1993-06-24 | God Street Wine

Sony ECM-959 (front left edge of balcony) -> Denon DTR80p (@16/48); Transfer: DAT master playback on Sony R500->.flac file recorded on Sound Devices 722 digital input; Mastered: Soundforge Pro 10.0a - *All file manipulation in Soundforge done at 24 bits* Sa. Volume normalization, sample rate conversion 48khz to 44.1khz using iZotope 64-Bit SRC set higher than "Highest Quality" setting w/anti-alias filter, then dithered back to 16 bits using using iZotope MBIT+ with Ultra noise shaping, High dither settings. Tracked in CDWav.

Taper Notes:

View NotesOriginal DAT Recording by Scott Bernstein.
Transferred, Mastered and tracked by Scott Bernstein March 1-3, 2010.

Notes:
Minor digital errors on master DAT in S1T1
Major digital errors on master DAT made parts of S1T2 unplayable starting at approx. 30 seconds into song, for about 45 seconds, so I faded out just before it became unplayable and then faded back in just as it becomes playable again.  Repeated attempts to retransfer this part of the show were unsuccessful.  :(
A bit of banter after S1T7 and the beginning of S1T8 is missing due to (what I believe) must have been a battery change.  I was pretty inexperienced with this deck and I think had tried using some cheaper AA batteries in it (it gobbled 6 at a time for a 3 hour show!!!) which didn't work out too well.  Eventually I had an external lead acid pack built for it that lasted for hours, but this was prior to that.

This is BARN21, the 21st in my occasional series of historical releases from my audio archive, and I've reached 17 years deep for this one.  This is the first God Street Wine show I've transferred.  GSW was a jamband that was primed to be the next band to bust out of the Nightengales/NYC scene, having followed closely on the heels of Blues Traveler and Spin Doctors:   becoming regulars at the Nightengale Bar, developing a following, spending some time growing that following at Wetlands, and then stepping up to bigger venues and national audiences.  Their sound was a bit more influenced by Steely Dan and tended to be a bit jazzier and less roots/classic rock than Blues Traveler or Spin Doctors, and they had 2 lead vocalists.  After a few years in the scene, they managed to score a major label deal (this *was* shortly after both Blues Traveler and Spin Doctors had chart-topping hits) and somewhat bigger audiences, but something went off track -- their songwriting direction changed (possibly in pursuit of larger audiences?), they lost some members, and then eventually imploded after losing their core audience (including me!) by 1996 (their 4/12/96 Irving show was a low point for me) and falling back to playing some farewell Wetlands shows in 1999 before breaking up.  These guys were my "local favorites" from '93 to '95 (I logged 19 shows in that period), until I discovered moe.

This particular recording goes back almost to the earliest days of my DAT taping and is the oldest of my BARN series thus far.  I'd only been DAT taping for a few months at the time (though I'd been taping on cassette for at least 5 years before).  It's not the greatest GSW show of all time (and far from my best recording of them), but this show is historic for me because it was my first time seeing them live (after having been prepped for their show by listening to their most recent March Wetlands show which was recorded by my old friend Geoff Tischman) and it was my first time going to Irving Plaza (which I've been to hundreds of times since then).  It was also GSW's first time playing there, having just made the leap from Wetlands and previously the Nightengale Bar.  It's also important for me to get working on the older stuff before the tapes start to deteriorate even more than they already have.

Unfortunately this was recorded in the time before I had been tipped off to the wisdom of leaving a minute of blank space at the beginning of DAT tapes, as experience has shown that the first minute of tape is where most errors occur on DAT recordings.  This fact, combined with the fact that blank DATs were extremely expensive back then (a 3 hour tape was I think $8!) and I was just out of college with not much extra cash to spend, lead me to pick up some "used 1x" computer DATs from a known retalier in the scene, which this show was recorded on.  While I believe that it was fine at the time, age has apparently not been kind to the first minute of this recording, causing it to be unplayable for about 45 seconds within the first 2 minutes of the show.  If anyone out there has ever gotten a DAT (or cassette) dub of this show from me and could provide the 1st song for me to patch this recording from, please get in touch as I'd love to incorproate it into this recording.

In terms of the performance....what can I say?  This is GSW at their prime.  The 1st set stuck with most of their poppier tunes at the time (due to, apparently, the presence of record company people in the audience), but it is still no slouch -- mostly a good intro to people who've never heard them -- they knew how to rock those tunes out....until all hell literally breaks looks on "Hellfire" to end the set.  Wow....it's all over the place and jamming.  And onto the second set -- Tina's Town, Imogene, Mantoloking, and Feel The Pressure all range far and wide in their jamming, bursting out of their normal boundaries.

I hope you enjoy!  Look for more GSW from down the line....I've got many many more of their shows to transfer.


A rundown of my previous BARN archival releases (all can be found on archive.org except as noted):
BARN1 - Col Bruce Hampton and the Code Talkers at Bret & Joyce's wedding 9/17/05
BARN2 - Col Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit (w/guest Warren Haynes for all of set 2) Wetlands 11/20/93
BARN3 - moe. Wetlands 7/8/95
BARN4 - Dan Bern Bottom Line 7/31/98 (late show)
BARN5 - moe. Birch Hill 10/31/96
BARN6 - moe. Maxwells 1/20/96
BARN7 - Dan Bern Central Park Summerstage 9/19/97
BARN8 - Dan Bern, Bottom Line 8/1/98
BARN9 - moe. Bayou 4/5/97
BARN10 - moe. Irving Plaza 4/4/97
BARN11 - moe. AKA 9/7/95
BARN12 - Yolk AKA 9/7/95
BARN13 - Robert Walter/Johnny Vidacovich/James Singleton/Donald Harrison Preservation Hall 4/30/08
BARN14 - Phish Las Vegas, NV 10/31/98 (on bt.etree.org)
BARN15 - Phish Great Went @ Loring AFB, Limestone, ME 8/16/97 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN16 - Phish Great Went @ Loring AFB, Limestone, ME 8/17/97 (on bt.etree.org), includes orchestra set - by request
BARN17 - Phish Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO, 8/4/96 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN18 - Phish Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO, 8/6/96 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN19 - Phish Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO, 8/7/96 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN20 - Phish Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO, 8/5/96 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN21 - God Street Wine, Irving Plaza, NYC 6/24/93

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