Author: Mat Brewster

Welcome to the Midnight Cafe group of sites.

Andre Bird and Hands of Glory – Telluride, CO (06/21/14)

Andrew Bird and Hands Of Glory
Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Telluride, Colorado
Town Park
June 21, 2014

4 mic mix
Source 1/2: Schoeps MK2S [A-B split 54 cm] > KCY > VST62IU > Grace Lunatec V3 > Sound Devices 744t @ 24bit/48hz
Source 3/4: Schoeps MK4V (DIN) > cmc6 > Naiant LB (Jensens) > Sound Devices 744t @ 24bit/48hz
8ft in air right front corner SBD cage
INHDD > Samplitude 11 > Sound Forge 10 > CD WAVE > TLH
Tagged in foobar 2000
Taper: soling (sdolan@wi.rr.com)

Run time: 73:52

01 ?
02 Plasticities
03 Not a Robot, But A Ghost
04 Tin Foil
05 Dear Old Greenland
06 Effigy
07 Frogs Singing
08 Mx Missiles
09 Give It Away
10 When That Helicopter Comes
11 Something Biblical
12 Colorado Girl
13 Near Death Experience
14 Three White Horses
15 Pulaski At Night
16 ?

Andrew Bird – guitar, vocals, percussion
Tiff Merritt – guitar, vocals
Eric Hayward – pedal stell guitar
Ilan Hampton – bass
Kevin O’Donell – drums

10,000 Maniacs – New York, NY (10/23/90)

10,000 Maniacs
Beacon Theatre
New York City, NY
October 23, 1990
(Two Of Us Master Series Volume 222)

Recording: Shure Mic > Sony WM-D6C

Transfer: Master tapes > Nakamichi DR-01 (azimuth adjusted) > USB Sound Devices > Audacity > iZotope RX / ozone 9 (mastered) > xACT 2.50 > FLAC

01 Maddox Table
02 Eat For Two
03 Whatís The Matter Here?
04 City Of Angels
05 A Campfire Song
06 Headstrong
07 Cherry Tree
08 Dust Bowl
09 Everyone A Puzzle Lover
10 Cotton Alley
11 Heís A-1 In The Army (And Heís A-1 In My Heart)
12 Gun Shy
13 Poor De Chirico
14 The Latin One
15 Scorpio Rising
16 Daktari
17 Like The Weather
18 Hey Jack Kerouac
19 Donít Talk
20 Trouble Me
21 Poison In The Well
22 Tension
23 My Mother The War
24 Among The Americans
25 Where My Soul Never Dies
26 Planned Obsolescence
27 Where My Soul Never Dies (Reprise)

Known Faults:
-Maddox Table: joined in progress
-The Latin One: start cut
-My Mother The War: end slightly cut

Between 1983 and 2002 there were not any tapers more active than the “Two Of Us”. For the better part of two decades they taped over 250 artists with an array being taped multiple times.

If you collect Springsteen then you are already familiar with some of their work, “fmcleanboots” has posted a half dozen or so of their “Tunnel Of Love” tour shows but has decided to pass the baton.

What you don’t know is their passion was not just for Springsteen but for music and that passion runs deep. It is astonishing how many artists they taped.

They followed tours taping club shows, theater shows, arena shows, big artists, mid-level artists and local artists.

If they were following a tour and the tour had an off night they’d see who else was playing that night to tape. Always focused on enjoyment of the show as the priority,
tickets were for the most part acquired outside of the venue as they worked to obtain the best possible seats, continually trading up until the correct seats were acquired.

The results of this were the captures are uniformly excellent but on occasion the start of the show was sacrificed as a trade-off for the seats.

The heavy lifting was done by the Sony WM-D6C and an external Shure Mic before moving to DAT for the last couple of years. None of their masters have ever been circulated and
have been safely stored for the past three to four decades in a climate controlled environment. Tapes transferred so far are in pristine condition.

Though we may do some mini releases of a series of shows in order for one portion of a tour for the most part shows will not be released in order, there are just too many of them.

This will be a very exciting series and we hope along the way we upgrade existing circulating audio and offer up shows that do not have any circulating audio, enjoy the ride, this is definitely not a dark ride.

10,000 Maniacs
Beacon Theatre
New York City, NY
October 23, 1990

This is recorder 2 for Natalie and company’s 1990 stop at the Beacon Theatre and our third 10,000 Maniacs show in the series. Another wonder performance from the group, a little bit of the Beacon reverb but highly listenable throughout.

As always thanks to Goody for his continuing support of this and all our other historic releases ensuring we are running in the correct pitch.

A big thanks as always to “Two Of Us”, their dedication to capturing all these legendary performers and shows many heard hear for the first time, the HOURS and HOURS spent waiting in line, traveling, money on tickets as well as trusting me to be the caretaker of their life’s work, our little community is indebted to you both. Also, a big thank you to my friend “fmcleanboots” for putting me in touch and laying the groundwork that has resulted in all these great releases…we’ve barely scratched the surface. The amount of completely uncirculated shows they taped and continue to get into my hands for release is staggering.

