The Meters
Tipitina's
New Orleans, La.
Jan. 20, 1979


01. Just Kissed My Baby -> 11:00
02. Got Me Someone Else (And I Just Don't Need You) (?) 4:55
03. The Funky Soldier (Keep On Marchin') 6:57
04. Funkify Your Life 12:10
05. Africa 5:47
06. People Say 5:04
07. Fire on the Bayou 12:23
08. Ain't No Use -> 8:16
09. Drums -> 2:08
10. Bass -> 2:05
11. jam 5:26
12. People Say (second version) 7:14

Total: 83:32



SOURCES & TRANSFER
Source #1 ("DAT source"): soundboard > master cassette > probably first-generation cassette
Source #2 ("CDR source"): soundboard > master cassette > ? (likely a first- or second-generation cassette copy) > trader #2's CDR > my CDR clone

Source #1 transfer from cassette (by trader #1, February 1998): cassette > Sony Super Bit Mapping Adaptor SBM-1 > Panasonic SV3800 > DAT

Source #1 transfer from DAT (Richard Russell, March 2014): DAT > Sony PCM-R500 > Metric Halo MIO-2882 > MacBook Pro (2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) > MIO Console 5.6.00.211 > (split stereo files) > Bias Peak Pro 6.2.0.21692 (trimmed, normalized by 2.0 db, split into songs) > X Audio Compression Toolkit 2.30 > flac

Source #2 transfer from CDR (Richard Russell, July 2003): CDR > Macintosh G3/300 > Toast Audio Extractor 1.1 > Macintosh Powerbook G4 > Bias Peak 3.21 (channels swapped in first 2:14 of recording to match rest of show) > MacFlac 2.0.2 > flac

Source #2 additional editing (September 2024): flac > SoX v14.4.0 (speed corrected, see editing notes) > flac

Editing and transfer to flac (September 2024): CDR- and DAT-sourced flac files > MacBook Air (M1 2020) > iZotope RX 11 Advanced v11.1.0.3941 (see editing notes) > X Audio Compression Toolkit 2.55 (sector boundaries corrected, tagged) > FLAC


EDITING NOTES
* Feedback at 2:26 into Track 3, Funky Soldier, was repaired using iZotope's Spectral Repair feature;
* Tracks from the CDR source (Tracks 4-7) were speed-corrected using the SoX command line tool. Sped up 4.5599278368001% (to match the DAT source).
* The volume of Tracks 4-7 was raised 2.28db and then the left channel was boosted another 0.31 db;
* A few stray clicks and pops were removed in Tracks 8-10;
* Toward the end of Track 10, the beginning of a note drops out completely in the left channel. I repaired it with a clone from the right channel;
* I repaired a 0.2-second dropout and glitch at 5:18 into Track 11 with a splice from a similar passage;
* The record levels fluctuated over the first minute or so of Ain't No Use. I reduced the first 30 seconds of the song by 2 db and used iZotope's Clip Gain feature to smooth out the transition so that the levels are more consistent;
* After fixing the record-level issues in Track 8 (Ain't No Use), I raised the volume of Tracks 8-12 0.58 db then boosted the left channel another 0.4 db;
* In Track 12 (the second People Say), there was a fade out during the guitar solo at about 6:12, then a gap of silence, then a fade up into the continuation of the solo. The two sections overlapped one another (meaning the last few seconds were repeated in the first few seconds of the second section. I removed about 19 seconds of overlap and removed the fades, using iZotope's Clip Gain feature to keep the levels consistent.


NOTES
I made a lot of subjective decisions when approaching how to edit this recording. Hopefully these notes shed some light. (And speaking of subjective decisions, yes, Tracks 8-11 could be considered one long song, Ain't No Use. But there's nearly 20 seconds of near-silence (i.e., no music) in between the first part of Ain't and the beginning of Zig's drum solo, so I decided to split up the sections.)

Sadly, there are cuts and fades between nearly every song, and it's clear if you listen closely that additional songs were omitted (teases or the first few notes to songs that are faded down to near inaudibility at the end of some tracks).

