''Liveage!'' is a
live album
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th centur ...
by the American
punk rock
Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...
band the
Descendents
The Descendents are an American punk rock band formed in Manhattan Beach, California, in 1977, by guitarist Frank Navetta, bassist Tony Lombardo and drummer Bill Stevenson (musician), Bill Stevenson as a power pop/surf music, surf punk band. I ...
, released in 1987 through
SST Records
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was first founded in 1966 by Ginn at age 12 as Solid State Transmitters, a small business through which he sold elec ...
. It is the band's first live album, it was recorded July 13, 1987 at
First Avenue in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
during their summer 1987 "FinALL" tour, so-called because singer
Milo Aukerman
Milo Jay Aukerman (; born January 1, 1963) is an American singer, songwriter, and former research molecular biologist. Aukerman is most widely known for being the lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Descendents, a group widely considered to be ...
was leaving the Descendents to pursue a career in
biochemistry
Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...
, after which the band was relaunching itself under the name
All. ''Liveage!'' was followed by a second live album, ''
Hallraker: Live!'' (1989), which was partly recorded at the same show but featured a completely different set of songs.
The album's title derives from the band having titled some of their songs by adding the
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
"-age" to words that would not normally use it (cf.
"Myage", "Tonyage", "Bikeage", and
"Cameage").
Background
''Liveage!'' was recorded July 13, 1987 at
First Avenue in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
during the Descendents' 50-day Summer "FinALL" tour.
The show was recorded by Metro Mobile Location Recording, and the live recording was
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
ed by Timothy Powell, Mark Harder, and the band's
talent manager
A talent manager (also known as an artist manager, band manager, or music manager) is an individual who guides the professional career of Entertainer, artists within the entertainment industry. The responsibility of a talent manager is to ove ...
and
booking agent Matt Rector.
The "FinALL" tour was so-called both because it was their second tour promoting their most recent studio album, ''
All'' (1987), and because it was to be, at the time, the Descendents' final tour; singer
Milo Aukerman
Milo Jay Aukerman (; born January 1, 1963) is an American singer, songwriter, and former research molecular biologist. Aukerman is most widely known for being the lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Descendents, a group widely considered to be ...
was quitting the band to pursue
postgraduate education
Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of Academic degree, academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by higher education, post-secondary students who have ...
in
biochemistry
Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...
, after which the band was relaunching itself under the new name
All with singer
Dave Smalley
Dave Smalley is an American musician, best known as the lead singer for the hardcore punk bands DYS and Dag Nasty, and skate punk band All as well as lead singer/guitarist with Down by Law. He is known for his influence on pop punk music an ...
(Aukerman would later reunite with the band in 1995 for further albums and tours under the Descendents name).
The live recording was
mastered at Third Wave Recording studio in
Torrance, California
Torrance is a coastal city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the metropolitan ...
by recording engineer Richard Andrews, who had worked on the band's last two albums, ''
Enjoy!'' (1986) and ''All'' (1987).
Descendents drummer
Bill Stevenson served as
record producer
A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...
.
The album liner featured an illustration by bassist
Karl Alvarez done for the FinALL tour posters, depicting guitarist
Stephen Egerton with wild eyes and a wide, toothy grin, wearing a spiked
crown
A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, parti ...
.
""When they go out on tour, Stephen likes to be the one that drives", said artist Chris Shary in a 2013 documentary of the band. "Well, he'd been up for a while, just pounding coffee, and Karl was in the back, and Stephen just turned back to look at him and it was this crazed
ook
Ook, OoK or OOK may refer to:
* Ook Chung (born 1963), Korean-Canadian writer from Quebec
* On-off keying, in radio technology
* Toksook Bay Airport (IATA code OOK), in Alaska
* Ook!, an esoteric programming language based on Brainfuck
* Ook, the ...
like almost the eyes spinning, and the big grin, and so Karl drew that out and that was the FinALL tour drawing."
The illustration was later modified an adapted into All's mascot
Allroy.
''Liveage!'' was released in late 1987 through
SST Records
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was first founded in 1966 by Ginn at age 12 as Solid State Transmitters, a small business through which he sold elec ...
as an 18-track
LP and a 20-track
cassette and
compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...
, the latter two formats including the additional songs "Sour Grapes" and "Pervert".
The album featured many of the band's most popular songs, and was followed two years later by a second live album, ''
Hallraker: Live!'', composed of an entirely different set of songs recorded partly at the same show as ''Liveage!'' and partly at a show in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...
three months earlier.
Stevenson explained:
''Hallraker'' will be thought of as "the other" live Descendents LP. The ''Liveage!'' LP served as a sort of "greatist hits" album, as well as being an accurate documentary of the band in concert. But at the request of fans telling us about all of the songs we "should have put" on ''Liveage!'', we decided to release another album with a completely different set of songs, giving people the entire view of the band, with nothing held back.
Reception
Mike DaRonco of
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
gave ''Liveage!'' three stars out of five, saying that "One could classify this as a best-of live album, considering that it features all the hits
..Bratty, aggravated punk-pop at its finest, the Descendents were not only way ahead of their time, but they were also one of the most influential punk bands of the '80s."
Jenny Eliscu of ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'' commented: "Given its superior selection of songs, ''Liveage!'' is the better of the band's two concert recordings; but Descendents weren't the kind of band to switch things up in concert, and these albums are for completists only."
Track listing
;LP version
;CD and cassette versions
Personnel
;Band
*
Milo Aukerman
Milo Jay Aukerman (; born January 1, 1963) is an American singer, songwriter, and former research molecular biologist. Aukerman is most widely known for being the lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Descendents, a group widely considered to be ...
–
vocals
Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...
*
Stephen Egerton –
guitar
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
*
Karl Alvarez –
bass guitar
The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...
, illustrations
*
Bill Stevenson –
drums
The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...
,
producer
;Production
*Richard Andrews – studio
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
,
mastering
*Mark Harder – live engineer
*Timothy Powell – live engineer
*Matt Rector – live engineer
References
External links
''Liveage!''at
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
(streamed copy where licensed)
{{Authority control
Descendents albums
1987 live albums
SST Records live albums
Albums produced by Bill Stevenson (musician)