Rock and roll has been around long enough now to have developed its own traditions. ‎Some, we could do nicely without — drum solo, I’m looking at you! Several of the early ‎rock traditions that have disappeared over the years, though, are true losses and none ‎more so than the live album.

Of course, plenty of live concert recordings, audio and video, are released every year, ‎with increasingly-sophisticated enhancements like 7.1 (and counting) surround sound and ‎hi-def resolution. And while studio sweetening has long been a mainstay of live ‎recording, the out-of-tune bass on Steppenwolf Live and Morrison blowing out his throat ‎on the Doors’ Absolutely Live are the kinds of authentic concert moments that make live ‎rock and roll so exciting and unpredictable, and which would never make it onto a ‎contemporary live album.

Another rock and roll institution that has nearly disappeared is the battle of the bands. ‎Beginning about five minutes after the Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, ‎kids started bugging their parents for electric guitars and drum kits. Soon after that, it was ‎common for even small communities to have several rock combos—with names like The ‎Dukes and The Elements of Time—competing for the few available gigs at area high ‎schools, church basements, and teen hangouts. This was the environment that led some ‎enterprising individual to invent an ingenious means of providing entertainment for the ‎kids, performance opportunities for the musicians, and some modest admission fees for the ‎promoters.

Battle of the Bands Live! (from the wonderful Collectables label) is as close as you can ‎come to reliving those band competitions that were fixtures of the local music scene ‎across America throughout the 60s and early 70s. Unlike Hollywood’s depiction of the ‎‎“typical” American high school rock n’ roll dance, this CD offers an unvarnished, vérité ‎version that’s as raw and immediate as the best documentary film.

Over the course of 22 tracks, The Outcasts, The Stingrays, and The Apollos blast through ‎short sets, comprised mainly of mid-60s rock standards. While the setting isn’t identified, ‎the recording is low-fi to the extreme, almost as if it was made using the bulky tape ‎recorder that ordinarily played the national anthem over the school PA each morning, and ‎the gray, plastic mic the principle used to read the daily announcements and lunch menu.

The lack of 21st century high-fidelity is what makes Battle of the Bands Live! so genuine; ‎short of building a time machine, this is as close as you will get to experiencing a classic ‎rock and roll throwdown. And the disc more than compensates for lousy sound with its ‎authenticity. In contrast to today’s freeze-dried, computer-assisted perfection in “live” ‎performances, the bands’ punky energy and exuberance are as refreshing as an ice-cold ‎glass of Bosco.

Like on their swaggering take on “Dirty Water” when The Apollos’ singer daringly ‎spouts off about how he “can take a shower with my baby and walk around”! The same ‎guy also takes some entertaining stabs at the lyrics on a three-song mini-set of Animals ‎covers—such as “sweatin’ ‘round, at my command” (“It’s My Life”) and something that ‎sounds like “don’t you know that no allow can always be natured” (“Don’t Let Me Be ‎Misunderstood”)—because, man, it’s a hassle to suss out the right words off the record! ‎And it wasn’t like you could look them up on the Internet.