The Daily Contrarian

Yes, it happened in Chicago.

This show was in WMV for some reason, so I tried to minimize transcoding by going to WAV and then VBR MP3 using foobar.  Sounds OK, but I wish I had the flacs to make a fresh lossy conversion.

Frank Zappa

08/18/84 (Sat) UIC Pavilion - Chicago, IL

Set 1: Zoot Allures, More Trouble Every Day, Penguin In Bondage, Hot Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel, City Of Tiny Lights, You Are What You Is, Mudd Club, The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing, Dumb All Over, He's So Gay, Bobby Brown, Keep It Greasey, Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me?, Carol You Fool, Chana In De Bushwop, Let's Move To Cleveland, Cosmik Debris, Sharleena, Ride My Face To Chicago, The Illinois Enema Bandit


Lineup: Frank Zappa, Ike Willis, Ray White, Scott Thunes, Chad Wackerman, Alan Zavod, Bobby Martin.

Also, I have the Jerry Garcia Band opener, but I did not convert these from WMA or edit the tags:

Jerry Garcia Band

08/18/84 (Sat) UIC Pavilion - Chicago, IL

Set 1: Cats Under The Stars, Get Out Of My Life Woman, I'll Take A Melody, Run For The Roses, Gomorrah, Midnight Moonlight, E: Deal

Comment: Frank Zappa closed.
Lineup: Jerry Garcia Band: Jerry Garcia, DeeDee Dickerson, John Kahn, David Kemper, Jaclyn LaBranch, Melvin Seals

Posted by root at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Frank Zappa

12-Feb 1979, Apollo Theater, Manchester, England

OK people, here's the deal.  I can't speak to the lineage of this version other than to state that it is easily the best version I have heard of this show.  I got it on CDR from a guy several months ago; he mailed me the CDs and, despite my offers, would not accept anything in return.  Unfortunately, since then I had a hard drive failure and lost all emails, etc, so cannot even properly credit him (I don't know your name anymore, but a million thanks!).

He readily admits to having spent considerable time working with his source material; i.e. he EQ'ed, etc.  While most people frown on tampering with the original material, in this case he has done a wonderful job, and I believe he had better source material to work with than that the versions that have been circulating.

Interestingly, he attempted to seed this show on Zappateers a few months ago and they pulled it believing it had originated from lossy sources.  However, he told me that he had never compressed the files, etc.  If you analyze it with tools such as TAU it appears to have been compressed at some point; however, by their own admission, they are not entirely accurate.

While I am as anti-MP3 as anyone on the planet, in this case I believe the Zappateers have made a mistake.  I am not convinced this came from a lossy format; however, even if it did, this is the best sounding version in circulation, so in this case an exception should be made to allow material of this quality to be available.

So here it - you be the judge!


Information as per JN:

Band:
Frank Zappa
Ike Willis
Denny Walley
Warren Cucurullo
Arthuer Barrow
Vinnie Colaiuta
Ed Mann
Tommy Mars
Peter Wolf

Setlist:
50 min, FM, A- or 121 min, Aud, B+
The FM recording ends with Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me?
Persona Non Grata, Dead Girls Of London, I Ain't Got No Heart, Brown Shoes Don't Make It, Cosmik Debris, Tryin' To Grow A Chin, City Of Tiny Lights, Dancin' Fool, Easy Meat, Jumbo Go Away, Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me?, Keep It Greasey, The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing, For The Young Sophisticate, Wet T-shirt Nite, Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?, Peaches En Regalia, Yellow Snow Suite, Strictly Genteel, Montana, Pound For A Brown, Mystery Rehearsal Piece (incl. Deathless Horsie, Five-Five-Five.

 

Posted by root at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)