And as always thanks to Goody for his continuing support of this and all our other historic releases ensuring we are running in the correct pitch.

Noirvember: So Long at the Fair (1950)

so long at the fair poster

Vicky Barton (Jean Simmons) a young Englishwoman and her brother Johnny (David Tomlinson) travel to Paris for the Exhibition. They check into a nice hotel. They speak to the owner and the porter. The porter is miffed because Johnny gives him an English shilling for a tip.

They go to Montmartre for dinner and the Moulin Rouge for entertainment. They keep bumping into another Englishman, George Hathaway (Dirk Bogarde), and his two companions. His companions are staying at the same hotel and later that night he’ll borrow money from George to pay the cabbie.

Everyone goes to bed and when Vicky wakes up the next morning she finds that George is nowhere to be found. Not only that but his room doesn’t seem to exist. His room number, 19, is a bathroom and not a bedroom at all. No one at the motel will ever admit that they ever saw him. She arrived alone they say.

This story is based on an old urban legend. Usually, it involves a mother and daughter, but they’ve changed it to siblings here. It has been adapted into various stories over the years and it was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes.

In the Hitchcock film, an elderly lady disappears from a train, and someone she only just met has to look for her. In that film the protagonist starts to think she’s gone crazy, that she only imagined the old lady. Which works because she didn’t really know the woman in question.

It seems much more difficult to convince someone that they don’t have a brother. Luckily, the film finds some clever ways to get past that. When she goes to the British consolute he says he believes her but that she’ll have to find evidence. He suggests finding someone else who saw her with her brother.

She remembers that a woman saw them together and that she was going to be at the exhibition. But something quite unusual (which I won’t spoil) happens to her keeping her from testifying.

The police chief likewise says that he believes her and goes to the hotel to question the owner. But again without evidence, there isn’t much he can do.

Enter George Hathaway again. Naturally, he helps the poor girl sort out exactly what has happened. It all leads to a surprising conclusion that is also somehow disappointing. They find a clever way to explain why they not only had to make Johnny disappear but his room too. It also satisfies questions of why they left her alone (except for the gaslighting).

And yet while it is clever, and it does explain everything, I found it not at all satisfying.

The film doesn’t amp up the mystery angle of the story very much. We know exactly who is involved, we just don’t know why. Vicky never seems to be in any real danger either. Instead, it is a story about a woman placed in an incredibly strange situation trying to understand what has happened and why no one will believe her.

On that front, it mostly worked for me. Jean Simmons is quite good and I always love Dirk Bogarde. He’s one of those actors that every time I watch him in a film I want to find him in other things.

In the end, it was a pretty good film, but I still prefer the Hitchcock version of this legend.

Pink Floyd – Sydney, Australia (02/01/88)

Pink Floyd
Feb 1, 1988
Sydney Entertainment Centre, Sydney, Australia
Tour: A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)
Signs of Life
Learning to Fly
Yet Another Movie
Round and Around
A New Machine, Part 1
Terminal Frost
A New Machine, Part 2
Sorrow
The Dogs of War
On the Turning Away
One of These Days
Time
On the Run
Wish You Were Here
Welcome to the Machine
Us and Them
Money
Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2
Comfortably Numb
Encore:
One Slip
Run Like Hell

Pink Floyd – Los Angeles, CA (02/10/80)

Pink Floyd
Sports Arena
Exposition Park
Los Angeles, California
10th Feb 1980

Set 1
In the Flesh?
The Thin Ice
Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1
The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2
Mother
Goodbye Blue Sky
Empty Spaces
What Shall We Do Now?
Young Lust
One of My Turns
Don’t Leave Me Now
Another Brick in the Wall, Part 3
The Last Few Bricks
Goodbye Cruel World

Set 2
Hey You
Is There Anybody Out There?
Nobody Home
Vera
Bring the Boys Back Home
Comfortably Numb
The Show Must Go On
In the Flesh
Run Like Hell
Waiting for the Worms
Stop
The Trial
Outside the Wall

A WALLweeds production

I have no lineage for this show I am afraid.

This is what was done to the show.

Suppressed low.
Filter 41dB
Suppress white noise -40dB
Swapped channels

I hope that you enjoy the show.

Pink Floyd – Philadelphia, PA (06/29/77)

1977-06-29
Pink Floyd
The Spectrum
Philadelphia, PA
USA


Roger does not play during Us and Them (?)

