When John, Pete and Lena contacted me about the Old Tyme Jamboree and sent a flyer, I could not believe my eyes. The Mummydogs were reuniting for the event! Guy (Thin White Rope, Mummydogs, Doc Holler, etc) had not publicly performed rock music in over 20 years as far as I knew, and his last band Doc Holler had not played in about 15. It was really great to see this. Thanks to everyone who put the time in to organize, practice and play in the event. What a day.
Recorded by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Canon HF G60; 3x gopro Hero 7 black; Audio: Schoeps CCM4 mics, Naiant Tinybox preamp, Sony A10 digital recorder
Back in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s, I adopted a peer’s method of mixing shows live. I bought a roland MX-5 battery powered mixer and had some custom cables made that tapped into the soundboard signals for each channel. I would then put on these HUGE headphones to listen to the mix either inside the club, or outside on the sidewalk in the case of Old I and Press Club. What a nerd. Anyway, I was lucky enough to see/mix The Mummydogs 4 times. The Mummydogs are Guy Kyser from Thin White Rope. Johanna Kyser from Porchupines, Paul Takushi from Chance the Gardener, and long time friend Cary Rodda. With this one, I used the raw soundboard feed and used the mixer to boost guitar, bass and keyboards. So I had no control over that bass drum clipping (which drives me insane). I hope you can still enjoy it- they do a TWR song in this set.
It’s been a while since I posted audio, so I decided to switch it up and post this Mummydogs recording today. This was from the era that I used a battery powered mixer to tap into the soundboard and mix the set live. That was a problem because it was loud in the club so it was hard to hear the mix clearly. On this one, I mixed the drums a little too high so I used Izotope to boost bass and guitar. Sounds pretty good now!
Mummydogs features a bunch of great Davis musicians, including Guy Kyser from Thin White Rope and Johanna Galos (Kyser) from Thornucopia. They released one great album on Frontier then disappeared.
Recorded by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Sony TCD-D7 and Roland MX5 Mixer into soundboard Transfer Equipment: Sony PCM-R500 and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
Here’s yet another one of those Roland MX5 mixes that I used to do. Even though I tried to fix the mix live, it was still heavy on drums and vocals so I rebalanced it in Izotope. Sounds pretty good! Here is background on the MX5 (nerd alert): So back in the late 1990s/early 2000’s, I had the nerdiest audio setup ever. I had some custom patch cables made that would tap into the insert signals of the soundboard without affecting the sound in the club. I would then use a battery powered mixer (Roland MX5) to mix the show- boost guitars/snare, pan guitars in stereo and the like. I would string a headphone cable outside the club and listen to the mix, then go back in the club and adjust, then repeat. Patrons on the sidewalk of the club would look at me like “who’s the nerd?”. Well, here’s the output of some of that work.
Recorded by: Shayne stacy Equipment used: Sony TCD-D7 into Roland MX5 into soundboard DAT Transfer with Sony PCM-R500 and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card Rebalance in Izotope RX8 (guitar +5, Bass +5 )
This was my first time seeing The Mummydogs- in fact, this might have been their first show. I recorded 4 of their shows over the span of 9 months, and then they were gone. I was pretty excited to see Guy’s new band play and of course everything that could go wrong, went wrong with the recording. I used the Roland MX-5 battery powered mixer to remix the board levels live. I kept losing signal and I would plug channels in and out, trying to get them to work again. The original recording was a total mess, with channels dropping out and signal loss. I spent way too much time fixing this up and normalizing each song, so this is as good as it is going to get. This one is for Onedin- he is a big fan and asked that I post them.
Recorded by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Roland MX-5 into soundboard, mix recorded onto Sony TCD-D7. Transfer Equipment: Sony PCM-R 500 and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Card Vol adjustments & channel/dropout fixes in Sony Soundforge 10 Rebalance in Izotope RX8: Vocal +5, Drums and Guitar +3
Here’s one from Anonymous 2’s collection. Since this person promoted shows in the area, there are a ton of demos from Sacramento area bands along with a bunch of others from around the country. I am working on documenting all of the tapes, like you requested in the Patreon. Sorry it is slow going- I had to wait for my wrist to heal!
The Mummydogs were Guy Kyser (Thin White Rope), Johanna Kyser (Thornucopia), Cary Rodda and Paul Takushi (tons of Davis bands). When I first digitized this a few months back, I thought that it might have been one of my remixed board tapes that I did of theirs but after a closer listen I think this is really a 2 song demo. It does not shazam to the only album they released, so I am going with Demo unless someone proves me wrong.
More info thanks to Paul (drummer and probable engineer of this demo!) “This must be a very early demo bc when I hear the drums, it’s not what I ended up playing as time passed. (Sounds really stiff, too.) I want to say that it was recorded at the old practice spot in W Sac, two doors down from the Deftones’ spot. I think I engineered it on my Tascam Porta 2 4-track cassette machine. We used two PZMs to capture the bass and drums, a SM58 on guitar, and a SM57 on keyboards. Mixed that down to two tracks, then overdubbed the vocals. Then, mixed that into two tracks. Then, made copies from that.”
Recorded by: The band Transfer by: Shayne Stacy Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-audio audiophile 2496 card
