When I take in a new collection to digitize, I like to post something that is somewhat of a “big splash” to announce what’s up… well, I got so excited that I just started digitizing stuff that was important to me and not the most popular. So, with that in mind:
Last Monday I braved the big storm and drove to Maraga to meet up with Chris Eng and go through his collection of tapes. Chris was the guy who filmed a LOT of the early east bay punk stuff at Gilman in 1986-87 time frame- he had a nice camera for the time that picked up low light way better than most cameras of the era. I left with 5 boxes of tapes- 2 boxes of video and 3 of audio, so expect those to dominate short-term weekend video posts. Thanks to Chris for having the foresight to film the bands, and for trusting me with the collection.
So, here is the first one. Tim Armstrong (Lint)’s band before Operation Ivy/Rancid was called Basic Radio. Actually, the discogs description is really good:
“Basic Radio was Ska band, formed in 1985 in Berkeley, CA mainly from members of Urban Noise, and played shows in the San Francisco Bay Area with other East Bay bands such as The Uptones, Freaky Executives and Primus.
Members of Basic Radio went on to form Operation Ivy, Rancid, Critical Mass , Elephant Men and Tilt.

Members Include;
Michael Valladares – vocals, saxophone, accordion
Tim Armstrong “Lint” – guitar
Jeff Kamalian – guitar
Matt Freeman – bass
Vincent Camacho – drums
John Healy – percussion, b/u vocals
Cliff Smith – keyboards”

I posted a version of this from a VHS copy a few years back, but this one looks MUCH better- this is straight off of Chris’ master tape, captured with the lossless setup here. Nice!

Recorded by: Chris Eng
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Panasonic AG-1980 — Datavideo TBC1000 – Tevion USB Adapter — Virtualdub
Enhanced in Adobe Premiere Elements/Neat Video (brightness/denoise)