Merl Saunders & The Rainforest Band
7/31/92
The Brew House
Santa Barbara, CA

Nakamichi CM-300 CP-1's (ORTF On T-Bar) >Sony WM-D6C (XLIIS Master) >CDR >FLAC
XLIIS Master >CDR Transferred Via: Sony TC-D5M >HHb CDR 800 PRO
CD Masters >FLAC (Level 8) + Tags Via xACT 2.37

Recorded, Transferred, FLAC’d, & Tagged By OldNeumanntapr
(Vocals Not As Clear As I Would Have Liked)

Disc I:
01. //Problems Got Problems
02. The Harder They Come
03. After Midnight
04. Paris Blues
05. Blues From The Rain Forest

Disc II:
01. Sunrise Over Haleakla
02. Feel Like Dynamite >Be Myself >Feel Like Dynamite
03. Instrumental >Drums >Instrumental

Encore:
04. Bertha
05. Bertha (Reprise)

OldNeumanntapr Notes-
This is another Merl show the night after a performance at Loco Ranchero in San Luis Obispo, CA. I wanted to go down after the previous show in March, when Merl played back-to-back shows in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, but I couldn’t. This time I was bound and determined to make both shows, and since I had met Merl and his wife/manager Marina at the March ’92 SLO show I felt I had a pretty good chance at plugging into the board in Santa Barbara. (At least at Loco Ranchero I knew Kip, the soundman, but I knew no one at The Brew House, so I was glad to have Marina’s business card to get my gear inside.)

It would be easy for me to make this show, because I was coming back from the Ventura Fairgrounds after attempting to record the Jerry Garcia Band earlier that day. (That was another story. I left my Y cable in the truck by accident, so I couldn’t use my Nakamichi CM 300s with my D6 as I had planned. I didn’t discover my mistake until I was inside the venue and trying to set up. I couldn’t even patch in to another taper’s rig, because I didn’t have a cable, AND my friend Jim Ho was there with his D6 which was a first-year model built in 1982 and had no line out. He had managed to plug his D6 into a D5 that was coming off of a Panasonic SV-250 DAT with Neumann KM-140 microphones, in the sweet spot FOB center. I was able to get 1st gen cassettes from the DAT taper of the Jerry show later, so all was not lost. I fell in love with the Neumanns that day, and six years later I bought my own pair.)

Since Jerry had played earlier that day in Ventura, about 30 miles south of Santa Barbara, there was a rumor that he might show up at Merl’s show, since they played together in the 70s in the Garcia & Saunders Band and also Legion Of Mary. I asked Merl before the show if I could plug in and he said sure. I told him that there was a rumor that Jerry might show up. Could I still plug in? He smiled and said sure once more. As it turned out, Jerry never made it, at least in the physical sense. A lot of us felt his energy though.

The Brew House has two rooms for music, and Merl was booked into the smaller one. He told me that I was welcome to plug in, but because it was such a small room they were only miking vocals and drums. The keys and guitars would be loud enough without reinforcement. I decided instead to record with my Nakamichi CM 300s with the CP-1 Cardioid capsules, ORTF on a T-Bar. Boy was my arm tired at the end of the night from holding that T bar! (I didn’t bring my mic stand with me because I didn’t think I’d need it.) At least I got to use the Nakamichis to record something that day. After being used to hearing board tapes of Merl I was kind of bummed to hear how the vocals came out on the audience recording. They are a little weak and unclear, even though I couldn’t have been more than 15 feet from the stage. I can attest to the fact that I was indeed the ONLY taper there that night, so this is as good as it gets. I missed the very first part of the first song because I was frantically trying to set up my microphones after finding out that I would get a better recording by Not going through the board. I Believe that this was only one set, whereas Merl usually plays two sets. I recorded Merl back-to-back in 1993, at Loco Ranchero and again at The Brew House the next night, and that time he played in the bigger room and I was able to get a board patch. That story later…


DO NOT Convert To MP3!
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