2005-10-28

My Fourth Recording - Peter Hook DJ Set - 2005-10-28 - Mezzanine SF


Hooky gives the thumbs up!


(written back in 2005)


It's weird going to any dance club alone. 


This was a social event more than a flesh exchange, so, luckily, nobody hit on me. Though somebody did come up to me to ask something...more on that later.

Apparently, Stüssy (umlaut over the u), which is a clothing company, was having some sort of celebration so all of their folks had all-access. Last time (when Hooky dropped by Popscene), I dragged my wife along, and had to leave early because she wanted to get home and we needed to get an early start for the next day...well, that was the day before Kaiser and my trip to So. Cal to see Coachella.  Not sure how long he played, but this time, it was for about three hours! Popscene was packed.  For some reason, this event was more sparsely attended, and the location is about 2x the size of Popscene to boot. 

The special guest (whom I found out only last night) was Andy Rourke formerly of the Smiths. He's looking all right these days, he was drinking quite a bit during his set, which was basically performed with an iBook.  I happened to tape much of his set, so you you can hear for yourself that he's basically just playing music and not doing much in the way of mixing. [Hooky, too, it turns out, to quite an infamous reaction].  I didn't get a chance to go up to him, but a couple of people asked for (and got) autographs and took pictures with him. One disappointing note.  No Freebass tracks, as far as I tell. 

Doubly curious since 2/3's [well, not really, but that's what I thought back then] of the group were there. So, while I'm watching Andy do his thing, none other than the man himself comes walking by...but by the time I react, he's well past me, and there's nothing worse than chasing, both in poker and in brushes with greatness.  However, Hooky and a young man came by again, and I had a brief chance to talk to him. I found out that he's working with LTM on releasing all the gems he has in his vaults....no, just kidding. I only had the werewithal to ask him how long Andy Rourke had been beatmixing... er, DJ'ing. Hooky laughed, shrugged, and referred me to the young man that was next to him.  At the time, I didn't figure out until afterwards that young man was his son Jack! The cool part is that I was taping at this point, so you'll likely be able to hear this.  I'm about 90% sure this was Jack, since I recall reading that he would accompany the old man on his nights out, but I'm not totally positive about it, but he does bear a bit of resemblance to his father, but has curly hair and will probably have no trouble with the ladies. 

The first part of Hooky's set was the pretty bog-standard sequence (Captain and Tennile's Love Will Keep Us Together mixed with LWTUA followed by Grace Jones' SLC, etc)...a well-put together set, actually, which, by the end turned into an 'Item' listening party, with New Order track after New Order track.  This is not a bad thing at all, mind you, as there's nothing more transcendent than having tracks played to you by one of the people responsible for their composition, especially by the person I daresay is now [was] the heart and soul of the group.  
He was clearly enjoying himself, at several points trying to get a cute-looking girl who was probably affiliated with the club to help mix.  And at one point Jack grabbed her to keep her from going. Smart lad, that apple doesn't fall very far from the tree, as they say. 

By the time Hooky was done, there were only myself and 20 other diehards out of the total of 100-something from before left... we were having a blast, singing along and dancing along like the drunkards most of the group were at that point, I only had a single Pale Ale, I'm dangerous enough as it is without getting pissed.  I taped most of it, but ran out of disc (and battery) during the latter part of Crystal, after approximately 2hr 40m of music. Not bad, and I may have gotten even more had I used the wall outlet AC instead of USB to charge it (the MD-RZ10 also takes a single AA attachment to extend battery life).  I could have probably gotten a couple more hours of bat life (and certainly enough room on a single 1Gb disc) had I recorded in ATRAC SP mode, but I believe in keeping it lossless if at all possible.  [funny that I've only sharing this in MP3 format]

And unlike my Kaiser recording, this one was quite listenable without any further processing. In fact, it turned out surprisingly good. The AGC on those units is wicked fast, it's not easy to tell that the unit is constantly volume limiting. So I missed out on (going by memory) EGG, Temptation ('83 version), True Faith, Regret, WIM (full singalong in effect), and the first part of Moby's Temptation to chill-out and give the message to the faithful to sod off, even I was yelling out, "Haven't you lot had enough?". 

It was well worth the price of admission plus nearly that much to park. As I was walking out, a couple of the lads were putting their best Blighty on and singing to WIM and "Manchester, la-la-la" as they staggered out the door. Well, I use "lads" loosely, one was wearing a nose ring. I'm sure they're NOOL'ers...didn't run into anybody I had met earlier, though I did recognize one lady from Popscene. Near the end, one individual goes up to me and asks whether I'm Arthur Baker! I nearly doubled up from laughing, but still had enough breath to tell him that nope, I wasn't, pointing out that Arthur Baker is quite a bit fatter and older than I am. I'm not sure if this made the tape or it had cut out by then [ed: it made in onto the recording]. 

I managed to give Hooky a copy of 'Excerpts From Recycle'. He accepted it and shook my hand...For all I know he might bin it, and it's a bit late to the part after Item, but there's still a few interesting things on there.  Will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. He might even play a track off of it, who knows.

