Neil Young
Universal Amphitheatre
Los Angeles, CA
November 18, 1986
RG First Generation Cassettes via JEMS
New Wave LA Series Vol. 54

Recording equipment: unknown microphone to unknown portable cassette deck

JEMS 2021 Transfer: RG First Generation Cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A (azimuth adjustment) > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 capture > iZotope RX6 > iZotope Ozone 6 > CD Wave > ffmpeg > FLAC


1 Mr. Soul
2 Cinnamon Girl
3 When You Dance, I Can Really Love
4 Down By The River
5 Too Lonely
6 Heart Of Gold
7 After The Gold Rush
8 Inca Queen
9 Drive Back
10 Opera Star
11 Cortez The Killer
12 Sample And Hold
13 Computer Age
14 Violent Side
15 Mideast Vacation
16 Long Walk Home
17 The Needle And The Damage Done
18 When Your Lonely Heart Breaks
19 Around The World
20 Powderfinger
21 Like A Hurricane
22 Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
23 Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll

JEMS is pleased to extend a range of historic recordings made by our longtime friend and diehard music collector RG. He was on the scene in LA as a teenager, began recording shows in 1977 and continued on well into the 2000s. Our series will focus on tapes he made between 1977 and 1987.

What sort of music was he into? Well, one simple way to put it is KROQ music, meaning the bands that LA's "world famous" new wave radio station was playing were the bands he saw and recorded. First wave if you will, with forays into indie and punk(ish) artists. The early years are dominated by UK artists breaking in the US. Over time his work expands to US bands in the second wave. Some of the artists RG taped include:

Siouxsie & the Banshees (Vol. 4)
Madness (Vol. 8)
The Specials (Vol. 6)
OMD (Vol. 10)
The Damned (Vol. 25)
The Stranglers (Vol. 1)
Public Image Limited (Vol. 3)
John Cale (Vol. 9, Vol. 30, Vol. 44)
Magazine (Vol. 21)
The Buzzcocks (Vol. 7)
Orange Juice (Vol. 13)
U2 (Vol. 28)
Wreckless Eric (Vol. 27)
The Cramps (Vol. 22)
Johnny Thunders (Vol. 18)
Talking Heads (Vol. 24)
Iggy Pop
XTC (Vol. 2)
The Jam (Vol. 31 and Vol. 40)
The Only Ones (Vol. 19)
The Undertones (Vol. 17)
Boomtown Rats (Vol. 5)
The Birthday Party (Vol. 15)
Penetration (Vol. 26)
The Bluebells (Vol. 12)
The Plimsouls (Vol. 11)
Athletico Spizz '80 (Vol. 29)
Killing Joke (Vol. 14)
Jonathan Richman (Vol. 16)
The Records (Vol. 20)
Robert Fripp (Vol. 23)
Bram Tchaikovsky (Vol. 32)
Peter Gabriel (Vol. 33)
R.E.M. (Vol. 34 and Vol. 42)
Elvis Costello (Vol. 35)
Hüsker Dü (Vol. 36 and Vol. 39)
Alex Chilton (Vol. 37)
Style Council (Vol. 38)
The Replacements (Vol. 41)
The Smiths (Vol. 43, Vol. 47)
True Believers (Vol. 45)
Uncle Tupelo (Vol. 46)
Tom Waits (Vol. 48)
Neil Young (Vol. 49, Vol. 54)
Mudhoney (Vol. 50)
The Lemonheads (Vol. 51)
Bob Mould (Vol. 52)
Robyn Hitchcock (Vol. 53)

RG used good, not Millard-level recording gear, which means his tapes are mostly solid and listenable, with the occasional very good one and also sorta crappy one. What makes his tapes compelling is that RG was recording in a particularly vital window of time. In many instances these were the first or second times these acts played Los Angeles. Some never did proper US tours, only playing select dates in key markets like LA or NYC. Also, for many of these gigs, RG was the only taper. He grabbed a few local radio broadcasts along the way, too.

Because these early shows were often at clubs like The Whisky and The Roxy, the sets are generally short, 45 to 60 minutes because that's what you did at The Whisky. On occasion, RG would copy his own masters to save tape and we have done our best to distinguish what's a true master and what's a first generation copy. If there's a doubt, we will note it. Regardless, the series will offer the lowest generation copies available of his recordings, digitized directly for the first time from RG's tapes which had been stored in boxes for the last 15+ years.

We roll back to 1986 and another deviation from our New Wave theme with Neil Young and Crazy Horse playing the second night of a three-show stand at the Universal Amphitheatre on the Live In A Rusted Out Garage tour.

Young's setlists did not vary across the three nights (or for that matter most of the tour), mixing classics like "Mr. Soul," "Cinnamon Girl" and "Heart Of Gold," with contemporary fare like "Sample And Hold" and "Computer Age." The Sampedro, Talbot and Molina edition of Crazy Horse is augmented by Joel Bernstein and Larry Craig on Synclavier.

While there are no setlist rarities here, according to the authoritative Neil Young site Sugar Mountain, there was no known recording of this show, making RG's capture a new discovery that ticks another gig off the missing tapes list.

The quality of RG's recording is solid, clear and listenable, with more fidelity than other some of his other recordings of the period. Samples provided.

We're grateful to RG for letting JEMS dig through his tape boxes and pull out the assets for this series. He witnessed amazing LA music history. Tip of the hat as well to cpscps who volunteered to handle post-production on our series which is a huge help to us and makes it possible to get more music in your hands. Stay tuned for more New Wave in LA.

BK for JEMS

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show:

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NeilYoung1986-11-18UniversalAmphitheatreLosAngelesCA (2).jpg