Mott The Hoople
Ford Auditorium
Detroit, MI
July 29, 1973
Secret Origins: JEMS 8-Track Master Series Vol. Seven

Recording Gear: Lloyd's 8-Track Cartridge Recorder > Lloyd's microphones

JEMS Transfer: Master cartridge > Panasonic 8-track player > McIntosh C32 Preamp > Wavelab @ 96/24 .wav capture > iZotope RX and Ozone mastering > MBIT+ convert to 16/44.1 > Peak Pro 6 (post production) > xACT 2.39 > FLAC

01 Sweet Jane (Velvet Underground)
02 All The Young Dudes (David Bowie)
03 Jerkin� Crocus
04 Just One Of The Boys
05 Rock And Roll Queen
06 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)


Known Faults:
Honky Tonk Women: start cut / end cut

Hello and welcome to the seventh volume of JEMS� Secret Origins series, presenting for the first time some of our earliest recordings, captured on and transferred from the original master 8-track cartridges. It also doubles as a remembrance of our late, great friend, partner and taper of this concert, Jared Houser, who died on October 29, 2016, succumbing after a six-year battle with cancer. Just last month, Jared was joined in the great tapers section in the sky by JEMS� other stalwart founder, Stan Gutoski. I miss them both every day.

Before he died, Jared wrote this about his earliest 8-track recordings:

Let me shine a little light on the early days of JEMS, the secret origins so to speak.

Before the hard drive recorders, before the DATs, before the many generations of Sony cassette decks, there was a guy in Tacoma recording on a Tandberg mono reel to reel (Stan), and, in the alternate universe that is Detroit, there was me and the opposite of a Tandberg, a Lloyd's 8-track cartridge recorder.

I started using the 8-track cartridge recorder because it had external mics and, most importantly, had adjustable recording levels (though oddly, no VU meters, which made things a little difficult). It took some trial and error to figure out how to set the input volume to record without distortion. Sadly, Pink Floyd at Cobo Arena in March of 1973 was the first test and I failed. But after that, I had a pretty good sense of where to set the recording level for concerts, even flying blind without meters. I only recorded about a dozen shows on this system before Sony put out the TC-152SD cassette recorder, which took its place for me and triggered the permanent retirement of the Lloyd's 8-track.

***

This release presents Jared�s 8-track stereo master recording of Mott The Hoople headlining a gig with Frampton�s Camel as the opening act. We released the Frampton show a few years ago but had never gotten around to this short but sweet Mott The Hoople tape. Though only 25 mins of the set was preserved, the tape does capture Mott in their prime, a period for which there are very few recordings.

It is also one of the better 8-track recordings Jared ever made, and, for 1973, a very respectable stereo audie. Samples provided.

Highlights include a fine version of �All The Young Dudes,� plus covers of the Velvet Underground�s �Sweet Jane� and the Stones� �Honky Tonk Women.� We also get three of the band�s originals, each a pure blast of rock �n� roll.

For years Jared wanted to transfer his original 8-track cartridges, but it is a very difficult medium to work with. The tape itself is problematic and vintage cartridges rarely play without being rebuilt. Finding a high-quality working playback deck is also not easy, and to get the most out of the transfer, head adjustment is key. Sometime circa 2015-16 Jared was finally able to restore and transfer what was left of his 8-track masters.

We post this recording to celebrate Jared, Stan and their legendary work as tapers. They were cornerstones of JEMS and are dearly missed. If you haven�t had the chance yet, I encourage you to watch the 13-minute interview we shot with Jared just a few weeks before his death, in which he shares some of his taping history.

https://vimeo.com/190021070/14a4b5b7ca

Thanks as well to mjk5510 for his invaluable post-production support to get our tapes to your ears.

BK for JEMS