One other bit of trivia. Hooky was smoking at a couple points, and so was Jack. Shhh...Don't tell...
 
Hooky waves at yours truly.

Setlist for Peter Hook

Captain And Tenille - Love Will Keep Us Together vs. JD - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Malcolm McLaren)
Grace Jones - She's Lost Control vs Ian Curtis original vocal
Dub Pistols - World Gone Crazy
Tom Neville - Just Fuck
Benny Benassi Presents The Biz - No Matter What You Do
The Shapeshifter's - Lola's Theme (internal cut at 1m50s swapping MDs)
Steve 'Silk' Hurley - Jack Your Body
New Order - Krafty (Morels Pink Noise vocal)
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (remix)
Bodyrockers - I Like The Way
La Phaze - Rude Boy
Sugirumn - Boogie Nights
Karl Bartos - 15 Minutes Of Fame
Chemical Brothers - Galvanize
Chemical Brothers - Out Of Control
The Killers - Mr Brightside
The Killers - All These Things I've Done (remix - includes Hooky bass bit)
Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK
Happy Mondays - 24 Hour Party People (Jon Carter mix)
Joy Division - Transmission (with Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love teaser)
Monaco - What Do You Want From Me
Johnny Cash - A Thing Called Love (Jerry Reed Hubbard)
New Order - Blue Monday (remix)
New Order - Crystal (cut)

Download link (MP3)

Setlist for Andy Rourke

Chris Issak - I Dont' Want To Fall In Love (end) 
Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
Annie - Chewing Gum (Mylo remix, radio edit) (cut) [missing Herbie Hancock - Rockit from source]
Le Tigre - Decptacon
The Bravery - An Honest Mistake
Ian Brown - F.E.A.R.
The Rapture - House Of Jealous Lovers
Happy Monday - Halleujah
Marlena Shaw - California Soul
New Order - Blue Monday (mash-up with 'We Can Make Sandwiches')
The Breeders - Cannonball
Elastica - Connection
The Pixies - Debaser
Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
The Clash - Train In Vain
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy

Download link (MP3)

(Lossless for both sets available upon request.  Maybe.)

Videos

New Order - Krafty




Joy Division - Transmission + Monaco WDYWFM




New Order - Blue Monday



2005-06-06

My Third Recording - Sleater-Kinney / Mary Timony Catalyst Santa Cruz 2005 June 6



Sleater-Kinney
2005-06-06
The Catalyst
Santa Cruz, CA

taper: lammah
kit: Sonic Studios DSM-6 > -20dB attenuation via cable > Archos AV320

Setlist

intro  [2:57]
The Fox  [3:46]
Wilderness  [3:44]
Youth Decay  [2:45]
Combat Rock  [5:44]
Rollercoaster  [5:15]
Modern Girl  [3:03]
Jumpers  [4:25]
One More Hour  [3:18]
What's Mine Is Yours  [5:41]
Was It A Lie?  [3:17]
Everything  [3:05]
Steep Air  [3:55]
Light Rail Coyote  [3:32]
Let's Call It Love  [14:19]
Night Light  [3:33]
Entertain  [8:19]

(encore)
I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight (Richard and Linda Thompson)  [2:49]
Get Up  [3:49]
Oh!  [4:36]


Total:  [1:32:03]

Third ever show taped.  Warning: this is a pretty awful recording.

I normally eschew using hiss reduction, but no choice here as in reaction to my overly brickwalled/clipped New Order recording the month before, this time I used a -20dB patch cable to attenuate what was coming in from the mic.

You can guess what happened...it ended up being way too quiet, meaning that after normalizing, in addition to the hiss, you get to hear the Archos AV320's HD spin up after every minute and 15 seconds or so...sorry about that.

Went with a couple of friends to this show, not sure why we went here instead of SF unless that show was already sold out or wanted a more intimate venue (probably both).

For some odd reason, I never really followed their releases closely, but there probably were at the peak of their game at this point.  The year after, they went on indefinite hiatus, but did get back in 2013, and may end up working together again.

The opening set after the break...

2005-04-29

My Second Recording: New Order / Henry J. Kaiser Arena - 2005-04-29

photo/screencap by Zachary Culbertson

New Order
2005-04-29
Henry J. Kaiser Arena
Oakland, CA

Setlist

She's Lost Control
Love Vigilantes
Regret
Hey Now What You're Doing
Krafty
Transmission
True Faith
Run Wild
Jetstream
Waiting For The Sirens' Call
Bizarre Love Triangle
Love Will Tear Us Apart 
Temptation
Crystal

(encore)

Blue Monday (mixed in with the Kylie Minogue's "Can't get you out of my head")

My second audio recording, and my third time seeing one of Manchester's finest, the last times being 1993 and 2001.  I ended up also seeing them at Coachella that weekend, but was barely pressed to survive the festival, much less consider recording it.

