John McLaughlin and the One Truth Band
SUNY Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY
1978-07-29

John McLaughlin- electric guitar
L. Shankar- Acoustic and Electric Violin
Stu Goldberg- keys
TM Stevens- electric bass
Woody "Sunship" Theus- drums

lineage/source-cd-r trade of soundboard recording> EAC disc extraction> Audacity for tracking work indicated below> TLH to fix sbe's and create torrent> DIME

1-Invocation 3:39
2-Meeting of the Spirits 15:48
3-Goodbye Porkpie Hat 5:11
4-Friendship 6:15
5-Two Sisters 6:23
6-Mind Ecology 8:07
7-New York on My Mind 13:31
8-Do You Hear the Voices You Left Behind 15:57

The One Truth Band was John's return to electric music after a few years of pretty exclusive acoustic guitar playing (live, at least) in 1976 and 77 with Shakti. He recorded Johnny McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist with all star guests, and then went on the road with this first version of the OTB, which would see him in the company of the very flamboyant TM Stevens on bass, Sunship Theus on drums, Shakti mate L Shankar, and the final MO keyboardist, Stu Goldberg. This band toured through 77, and then John gobbled up Jan Hammer's rhythm section of Fernando Saunders and Tony Smith for the Electric Dreams album and more touring into 1979. There were even a few shows featuring OTB material with Jack Bruce and Billy Cobham in the Fall of 79 in Europe. Electric Dreams and the Saunders/Smith version definitely was my personal favorite of these groupings and material, but all featured typically astounding playing from all concerned.
There are a few well recorded shows from this first OTB, including an FM from a night or 2 away from this (and just a few miles down the road) at My Father's Place in Old Roslyn, NY. I think that show is still running here. This SUNY Stony Brook show is reputed to be a soundboard, and their sets that year at Montreux were officially released in John's Montreux box set from a few years back, and there are also a couple of FM's from Germany. This Stony Brook show last ran here on DIME in 2008. The copy I'm sharing came to me in a cd-r trade, but I actually recall buying a cassette of the show once from a guy who sold boots in a weekend market in a parking lot outside of Tower Records in NYC. I went to this show, and SUNY Stony Brook is my alma mater. I had to have it!
Listening back now, I realize that this was all cobbled together pretty strangely, and what was on my cd-r from the trade was a better fidelity version of the cassette. It was tracked as 2 long tracks, which obviously corresponded to the cassette. It also had the Invocation twice on the same track, once before Meeting where it belonged, and again before Do You Hear the Voices, which didn't even belong in that spot in the show. Therefore, I definitely needed to re-track this, and did that work in Audacity.
Prior shares and etree listings didn't seem to recognize the Shakti track Mind Ecology, so that now appears as it should as the song following its Shakti mate, Two Sisters. Both Mind Ecology and New York on My Mind both seem to abruptly fade, so I presume there was more music played that doesn't remain as part of this show. Given the cassette connection, I'm not sure if the pitch is good all the way through, although checking a few tracks against a freshly tuned guitar, they seemed good, although Two Sisters seemed off a bit. Listeners will hear a few quotes of the "Close Encounters" theme that was very much in the popular culture at the point in time when this show was performed (not sure if any benign aliens ever responded).
Thanks to the trader who'd made this available to me (but not the guy outside of Tower who profited from these things!), and to those who first recorded the show and began passing it along.