Last May, Ty Segall released Possession, a sophisticated set of psychedelic bubblegum that featured a string section, saxophone, and surprisingly sweet melodies. “Live” “at” “the” “BBC,” taped about a decade ago, may take recent fans of the L.A.-based garage rocker by surprise. Now in his late 30s, Segall’s already released 17 solo albums. The prolific songwriter has a knack for abrupt swings, so no one should be too shocked. Still, the raw blast of “Live” following the humid lushness of Possession feels like jumping out of a sauna into subzero weather. The shock’s pleasurable, in a weird way, but it also packs a wallop.
Ironically, Segall plays less guitar on the turbulent “Live” than he does on the calmer Possession—but that’s because he doesn’t play guitar at all. When he and his backing band at the time, the Muggers, taped five songs for Marc Riley’s radio show, Segall, already a frenetically inventive player, decided to focus solely on vocals. Why? Maybe because the rubber baby mask he for some reason wore during the set (and throughout the tour) made it difficult to simultaneously play guitar and sing. Perhaps he wanted to pay tribute to Riley’s time with The Fall, led by Mark E. Smith, one of the most notorious just-vocals guys in the biz. Or it could be that with heavy hitters like Wand’s Cory Hanson, King Tuff’s Kyle Thomas, The Cairo Gang’s Emmett Kelly (more recently of The Hard Quartet) and Mikal Cronin in the band, Segall figured he could take a breather from the six-string. (True, Hanson plays synth, and Cronin’s on bass here, but all these guys have undeniable lead-guitarist energy.)
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Whatever the case, Segall hits the mic with gusto, delivering a decidedly more ragged and theatrical take on four songs from the then-new Emotional Mugger album. Live versions of “Breakfast Eggs” and “Squealer” emerged on 2019’s Deforming Lobes (recorded in 2018), but they have more youthful swagger and less road-toughened thunder in this earlier session. Drummer Evan Burrows (also of Wand) has a lighter touch than Charles Moothart, who handled the kit on Lobes, and his choppy swing complicates and abets the Muggers’ twitchy riffs and chewy grooves. Hanson goes nuts with the knob-twiddling noise on “Emotional Mugger,” which manages to sound both rusty and elastic, while “Candy Sam” features raucous group vocals and achieves a kind of mutant, hyperactive choogle.But the real reason “Live” exists in more than bootleg form might be the cover of The Doors chestnut “L.A. Woman.” The Muggers attack the musky classic as if they were all trying to be Jim Morrison on the verge of arrest for indecent exposure, while Segall’s guttural funhouse leer suggests Captain Beefheart more than the Lizard King. It’s too bad Segall and the gang were constrained by radio time limits—they pack a lot of berserk majesty into their three-and-a-half-minute ride into the storm (just half the original’s length), but you get the feeling they could have done a lot more damage.
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