47 Years And Counting

On this day in 1978, Cheap Trick played its final show of their Japanese tour.

That's a fact, but so much about that period is often told with the same exaggerated anecdotes and outright falsehoods. If you're reading this you probably already know this. Yet, so many times you see the same stories in print and in interviews when the album is mentioned. The 2008 set is the most comprehensive version we're likely to get. The liner notes, which were also released in 2013 as an Apple Book, purport to tell the definitive story of Live at Budokan. However, the quotes given to Ken Sharp, much like the ones from the 1998 edition have the same inaccuracies. There are some great shots in Budokan! You see the "honorable reader" ad which came with the teabag, along with some amazing photos. They are similar to the one above, with the band posing with Kirk Dyer and Ken Harris behind them. Bun, of course, is posing with the Epic promotional material from the time. You can see the manga drawing of the band along with all the Cheap Trick albums up to that point. Heaven Tonight, as Robin's famous stage patter before "Surrender" says, came out that week in Japan.

What became American Standard started as an idea to tell the real story of Budokan. Of course, I also knew that the band wouldn't really speak with me, especially not about their most mythologized topic. I also put together a proposal for a 33 1/3 book just on the album, which was completed by the time the one for this book was accepted. It's still crazy that there hasn't been one on it before. Since completing the book, I have come into possession of all the circulating audience recordings of the tour. This has been almost exclusively due to the generosity of Robert Kilroy.

The recordings include the partial from 26th from Nagoya. The "Come Right Here" bootleg which is linked also has a piece of the 3/29/79 show in soundboard. The partial audience from Osaka can be heard online with the link. The "Real Budokan" from Tarantura is the best sounding of the bunch. This was, of course, the first Budokan show. It was filmed for TV and despite many claims to the contrary, the band knew they were being recorded. The official tapes were rolling the night before as well. In the roundtable with Corey Taylor, Linda Perry, and Rick Nielsen, Jack Douglas claimed that the album of 10 songs released worldwide in February, 1979 was all from the Osaka show. According to Bun E. Carlos and Ken Adamany, that simply isn't true. He is correct that the tapes were a mess and deserves a ton of credit for rescuing them. He is also correct that the name Live at Budokan was already selected and that "Osaka" wouldn't have had the same romance to it. But, as Bun confirmed, Jack never heard all 3 shows. Carlos does have his own recordings of the tour, including some that have never been heard by the public. I don't know if he and Steve Acri can use them in the Basement Bootlegs series, since they are part of an official release.

Jack Douglas also says in the aforementioned roundtable that there were parts of the video where the audience was too distant and that they had to use some Osaka. He notes that fanatics could tell the difference. Perhaps this is where his blanket suggestion that the album is all from the 27th stems from but he has made a bunch of claims and doesn't like when anyone suggests otherwise. The last Budokan show, available here, is a much more distant audience recording. The first night was taped by "Mr. Peach," who you can read about here. He taped a bunch of Japanese shows, including Neil Young's famous 1976 run.

By May, 1979 (when Cheap Trick was about to assume their greatest mainstream status) Japanese concerts and releases were all the rage. However, no one really ever duplicated their impact over there and nothing duplicated the effect the tour had on their career.

So what did I learn listening to all the tapes? For one, I don't think anyone besides Bun E. Carlos could tell you exactly what versions were used. He mentioned his listening notes are buried. I did share the recordings with him and will do the same for anyone who asks. Bun mentions that the stage patter from one show would be patched with the performance from another. The "Lookout," for instance has the exact intro from the Osaka show. The famous intro to "Surrender" appears to come from the same date. "Downed" starts with guitar on the re releases, as opposed to drums and cymbals. Before "Can't Hold On," Rick introduces Robin (which of course sends the girls into hysterics) instead of the released version where he mentions the song having never been done before. It had, but not just in Japan.

There are some more cracks in Robin's voice that are not on any of the releases. When introducing "I Want You To Want Me" on the 30th, Robin gives a more angry delivery of "MUYH!" This is where the biggest revelation of the tapes is. On the first Budokan performance of "IWYTWM," there is clear "double tracking" of Robin's "cryin' vocals. What I mean is that for the first go round, the echoes of his singing is clearly audible. On later verses, less so and on the final go round the Japanese girls have clearly caught on. None of this can be heard on any released version. I mentioned in the book that Rick is cupping his ears as well in order to "bait the hook." The 30th version has the same, but to a lesser degree.

