John Hiatt – San Luis Obispo, CA (03/11/16)

John Hiatt
3/11/16
Fremont Theater
San Luis Obispo, CA

Solo Acoustic

5th Row DEAD Center:
Neumann AK-40s (ORTF In Hat) >LC3 >KM-100s >Lunatec V2 (+25db Gain) >Tascam DR100mkII (24bit/48khz)

WAV >Audacity (Normalize, Amplify, Track Splits, Down Sample To 16bit/44.1khz) >FLAC (Level 8) + Tags Via xACT 2.37

FRAGMENT!!!

Recorded, Transferred, FLAC’d, Tagged, & Front Cover Artwork By OldNeumanntapr

//Like A Freight Train
Marlene
Crossing Muddy Waters
Ethylene
Buffalo River Home//

OldNeumanntapr Notes-
This was all I was able to salvage from this recording after my 1st Tascam DR100mkII suffered an extreme electronic meltdown. (As I was setting up in the stall, the Tascam slipped out of my pack while on my lap and partially fell into the water of the toilet, before I could grab it.) Just a corner of the recorder got wet and it might have been OK if I would have had the time to let it thoroughly dry out, but the show was about to start and I had no recourse but to try and use it. This show would have yielded such a killer recording, it’s really a shame that it didn’t work out. Placement in the theater was superb, the crowd was quiet, and the sound was awesome. My Friend Dave’s friend Rick Williams was recording in the seat next to me on the right and he captured the entire show on his Edirol R09 with the internal microphones. Though his recording is good it doesn’t match the sound of the Neumanns / V2. I asked him if I could use his Edirol in place of my Tascam but he had never used the line out and didn’t know how to go through the menus to change the input setting, especially in the dim light of the theater. I really had high hopes for this show and I was crushed to not be able to capitalize on such a great night. The Lunatec V2 is an extremely high end microphone preamp, but it’s almost impossible to use covertly as it is large and requires a separate 6 volt rechargeable battery, but has awesome sound! Just getting this rig through the doors was no easy feat. I waited through a few songs before turning it on to record and it lasted through a few songs before the display started freaking out and it just died. At least I got a couple of songs reordered to actually hear what a difference the Lunatec V2 makes as compared to my Beyer MV 100. Some shows that I have done resulted in ‘the thrill of victory’, but this night was definitely in ‘the agony of defeat’ column.

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

Noirvember: Odd Man Out (1947)

odd man out poster

Sometimes people suggest that The Third Man which was directed by Carol Reed and stars Orson Welles in a pivotal role was also secretly directed by Welles. Or that at the very least Welles gave Reed plenty of advice. The Third Man indeed contains the types of skewed camera angles and shrewd use of shadows and light that Welles so loved, but anyone suggesting that Carol Reed was incapable of such things has apparently never watched Odd Man Out. For it contains many such moments and it came out three years before The Third Man.

Odd Man Out stars James Mason as Johnny McQueen, an Irish Nationalist leader who becomes wounded after a botched robbery attempt. The film follows along as his friend and the police scour the city looking for him, while continually checking back on him as he hides out in an air raid shelter, a local pub, and finally an artist’s residence.

What is remarkable about the film (besides the filmmaking itself which is brilliant) is how much the film makes us care about all of these characters. Johnny is a criminal. He commits that robbery for the money, not out of desperation or need (there are political motivations, but the film never delves into what they are). He kills a man while fleeing the crime scene. While the film shows him remorseful for that act it never once lets us forget it. But it also makes us feel and care for him as a person.

Thematically the film delves deep into that question as to how we are as a society to deal with and react to a criminal – a fugitive from justice.

A couple of elderly women see Johnny fallen on the street. They think he has been hit by a truck. They take him in and attempt to patch him up. But once they realize he has been shot, and thus who he is, they change. They are no longer helping a wounded man but are aiding and abetting a criminal.

A priest asks for information about Jonny’s whereabouts. He won’t protect him from the police but would like to hear his confession. A local street hood tries to sell his hiding place to the highest bidder. An artist wants to paint him as he dies. Johnny’s girl Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan) will do anything to save him, even risk her life.

The film takes us through all of these interactions with great care and style. It doesn’t so much judge these characters as it asks us to ponder their dilemmas. Shot in stark black and white it makes great use of its sets, its location settings, shadows, and lights. It is breathtaking to look at. It is the sort of film that makes you think maybe Orson Welles learned a thing or two from Carol Reed.

