The Jazz Butcher

This live album, recorded (appropriately enough) in Hamburg, Germany in August 1985, features the post-David J. Butcher lineup of Pat Fish, Max Eider, Owen Jones, and Felix Ray. Given the Butcher's fondnes s for songs about alcohol, you might expect a drunken chaos; instead, Hamburg is an agreeably loose but thoroughly professional affair. Fish forgets no lyrics and Eider does not drop, smash, or otherwise abuse his guitar. One could quibble with the choice of material. The 12 songs here are heavy on the bittersweet, and any Butcher fan will be able to come up with a few favorites they'd like to have seen included; "Drink" and "J.B. v. P.M." leap most immediately to mind. Still, it's quite nice to have live versions of "Bath of Bacon," "Rain," "Real Men," "Sweet Jane" and so on, and Hamburg serves as a worthwhile document of the Butcher and his cohorts in their prime. ~ Bill Cassel, All Music Guide