Bootleg Ethel by Stock, Hausen & Walkman

We Bootleg the bootleggers! This unofficial, unlicensed, unsanctioned live CD's existence was discovered during one of those post gig stage packing conversations with a fan, you know the kind... whilst attempting to remember how to get all your equipment back into the case in the Tangram style intricate manner you managed on the way to the gig, an avid and well meaning fan comes on stage to congratulate you on a splendid performance ( one you personally think was average at best ) you engage in distracted conversation whilst trying to puzzle why the mixer now won't fit back in its spot. The fan also congratulates you on releasing a recent live CD in convincing diy bootleg packaging, marketing genius he says, sounds like you got yourself an actual bootleg I say, but my interest is peaked. addresses are exchanged and on a promise of returning the bootleg with various out of print SH&W items once a copy has been made the bootleg eventually turns up from France in the post.
So here we have it. The bootleg in fact was better than described, I personally love the way whoever made it managed to encapsulate, with little more than a fineline marker and a scan of an Ethel Smith organ LP sleeve, the whole ethos and detournement schtick of SH&W with a few tiny strokes. The choice of Ethel Smith is also perfect, she being a kind of special Organist commando often parachuted into Esther Williams movies, literally, and suicidally seen playing an exploding B-3 in Walt Disney's 1948 cartoon 'Melody Time'.
Playing the bass pedals in high heels, starting her own publishing company, traveling around South America seeking out obscure exotic rhythms and popularizing them back in the Usa, pretty decent percussion player too, Definitely one of THE 'Ladies in Hats'. Truly a heroic female icon of the organ who co-incidentally died in 1996, the year Organ Transplants volume 1 was released, making the various samples of her on that release a strange memorial indeed. her Cremation was handled by Quattlebaum-Holleman Burse.
No identifying info, track listing or equipment specs was included on the photocopied bootleg insert ( I'm told details about what recording gear was used is a 'thing' in tightknit bootlegger circles ) - just the following text:
" This is a recording made in 2001 of the legendary industrial cartoon noise duo of Stock, Hausen & Walkman at the Mains D'œuvre in Paris. Acclaimed worldwide with a particularly strong Japanese fan base these Salford based plunderpunk popster pioneers have now split up and moved on, so this is one of their last improvised live sets, a particularly rare item. "
well, not any more billy bootlegger! The internet, in it's lack of wisdom, once again reduces all things to a state of 'The Common or Garden' but what the heck, the bootleg 'in the crowd' feeling is there, the bewildering schizophrenic aspect of SH&W's insistence on improvising everything up on the spur of the moment and not referring to anything from our official releases, the insane changes in sound levels as the sound engineer fluctuates between fearfully dragging all levels down then having to tentatively raise them as the sounds become more electro-acoustic... then back round the merry-go-flounder again.. and just... you know... THE NOISE?
Not the best SH&W performance,, but not the würst by a long chalk!! let it stand.
m@w&