good evening, captain: SLINT uncirculated 1989 set!

When I started this blog back in the dark days of 2008, I wasn't really certain of anything but I'd write stuff, share things, and maybe the odd lunatic such as myself would chance upon it and find something of interest, and perhaps share it themselves with likeminded folk here and there.  I figure that anyone who a) reads this, b) LIKES this, c) shares this is my kind of people - after all, how many people enjoy playing Songs About Fucking immediately after Happy Mondays?

I didn't expect to be doing this nearly 5 years later, and I certainly didn't expect some of the cachet of readers I've attracted.  My most favorite comments, or private off-blog emails to me, have been from musicians - often from bands I've blogged - sending their compliments, their corrections (heh), occasionally their cease and desist requests (certain bearded bassists need not apply...), and my absolute favorite, material to feature.

It was this last category that leads to this post.  Outside of ongoing plans regarding your humble blogger working with two of his very favorite Chicago bands on upcoming projects, a certain band member of a band I've blogged in the past - a band that's long been a favorite of mine - contacted me via the blog's Facebook page to discuss a project they are working on, and as an aside asked if I'd mind him sending me a tape to do with as I saw fit.

That tape is Slint.  The setting: a gig in Madison, Wisconsin in August 1989.  The content:  an audience recording of a gig that not only hadn't circulated, but the Internets and the Googles aren't even aware this show existed.  This tape has not been circulated AT ALL that we are aware of.  Just to be sure, the reader that sent this tape to me is NOT a member of Slint (original or later incarnations) - and gave me his OK to post this.

Slint we've discussed before.  If you've read this far, you want this tape.  Without going into details, this is a dub of the master itself - and it sounds utterly spectacular.

I did a fair amount of work on the raw tape to make it what I present to you now - off-tape, the gig was just pretty good, but after my efforts to beat it into submission, it shines.  I think you'll agree.

This set comes after Tweez but before the legendary, classic Spiderland - I'd place it around when they recorded the "Glenn"/"Rhoda" 10" material with Steve Albini - and is a nice mixture of both styles in that the weirder/more angular Tweez material slots in with the recorded-in-1989 10" and unrecorded Spiderland stuff.  "Nosferatu Man" has some different lyrics, and while 90% of the song is there, it's still a work in progress.  Same for "Good Morning, Captain" except there's no lyric yet.  Sadly the tape ran out with about (guessing) 30 seconds left in "Good Morning, Captain" so while you can sing the "I MISS YOU!!" bit yourself at the proper point in the climax, I had to fade the song out shortly thereafter rather than it coming to its natural close as it does on record.

So without further ado....

SLINT
20 August 1989
O'Cayz Corral, Madison, Wisconsin
mastered May 2013 by Analog Loyalist

01 intro
02 Glenn
03 Ron
04 Nan Ding
05 Charlotte
06 Nosferatu Man
07 Darlene
08 Pat
09 Pam
10 Good Morning, Captain (instrumental)

Zipped FLAC via Hotfile (Netkups too unstable lately).

Any other musician readers want to send me stuff?  Send me a message on the Facebook page via the link up there on the right!

Enjoy!

album art exchange...

I really hate low-quality album artwork, especially when it looks ridiculously pixelated on my retina iPad display.  Even iTunes-sourced artwork looks terrible on the iPad (one would think Apple, with all their focus on quality builds, design and engineering, would find a way to optimize album artwork - when grabbed from the iTunes Store - for whichever device it's being synced to).  I've not seen anything better than 600x600 artwork pulled from iTunes, which was the default from the beginning of iTunes Time.

Oh, you can Google image search for higher-resolution images, and sometimes that's still the best you'll find - especially for the more obscure crap we love.  But even then, it's a crapshoot with oversaturated images, terrible scan jobs, etc.

When I discovered Album Art Exchange, it was like another lil' slice of heaven for me.  My OCD with regards to sound quality meshed perfectly with my OCD for good, high-resolution images to go with the tunes.  There are some hardcore OBSESSIVE people over there who produce some absolutely amazing cleanup jobs of all sorts of record and CD covers.  It's also seeded by folks who have direct access to the labels' art archives (for online use), and even then what these folks at AAX can do with a 30-year-old LP sleeve is often better than the labels' own high-resolution copy.

I've been an on-and-off contributor to AAX for a little more than a year.  The problem was that until recently I just wasn't up there yet with the Photoshop skills to really get the best results from my scanner; what I thought was good often ended up too obviously 'shopped in retrospect.  The other issue was that my 2008-vintage PC under Windows 7 would just flat out choke when trying to scan at anything higher than 600dpi - which didn't leave a lot of spare pixels when doing that hardcore editing most sleeve scans need.