It made for the perfect conclusion to Noirvember.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Smile (2022)

image host

Smile is a horror movie in the vein of The Ring (2002) or It Follows (2014) in that it creates a sustained mood and follows a heroine as she attempts to figure out a fairly complicated mythology of the supernatural thing that wants to kill her. It isn’t as good as either of those films and it has a few too many jump scares for my tastes, but it is still a good time at the movies.

Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) is a therapist at the emergency psychiatric ward of a hospital. She is overworked and always exhausted, but kind and generous with her time. One day Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey) comes into the hospital. She says she recently witnessed her professor kill himself and ever since she has been terrorized by an entity that appears as different people smiling strangely at her. This entity has foretold her death. Then Laura gets her own creepy smile and slices her face open.

Rose then begins seeing strange visions of people smiling that same strange smile. She first enlists the help of her boyfriend (Jessie T. Usher) and her therapist (Robin Weigert) but neither of them truly believes what is happening to her. She is able to get her cop ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner) to assist her and they learn that she has become cursed by some evil entity that thrives on trauma. Each person with the curse kills themself in some horrible manner in front of a witness causing the curse to be passed onto them.

Rose has previously suffered her own trauma watching her mother succumb to mental illness as a child and being the one to find her dead body after she killed herself. It has become cliche these days for horror movies to be about trauma, but all too often those films don’t do the work. So, it is nice to see a film that understands trauma and how it lingers. And how other characters around you may not understand how your trauma affects you, even when they have well meaning intentions.

Like It Follows I found myself constantly studying the the background, the edges of the screen looking for someone with that smile. Knowing the entity could appear at any moment and look like anyone kept an edge-of-my-seat tension going throughout. I kind of wish there had been more of that. There weren’t enough moments where she’s seeing strangers smile.

In the same way, I wish they’d followed her just a little while longer researching The Smile. Rose and Joel figured out that it affected a few people then basically stop. They talk to one guy who survived it and get a sort-of answer but then do nothing about it. I’m pushing towards true spoiler territory here so I’ll just say the decisions it makes with these things didn’t always work for me. This is especially true of the very end which felt more like a setup for the inevitable series of sequels than a truly satisfying conclusion to this movie.

But that tension building really worked for me and there are several truly great jump scares. Sosie Bacon is terrific and it is always great to see Robin Weigert in anything. The direction from first-timer Parker Finn is mostly good but there were far too many crooked angle shots and that thing where a shot starts out upside down and then it slowly rights itself.

If you liked It Follows and The Ring then I’d definitely give this one a shot.

The Doors – Chicago, IL (07/21/72)

THE DOORS
Chicago, Aragon Ballroom
July 21, 1972

01.In The Eye Of The Sun
02.I’m Horny, I’m Stoned
03.Verdillac
04.Love Me Two Times
05.The Mosquito
06.Ships With Sails (including drums/percussion solo)
07.Good Rockin’ Tonight
08.Light My Fire

TT 64:59

LDB Vintage Series #030

Hi there! After closing both my Master and Special series I took a break from seeding, enjoying life and most of all
preparing for a new series! This is not going to be as frequent as my previous ones, I’ll be seeding shows from time
to time so don’t expect massive volumes here.

Why a “vintage” series? Because music in the 70’s and 80’s was really something…so different, so special with “that” kind
of sound which you don’t find anymore. That was the era of real music without the internet, of long tours and enjoyable live
shows spanning from metal to new wave, progressive, jazz, fusion, pop. So many bands were born and disappeared during those
two decades.

I am then celebrating the 70’s and the 80’s and their unmistakeable sound in this LDB Vintage Series. You will find many bands
I have never seeded in the past but that I still enjoy listening to. Most of these come from low generation tapes that were traded
around that period, many radio broadcasts and overall lots of surprises.

Hope you will enjoy this new series!

Lineage: WGLD-FM Radio broadcast > n generation tape > TEAC Tape Deck AD-RW900 > Creative Sound Blaster Recon 3D >
HD > SoundForge Pro 10.0 > CD Wave > FLAC Frontend (level 6)

Ray Manzanek: piano, organ, lead vocals
Robby Krieger: lead guitar, vocals
John Densmore: drums, percussion
Jack Conrad: bass guitar
Bobby Ray Henson: rhythm guitar, percussion, backing vocals

This was the first show of the “Full Circle” tour, the last tour they did before disbanding, which concluded at the
Hollywood Bowl in September that year. Of course they have reunited many times since then, but I guess we should consider
this as the last tour.

