Bonus post for today- we received these KILLER photos of Megadeth from a show at El Do from 37 years ago. Thanks to Damien Caldwell for taking the photos and Eric Acevedo for getting the pictures over to the archive.










Bonus post for today- we received these KILLER photos of Megadeth from a show at El Do from 37 years ago. Thanks to Damien Caldwell for taking the photos and Eric Acevedo for getting the pictures over to the archive.










I transferred this one a few weeks ago but I assumed it sounded like hot garbage so I wasn’t going to post. It is not that bad for a 1986 audience tape in a room with poor acoustics.
From the sound of the tape, it sounds like it was mastered by Ricky (flat/no low end but somewhat clear). If so, it is a 1st gen.
Recorded by: Ricky?
Equipment used: Aiwa Handheld Recorder?
Here is a much-improved transfer of this Megadeth show. I know that this one was well-circulated from my VHS dub of this, that I acquired in the 80s. This one is right off that master. Looks great!
Recorded by: Boston Marc
Equipment Used: Old beta camcorder
Here’s the backstory on the whole thing:
So I am probably going to go on forever about this one. I knew of a guy who filmed concerts in Sacramento back in the mid-80s. In fact, I gave him $20 to film my old punk band in 1987. I have been searching for this guy for YEARS. I was happy to reconnect with my old friend Jeff Maxwell a while back, and he remembered him but only had a first name- Mark.
So I was hanging out with Mike Parisi and I mentioned my search for 80s video guy, and he connected me to Mark Horner(formerly “mark the dark” of Arson), who told me he knew the guy! He gave me his name and number and I “cold called” him. It turns out that he has been wanting to get his videos on the internet, and Sac Music Archive sounded like a great place to do it! Thanks to everyone for making the connection happen!
So we hit a snag- he could not find the tapes. He finally found 1 of the tapes- a 30 year old BETA (not VHS) tape that was recorded in EP mode… and it looks AMAZING considering the age and equipment back then. WOW! Thanks Marc for filming and for loaning this to me. More to come.

Here’s another show that Mark Martin taped. I was at the show, but I missed Megadeth’s set. We got there right after they finished and went backstage with them. They were in a TINY backstage room- maybe 8×8 feet. Anthony Schwartz, do you remember how small that room was? This show sounds pretty good for non-professional equipment, but there are some cuts early on as on the tape.
Recorded by: Mark Martin
Equipment Used: Nakamichi Dragon DR8 and EMU1212M audio card.



I meant to post this yesterday but Jesse Davis came over to transfer a Umatic tape and much wackiness ensued. It kinda turned into a party.
This post is for Bobby Jordan- he asked for it. He actually wanted video, but video before 1988 is pretty rare around Sac. The quality of this is better than I remembered. I had it rated very low on my tape list but it is shockingly listenable. I think the nak dragon played through the damaged tape.
Recorded by: Mark Martin
Equipment used: Panasonic consumer recorder
Another awesome quality recording from Doug for you today. It was so good that while spot-checking it, I thought it was a soundboard tape. Nope, the crowd noise between songs must make it an audience tape… but since the recording was so clean, I was able to put it into Izotope and do a rebalance, vs. the standard EQ job. Dave’s vocals and the guitar were buried, and Izotope pulled them right up front. Gotta love that software.
Oh, one last thing. The Izotope rebalance pushed the levels up a bit- the songs are fine, but the between song banter/crowd peaked/saturated a bit.
Now that I listen again, it sounds like a board tape.
Recorded by: Tour Manager Doug
Equipment used: Sony Walkman WM-R2
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
Rebalance in Izotope Rx8: Vocal +5, Bass +2, Guitar +3.5
This one is from Tour Manager Doug’s collection, but it seems that someone else named Mike taped it. Check my photo of the cassette on facebook for a pic of the actual tape. Doug knew how to spell “Megadeth” as well. Regardless, glad that Mike captured it!
Recorded by: Mike
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
EQ in Sony Sound Forge 10
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