— Leave a Comment

Exene Cervenka (X)- Spoken Word, McCabe’s, Santa Monica 6/10/90 xfer master tape Sony WMD6C/ECM909

Here’s one from Anonymous 1’s collection that has been sitting on the shelf here for many years and I finally got around to digitizing. Thanks for your patience, my friend.
This is a rare early spoken word performance from Exene, opening for Henry Rollins during a 3 night run at McCabes in 1990. My friend Anonymous 1 drove down there from Sacramento and stayed with a taper friend (Jon Vogel). The stories that came out of that were legendary.
McCabes is a tiny room- it holds maybe 150 seated. I used a photo from the back of the room so you could see how tiny the place is. I saw so many killer shows there- Meat Puppets a bunch of times, Tweedy(when he was good), J Mascis, Buffalo Tom, Evan Dando and more. The place is a treasure.
The crowd applause in between spoken word segments was overpowering. I did my best to pick through it and normalize it (manually- ugh) the best I could. As a side note, I just discovered that Rollins put out an official CD from this run of shows- not sure how I missed that.

Recorded by: Anonymous 1
Equipment used: Sony WMD6C & Sony ECM909 Mic
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck & Audiophile 2496 capture card

Audio Live Performance
— Leave a Comment

Hubert Selby Jr.- McCabe’s Guitar Shop Santa Monica 6/10/90 full spoken word performance Master Tape

Here is one from Anonymous 1’s tape collection. This is from the same weekend when he drove from northern cal down to see a weekend of Rollins/Exene and Selby shows.
I know that this is the Sacramento MUSIC Archive and HSJ was not a musician, but his spoken word performance was the opening set for 2 musicians, so we’ll let it slide this time. I am not going to stand up a new archive for authors, so it’ll need to be here or nowhere.
This seems like a pretty rare occurrence- I googled “hubert selby jr live spoken word performance” and there is nothing I can find.
The crowd is super loud in between his pieces, so I did my janky manual vol boost in between so you won’t need to turn it up TOO loud.

Recorded by: Anonymous 1
Equipment used: Sony WM-D6C and Sony ECM-909 mic
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
Vol boost in Sony Sound Forge 10

Audio Live Performance
— Leave a Comment

Henry Rollins- Mccabes Guitar Shop, Santa Monica Ca 6/10/90 Set 2 xfer from master audio cassette

Alright, so I promised some soft sounds and a choose your own adventure today.. and then the day got away from me. Sorry about that. Instead here is a full spoken word set from Rollins, circa 1990, right off of Anonymous 1’s master tape. I recently discovered that Rollins released a Live at McCabes CD based upon these performances, but he used parts of all 3 sets from June 9 and June 10 (early, late). This is the complete final set from the weekend.

Recorded by: Anonymous 1
Equipment used: Sony WM-D6c and Sony ECM-909 mic
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card

Audio Live Performance
— Leave a Comment

Henry Rollins- McCabe’s Guitar Shop, Santa Monica Ca 6/9/90 xfer f/master Sony D6 Audience Complete

I was looking for a “post of the day” thing last night and had planned to digitize a DAT, but then I started running late so I looked for something quick… I had already digitized this tape from Anonymous’ collection, so it’s a combo collections/On This Date post today! Don’t worry, you’ll still get a 2nd post, but I’m glad this one was done and almost ready.

Neither Anonymous nor I knew that Rollins released a CD which compiled parts of the 6/9 and 6/10 shows for a CD called “Live at McCabes” until earlier this year. This is Anonymous’ D6 recording of the complete first night’s set. I kept it pretty much as it was recorded- I boosted up a quiet one toward the end, and I pushed the volume up due to the dynamic nature of these performances.

