Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Little Feat Available Now
UPDATE 2025
This commentary was written many years ago. Please ignore everything nice that I had to say about the MoFi Waiting for Columbus.
Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Hoy-Hoy.
Here are some albums currently on our site with similar Track by Track breakdowns.
The recording quality of many of these songs is OUT OF THIS WORLD, as good as any rock record I can think of. Although Waiting For Columbus is arguably the best sounding live rock ‘n roll album ever made, some of the tracks on this album are every bit as good or BETTER. (And the promo EP is practically in a league of its own for sound!)
Little Feat’s studio recordings rarely did justice to the band’s energy and drive. With so many live tracks, this is the album that really shows the band at their enthusiastic best. If I were going to choose one Little Feat album to own, it would be hard to argue with this one musically, and sonically the stuff here just can’t be beat — if you are lucky enough to own a copy with Hot Stampers for all four sides, no mean feat.
A Quick Overview
Side one has two amazing sounding live cuts, as good as it gets and that’s no lie.
Side two starts out with Lonesome Whistle, one of the five best songs this band ever committed to tape.
Highlights on side three include Framed and Gringo, both with superb sound.
Side four has a live version of the song Two Trains, another one of their best recordings, followed by China White, the story of Lowell’s feelings toward cocaine. Dead at 33, rock and roll lost a giant when drugs brought him low.
Side One
Rocket in My Pocket
Rock & Roll Doctor
This track has all of the best qualities of the MOFI Waiting for Columbus AND MORE! Since the MOFI is one of my all time favorites pressings, how, you ask, can this be better?
Better bass for one thing. No half-speed can have the punchy, note-like bass of our Hot Stampers — no way, no how. The MOFI has great bass for a MOFI, but when you hear it like this, it’s no contest. You don’t know what you’re missing until you hear it like this.
More dynamics and energy too. This is truly a Demo Disc track, with that live-in-your-livingroom rock and roll sound we love here at Better Records. Turn it up, the louder the better. The recording is so clean and the best pressings so free from distortion that you can go as loud as your system and your neighbors will let you.
Skin It Back
Ditto the above. Both these tracks are worth the price of the album and rank with the best work the band ever did.
Easy to Slip
Red Streamliner
Side Two
Lonesome Whistle
A MONSTER SIZED Demo Disc track; the sound is as BIG and BOLD as any rock song on the planet. This bad boy is easily one of the Top Five Feat songs ever recorded — and it would never have made it to any album if Lowell’s wife hadn’t found the tape in a bag in the back of the garage.
Hank Williams’ tale of a boy who broke his darlin’s heart and headed for a chain gang puts you in his shoes in a way that few songwriters can claim. And the production! The drums and bass are HUGE! How can this unknown, all-but-forgotten record sound this good, better than 99% of the stuff out there? What do these guys know that others don’t?
Front Page News
The Fan
Forty-Four Blues
Side Three
Teenage Nervous Breakdown
Teenage Nervous Breakdown [live]
Framed
A classic by Lieber and Stoller. One of the most fun tracks Little Feat ever recorded. Ya gotta love this one.
Strawberry Flats
Gringo
With Massenburg at the helm, a man whose work tends to be somewhat on the hi-fi-ish side, I’m shocked at how good this track sounds. If it reminds you of Gaucho-era Steely Dan, complete with breathy female background vocals and a gorgeous sax solo, courtesy of David Sanborn, who plays on both albums (and sounds here a whole lot like Michael Brecker), don’t be surprised — it’s pretty obviously working from their model, and I’m tempted to say the student has become the master. This song is even bigger and bolder in most respects than the best Gauchos. For sophisticated pop production, this is As Good As It Gets. My hat’s off to George M. He knocked this one out of the park. (And it’s even better on the EP!)
Side Four
Over The Edge
Another MONSTER SIZED Demo Disc track; like Lonesome Whistle, the sound is as BIG and BOLD as any rock song on the planet.
Two Trains
China White
This one boast Demo Disc sound of a different style, with a huge group of backing singers behind Lowell, and everybody pulling out the stops, raising the roof as the old gospel phrase has it. Super sweet, wall to wall and practically zero distortion – -play me a CD that sounds like this track and I will eat it.
All That You Dream
Another favorite track, here covered by Linda Ronstadt. She rips it up pretty good; with the aid of some other females, she can let loose knowing that they’ve got her back.
Feats Don’t Fail Me Now