Frank Zappa
Hammersmith Odeon-London England
6-18-82

Aiwa mic > Aiwa walkman > TDK AD C90 master > TDK SA (1st gen) >
SW1000XG > .wav > CEP > .wav > .shn.


CD#1: (Total Time 45:54)

1. Tuning (1:12)
2. Zoot Allures (7:29)
3. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (3:56)
4. Marqueson's Chicken (7:10)
5. Dead Girls Of London (2:34)
6. Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously? (3:34)
7. What's New In Baltimore? (3:02)
8. Moggio (2:24)
9. Drowning Witch (5:43)
10. Envelopes (8:39)
11. Doreen (fragment before tape flip) (0:09)


CD#2: (Total Time 58:14)

1. Doreen (1:30)
2. Goblin Girl (2:20)
3. Black Page (8:12)
4. Cocaine Decisions (3:38)
5. Nig Biz (5:13)
6. Disco Boy (2:56)
7. Teenage Wind (2:27)
8. Truck Driver Divorce (5:39)
9. King Kong (15:47)

- encore -
10. Audience Applause & FZ Rap (1:11)
11. Stevie's Spanking (w/ Dweezil) (9:20)


Lineup:

Frank Zappa: Guitar, vocals
Ray White:
Tommy Mars:
Chad Wackerman:
Ed Mann:
Bobby Martin:
Scott Thunes:
Steve Vai: Guitar

+ Dweezil Zappa on Stevie's Spanking.


At this show I was sat about 3 rows from the front, and 2 or 3 seats in from the right hand side of the hall. In other words, I was directly in front of the right hand PA stack and quite exposed to security staff looking out for tapers. Most of the seats around me were empty, and I seem to recall at least one audience member who came & went, as if the seats were allocated to industry folks, or family, who may have been ambivalent about watching the show. I felt very exposed.

So anyway I was about 10 feet from the PA, and Zappa's bodyguard was frequently stood dead in front of me, watching out for tapers. I had to keep the walkman hidden up in my jacket pocket, I don't recall how the microphone was angled, if I was holding it or if it was angled out of my jacket pocket. I remember making vvvvveeeeeerrrrryyyy slow movements to check on tape time and when the flips came. I was really concerned that he would figure out what I was up to. There may be a longer gap in recording at those tape flips than you would otherwise expect, on account of this.

But one way or another the sound on this tape was about as good as it ever got with this setup. It was an Aiwa recordable walkman, I don't remember the model number. I think the mic I used was one that came with the recorder. It was an auto-record level machine, which sometimes worked out OK for live shows, when it would help bring the quiet bits up, and the loud bits down.

The sound where I was sitting was of course fairly clean PA sound - and a pretty good sound at that. The audience comes through more or less like you get on a live album, and on the whole I very much liked the sound of this tape.

I also recorded both shows the following night, but from far poorer locations. At the third and final show, I had to leave early to catch a train home. I don't remember what time I left, or what time the train was supposed to depart, but I missed it, and settled down for a night's rest at the railway station. A while later, probably an hour or so, a couple of guys turned up who had obviously stayed to the end of the show, less concerned about missing their train.

I passed the tapes I made of all 3 shows on to my brother, who was more of a Zappa fan than myself, but I made a point of making the best copy that I could of the first night. Now that I no longer have access to my brother's tapes, and since I believe that he has no contact with the world of traders, it is my first generation cassette copy that has been digitised. We probably made 5-10 cassette copies from the master over the years; I have no idea if any of these other cassettes were transferred to DAT or CD. The lineage for this version, the first time I have transferred my 1st-gen cassette to CD, is this:

Aiwa mic>Aiwa walkman>TDK AD C90 master>TDK SA (1st gen)>SW1000XG>.wav

I have prepared .shn files from the raw digitised cssettes, corresponding to the above lineage.

The neat & tidy version of the show exists on 2 "finalised" CDs after a little more processing, as follows:

CEP for normalisation, tidying of tape start/finish points, and repair of minor blemishes, then CDWAV to cut to sector boundaries. The CD break seemed best to be left at the point where the original first cassette flip occurred - at the 45 minute mark. Since other audience recordings were undoubtedly made at this show, hopefully their tape flips are different enough to allow patching.

alimac@netcomuk.co.uk

21st May 2001.


Cool Edit Pro processing notes.

All raw waves converted to 32-bit.

Side 1 amplified left channel x240%; right channel by 260%, with DC bias adjust. (Approx +7.6db & +8.3db, making channels approximately even in volume).
Sides 2 + 3 amplified left channel x240%; right channel by 280%, with DC bias adjust. (Approx +7.5db & +9db, making channels approximately even in volume).

Start and end of each cassette side was smoothed (chopping off samples corresponding to tape noise & "thunks"). No music was removed.

Sides 2 & 3 were joined, with a reasonable gap between them, and each portion was then converted back to 16 bit and saved.

Then CDWAV to split up the tracks, and on to CD.

So NO processing other than volume adjustment and the tiniest of fade-in/out.