I read in an interview...
 

about how thurston attempted to resurrect "The sprawl" for a tour but he said that the band was unable because they never wrote their technique or way of playing it down, so it is lost forever. I have heard about this with other songs as well, but i was wondering, why don't they use the tab section of the site? Are they only interpretations of the songs? Are they accurate enough? Maybe SY should check them out for the next tour? i dont know, im just bored and curious.

I read that too, I find it hilarious. I'm not exactly sure why they couldn't just figure it out again, but whatever, it's their band.

I would sure love to see The Sprawl live!!

they probably could figure it out again, if not completely accurately.

could be something to do with having a lot of their guitars and therefore sounds nicked... although they seem to tour a lot of other early songs, so that doesn't really make sense.

exactly^

i think a lot of the songs were written on specific guitars with specific settings etc. once those were lost so were the songs.

Well i was just wondering because we have a whole chris lawrence guitar tab section for all songs including for example the sprawl. However, specific guitars and effects that got stolen makes sense for why they dont play some.

i think i saw a video recorded at echo canyon
where they tried to play one of their older songs, don´t remember if it was The Sprawl,
and Thurston had no idea how to play the song and somehow always managed to be totally out of tune.

it was funny to watch

the 'specific guitars/effects' thing is more of a myth than anything else. other than the super-old shit that they probably just don't want to play anymore anyway (they tend to not 'look back' as much as many bands do), only 'eric's trip' was really affected by the gear theft, and they've managed to re-create that 'unique' guitar and the song is once again a staple in their set (they were trying to think of another 'lee' song to start playing this tour, but i guess have so far come up dry...someone objected to 'joni', sadly).

as for 'the sprawl', i mean...the tab site has pretty good tabs for a majority of songs, but i seriously doubt the band ever references it. their techs may check it for tunings (sometimes i'm consulted directly pre-tour when they're trying to decide on some 'new old' tunes to start learning). i don't think it would take a ridiculous amount of effort for them to relearn any of their old tunes, it just really comes down to whether all of them agree to re-introducing it to the set again. certain people object to playing certain songs, or have a hard time nailing their part (i know one member's difficulty w/ 'stereo sanctity' has narrowly kept that song from resurfacing in recent sets). they were working on (or at least talking about) a HEAP of other 'old' songs during soundchecks on the summer tour this year and only 'world looks red' seems to have made it to the sets so far, so i think it boils down to what they can re-learn not only 'properly', but also what they actually enjoy playing, etc. maybe thurston just doesn't want to sing 'the diamond sea' anymore, which pretty much nullifies any chance of it returning to the set (this isn't the case, or at least that i'm aware of, just an example).


did i have a point? if not, i'll make one now: BRING BACK THE SPRAWL. i mean, who the fuck expected them to resurrect 'total trash' for a handful of shows?

this year's mind-blowing renditions of 'shaking hell' have pretty much ruled out any song "not returning" for me -- never would have expected them to start playing that again, and yet...there it is.

the interview is on nudeasthenews.com

I respectfully disagree with that statement very strongly. When their guitars got stolen everybody on ams-y as well as band members saying that certain songs would be lost forever but as the years went by these so called lost songs were reintroduced live. I believe every song is capable of being brought back more or less intact. It's just up to the band to take the time and energy to reconfigure it all. There may be a couple of exceptions such as Ghost Bitch but I'm not too sure about that.

I had been wondering if Joni was going to make a live comeback for December, due to it being so randomly on their myspace...

Question: Were they close to busting out any Washing Machine stuff?(besides Skip Tracer)