Granfaloon Bus - February 16, 1997 - Alte Maelzerei, Regensburg, Germany **DAT-audience-master, MWM 0003**
Thanks for all the kind words and PMs after my first upload (Torrent #162376),
and sorry for the small problems with my second one (Torrent #162495). It seems
that i have to re-transfer this one sometimes later, if there's interest...
In the meantime - ENJOY THE FALOONIES HERE !!
This one here comes directly from the "Men With Microphones" archive.
"MWM" started in the 70ies in South Germany with analog recording equipment,
and at least two of them are still recording sometimes (since the 90ies on DAT).
Another of our favourite bands:
"Granfaloon Bus" from San Francisco, CA...
Their CD "Rocket Noon" in 1996 (Trocadero Records) was nearly constantly rotating
in our players, we loved this unique mixture somewhere between Pavement and
Palace Brothers, all those crazy, sleepy, county-esk songs, strange lyrics and
whacked-out stories, we couldn't wait to see them live on stage in Europe...
Early 1997 they came for an extended tour, a double-package with our other heroes,
Rich Hopkins and the Luminarios. 8 crazy musicians and one roadmanager/driver/ soundengineer/merchandizer together in a small van for six weeks...thousands
of kilometers through Europe...cockfights starting after the first show til
the end of the tour. Rich (Sidewinders/Sandrubies/Luminarios...etc...etc...)
thought himself as "headliner" and the Faloonies as "support act", and quite
often the response by the audience (and the sales of merchandise) showed a
different picture...
For me, a dream came true, two of my favourite bands at those times together
on one stage, and i visited nearly half of the tour, mostly with my trusty
TCD-D7 portable DAT recorder...so there are still some more tapes !
If you never heard about this band, here's a fine article i found on the net:
The melancholy San Francisco-via-San Diego country-rock ensemble Granfaloon Bus
has been flying under the radar for more than a decade, which is fairly remarkable
when you consider that during that time the group has opened for Nirvana, been
showered with critical accolades, and released seven captivating full-length albums.
Remarkable, but not surprising in light of the similar fates of Granfaloon Bus's
California Americana brethren, bands like Dieselhed and The Mother Hips. The sad
fact is that music this lyrically complex, this downcast, and this folky rarely
finds favor with mainstream audiences. The band's music has been described as
"slanted folk-pop," an epithet which frontman Felix Costanza has endorsed --
perhaps a bit ironically, but hell, that phrase gets pretty close to their sound,
if you emphasize the "folk" part of the equation. Granfaloon Bus give themselves
away with their choices of covers, which have included songs by Neil Young and
Townes Van Zandt; like those accomplished musicians, Granfaloon Bus puts a premium
on storytelling and poetry, while employing a broad range of folk and country
influences to create laconic, distinctively American pop songs. Their songs are
loose and shambling, utilizing a rich instrumental palette which includes keyboards,
piano, violin, pedal steel, trumpet, and trombone, while maintaining a shadowy rural
starkness to underscore Costanza's keening vocabulary of out-of-the-way loss,
regret, and resignation... (Jesse Ashlock )
And if you wonder about the band's name:
You have to read the novel "Cat`s Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut...
Granfaloon Bus
Alte Maelzerei,
Regensburg, Germany
February 16, 1997
"Maelzerei", or german "Mälzerei", is a former malthouse (for the breweries)
with an unique, oldfashioned interior and a fantastic PA-system...
lineage:
recorded by lonetaper, audience stealth to DAT
OKM II K professional, Studio Version > terminal voltage adapter Soundman A3 (impact noise
setting on "linear", attenuation -20 dB) > 'Line In' portable Sony TCD-D7 (16 bit, SP 48 kHz) >
DAT (Maxell HS-4/90s, Helical-Scan 4mm Data Cartridge, 90 meter tape)
DAT (master) > Tascam DA-20 II > Marantz CDR 630 > CDr (master)
CDr (master) > Exact Audio Copy > Harddisc > Traders Little Helper > FLAC > DIME
the concert:
01. Say Cheese 3:39
02. 1/2 A Beer 1/2 A Song 2:51
03. Oyster Pirates 3:38
04. Satellite Frank 5:44
05. Build You A Haus 2:38
06. The Burning Sun Within Me 5:02
07. Alexandra 6:12
08. Widows Weeds 4:38
09. Free Gold Halo 5:40
10. Queen Ann's Hill 4:47
encore 1:
11. Waldo 7:36
encore 2:
12. The Witchdoctors Are Sulking 3:36
total: 56:01 mins
musicians:
Felix Costanza - guitar and lead vocals
Steve Daubenspeck - bass and lead vocals
Ajax Green - guitar and vocals
Jeff Palmer - drums and vocals
trivia:
Steve Daubenspeck left the band quite short after this tour. As he was the other
songwriter in the band, the band lost some charme and strangeness on their next CDs,
and on later tours live in Europe they never reached the creative highs and magic
of those excellent gigs with Steve in 1997...just my humble opinion...
And please check out Jeff Palmer (he played with "Sister Double Happiness" and other bands).
Please support the artists, buy their CDs and visit their concerts...
(I lost contact, are they still alive and touring ?! Their former
website http://www.granfaloonbus.com shows funny stuff now...)
THIS TORRENT IS DEDICATED TO HANS AND BAERBEL FROM "ALTE MAELZE",
AND ESPECIALLY TO MY OLD FRIEND NOMEN (who shurely is on DIME...).
Leo
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Absolutely no selling! Do not alter this recording in any way, repost to other sites
or convert it to mp3 or other lossy formats except for your own personal use.
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Recorded, transfered, & uploaded by lonetaper on Dime, September 2007. This is "MWM 0003"