Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes (1977) [Special DCD Edition '2002] RESTORED

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Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes (1977) [Special DCD Edition '2002] RESTORED

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Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes [Special Edition '2002]
2CD Set | EAC Rip | FLAC+CUE+LOG or MP3 CBR 320 | DATA (Music Video) | 91:42 min | 657 or 210 MB
Include Bonus CD with Demos, Outtakes & Alternative Mixes and 24-page booklet with liner notes, instros and comments

Shortly after the disintegration of the New York Dolls in 1975, guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan formed the Heartbreakers (not to be confused with Tom Petty's Heartbreakers). The original lineup consisted of the duo plus former Television bassist Richard Hell. The group played regularly in New York City, becoming part of the early CBGB punk scene. Thunders assumed the vocal duties, while the music was quite comparable to the trashy rock that the Dolls patented, except that just about every song was about either the pursuit of the opposite sex or drugs (all the bandmembers were addicted to hard drugs, so much so that at one point, Thunders considered changing the band's name to "the Junkies").
Hell's tenure in the band didn't last long, especially when it became clear that Thunders was the leader of the group, and there would be little room for Hell's original compositions (Hell would soon after resurface as the leader of Richard Hell & the Voidoids). Taking Hell's place in the group was Billy Rath, and a second guitarist, Walter Lure, was welcomed aboard as well. Although the Heartbreakers didn't have a recording contract, they were offered a slot as part of the Anarchy Tour (alongside such Dolls disciples as the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned) in the U.K. during the fall of 1976. The tour was banned at most dates due to the public's preconceived notion of punk, but it succeeded in creating a buzz overseas for the Heartbreakers, resulting in a recording contract with the Track label.
Their debut album, 1977's L.A.M.F. (short for the phrase "Like a Mother Fucker"), failed to catapult Thunders and his cohorts to the same commercial heights that the other bands on the Anarchy Tour were enjoying, but has subsequently gone on to become one of punk's all-time classics, spawning the drug abuse anthem "Chinese Rocks" (a song co-penned by the Ramones' bassist, Dee Dee Ramone). The quartet's hard-living lifestyle quickly began to take its toll on the group, as they split shortly thereafter, but would reunite from time to time over the years, right up until Thunders' drug-related death in 1991 (with Nolan following his longtime partner in crime to the grave in 1992).

Despite now being hailed as one of punk rock's most important and enduring statements, Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers' banshee wail of a debut, L.A.M.F., screamed in silence upon its 1977 release, doing a commercial nosedive worthy of an FAA investigation. Admittedly, the record didn't stand much of a chance in the soft rock quagmire of the late '70s, but its odds certainly weren't helped by abysmal distribution (the group's label, Track Records, went belly up soon after the record's release), the band's increasing drug-induced lethargy, and a mix that buried the group's roar deeper than Jimmy Hoffa. It's this mix that's often blamed for the record's quick demise – rightly or wrongly – with the result that L.A.M.F. has been re-released three different times with three different mixes. The most prominent of these re-releases – 1984's L.A.M.F. Revisited and 1994's L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes – took very different approaches to unearthing the musical firestorm smoldering under the sonic sludge. In the case of Revisited, Thunders himself remixed the original tapes; he also rearranged the track order, dropping one song ("All by Myself") and adding two others ("Do You Love Me" and "Can't Keep My Eyes on You"). Sonically, the result was a welcome improvement over the original L.A.M.F., bringing the Heartbreakers' melodic sense into much clearer focus. Yet, strangely, Thunders' remix also added a layer of gloss to the recording that seemed totally at odds with the Lower East Side dirt-and-blood aesthetic of the band, sacrificing power and dynamics for clarity. The approach taken by The Lost '77 Mixes, however, is a much more comfortable fit. Taking the best of the 250 original mixes that the band and producer Speedy Keene made of all the tracks, The Lost '77 Mixes proves that the spit and punch were there all along. The versions here rock with a greasy, maniacal raunch missing on the curiously antiseptic Revisited. The production sheen is gone, giving the music a chance to hit harder and deeper. And hit it does. The guitars of Thunders and Walter Lure buzz and screech louder than ever before; Billy Rath's bass twists and pounds; and Jerry Nolan's drums swing and crash with a newfound violence. Two songs recorded at the original sessions but not used on the original album are also added here: "Can't Keep My Eyes on You", with Nolan on lead vocals, and "Do You Love Me". Thoughtful liner notes by Thunders biographer Nina Antonia round out a pretty cool package. L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes may well be the definitive version of this long-neglected classic. It captures Johnny and the boys as they were meant to be recorded: rude, crude, and loud.

~ Andy Claps, all media guide