RE: 10 years of comeback boots.

["J" <jlregister>]

Personally, for mid-70s Patti I'd have to pick "Teenage Perversity and Ships
in the Night."
Yes, its edited down to fit on vinyl, etc., but it's a really fine example
of what her 1976 shows were like.


J 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-babel-list 
> [mailto:owner-babel-list] On Behalf Of weapons 
> of mass destruction-related program activities
> Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 8:25 AM
> To: babel-list
> Subject: 10 years of comeback boots.
> 
> 
> It's a recurring question on listservs -- "If you had to 
> pick five (or ten, or whatever) exemplary bootlegs by our 
> favorite artist, what would you pick?" It's usually a 
> fairly fleeting topic, because people have a pretty firm 
> idea of the most near and dear to them personally, and
> even a clear idea of what they'd burn for a "newbie". 
> 
> I had the opportunity to answer this for real for someone 
> with a new iPod who wanted some live Patti. I was surprised
> by the experience, and discovered a few things in the 
> process. 
> 
> Among the discoveries/revelations (to me, at least)...
> 
> * A lot of the commonly available 70s stuff is just not
>   ready for prime time. 
> 
>   The stuff is either a woefully incomplete set, or too 
>   many generationss down for someone who isn't a hardcore
>   completist, or edited to fit on a vinyl LP, or what 
>   have you. With the disclaimer that the 70s are woefully 
>   underrepresented in my personal collection, I had
>   a really tough time picking stuff out from that era. 
> 
>   I may yet slip in "Never talked to Bob Dylan", 
>   which is really the only "Horses" era boot I can 
>   think of in reasonable sound which has not been 
>   so edited so as to be devoid of impact. But 
>   so far? I just supplied the latest umpteenth 
>   remaster of the Tower '79 show. The Patti of 
>   1979 is not the Patti of 1976, however. So my 
>   effort still lacks. In my searching, I saw that 
>   there is a dead torrent up at dime of a complete 
>   Bottom Line '75 show. That would be sweet, but 
>   until then...
> 
> 
> * By contrast, it was a tough job whittling down 
>   stuff from 1997 to 2001 to only one or two shows. 
>   I can't get enough of those days. In the end, I 
>   discovered over the weekend a lone Dime seeder 
>   seeding a 1999 show from Italy I hadn't heard of 
>   before. It had great, fresh energy, so I decided 
>   to not sweat the small stuff (a little too much 
>   crowd noise, and the last song is truncated, and 
>   I actually didn't listen all the way through) in favor
>   of supplying something which is really attractive 
>   as a whole package. Made the chore seem less of 
>   a chore. (And if that seed is reading, know 
>   that your generosity is much appreciated.) 
> 
> 
> * Tom Verlaine.
> 
>   Having Tom on a show makes a big big difference, 
>   IMHO. I wanted to include a complete (or near 
>   complete), decent-sounding 1996 show not only 
>   because of TV, but also because of the great, airy
>   atmosphere a lot of those shows had. In this, 
>   my choice was easily made for me, because pretty 
>   much all I had that was "fit for company" was 
>   the boot "Barefoot Poetess" (Hamburg 1996, made 
>   from an FM b'cast). 
> 
>   The source I burned from was one I personally 
>   speed-corrected for my own use, as "BP" suffers
>   a long, slow, gradual speed change, culminating
>   in being off by almost 5% (IIRC). 
> 
>   I gave "my" version some extra time for 
>   listening, because I feared that the "correcting" 
>   I did in 1997 or thereabouts would be an 
>   embarrassment to hear today, but it held up 
>   very nicely. Something else that held up very 
>   nicely? The 4X Imation CD-Rs I burned my work 
>   on to - at 2X - on an external HP USB (1.1) 
>   burner. No errors on those babies, and I'm 
>   guessing they are eight or nine years old 
>   now. (Keep 'em dark! Keep 'em clean!) 
> 
> 
> * Not all homegrown music maestros are so successful.
>  
>   It seems that a lossy-source 2001 Patti show got 
>   torrented on Dime in the last year unbeknownst to 
>   anybody. (Well, maybe someone DID eventually mention 
>   it in the torrent's comments section, but I couldn't 
>   find this torrent still in the datrabase). It was 
>   the last Village Underground show from June of 2001. 
> 
>   The very first handclaps on the very first track 
>   before she even speaks gave it away. They had that 
>   "tunnel" artifact you get on every damn audience 
>   recording that's been badly compressed and has 
>   handclaps in close proximity to the taper. Ick!
>   I hate that sound. 
> 
>   Turns out - this torrent, at some point, had been 
>   the same exact source as was used for the show in 
>   the six-disc "box set" from that engagement: 
>   "Bitch can Wail". Obviously, I went for the 
>   uncompressed one (before compressing it, I know, 
>   I know...).  I paid cash for BCW on eBay a long 
>   time ago, and don't regret it at all.