Band Members
David Gilmour
Nick Mason
Roger Waters
Richard Wright

Dick Parry
Snowy White

Name: Who Refused to Play the Encore
Track List

1 Sheep
2 Pigs On The Wing (part 1)
3 Dogs
4 Pigs On The Wing (part 2)
5 Pigs (Three Different Ones)

1 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts I – V)
2 Welcome To The Machine
3 Have A Cigar
4 Wish You Were Here
5 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts VI – IX)
6 Money
7 Us And Them

http://www.pf-db.com/index.php?concert_id=614&bootleg_id=1772

There are two sources used on this roio, one main source, and a second source that is patched in during Pigs (3DO), and used from the end of Shine On (6-9) throughout the encores. This second source sounds really bad, but it’s the only roio Ive seen from this date that has both the encores. The performance is good, but the crowd is bad, setting off fireworks constantly. This isnt a show you would listen to over and over, cause of the poor sound quality, but if you want a complete show from this date, this is the roio to get. -pict

just now I notice 2 particulars about this recording:

  1. this version is speedcorrected (the Spectrum Theatre Philadelphia 29.6.77 recording runs too slow)
  2. the number … that I was not able to identify previously.
    now I hear it clearly!
    50
    on Pigs (3DO) 3rd verse at 11:56 on Spectrum Theatre Philadelphia 29.6.77 – at 11:47 on Who Refused To Play The Encore -littlesheep

Evil: The Complete Series DVD Review

evil the complete series dvd

Evil is one of those shows I wouldn’t think I would like but it turns out I really love. It is basically a procedural that started out on broadcast TV. I normally avoid that sort of thing. But it was created and show-runned by Robert and Michelle King who have made a habit of taking established broadcast TV tropes and turning them into something original.

The concept – three people, a priest, a lapsed-Catholic psychologist, and an atheist scientist investigate paranormal shenanigans for the Catholic Church – is pretty standard broadcast TV stuff. But they made it really fun. This is especially true after the first season when it was dropped by CBS and became a streaming-only show. Then it gets really good and weird.

You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.

The Friday Night Horror Movie(s) – Someone’s Watching Me (1978) & The Ward (2010)

image host

John Carpenter is one of my favorite genre filmmakers. He’s one of the few guys making genre films that has no pretensions as to being any other kind of filmmaker. He wasn’t making horror films as a means to fund his arthouse projects, he was making them because he loves horror movies.

When he was good there were few better, when he was bad…well I started to say I don’t want to talk about when he was bad, but I have to talk about The Ward.

After I watched The Ward but before I sat down to write anything I decided to put on another movie. Browsing through the Criterion Channel I discovered another John Carpenter movie Someone’s Watching Me, and I decided to make it a double feature.

Made in 2010 The Ward remains the last film Carpenter ever directed. Considering that was 14 years ago, that he’s now in his mid-70s, and has expressed no desire to ever make a film again, I think it is safe to say it will be his last film.

Made in 1978 Someone’s Watching Me was the third film he’d ever directed, coming just after the experimental student film Dark Star and the low-budget, independent (but still great) Assault on Precinct 13.

The Ward was made by an elder statesman with nothing left to prove. A man who had grown tired of making films. It was his first film after a ten-year break from feature films. A man who admitted he was burned out, and fallen out of love with filmmaking.

Someone’s Watching Me was made by a young artist, hungry. He not only directed his previous two films but wrote their scripts and scored them. Warner Brothers asked him to write the script for Someone’s Watching Me based on a true story that happened in Chicago. When they decided to turn it into a made-for-TV movie they offered him the director’s chair. Carpenter jumped at the chance.

It would mean a bigger budget (even 1970s made-for-TV money was more than he was used to working with) and access to better equipment and good crews. It even gave him his Director’s Guild union card.

It isn’t that The Ward is a bad film, it’s just generic. Were it made by any other filmmaker it would be largely forgotten. But because it was made by Carpenter and it was his “comeback” film after 10 years away it is nothing but disappointing. His films weren’t always great but they were never generic, they were always made by a filmmaker with a vision.

There are generic aspects of Someone’s Watching Me’s plot, it is your basic woman being stalked by an unknown stranger story that has been told many times. But Carpenter infuses it with style and does his very best to keep it interesting. It is full of camera movement and shots that clearly took time to set up and were well thought out.

The Ward feels dull in comparison. It is a story that has been told many times before as well. A young woman finds herself in a psychiatric ward where something is stalking her and her fellow patients. But is it real or is it all inside her head?

But Carpenter does nothing with the material. Unlike most of his films, he didn’t have a hand in writing The Ward and he didn’t score it either. It was more or less a director-for-hire type film and he phoned it in.

It was fun watching these two films from both sides of his long, storied career. His best material lies between the two (he almost immediately started making Halloween just after he wrapped on Someone’s Watching Me and he says he learned many of the techniques he’d use on that horror masterpiece there). But is always interesting to see a filmmaker at the beginning of his career and then at the end.

For the pedantic film nerds among you, I am aware that Carpenter directed two episodes of the Masters of Horror series after that ten-year hiatus, and he recently filmed an episode of John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams, but those weren’t feature-length films so I made an editorial decision and left them out of the discussion.