Believe it or not, I much prefer this tour and album than the Jim Morrison ones. Here the band was somehow on a creative
peak, mixing rock, blues, a bit of jazz and funk. A great blend of music. Verdillac is such a great listen!

Incredibly there are no shows currently on DIME with the post-Morrison line-up. Hope I have filled the gap. This is a nice
radio broadcast from WGLD in Chicago. Good listen, shortie but goodie. I guess a good companion to the Beat Club footage
from the same year that you can find on youtube.

Enjoy!

The Beatles – The BBC Archives, Vol, 14 (1967-1968)

The Beatles
1967-1968 – The BBC Archives Vol 14

Disc 1

01 Good Morning Listeners
The Ivor Novello Awards (March 20, 1966)
02 Presentation and Interview
Top of the Pops (March 20, 1966)
03 John and Paul Talk With Brian Matthew
Where It’s At (May 20, 1967)
04 Paul, John, and Ringo talk with Kenny Everett
Where It’s At (June 1967)
05 Paul talks with Kenny Everett
Scene and Heard (September 13, 1967)
06 George Talks with Miranda Ward, Part 1
Scene And Heard, Part II (September 13, 1967)
07 George Talks with Miranda Ward, Part II
Scene And Heard (September 14, 1967)
08 Ringo Talks with Miranda Ward
Where It’s At (November 1967)
09 All Together On The Wireless Machine – Paul Talks to Kenny Everett
10 John Talks with Kenny Everett & Chris Denning
The Kenny Everett Show (June 06, 1968)
11 John, Paul, and Ringo talk to Kenny Everett
Night Ride (December 11, 1968)
12 John and Yoko talk with John Peel

Additional Material

The Kenny Everett Show (June 06, 1968)
Raw Interview Tape

Santana – San Luis Obispo, CA (04/28/90)

Santana
4/28/90
Mott Gym
Cal Poly University
San Luis Obispo, CA

8th Row Center
(Recorded, Transferred, Mastered, FLAC’d, Tagged (xACT 2.53) & Front Cover Artwork By OldNeumanntapr) [Files Tagged, & Artwork Added 10/2024]

Aiwa CM-30 Stereo Cardioid >Sony WM-D6C (w/Dolby B) [TDK MA 110]
TDK MA-110 Master Transferred: Sony TC-D5M >Tascam DR-100mkII (24/48) w/Dolby B Engaged,
Right Channel Only transferred Through Y Cable To Duplicate Into Two Mono Tracks. WAV >Audacity (Split ‘Stereo’ Track To Mono, Added 30 Milliseconds Of Silence To The Beginning Of Left ‘Pseudo-Stereo’ Track to Approximate The Effect Of Stereo, [See Further Notes Below As To Why This Was Done], Track Splits, Minor Edits, Down Sample / Dither To 16 Bit 44.1k

xx. Spirits Dancing In The Flesh*
xx. Somewhere In Heaven*
xx. It’s A Jungle Out There*
xx. Soweto (Africa Libre)*
xx. Batuka/ No One To Depend On*
xx. Gypsy Woman*
xx. Mother Earth*

Blues For Salvador**
Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen
Oye Como Va
We Don’t Have To Wait
Savor (Percussion Solo)
Choose
She’s Not There
Soul Sacrifice
Europa
Keep On Running/Band Intros

Encore:

Somewhere In Heaven
Peace On Earth

*Not Recorded
**Only last 90 seconds recorded

54.41 – Edit point between side A and side B.

OldNeumanntapr Notes; [2015]
I remember this one well. It was only my second stealth show, the first being Miles Davis at Mott Gym at Cal Poly the week before. I had some minor problems, the first being that I accidentally left my pause button engaged for the first part of the show. When I was getting ready for what I thought would be the first flip, I happened to feel the pause button was still pressed in when I touched the deck. I was pissed, after having checked levels repeatedly. (They looked great, in the dark.)

