Rage Against The Machine - Who's On First? (1996)

Rage Against The Machine's debut album literally exploded onto the American musical landscape, its energetic hybrid of hard rock, molten metal riffs and rap-inspired vocals as deadly as a gutshot, as powerful as a police officer's nightstick to the head. RATM are unapologetically political, musically radical and overall a great band to see live.

A favorite among tape traders and bootleggers, there are a number of RATM performances circulating among the collectors community. One of the better collections, taken from the band's 1993 U.S. tour, is Who's On First?, released by the Hawk bootleg label in Italy. The songs compiled on Who's On First? represent some of the band's better performances, versions of "Bombtrack," "Bullet In The Head" and "Killing In The Name" offering extremely energetic musical and vocal gymnastics. Zach de la Rocha's spoken rendition of Alan Ginsburg's "How To Be Played On A Jukebox" is particularly potent, tying together the FBI, CIA and the Mafia in the world drug trade, fighting against Democracy in Vietnam and elsewhere under the aegis of multi-national corporate capitalism. Underscored by darkly threatening instrumentation, it is a fiercely venomous rendering of the song.

Altogether, Who's On First? runs nearly fifty minutes in length, offering a fine live set of Rage Against The Machine's most popular songs. With the band's recently-released Evil Empire tracking quite well on the charts, a summer tour and a handful of guest appearances at Lollapalooza, Rage Against The Machine will continue to increase its fan base with an incredibly monstrous live persona. Until the inevitable live recordings from their upcoming 1996 tour start to appear, I'd heartily recommend Who's On First? to the band's rabid fans. (Hawk Records - bootleg)