Having recently switched to the Mac (mini; love this damn little thing after having been exclusively PC for the past 18 years), I now have the horsepower to suck down all the 1200dpi pixels my scanner can spit out.  And I also spent some hardcore time reading threads at AAX regarding best practices for artwork cleanup. Over the past few days (while recovering from audio engineering burnout) I've added a shit ton of high-resolution images to the AAX archive, as I slowly go through and re-scan stuff I'd put up before or add things that aren't on AAX already.  I have a ridiculous pile of stuff to scan that's not there as of yet, or that's only there in lower quality (back when the site was focused on 600x600 images).  So keep watching AAX as I add my pile - and better yet, feed it yourself!

Here's a direct link to my stuff there.  Here's a direct link to our blog pal 50 Pound Note's stuff there.

enjoy!

That R.E.M. Strand 1982 FLAC set....

I am making a new post so this bubbles up in newsfeeds again.

There was a problem with the FLAC encoding in the original R.E.M. Strand Cabaret '82 fileset.  Songs were weirdly skipping mid-song direct to the next song, and it was completely reproducible on my end with the original files.

I re-encoded to FLAC without errors this time, and re-uploaded the files.

The corrected fileset is now the one accessible in the links in the original post.  So, please go to the original post and re-download the set; it's well worth the trouble.

Apologies, again.

R.E.M. 2 July 1982 Marietta GA (2013 analogloyalist master)

ATTENTION:  Previous downloaders, there was a problem with the FLACs themselves in the original fileset which I have subsequently corrected and re-uploaded.  PLEASE re-download the set; the new URL is down there.

--------

Tap tap, this thing on?

I haven't disappeared.  Good thing too, that is.

You know, while I'm still quite bummed about the cease and desist directive issued by a certain bearded bassist, I realized that there is other music I like, and even better, of another favorite band of the blog, one of the musicians involved is a big fan of the proceedings and thinks I got shafted.

So with that I bring you my favorite, probably, pre-Murmur R.E.M. set - the guys live in Marietta, Georgia in July 1982 shortly before recording Murmur.  This is an interesting transitional period for the band, as the songwriting is clearly shifting from the 60s-influenced "That Beat" stylings to the ethereal, un-categorizeable Murmurian structurings.  We have "That Beat", probably the best evidence (both in terms of songwriting and catchiness) of their garage band roots, and then we have "Perfect Circle" in its likely debut performance - on a drum machine as Bill Berry's working the keyboards!  Other new songs "We Walk", "Pilgrimage" - a song Michael Stipe is still clearly working out the lyrics for, and "West Of The Fields" point strongly to the future.

This is a cool little gig too, in that for an audience recording it really puts you, dear listener, direct into the room right in front of the stage.  It's lively, it's got a lot of space, it doesn't sound cavernous or muddy.  It's just a really great recording that excels after the mastering treatment I gave it over the past few days.  I realize I did some work on this in 2008 and put it on dimeadozen, but that effort was crap (in retrospect) - a simple A/B if you have the 2008 variant will make it clear as day.  Many tracks can easily fool even an astute listener into thinking it's a soundboard recording, but it's not.

So anyway, onward.  Life after Mediafire begins... now.

R.E.M.
2 July 1982
Strand Cabaret, Marietta, GA
2013 analogloyalist master

01 intro
02 West Of The Fields
03 Shaking Through
04 Pilgrimage
05 Romance
06 We Walk
07 Wolves, Lower
08 That Beat
09 Pretty Persuasion
10 Sitting Still
11 1,000,000
12 Gardening At Night
13 9-9
14 There She Goes Again
15 Catapult
16 Radio Free Europe
17 Perfect Circle
18 Laughing
19 Moral Kiosk
20 Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)

Netkups to the rescue - get the FLAC set here!

Oh... and that fan of the blog I mentioned?  None other than P. L. Buck, Esq.

ATTENTION:  Previous downloaders, there was a problem with the FLACs themselves in the original fileset which I have subsequently corrected and re-uploaded.  PLEASE re-download the set; the new URL for the file set is here (and up there too).

Godspeed, Jason Molina (1973-2013).

Requiescat, Jason Molina.

Jason (founder/leader Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co) is an artist I'd not yet covered on TPoIT though a track or two of his did feature on the Unconventional Steve Albini set I posted a few years ago.