Another problem was that the CM-30 that I had used had a low level rumble in the right channel. There was something amiss in the microphone’s electronics on that channel, and I later replaced it with another CM-30. As D6 owners will no doubt remember, the D6 recorders had a one-knob level control and had only one row of LEDs for the meter, which would show the highest channel. The recorders were not adjusted at the factory and usually had one channel higher or lower than the other. I eventually had mine calibrated by a tech, but in 1990 I had only had it about a year and a half so it was still unbalanced. Being that I was running metal tape, I wanted to push the levels a bit more than normal. Unfortunately, the left channel was too hot and suffered from some distortion. The right channel, recorded at a little lower level, was better, though the right channel was the bad channel on that particular Aiwa CM-30. (During the quiet parts you can hear the low level rumble in the mic, but fortunately at this show there were not that many quiet parts and we were up front in the 8th row. I wish I would have had better mics, but I hadn’t yet bought the Nakamichi CM-300s. That wouldn’t happen until summer of ’90.

So, I transferred the tape with my D5 to my Tascam DR-100mkII, engaging the Dolby B circuits on playback, and used a Y cable to duplicate the undistorted right channel into dual mono. Then I took it into Audacity and added 30 milliseconds of silence to the start of the left (psuedo-stereo) channel to approximate the sound of a stereo delay. It actually doesn’t sound half bad.

I can’t believe that the 25 anniversary of this show was last Tuesday. The night that Santana played was the night of the infamous Cal Poly / San Luis Obispo student riots, and was what caused Poly Royal, the university’s open house celebration, to be cancelled after 50 years. It was quite a shock to see all the police in riot gear swarming around the Cal Poly campus after the show. We were dumfounded, until we saw the news later. Stupid drunk college kids rioting over nothing.

This recording is most likely the only one from this show, though as always mileage may vary and you can never say never or only. Still, I’ve never seen another one. It actually doesn’t sound half bad. I was able to get rid of the distortion from the left channel and by adding the 30 milliseconds of delay (Thanks for the tip Dennis!) it sounds a lot better than a flat monaural recording would. Still, I can’t do anything about the missing first part of the show. At least I came away with something. (About a minute after the tape starts you can hear my friend Tim lean in and say, ‘Did you bring the weed in? I should have brought some in. Everyone’s smoking’ Too funny!)

I never traded this show before, because of the flaws, so it is uncirculated. I think it sounds a lot better now after doing the work in Audacity. I found out that BOTH of the posted set lists to this show (Setlists.com and Santana’s own website) were incorrect. With a little help from my friends I was able to identify the missing tracks. Of course, I have no way of accurately knowing if the first half of the show’s previously posted set list is correct, as my tape recorder was not running for that portion.

Enjoy! Share freely, don’t sell, play nice, don’t run with scissors, etc. 😉
DO NOT Convert To MP3!

Noirvember: Rusty Knife (1958)

rusty knife poster

I’ve mostly been watching American noir this Noirvember, but I wanted to get into something Japanese before the month was over. Rusty Knife is one of the films in Criterion’s Nikkatsu Noir set. Nikkatsu is one of Japan’s oldest, and most popular film studios. But by 1958 their popularity had waned due to the influx of Hollywood movies in Japan. To compete they started putting out American style crime stories.

It is set in Udaka, a new city made incredibly prosperous incredibly fast in Japan’s post-war industrial boom. With economic growth comes a criminal element ready to take advantage of both the city’s prosperity and its still-developing political machinery. The film follows Yukihiko Tachibana (Yūjirō Ishihara) an ex-convict just released from prison who wants to make a go of straight life.

Tachibana was in prison for murdering a man he thought had raped his wife which caused her to commit suicide. But as the film progresses he’ll learn it was much more complicated than just one man doing something heinous for his own pleasure.

To make things even more complicated before he went to prison Tachibana and two other guys, while out committing a burglary, witnessed the murder of a politician. It was gangsters that did it, making it look like a suicide. When they realize Tachibana and his friends saw the whole thing the head gangster, Katsumata (Noaki Sugiura) pays them off for their silence.

The police have been trying to put Katsumata in prison for years. When they learn that Tachibana and his friends witnessed the politician’s murder they pressure them to become witnesses.

At first, Tachibana refuses. He might be going straight but he’s no snitch. But as he learns more about his wife’s assault and Katsumata’s hand in it things become more complicated.

I liked Rusty Knife pretty well, but there was nothing to really distinguish it from the many other similar crime films I’ve watched in my lifetime. It says some things about Japan in the years that followed World War II, but again I’m not sure it says it any better than numerous other films from the era.
It is worth watching if you are a fan of this type of cinema as it does everything well. It just isn’t the best at what it does.