VARIOUS ARTISTS: AN EVENING WITH COYOTE RECORDING ARTISTS

Tuesday, 18 December 1984

The Bottom Line
15 West 4th Street
New York, New York 10012
USA


FLAC master, 23 August 2020, by elegymart:
Analog audience recording (mono) {recorded by Gene Poole}: unknown mics/stereo recorder > 1982-84 US/European Memorex High Bias II (Type II CrO2) 90-minute analog audio cassette master {from the Gene Poole collection} > Sony TC-WE435 (azimuth adjustment) > Roland R05 (24/96) > Cool Edit Pro 2.0 (audio cleanup, convert to 16/44) > SHNtool (fixed SBE) > CD Wave (track splits) > TLH (WAV > FLAC8).
Created this text file.


Total running time [79:49]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-- JON KLAGES --
01 Legs [2:45]
-- THE TRYPES --
02 Here Come the Warm Jets [2:22]
03 (From the) Morning Glories [5:39]
04 People Unintentional Soft Tomorrow Hospital [5:28]
05 Always There (?) [4:53]
06 Dancing Barefoot [4:00]
07 The Undertow [2:45]
08 Love You To [4:15]
-- CHRIS STAMEY --
09 Excitement [5:22]
10 Venus [3:21]
11 Cara Lee [3:14]
12 When We're Alone [3:54]
13 Depth of Field [5:31] >
14 When We Talk About Our Love [4:28]
15 Oh Yeah [6:01]
16 Face in the Crowd [4:01]
17 Something Came Over Me [7:41]
-- encore --
18 Big Time [4:02]


Band line-ups:

-- JON KLAGES --
Jon (Light) Klages - lead vocals, lead guitar
-- and possibly --
Ira Kaplan - guitar, keyboards, percussion, backing vocals
David Bither - saxes, keyboards, percussion, backing vocals
Dave Schramm - bass, guitar, backing vocals
Georgia Hubley - drums, percussion, backing vocals

-- THE TRYPES --
John Baumgartner - keyboards
Glenn Mercer - guitar, percussion, vocals
Marc Francia - guitar, vocals
Brenda Sauter - bass, vocals
Toni Paruta Baumgartner - vocals, woodwind
Stanley Demeski - percussion, drums
Bill Million - percussion

-- CHRIS STAMEY --
Chris Stamey - guitar, vocals
Mary Mac - keyboards, vocals
Cathy Harrington - keyboards, vocals
Ted Lyons - drums, vocals


Notes:

THE GENE POOLE COLLECTION VOL. 179

Here's the latest installment of the Gene Poole Collection, a random wellspring of recordings which have recently surfaced. To paraphrase Lou: This is gonna go on for a while, so we should get used to each other, settle back, pull up your cushions, whatever else you have with you that makes life bearable in what has already been the start of trying decade...

Some of Gene's handiwork has probably been heard by your very ears before, for the most part via the Stonecutter Archives, but this is the first major unearthing of tapes direct from the legend himself. As promising as that may seem, it's best to let the surprises hit as they are shared. The trade-off to the prolific taping on Gene's part is that the expectations for a perfect track record would be unrealistic and unfair. There will be instances of incomplete recordings, caused by late arrivals to gigs, recorder and mic malfunctions, and other assorted foibles as would befall any mortal taper. There will be times where a master from another source exists which could be superior. For the most part, Gene recorded with a variety of mics and recorders, and many shows suffered from wire dropouts, so that only one channel was extant in the capture. Due warning about the past imperfect given and out of the way, credit should be given where due as well -- for many shows thought lost forever, it's exciting to discover that many of these even in incomplete form have now cropped up.

The transfers, the audio fixes, and the research all have required some lead time -- many tapes had scant info (sometimes just the name of the artist/band, with no date listed for the performance). Needless to say, gear documentation is virtually nil -- if we wait around for that precise detail to be forthcoming, nothing from the collection would probably see the light of day.

It's Hoboken night in NYC this time out, as we head to the Bottom Line for what was billed as "An Evening with Coyote Recording Artists." On the bill were Jon Klages, The Trypes, and Chris Stamey. Tickets were $7.50.