I don't own a lot of his records - only the truly devoted would be able to track them all down! - but the ones I do own are really good.  I can listen to Magnolia Electric Co's What Comes After The Blues LP on repeat over and over, and just get swept into the emotion and gutwrench.

My friend Henry Owings's eulogy-of-sorts is beautiful reading.

Musicians write about Jason here.  Steve Albini's thoughts (and a long thread at the Electrical Audio forum, for the studio where IMHO Jason's best albums were recorded, with Steve) here.

Again you’re swinging low
And you hit me below the belt
Alright since it’s a fair fight
I’d say it’s the best that I have felt
In a long long time
Every now and then it happens again
I can’t remember what comes first
Is it the hurt
Or knowing that it hurts
Is it the hurt
Or knowing that it hurts
Ever since I turned my life around
It still happens time to time
Don’t know what pain was yours
Or what pain was mine
What pain was yours
And what pain was mine
Will I have to be alright all of the time
No one has to be alright all of the time
Do I have to be alright all of the time
I thought I saw the light
I saw the light

"I Can Not Have Seen The Light" - Jason Molina/Magnolia Electric Co 

Requiescat and Godspeed, Jason.

Loyal readers: a favor to ask...?

It's sad.  Mediafire account death means I lost some of the things I posted here myself.

I have a favor to ask:

Any kind soul who downloaded the Seam - 1994 Germany soundboard FLAC set from here, can you kindly upload it somewhere where I can get it back myself?

It would be hugely appreciated.  Let me know if you can, and the link, in the comments.  There are reasons behind my asking......

the end is nigh: m b v is released!

I do believe my eyes and ears are not deceiving me...

My Bloody Valentine - m b v

It's pretty damn good!  Like a mix of Isn't Anything and Loveless, and I love the Colm drums too... Even better, the thing's barely compressed - it's almost TOO quiet!

Houston, we have a problem.

I have been formally asked to cease and desist all New Order / Joy Division activity, regardless of material and sourcing.  It was mentioned to me that the label has been focusing on me/the blog(s) as well.  Therefore, for my own protection and sanity, it's time to take a timeout and reconsider this blog (and I'm no longer going to be posting on The New Order Archives).

Maybe I'll start a blog about kittens.

-Analog Loyalist

An update

Removed text of email. I have asked for clarification if this is a general Cease and Desist request for all things Joy Division/New Order; I will update with any response.

DMCA: it's happened again, with Joy Division this time.

Today I received two notices from Mediafire stating the two Joy Division files (Part 1.zip and Part 2.zip) for the University of London Union were suspended due to DMCA complaints.

Dear MediaFire User:

MediaFire has received notification under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") that your usage of a file is allegedly infringing on the file creator's copyright protection.

The file named JD - 1980_02-08 ULU (2012 master) part 2.zip is identified by the key (8nwbdu0xrzkvyge).

As a result of this notice, pursuant to Section 512(c)(1)(C) of the DMCA, we have suspended access to the file.

The reason for suspension was:

                I have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

Information about the party that filed the report:

Company Name: GrayZone, Inc

Contact Address:

Contact Name: GrayZone, Inc.

Contact Phone: (718) 360-9941

Contact Email: grayzone@grayzone.com

Copyright infringement violates MediaFire's Terms of Service. MediaFire accounts that experience multiple incidents of alleged copyright infringement without viable counterclaims may be terminated.

If you feel this suspension was in error, please submit a counterclaim by following the process below.

 I have no idea who GrayZone is.

This is very frustrating.  This material, while released at one point, was given to the label by US.  We enter the questionable area of ROIO (Recordings of Independent Origin) copyright.  Is it worth it for me to file a counterclaim?  Do I - as an "originator" of this work, have any grounds to do so?

I am not re-upping the files.  I also am not going to post High Wycombe (Still's CD2 from the 2007 reissues), also freshly mastered by me after discarding my 2006 work as-released.  That said, punters who did not download ULU yet can find it on the darker sides of the internets; I know at least one site that might be known as why.cd or some similar name has the FLACs available.

Additionally, Mediafire (the 2nd account I used) has suspended the analogloyalist account.  Therefore all previous re-upped links are dead.

At this time I am not re-upping anything - if I decide to re-up anything - until I finally sort out hosting.  It is expensive; with the bandwidth used the contributions from my readers doesn't really cover more than a week or so from what I've researched so far.

Due to the heavy spotlight on this blog, I question whether I can post anything not recorded/owned by me myself and I, such as my old bands.  Why would I want to?

Let's see comments.

Drew