I want to be sure that everyone knows that Ken Doose has a LOT of really great quality Sacramento area stuff in his collection. High quality master audio and video tapes. So, why did I decide to post this as the very first thing from his collection? It’s because Jeff Arellano has been asking me if I had this damned video for like 15 years. HERE. haha. Also, The Mine Shaft was a legendary teen hangout in the 80s and this is the only video I have ever seen from there. This video was so dark that you could not see anything at all. I was able to fix it up so you can see the band and denoise all of the graininess. Still sounds awful though. I promise you- great stuff coming from Ken’s collection! R.I.P. The mine Shaft.
Recorded by: ? (from the band’s collection) Transfer by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Panasonic AG-1980 — Datavideo TBC1000 – Tevion USB Adapter — Virtualdub Enhanced in Adobe Premiere Elements/Neat Video
Wayne V traded with a member of Haywire back in the late 80s, and they sent him this tape. These guys were on We Bite Records (same label as Attitude) and consisted of Billy Rubin, John Bruce, Rick Greeno, and Vadim Rubin. They sound like they were part of the early alternative/grunge sound, before it was coined “grunge”.- Discogs has them down as a crossover band, which this recording could be considered.. but not the album I heard. Regardless, really good stuff and worth a listen.
From Wayne Vanderkuil’s collection
Recorded by: the band Transfer by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
Wayne V traded tapes with a member of the band Haywire from L.A. for a stretch, and they sent a tape of their band (nice recording) from the late 80s. At the beginning of the tape, there was this rollins spoken word. I was unsure if this was an official release, so I tried to Shazam it and no results. So, let’s run with it. 8 min of Rollins today
From Wayne Vanderkuil’s collection Transfer by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
This one is going to be long. I’ll let Laura Levy give the detail: The Del Montes were the “alter ego״ band of the Gin Blossoms, playing covers and originals several night a week in 1988/1989 often at Long Wongs, a long gone and much missed Tempe institution on Mill Ave. This particular night was “pirate night”, the band members at this point were Doug Hopkins (Otis Del Monte r.i.p) on lead guitar, Bill Leen (Soup Bone Del Monte) on bass, Jesse Valenzuela (Pablo Del Monte), Dan Henzerling (Ishmael Del Monte) on drums and Robin Wilson (Biff Del Monte). I shot this show with a hand held Sony camera that was quite literally purchased from the trunk of a car at a Circle K. The sound is dreadful, but it’s a document of an era. Great moments, silly interludes, friends called up to the stage, and drunken mayhem. Many thanks to Shayne Stacy who encouraged me to share this tape, and spent hours cleaning it up. Laura Levy Track list below.
Long wongs “Pirate night”
Ruby ruby Dead flowers Angels tonight Dream with you Brown eyed girl I can sleep Seven days Pipeline mashup with Munsters Theme A little bit o’ soul Movin on up (Jefferson’s Theme) -Break at 38m- Lost horizons (Jesse on vocals) Found out about you Dead skunk Cigarette shack “Chico Del Monte” called up, real name Chico Chism How long how long blues Fireworks -break- Solitary man – Robin solo My lonely sad eyes I can feel so bad (Cajun song) Wizard of Oz bit – Robin I think this is supposed to be La Grange? Jailbreak Still the night (Bodeans cover) Something wrong Something that we can talk about (G song?) -Break- Peggy Sue Space and time song (Robin) Gloria (Jim Swafford vocals) Roadrunner “Elvis” Del Monte (Frank Martinez) Little Sister Kelli Richards
Recorded by: Laura Levy.. but we are not sure if this is the master tape or a 1st gen Transfer by Shayne Stacy Equipment used: JVC HRS-9900U- Datavideo TBC1000 – Tevion USB Adapter — Virtualdub (lossless xfer) Enhanced in Adobe Premiere Elements and Neat Video. This video was super dark so I had to do some unnatural things to make it visible, hence the “1990s surveillance camera” look
Huge thanks to Mark Murray for sending this over to me after I posted the other demo a couple of weeks ago. This is an earlier demo with only 2 members. Very cool. Now I wish I had seen these guys back in the 80s/90s
Here is a short one for you today. Man, I loved the Bottle Rockets. Only got to see them play a couple times- once in 1994, once in 1995. Chicken Truck consisted of the 4 core members of the Bottle Rockets and were active from 1986-1989… then they changed their name and the rest is history. I don’t think that this song made it onto any official Bottle Rockets releases, but they used to play it live back in the 90s. My favorite part of this one is being to finally decipher some of the lyrics with the lyric sheet.
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
Here is yet another demo from Dan Pettit’s collection, from Bethesda, Maryland’s band At Wit’s End. Good stuff- this sounds like something that could have been released by Dischord back in the 80s. I hear a lot of Dag Nasty influence here. The image here is the cassette J-card; it folds out into an 8.5×11 lyric sheet!
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio audiophile 2498 card
After mowing through some old emails last night, I finally ran across the one that Dan Pettit sent me about these tapes. Apparently, FKB was Bronx Style Bob’s first band. This sounds comparable to the other funk/metal bands coming out of NYC at the time- Living Colour, 24/7 Spyz, etc. Here is a transfer from the original demo. Enjoy.
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
Here’s a special one today. I have mentioned before that I troll Ebay for any interesting live or demo tapes, since I don’t have enough to do around here. This one popped up with a $25 buy it now and I jumped on it. It’s not on discogs, not on Youtube, no sales history on Ebay. I think it might be pretty rare. It has 5 songs- 3 of them (The Plank, Impossible, The Bus) made it to the first album. Deep in the Ground was a B-side to The Enemy 7″, and Sacred appears to be unreleased in any form.
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy Equipment Used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
