maelstrom like a cry for help. And while Live’s set list draws from their four studio albums, including last year’s critically worshipped Keep It Like A Secret, he never does it better than on his awe-inspiring cover of Young’s Cortez The Killer — a 20-minute epic of gnashing, brittle intensity and searing beauty that arguably bests even Neil’s version. Whatever Martsch is getting paid, he deserves a raise for that one.
