Robert Gordon
Old Waldorf
San Francisco, CA
1981-05-06

THTP Release 38

Recording chain:
Stage mics > splitter (split to house snake/SBD and TH snake) > TH dedicated snake >
Peavy MkII 12 channel mixing board (10 channels snake, 2 channels audience mics) >
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck (Dolby B on) > TDK SA-90 tape

Archival Process:
1999: Sony TC-KA3ES > TDK SA-90 tapes playback (NO Dolby) > BBE 462 Sonic Maximizer (to clean up tapes) >
Tascam DA-30 DAT > HHb DAT-125 DAT tape
2002: HHb CDR-850 Professional CD Recorder (In real time) > HHb CDR74 Gold 100 year archival grade CDRs
2005: Transfered to HDD in AIFF file format

Dime release processing: AIFF Master Files > FFMPEG > 16 bit FLAC 8 > tagging, cover artwork, checksums.

Recorded, preserved, and master AIFF files provided by: Terry Hammer

Setlist:
01. There's Good Rockin' Tonight
02. Ubangi Stomp
03. Love My Baby
04. Look Who's Blue
05. There Stands The Glass
06. I Want Your Love
07. Drivin' Wheel
08. The Way I Walk
09. Fire
10. Loverboy
11. Cruisin'
12. Rockabilly Boogie
13. Train I Ride
14. All For The Love Of A Girl
15. Are you Gonna Be The One?
16. Black Slacks
17. Red Hot
18. Red Cadillac And A Black Mustache
19. Flying Saucers
20. It's Only Make Believe

Length: 1:09:17

Band:
Robert Ira Gordon - vocals
Danny Gatton - lead guitar
Lance Quinn - lead, rhythm guitar
Shannon Ford - drums
Tony Garnier - bass fiddle, bass guitar

Notes:
* Are you ready for some Rockabilly!! I said, are you ready!!! Then let's go, cat, go!!! Smoking hot set from Robert Gordon, watch out out, you might get burned!!
* For other Rockabilly leaning releases, check out No Alternative, 1981 (THTP 9), Kingsnakes (THTP 17), Soul Rebels (THTP 18).
* Danny Gatton RIP 1994. Musicians lives can be much harder than most of us realize.
* Tony Garnier has recorded with Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Paul Simon, and the Lounge Lizards, among many.
* Lance Quinn has worked with an enormous number of other artists, too many to list, but including Gatton's 1991 album "88 Elmira St."
* Note: this was only the second time this version of his band had played together.
* I had to stop researching for a moment, my speakers were starting to smoke and spit out fire, the music is too hot, lol.
* Robert Gordon had not played Bay Area for 2 years before this gig, he says.
* Yes, this is the Robert Gordon of Robert Gordon and Link Ray fame. He looks to have recorded with Link Ray in 1977-78, with Elvis Costello in 1978, then went solo. And yes, he was in the early punk type band Tuff Darts, but he quickly left that world to pursue his love for american music, country, rockabilly, etc.
* The Kingsnakes (THTP 17) opened for Robert Gordon.
* Good fan site: http://robertgordon.dk/
* Recordings: https://www.discogs.com/artist/306532-Robert-Gordon-2?noanv=1
* Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gordon_(musician)
"Robert Gordon grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. At the age of nine, he was greatly inspired by the Elvis Presley song "Heartbreak Hotel" playing on radio and decided to pursue a career as a Rock & Roll musician at that young age.
His influences included Gene Vincent, Jack Scott, Billy Lee Riley, Eddie Cochran and other notable rock 'n roll music artists of the period. He made his recording debut at age 17 in 1964 with a group called the Confidentials. The Confidentials, with Robert (called Bob at the time) as the singer, recorded the songs "Summertime," "Money," and "There is Something on Your Mind," among others on acetate phonograph discs.
...
Gordon moved to New York City in 1970 and a few years later joined a punk rock band there known as the Tuff Darts. During 1976, the Tuff Darts recorded "All for the Love of Rock and Roll", "Head over Heels", and "Slash" for a compilation album called Live at CBGB's, which included a number of other local New York City bands. That same year, Robert appeared in a punk/New Wave style film entitled Unmade Beds, an homage to Jean-Luc Godard by underground filmmaker Amos Poe. Blondie lead singer Deborah Harry also appeared in the film.
...
Wray was contacted and he agreed to work with them both. "Robert to me sounds a lot like the early Elvis, back when he was at Sun Records," Wray would comment. In 1977 Robert Gordon with Link Wray on Private Stock Records was the result of this collaboration."
* Will you find a better live Robert Gordon from these early years? