Live

Personnel: Ish Ledesma (vocals, electric guitar); Richie Puente (electric guitar, percussion, background vocals); Arnold Paseiro (electric bass, background vocals); Joe Galdo (drums, background vocals).
Recording information: 1980.
The vast majority of disco artists who emerged in the 1970s never recorded live albums. For every Donna Summer, Sylvester, or Cerrone who provided a live album, there were countless others who didn't. Another exception was Foxy, whose live album of 1980 received very little attention. This enjoyable, if less than essential, LP finds Foxy performing its two major hits ("Get Off" and "Hot Number") as well as material from 1980's Party Boys (including the title song, "Girls," "Please," "She's So Cool," and the single "RRRRRock") and four new songs that aren't on any of its studio albums: "Sex Symbol," "Ba Ba Cool," "Banshee," and "Gimme What Ya Got." All the new tunes combine funk with rock and new wave, and they indicate that, in 1980, Foxy didn't want to be thought of as strictly a disco band. The sad thing is that if Foxy hadn't thrown in the towel and broken up in 1981, it might have been scoring hits again by 1983 or 1984; after all, the 1980s were full of artists who managed to be relevant to both dance music and rock (Duran Duran and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, among many others). While this LP is enjoyable, it's far from definitive. Some of Foxy's best songs aren't performed (including "Headhunter," "Tena's Song," and "Chicapbon, Chicapbon") and, as pleasing as the new rock-influenced material is, Foxy would have been better off saving it for a studio album. All things considered, this out of print LP can only be recommended to Foxy's hardcore fans. ~ Alex Henderson