Why does any of this matter? Only because the band (some still) stuck to the story that the singalong was spontaneous and that the addition of the song was last minute. Neither is true, but doesn't make the album any less surprising and incredible. Did the legend of the Budokan matter in 1978, though? I think it helped them. Robin's "double tracked" vocals were used in the United States and beyond once the song became a hit. No one thought anything about it. But yes, I have incontrovertible audio evidence that there was a little "Trickery" in getting those girls to sing along. However, it worked better than anyone could have imagined. It's understandable why the band wouldn't own up to that. Like everything Cheap Trick, there were things they were guilty of ginning up but the media never picked the right ones.

What little I've learned about the music industry since starting this project can be summed up thusly:

Nothing happens entirely by accident. There were efforts to promote the band in Japan. But the result was something far beyond that. They didn't decide at the last minute to add "I Want You to Want Me" to the set. They played it March 28 on the "Old Grey Whistle Test." They played it on Newcastle on March 31 and at the Roundhouse on April 2. They may have played it earlier in Europe, but there are no recordings or reviews to confirm that.

The girls didn't suddenly echo the band's lyrics with "cryin', cryin', cryin'." They were given a little nudge, both visually and sonically. Again, this doesn't make what happened next any more amazing. I understand why the band wouldn't cop to any of this. They were already being hit by accusations of "doctoring" (absolutely no pun intended as it relates to the 1986 album) their sound with Tom's bass or Dave Wilmer's synthesizer offstage during "Surrender."

The import didn't accidentally end up on American shores. I included a bunch of stuff from Marty Scott of JEM about his agreement to import the album. I know some readers would have liked more interviews in the book, but the ones I did include I felt were noteworthy. JEM's involvement wasn't included in any other book.

The album didn't randomly get played on the radio. WBCN didn't just play it. Bruce Dickenson was the buyer at the Harvard Cooperative, which sold records until the late 1980s. He helped get the word out and got it onto the air. Jim Charne worked on the "From Tokyo to You" sampler that was created expressly for radio. He was also generous with his time and participated in multiple interviews for the book.

There's still stuff I am just finding out. Marc Miller, who I located through the Steve Hoffman forum thread I linked, would become the Music Director for WBCN by the 1980s. In 1978, he was working at both the station and the local Strawberries. He also helped get the album, and subsequently the band, on the air and into people's ears. He also attended all but the last Paradise Club show (the one on the radio) that June. I only found this out a week ago. Yet even Marc wasn't sure about a lot of the Budokan story. I can't blame him, given how much misinformation and obfuscation there is.

I'm not suggesting that I have some earth shattering information, like the identity of the "Tank Man" from 1989. But it is amazing that a story that has been told, published, and broadcast so often since 1978 can go relatively unchecked. Unless you made some mammoth announcement, like revealing that Mark Felt was "Deep Throat," I don't think you could get every one to stop repeating the same falsehoods. Right now, on some forum or in some article, one of these "Cheap Trick Tall Tales" is being repeated.

At the time, I can understand why sticking to the story was so important. But I think it's clear now that this band's success wasn't a gimmick. They worked their ass of to get to where they were in April of 1978. The screams, by the way, are plenty loud on the tapes. On the original album, they are certainly mixed in a way that you can seemingly hear each one. But that doesn't make them any less intense. The same goes for the "gating" of the drums that Matt Hurwitz wrote about in 2017. I don't think Robert Chistgau would retract his review of the album sounding like it was mixed at the "big room in Carlsbad Caverns" if he was made aware of all this, either.

Anyway, the final show of the run may have been the best according to reviews. Only Bun would have a recording to prove it. Until then, I appreciate all the support. Thanks to Steve Roth for having me on his podcast recently.

If you enjoyed the book, please spread the word and drop a review on Amazon. I do apologize that some errors, like the Beatles' quote from ATAS being from "Please Please Me" or the Horden Pavillion being in New Zealand, made it in. If you want "Too Dumb To Quit" to become a reality, please let it be known.

RLW