The Faces
Hollywood Bowl
Los Angeles, CA
August 25, 1972
JF Archive Series Vol. 18 via JEMS

Recording gear: unknown

JEMS 2018 Transfer: JF first-gen mono reel > Otari 5050mkII azimuth-adjusted transfer > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 16/44 capture > iZotope RX and Ozone 6.0 > Audacity > TLH > FLAC

01 Introduction
02 (I Know) I'm Losing You
03 Miss Judy's Farm
04 Memphis
05 Maggie May
06 Stay With Me
07 Angel
08 Too Bad
09 I Would Rather Go Blind
10 That's All You Need >
11 Gasoline Alley >
12 True Blue > That's All You Need (Reprise)
13 Maybe I'm Amazed
14 Twistin' The Night Away
15 One Last Sweet Cheerio (The Marx Brothers from the film 'Room Service')
16 I Feel So Good (small splice)

Rod Stewart - Vocals
Ron Wood - Guitar
Ronnie Lane - Bass
Ian McLagan - Organ
Kenny Jones - Drums


THE JF BACKSTORY

JEMS loves a vintage taper series and we're pleased to return to this series from the archive of our friend JF, who taped in and around Southern California in the '70s and later resumed taping in Boston in the '80s. He frequented smaller venues, like the Troubadour and the Roxy, leaving arenas to others and leaning more towards the folksier, jazzier and eclectic sides of rock.

For further details and backstory on JF, his tapes and the extraordinary lost Van performances from 1975 that started the series, please refer to the notes in Vol. Three:

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=524853

JF was also an active local tape trader at the time and this release comes from one of the many trades he made in the early �70s. It is an upgrade (to our ears) of the well-known recording of the Faces at Hollywood Bowl in the summer of 1972.

The show circulates in at least two versions: one is a rip from a Midnight Dream bootleg CD; the second was posted on DIME by Lucifer Burns in 2010 as �unknown low gen� from the �Per-Erik collection.� The former is quite low-fi; the latter is better and sharper but has a lot of tape hiss.

This new transfer, from JF�s vintage reel-to-reel, offers the clearest and fullest sounding version yet, with less native hiss (no noise reduction was used on the transfer). I suspect it is at least two generations closer to the master than the Lucifer Burns/Per-Erik source.

And for a 1972 audience tape it is very listenable and sounds like it was recorded close to the PA. Ron Wood�s guitar really leaps out in spots and Rod Stewart�s stage patter is both charming and easy to understand. It also lacks a lot of the cuts found on many tapes of this era. Amazing on some level that at this point, when Rod introduces �Maggie May,� the audience doesn�t know it yet.

Proper finishing on this one is courtesy of frogster, who continues to help keep the JEMS Archive flowing.

Our heartfelt thanks goes to JF, who reached out on DIME (you could be next!) and offered us his archive, which had been sitting in boxes, 6000 miles away from where he lives today, for 20+ years. Like so many early tapers, he had great stories to tell and the memories flooded back as we sorted through tapes. We are pleased to be able to bring his work to all of you. Please let him know through your comments that you are, too.

BK for JEMS

--

After a short break, the JEMS team has returned with new "jems" for the enjoyment of all of you. And what a way to do it, with nothing less than a recording of The Faces.

We were glad to see that one of the our last shares of 2017 (the Neil Young 1976 Chicago Soundboard) was well received so we decided to kick out the jams (pun intended) with a recording of one of the all-time great bands.

As BK specified a few paragraphs back, this is the first time that this recording circulates with a full and detailed known lineage.

Compared to the circulating versions, this is indeed a true upgrade, presenting more versatility of the sound and lower hiss, indicating less generational numbers than the one shared by luciferburns years ago. Samples provided.

Aside of the music (that's great to begin with), there's a portion at the end of "Maybe I'm Amazed" where the taper asks to a woman called Lisa to tell her telephone number in the recorder and she asks him to call her. Better than writing the number in a piece of paper, right? :-) This proves my longtime opinion that recordings are also time machines that sends you back to those years. Wondering if he ever called her? Ha! Me too! :-)

With this, I restart my collaboration with the JEMS team, and it's my pleasure to return to work with the JF series. There are many recordings sitting waiting to be shared and trust me, we're doing the best we can.

Thank you all for your support in the now distant 2017 and let's hope a brighter 2018, full of upgrades, unearthed treasures and above all, a better community, with even more enthusiast sharers willing to go to shows and record them. With more collectors willing to transfer old collections just to share them here. That's what makes DIME so great and one of the best sites.

Happy New Year.

frogster