As noted in the Editing Notes, this is an edited recording combined from two sources.

REGARDING THE DATE
My first source was on a DAT that I received around 1998, labeled Meters at Tipitina's, 1/20/79.

The venue and date of the second source (which I received on CDR about five years later) was originally noted as unknown but the trader suspected "1980-82" (due to the presence of vocalist Willie West instead of Art Neville). Sometime later, the trader (after I had sent him a copy of the other 1/20/79 source) listed his recording on etree as being from Feb. 9, 1979. All due respect to him, but I suspect that was a made-up date. It's possible some of the tracks could be from Feb. 9 or any another date, yet other tracks were the exact same performance as the Jan. 20, 1979, recording I already had, albeit at the wrong speed and with some sections missing or faded differently.

To me, the sonics of all the songs from both sources is similar, and because many of the songs overlap both sources - with different songs in the middle - I think it's reasonable to argue that all songs could be from the same show. The one thing that gave me pause is that People Say is repeated. It, however, is not unhead of for a band to play a song twice. If, as is likely, The Meters performed a then-typical 2- to 3-hour show - possibly over two sets, then it's certainly possible they played People Say early and then again for the encore. Who knows. Maybe someday a full unedited recording will surface, if it even exists.

During songs from both sources (Just Kissed My Baby in Source #1, Funkify Your Life in Source #2), the same five band members are identified by name. While I've never seen a definitive timeline showing how the Meters' lineup evolved over the last few years before the band ceased regularly performing around 1982, the lineup that included George, Craig Wroten and Willie West had to have surely been a very narrow window of time. By late 1980, Sam Henry had joined the band (when as far as I can tell, both Craig and Willie were gone). And, by his own account, George left the band in '79, so I think that pretty definitively places this in the '78 to mid-'79 range.

REGARDING THE RUNNING ORDER
I suspect that when the cassette source was dubbed to DAT, the sides of the cassette were reversed, meaning the second side of the cassette was placed at the beginning of the DAT while the first side of the cassette tape followed at the end. This resulted in Ain't No Use being the first song on the DAT. However, in nearly all shows I've heard from the '70s (even into the '80s and '90s), Ain't No Use - with its extended soloing and jamming - was almost always part of the encore - certainly never at the beginning of a show. Furthermore, moving Ain't No Use > jam > People Say (#2) to the end now makes the running orders of the DAT and the CDR more in sync, with both starting with Just Kissed My Baby and ending with Ain't No Use, etc.

After the DAT tracks (minus Ain't No Use > People Say), I spliced in the songs that were unique to the CDR source. This running order seems to plausible, because Zig comments during Fire on the Bayou that it's their last song (prior to a presumed encore). Now, with Ain't No Use, etc., moved after Fire on the Bayou as the (likely) encore, the running order seems to make sense.

(One additional note about the CDR source -- the supposed Feb. 9 recording. That disc (and the etree listing) concludes with two additional tracks (three songs) that were most definitely not from this performance (or any 1979 performance). Rather, they were excerpts from a circa-1990s show - George can be heard referring to guitarist Brian Stoltz, who joined in '94. For obvious reasons, I omitted those songs from this set.)

REGARDING DAT SOURCE
The DAT I received was labeled as being from the master cassette. Because of the edits and fades, as well as the differences (big andd small) between this and the CDR source, I think it is almost impossible that this is from the master. It is definitely from a very low-generation source, so I think first-generation is likely. The CDR source is even more chopped up, though still low-generation. I'm assuming second-generation, but that's just a guess.

FINALLY...
Editing and very verbose notes by Richard Russell, aka nolataper, September 2, 2024.

In the immortal words of George Porter toward the end of Funky Soldier... Pardon Us While We Funk Awhile.



Zigaboo Modeliste, drums, lead vocals
George Porter Jr., bass, vocals
Leo Nocentelli, guitar, vocals (?)
Craig Wroten, keyboards, vocals (?)
Willie West, vocals (occasionally lead vocals)