Archive of live music performances local to Northwest Iowa.
When somebody plays Grateful Dead at Byron’s, it’s special
Further: Smith also did this number in September 2019. A very noisy wedding party had crashed the performance. Here’s our original recording of that.
But since then, we’ve learned that we knock out some of the noise by mixing down to mono:
7/27/21 Legendary Byron’s Bar
Full Show: Click Here
So, we’ve built quite a library over the last couple of years, consisting of live performances we’ve recorded in our area (if 65 miles away is local, which of course it is, globally…), and in that particular spot, it’s well known that I’ll stand on my head and edit and fiddle for hours to produce nice recordings which are especially respectful of the performers (once in a while, we chop a show for being sub-standard in some audio sense), and ultimately we share that stuff at Internet Archive, which is dedicated to stuff like live recordings of music performances.
Once in a while, though, a performer just says no when I ask them if I can record the night. While others just whip out their phones and record, I ask first. A guy said no the other night, but the night before that I attended a local event which included two hours of entertainment after a banquet. I wasn’t there to record the band-I actually belonged to the organization, but hey, I have the electronic gizmos and tripods and stuff right there in the car……………….
So, this week we are featuring South 71, a local trio. These three recordings vary a little bit from the Archive versions in that they now fade in and out a little, have just a snitch of reverb added to them and were AI remastered. Band members are Barbara Johnson, Mel Kimblad, and Maury Muhm.
Set Opener at Byron’s Bar, Pomeroy, IA 5/30/21. Zoom H2n on light stand maybe 8′ high, 5′ from PA right side. Some editing has been applied to remove a cough, a couple of beer can cracks, an odd crashing sound, but the PA crackled a bit. Much of that is gone too, but close listeners will hear the snip. Myer would like to review our output before we got all public with it, so this will serve as a “preview” of the night, and might be a temporary post. For the time being, we won’t add stuff from this show to our Facebook page. Photo by Byron Stuart.
Since the middle of 2019, we’ve been recording shows at Byron’s Bar, Pomeroy, IA and a few other locations nearer by (Byron’s is 65 miles away from us). Byron’s is a gem of a listening room, to which many performers have attested. Ever since yours truly discovered the place in August 2018, I’ve sat there thinking: somebody ought to be archiving this stuff. By the following July I’d acquired a little Zoom recorder and a little bit of stuff to go with it and already had the editing software since we already edit samples of records we’re selling here on our site. Since then I’ve missed a show or several due to the inevitable opposing circumstances that can come along, but I’ve recorded everything I’ve heard, which has to be something in the neighborhood of thirty-six shows. I’m a Deadhead and that’s what we do. A couple of artists have requested that I not distribute those, but otherwise they usually go to Archive.org, which is a sharing site for all kinds of stuff.
A guy has to be prepared for somebody telling him “no” when he asks if the recording thing is ok. There are various good reasons for that, and this past Sunday, November 25, 2000, Maurice Vaughn did say “no” when I asked if recording was ok.
That kind of pulls the rug out from under my feet if I define myself as “the guy that’s there to do that”, but after all, in the first place, we only posted set lists on Facebook, and it was still possible to do that.
So, first of all, here’s the set list:
Set 1
01 Travelin Man (Vaughn)
02 Garbage Man Blues (Vaughn)
03 Baby What You Want Me To Do (Jimmy Reed)
04 A Computer Took My Job (Vaughn)
05 Sitting In The Park/I Do Love You (Billy Stewart)
06 I Got The Blues (John Watkins)
07 The Feeling Is Gone (Bobby Blue Bland)
08 Sweet Home Chicago (Robert Johnson)
Set 2
01 I’m So Proud (Impressions)
02 If I Hadn’t Been High (Emory Williams Jr.)
03 Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke)
04 I Just Want To Make Love To You (Muddy Waters)
05 Don’t Take My Monkey (John Watkins)
06 As The Years Go Passing By (Fenton Robinson)
07 Keep On Sleepin’ (Vaughn)
08 I Don’t Care (Vaughn)
09 Kansas City (Wilbert Harrison)
10 Going To New York (Jimmy Reed)
11 It Serves You Right To Suffer (John Lee Hooker)
12 Mustang Sally (Mack Rice)
Set 3
01 Ooh Baby Baby (Smokey Robinson)
02 I Got My Mojo Working (Preston Foster)
03 Help Me (Rice Miller)
04 Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday’s Just As Bad) (T-Bone Walker)
05 Money (That’s What I Want) (Barry Gordy & James Bradford
Maurice Vaughn seemed quite interested in the fact that there was a guy taking notes, which has happened a time or two before (notably when Jon Dee Graham played one time), and he was enthusiastic about helping me with the correct titles and attributions. That’s fun. Especially if you’re me, and you’re note-taking about a genre with which you’re not particularly familiar and artists’ names and songs’ titles can shift over the years. Because I wasn’t concentrating on the recording thing, I could think about what I was hearing and I came to the realization that both Vaughn and John Watkins really knew the historical stuff and the fabric of the pieces that they were playing.
That’s all on a ten dollar ticket.
Maurice said it was ok to do a track or two but not a whole show. I think he thought I was using some million dollar camera and producing some gorgeous HD thing, so I shot no photos or video at all, and got to a nearby cell phone recording which should remain anonymous or else it will appear that I did it, and maybe I did.
So I gave it the same primitive treatment that I’ve used on all the Byron’s stuff – simple low-tech fan production with mostly free software, things you can do at home with Windows or whatever.
This isn’t in the spirit of piracy. It’s archival – somebody ought to be keeping track of this stuff….
I Don’t Want To Go To Jail Today:
Killers Or Pastors:
Hey There Ma:
Holly, You’re The Devil:
Audience recording, Zoom H2n at various locations -> Audacity: track separation, metadata -> eMastered -> Audacity: fades, snort removal, shrieking removal, kibitzing removal, cannon fire removal, woo-hoos removal, poster by Mark Gerking.
Setlist Kevin Gordon Trio
2/7/20 Byron’s Bar, Pomeroy, IA
Kevin Gordon, Stephy Graham, Jim Viner
Set 1
01 Don’t Stop Me This Time 4:06
02 GTO 3:52
03 Black Dog 4:54
04 Gloryland 5:14
05 Down To The Well 4:32
06 My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It 3:13
07 Illinois 5 AM 3:00
08 Saint On A Chain 5:44
08 Casino Road 5:01
09 Get It Together 3:42
Set 2
01 Flowers 6:08
02 Oil City Girl 3:12
03 Over The Levee 4:23
04 Looking For The Killerman 4:22
05 Crazy Mixed Up World 5:01
06 Paulline 5:00
07 Colfax 9:40
08 Deuce And A Quarter 4:09
Set 3
01 Tee-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu 8:19
02 Something Heavy 5:37
03 Gatling Gun 4:19
04 Promise Road 4:29
05 Jimmy Reed Is The King Of Rock And Roll 4:37
06 24 Diamonds 5:08
07 One I Love-City Refuge 8:22
08 Find My Way 3:14
09 Miss Froggy 3:16
In this outing, we tried to pair video with audio from one tripod. We learned that our $40 phone needs a windsock. We’re also learning to split and crop video. Sometimes we think we’ve gone nuts.