My friend Mike S. lent me his 90s vintage Sonic Studios DSM-6L mics (tucked underneath the shirt I was wearing) and PA-06 battery box, and I proceeded to plug them into an Archos AV320 HD recorder.  This was an era, before smartphones and tablets where watching portable videos meant lugging along a portable DVD player or bringing a laptop...it also seemed to be suited to use as a audio recording device.  One problem:  the built in hard drive was not designed to withstand any sort of jolt or shock, meaning that I missed both the opening She's Lost Control, Love Vigilantes, and a portion of the third song Regret...as well as the encore, though that may have been due to running out of battery power, which is why I didn't attempt to tape the openers, Chemical Brothers.

Another problem was that still being an absolute taping greenhorn, I set the input gain way too high, resulting in a distorted mess, but was mostly-somewhat able to clean up with judicious use of Nero's audio editor's de-clipper.  A few tracks of this were shared on New Order Online a few hours at the show, as for some ungodly reason I was in a hurry to get this out before leaving for Indio.  Had I had more sense back then, I would have just buried it in my backyard, never to be heard again.

Luckily for me, a second version showed up a few years later, though was only able to find this version 192K MP3s versus the usual lossless used by live music sharers.  While recorded more distantly, as we were right in front of Hooky if memory serves me correctly, it's overall a more pleasant listen, and the links to SLC and BM above are to that version.

At one point in time, a YouTube by the handle of "austinpowers61" put up clips of Crystal / Bizarre Love Triangle / True Faith / Blue Monday, but his account is no more.  I'm working on tracking these down...which has been done and reuploaded to my account, rejoince...so we're left only with about eighteen seconds of the start of LWTUA recorded by Zachary Culbertson, which unfortunately doesn't play anymore on YouTube...there was also a vid of She's Lost Control, but that looks to be lost, unfortunately.

For a transcript of Bernard's oft-amusing between-song banter, you are directed to the new-order.net site.  I recall we were all fairly pleased with their performance, think it was one of their best of the pre-return-of-Gillian era.  Although during BLT, there's a truly horrific improv of Madonna's Like A Virgin during the verses *ahem*, I will neither confirm nor deny that was my doing.


2005-03-18

My very first audio recording: The Devil Makes Three w/The Shots (live 2005)

source: last.fm


The Devil Makes Three
2005-03-18
Espresso Garden Café
San Jose CA

taper: thehappyone, debut taping outing!
kit: DPA 4080s > Sony M1 DAT

Setlist

00 pregig [3:18]
01 upcoming events [3:30]
02 introduction [0:43]
03 Shades [4:28]
04 'dancing license' [0:59]
05 Beneath The Piano [1:43]
06 'we got ourselves a travis' [1:21]
07 Jug Band [3:37]
08 'story about LA' [3:48]
09 Judgement Day [3:16]
10 'the shots' [1:09]
11 South Nashville Blues [Steve Earle cover] [2:24]
12 Graveyard [4:15]
13 The Bullet [3:45]
14 Black Irish [4:05]
15 Sweeping [3:35]
16 Tow [4:29]
17 Hometown Blues [Steve Earle] [2:19]
18 'not playing the craziest one' [0:47]
19 Mantap [4:00]
20 Statesboro Blues [Blind Willie McTell] [3:20]
21 Ten Feet Tall [3:08]
22 Uncle Harvey's Plane [Roger Miller] [4:15]
23 Old Number Seven [2:26]
24 'broke the g-string' [1:29]
25 Bangor Mash [3:43]
26 Nobody's Dirty Business [Mississippi John Hurt] [4:27]
27 St. James Infirmary [3:47]

TOTAL [84:17]

Opening set for the Shots:

The Shots
2005-03-18
Espresso Garden Café
San Jose CA

taper: thehappyone, debut taping outing!
kit: DPA 4080s > Sony M1 DAT

Setlist

01 pregig blather [1:22]
02 introduction [1:17]
03 St Patrick Was A Gentleman [3:09]
04 'song two' [2:17]
05 Drunk Under The Trains [3:05]
06 White Chromosone [2:15]
07 These Boots Are Made For Walking (Nancy Sinatra) [3:20]
08 The Hesitation Blues [2:47]
09 You're His Lover Enough [1:50]
10 Diaspora [3:56]

Total [26:19]

This is my very first audio recording. Went with my friend Roy B. and my wife, think Roy was the biggest fan of this group. As far as I know, this is the earliest recording I've seen of this group, predating the 'A Little Bit Faster And A Little Bit Worse' live album by a year, which during the intro they had announced they were recording, so this in effect is a preview. Lots of hilarious chatter between tracks from Pete/Lucia/Cooper, accompanied by their sound tech/merch man 'Travis'. This is the day after they had played in SF (St. Patrick's Day) to a thousand people, or so they claim.

An ex-coworker/friend let me borrow his kit for this show, but had to give it back shortly afterwards (he needed to record Blue Floyd)...never used a DAT to record a show again.

Seem to remember I had a bit of a cold so was coughing and sniffling a bit.

The 4080s are *tiny* mics, think I had them stuck in my shirt or something. There's also a bit of distortion/clipping in places due to their positioning, and I think I actually had the input gain set pretty high.

I've listened to this recording a couple of times since March 2005, think it's pretty decent for a first effort, and the performance is super.  Probably why I've continued to record.