It was in the days when we'd seemingly lost The Stems to posterity, the studio flash that was the Someloves had flared and expired and the DomNicks were a still yet-to-be realised glimmer in some ex-latter day Clash member's eyes. But we still had DM3.
The "DM", of course, stood for "Dom Mariani" and the "3" referred to how many members they had - most of the time. They had melody and they had power. They had fantastic songs. As the then current expression of their leader and namesake's powerpop stylings, they were a head above the rest. Only sighted in their hometown (Perth) and parts of Europe, they reeled out a series of great studio albums that somehow remained under the mainstream success horizon.
"Live" is a snapshot of DM3 at the peak of their powers, a 12-song set from the 1994 Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Roskilde is one of Europe's largest fests and these days hosts 200 acts over a week. It's what you call a Big Deal and the album has been rushed out to coincide with a DM3 Euro tour.
Available as an LP or CD, "Live" ticks all the song boxes: "Never Be Friends", the then about-to-be-released single "Soultop", "Know You Now" and "One Time, Two Times Devastated" are the backbone of a killer set. The Stems' "Move Me" is thrown in for old time's sake. Badfinger's "Come And Get It" is the novel cover tune.
The bracket was probably recorded for FM radio, so it has that slightly compressed sound, but if that's an issue you're probably an audiophile, in which case you really don't really like live music. II's a typical festival set - play the hits, say hello and goodbye and get the fuck out of there. There's a good amount of live adrenalin running, which kicks the tempos up a tad. In short, it's not "Live At Leeds" or "The First And The Last" but it's a spirited live record.
Here's the closing message: This is great, you need it. The CD version (in el cheapo card sleeve) is going ridiculously cheaply at the Citadel mail order website and the Europeans are going to snap up the LP in quick time. So get your skates on, let your finger do the clicking. DM3 might be around forever but this sure as hell won't be.
1/4