Recorded by: Anonymous
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card

Audio Live Performance
— Leave a Comment

Robyn Hitchcock- McCabe’s, Santa Monica Ca 4/25/89 Solo Acoustic xfer f/2nd gen VHS tape

It’s time for our Patreon Voter’s Choice! As is usually the case, Patrons voted the tape that would be the best to share. This one came from a trade with Chuck Erb many years ago, and he got it from the guy who filmed it. Looks decent, sounds good.

Recorded by: ?
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Panasonic AG-1980 — Datavideo TBC1000 – ATI TV Wonder 600 USB Adapter — Virtualdub
Enhanced in Adobe Premiere Elements/Neat Video

Live Concert Video
— Leave a Comment

Natalie Merchant- KCRW Snap Live in Studio and Interview, Santa Monica Ca 12/28/88 high gen tape

Alright, 2 early ones for you today. This first one is probably the highest generation tape I have ever posted. From what I can see online, there are no good copies of this one. It was so sped up from high speed dubbing that I time stretched it by 12 PERCENT and it still sounds a little fast to me. Izotope did a nice job of de-hissing it. It’s as good as it’s gonna get.

Long interview w/Natalie and Deirdre O’Donoghue, plus Natalie on piano. Really cool performance. Sounds like the first time “eat for two” was performed.

Recorded by: ?
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card
Pitch correction in Sony Sound Forge 10
De hiss in Izotope RX8 Spectral Denoise

Audio Live Performance
— Leave a Comment

House of Freaks- Texas Records, Santa Monica Ca. 1987/8 Bryan Harvey Johnny Hott

Here’s another uncirculated House of Freaks video from the 80s. This is an in-store at a record store, and they must have been playing LOUD for the camera audio to distort like that. Damn.
If you have never heard the band, I encourage you to check out their second album called Tantilla on Rhino Records.
Received in trade from mysterious “Josh” without a last name when I lived in L.A.

Recorded by: ?
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Transfer Equipment: JVC HR-S9900U and Canopus ADVC300

Live Concert Video
— Leave a Comment

Firehose- KCRW, Santa Monica February 1987 xfer from 1st gen audio cassette Mike Watt

Here’s one from my collection today. It comes from that lot of KCRW sessions that I digitized for the station’s archive.
I wish I could remember who I got this from- I recall it being someone who wasn’t a prolific trader and taped stuff in so. cal. They taped it off the radio and sent me a cassette copy.

Recorded by: ?
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card

Audio Live Performance
— Leave a Comment

Soul Asylum- Texas Records, Santa Monica 11/22/86 xfer f/unknown gen audio cassette Acoustic instore

Today’s On This date in History comes from the old days of 1980s tape trading. I think I got this from Katie Dee in Buffalo, she was a big SA fan and I think she even turned me onto the band.

This one is clearly done with a cheap consumer recorder, but since it is an acoustic set it is still enjoyable. Not many acoustic sets from the band this early on. In fact, this is the earliest acoustic performance that I have out of the 177 Soul Asylum recordings I have. Maybe Mike Wilson (owner of the cool “littletooclean” youtube channel and tons of SA tapes) can chime in to confirm.

Recorded by: ?
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card

Audio Live Performance
— Leave a Comment

Motorhead- Santa Monica Civic, Santa Monica Ca 11/27/85 xfer from 1st or 2nd gen VHS enhanced

Happy Friday before the holiday weekend! Here is another one from Chris Eng’s collection. This was on a tape that he received from Cliff Cunningham. I am not sure if Cliff taped this, but it does look a bit like some of the other videos he filmed back then. This one looks WAY better than the generated version that is currently on YT.
This took place a few days before Motorhead played the smallest show in their history- a 2/3 full show at the 300ish capacity Oasis Ballroom in sac. That oasis show was 1 of 2 reasons why my hearing is shot now.

Recorded by: ? (if Cliff Cunningham, this is a 1st gen)
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Panasonic AG-1980 — Datavideo TBC1000 – Tevion USB Adapter — Virtualdub
Enhanced in Adobe Premiere Elements/Neat Video (denoise)

Live Concert Video