Let's first get into the cassette itself. This was a Memorex HBII 90 labeled "Bruce Springsteen Live Capitol Theatre 9/19/79" on both sides, but Gene applied another label over Side B and wrote "Cyote Recording Artists" [sic], leaving one to logically presume incorrectly a needle drop. There's an FM of the Capitol Theatre show from Bruce and it's not 1979 anyway, but 1978. After transferring, it was clear there wasn't really any Bruce on the tape... or was there? Side A of the cassette started with "Legs" just as you have here, then it cut to the last two Chris Stamey songs. Twelve minutes of extremely low fuzz followed, then the Trypes set through to the middle of "Undertow" where the tape flip occurred. Side B was the end of the Trypes set and then the beginning of the Stamey set. The twelve minutes of nothingness when amplified yielded outside of massive analog hiss, a vague hint of Bruce and the E Street Band doing the segue of "Not Fade Away" into "She's the One" -- it could barely be made out, other than the extremely suppressed bass and vocals. Best guess on what happened here is that Gene reused this cassette, possibly poorly degaussed it of the Bruce content (mostly like an FM and not an audience recording), then went to the Bottom Line with this crappy blank at hand, recorded the end of the Klages set on Side A, fast forwarded the tape whether accidentally or intentionally by twelve minutes or so, recorded the Trypes, and when he got to Stamey, he didn't have another tape and flipped it back over to Side A, where he ended up taping over most of the end of the Klages set with the end of the Stamey set. Follow?

Good. So now let's move on to the actual content being presented:

Coyote Records was a label started by Steve Fallon, who was the principal owner of Maxwell's in Hoboken, a club which was part and parcel of what put Hoboken on the underground indie music map in the 80's and 90's. Fallon is clearly present at this show, as Stamey mentions him during his set.

Jon Light Klages, grandson of Enoch Light, was part of the new wave band the Individuals, along with Glenn Morrow (also of Rage to Live), and Doug and Janet Wygal (the Wygals, Two Dollar Guitar). Jon put out the record "In A Dream" on Coyote in 1984 that was his first and only solo outing and for the most part has drifted into obscurity over the years. This is a bit of a head scratcher, since the players on this record are basically Yo La Tengo before they became into being. The musicians who played on it included Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, Dave Schramm, and carrying over some of Glenn Morrow's sax sound from the Individuals was David Bither. If Bither's name sounds familiar to you Yo La fans out there, it's probably because he plays sax "Screaming Dead Balloons" off their debut LP recorded a year after this show. (For everyone else, maybe Bither is better known as the current President of Nonesuch Records.) Too bad Gene got to this show late and only caught the end of this first set, and sadly taped over part of it, but it was that or miss the end of Stamey, and the draw of the show for Gene would have been the known quantity: Stamey, since he was such a big dB's fan. Keep in mind that in December 1984, Yo La didn't exist yet, but chances are good that Ira, Georgia, Dave and David played with Jon at this show. Chris was probably still probably sharing that house above the pizza parlor with Ira and Georgia. All we have left here of the Jon Klages set is Gene scrambling to get his recorder turned on at the start of a ZZ Top cover, then they start into the next song, but the end of Stamey's set cuts that off. Still, if a proto-Yo La played this first night of Hannukah in 1984, that would pre-date all of their other Hannukah live performances, and would be a true harbinger of things to come. As for Jon, he later played with Russ Tolman (True West), appeared for the occasional rare benefit concert with the Individuals, and had stint in Richard Lloyd's band, but has maintained a low profile.

Next up are the Trypes -- call them a Feelies side project, a pre-Speed the Plough, a blur with the Willies, Yung Wu, Haledon and not Hoboken or whatever. It's why it doesn't make sense to break out the sets here individually, as the acts all seemed intertwined with one another. To date, it appears only the Trypes set from this night has ever circulated, albeit from a different source than Gene's master. Gene's tape misses the first song of the set ("A Plan, Revised") and finds him scrambling to get the tape going on the second song, an Eno cover, perhaps with Toni playing harmonica. They covered Patti here a few years ahead of the Feelies (ditto their original of "The Undertow"), and their set ends with the Beatles for good measure. If anyone knows the correct title for t05, please chime in. From the sounds of it, that could possibly be a psych cover.

Then we're on to the final set of the night, Chris Stamey solo. It's a perfect mix of his discography through 1987, which means a few of these songs would not be officially released for another two to three years. Has "When We Talk About Our Love," which he introduces as a new tune here, ever shown up on any release, maybe a compilation under the radar? Television cover here, put through the Alex Chilton blender, was standard for Chris' sets at the time.

This recording was far from ideal. The right channel picked up very little audio info, so this is double mono off the left channel. The recycled Bruce tape running through what presumably was a cheapo recorder also turned up some audio shortcomings like rumble that can be heard from the tape transport in at the end of start of each tape side. Taping position at the Bottom Line was always tricky, and the vocals here come through somewhat average mid-rangy-- turn up your volume and equalize on your own playback system to your preferences.

Any and all corrections welcome on this very unique evening.

Enjoy,
elegymart