David Crosby
Ripley's Music Hall
Philadelphia, PA
1983-05-03

Source: SBD > C(x) > ? > DAT(s) via Scott Clayton
Transfer: Fostex D-15 > Behringer Ultramatch 2496 > Reaper 6.19 > WAV 16/48
Master: Wavelab 10 (tracking, fix dropouts) > FLAC 1648

Solo, acoustic guitar and piano:

01. The Lee Shore
02. For Free
03. Carry Me
04. technical difficulties
05. Delta
06. Bittersweet
07. Samurai
08. Guinevere
09. crowd

Electric, full band:

10. Deja Vu
11. Low Down Payment
12. Almost Cut My Hair
13. Triad
14. Long Time Gone

David Crosby - guitar, piano, vocals
Tony Saunders - bass
Jay David - drums
Carl Schwin(?) - guitar
Austin "Audie" DeLone - keyboards
Richie Malpatano - tenor sax
... others?

An interesting performance with some lesser-known material. The solo set is good, and David Crosby poking fun of the "Save the Whales" movement is amusing. The full band is terrific!

The source of the recording is unclear. The Internet appears to know nothing about it. Hiss suggests cassette generation or two. Also, the left and right channels are nearly identical, with their phases inverted. This can happen from using a balanced XLR to three-pin mini jack cable. Like, if you taped a concert in 1983 with a Sony D6 and got offered a SBD patch. But there could be other causes.

It gets weirder, though. In between the solo and full-band sets is a bit of what sounds like radio station promo music. Do you recognize it? There is no FM pilot signal, however. There is also a peak at 15734 Hz, which is a sign of NTSC broadcasting. This tone is created by television cathode ray tubes or "flyback" transformers that split TV broadcast signal into lines on the screen (525 lines * 29.97 fps => 15.734 kHz). This could have come from a TV operating set near a tape deck. It probably isn't part of a TV broadcast itself (the signal is not contained within the broadcast signal). And, it not consistent. If this was an over-the-air recording of a TV program, it should be all over every track.

There is also some digital hanky panky, where the left channel drops completely or pops in and out. Maybe another bad cable, but this is entirely in the digital domain. These problems were repaired by copying the left channel over the right one and reversing the phase. A couple of digi-snits were also removed. A little bit of light static remains in one place.

Best guess? This was recorded in 1983 (duh) on cassette, and sometime between 1995 and 2005, when the initial transfer to DAT happened, it was copied badly next to a TV set, or in a PC with a TV tuner card. There is nothing to confirm this, though.

Ripley's Music Hall, better known as the Hippodrome, was at South and 6th Streets in Philadelphia. Its last performance was around 1984 and it became a Tower Records and then a Walgreens.

Enjoy!

--mhg :: 2020-01-15