John Prine – San Luis Obispo, CA (09/15/96)

John Prine
9/15/96
Cuesta College Auditorium
San Luis Obispo, CA

4th Row Center: Nakamichi CM-300 CP-1’s (On T-Bar) >Sony TCD-D7
DAT Master Transferred: Tascam DA-30 >HHb CDR 800 Via Analog i/o
Master CDs >FLAC (Level 8) Via xACT 2.37.

[AUG 2024 Remaster]

FLAC >WAV >Audacity (Combine Tracks To A One-Track File, De-Amplify Close-Proximity Hand Claps By 3 To 6 db, Amplify By 2.7db, Re-Track On Original Index Points, Minor Edits [Mic Bumps]) Fix SBEs >FLAC (Level 8) + Tags Via xACT 2.53

Recorded / Transferred, Audacity, FLAC, Tags, & Front Cover Artwork By OldNeumanntapr

Disc I:

1. //Spanish Pipedream
2. Six O’Clock News
3. Fish And Whistle
4. Picture Show
5. You Got Gold
6. The Late John Garfield Blues
7. New Train
8. Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody
9. Angel From Montgomery
10. Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian
11. The Bottomless Lake
12. One Red Rose
13. All The Best
14. Grandpa Was A Carpenter

Disc II:

1. It’s A Big Old Goofy World
2. Donald And Lydia
3. Space Monkey
4. Sam Stone
5. Please Don’t Bury Me
6. That’s The Way The World Goes ‘Round
7. Quit Hollerin’ At Me
8. Band Intros
9. The Sins Of Memphisto
10. Humidity Built The Snowman
11. Lake Marie
12. Hello In There

Encore:

13. Sabu Visits The Twin Cities Alone
14. Storm Windows
15. Daddy’s Little Pumpkin
16. Paradise
17. Taper Outro

OldNeumanntapr Notes:
This was the second time that I had the pleasure of recording John Prine in concert, after catching his show at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz six months previously. That show had some problems, as we got there late and had to stand on the floor among the loud rowdy crowd.
The Cuesta College show was nice because it was in the old Cuesta Auditorium and we had reserved seats. The theater, built back during WWII, is located on the old Cuesta campus and was previously part of the Camp San Luis National Guard army base. The theater, now condemned and slowly falling into ruin, had great acoustics though it looked like hell with pealing paint and a leaky roof. It was deemed not worthy to be retrofitted for earthquake safety. It’s been vacant since the mid 2000s, but I was fortunate to have seen and recorded many great shows there over the years.

I always seem to miss the opening of ‘Spanish Pipedream’, as Prine runs on stage and starts the song when the lights drop. It took a minute to load the DAT in the machine and start recording. (The Sony D7 and D8 recorders did not have a power switch, but would go into a sleep mode after a period of inactivity once the tape was loaded. I had problems on more than one occasion of the recorder mis-loading a tape when I tried to start recording from sleep mode, so I always started the recording directly after loading. Knowing when to start was always the biggest question.)

This show had a great set list. I really enjoyed hearing ‘The Late John Garfield Blues’, ‘Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian’, ‘The Bottomless Lake’, and ‘Sabu Visits The Twin Cities Alone’. I don’t know if I’ve heard ‘Sabu’ since. It’s a great song. I like the story that John tells on the ‘John Prine Live’ CD from the mid 80s.

John still had his voice back in the 90s. It would get worse as time went on, a victim of cigarettes I imagine, until he would have to have throat surgery. I wish I would have been able to record him earlier, back in the 80s.

The last track is a taper outro. I liked to let the recorder run when I left the venue. Sometimes the stories from friends were funny. There is a one or two second break between the last encore song and the outro. Feel free to omit the last track if you so desire. This one is kind of funny because directly after the show As we were about to leave the auditorium my I turned to my friend Dave’s friend Wayne and asked if he wanted one. He said, “Want What? You’ve got a TAPE? I’d Love it! You are getting very very proficient!”

Do NOT encode to MP3!
Enjoy! Share freely, don’t sell, play nice, don’t run with scissors, etc. 😉