Leonard Cohen - London 1968 (Prof. Stoned 2016)
01 - You Know Who I Am
02 - Bird On The Wire
03 - The Stranger Song
04 - So Long, Marianne
05 - Master Song
06 - There's No Reason Why You Should Remember Me
07 - Sisters Of Mercy
08 - Teachers
09 - Dress Rehearsal Rag
10 - Suzanne
11 - Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye
12 - Story Of Isaac
13 - One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong
Time: 61:59
Source: Soundboard -> Pre-FM Reel-To-Reel Master -> Cassette -> ? -> Mastering 2016 > FLAC
Recorded live at The Paris Theatre, London, Spring 1968
Originally broadcast on BBC2 TV: 31 August 1968 (Tr. 01-05) & 7 September 1968 (Tr. 06-13)
[Revision 1.0 / 18-9-2016]
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Prof. sez:
A very important bootleg, IMO, that begs for an official release. Reportedly, it was sourced from a cassette
copy that a fan got directly from an BBC employee after writing a letter to inquire after the status of this
recording. The BBC employee also mentioned that this came from his private copy and that video sources no longer
existed in the archives.
The audio recording was first heard by the public in 1993 when it came out on a pressed CD bootleg in inferior
quality. Then later in the mid-2000's it started to circulate in better quality. I first heard this in 2006
when someone uploaded it on Dime's tracker. Although pretty clean, that source was marred heavily by noise
reduction artefacts. For this new version, I have used another source that I found on another tracker. It had
more noises and also some signs of NR, but substantially less than the 2006 Dime source. I fear this is probably
as good as it's gonna get, unless someone manages to obtain a clean digital copy of the BBC cassette, which to my
knowledge is not into circulation.
Despite the obvious deterioration to the source material, the soundquality here has still turned out quite good.
I have carefully restored and remastered this at my mastering studio. The original source sounded a bit dull.
By bringing up the high-end a bit, the NR problem and hiss also became more apparent, but I think I found
an acceptable balance (to my taste, anyway). I also corrected the correct speed of the two original parts (one
ran a bit too fast, the other a bit too slow).
To me, the historical importance outweighs the sonic flaws by far. Four songs performed here (not counting
Tr. 06, which is more a joke than a song) were unreleased at the time, though already fully realized. Some of
the arrangements are quite different from the studio versions and there's an extra unheard verse on Tr. 04.
Enjoy!
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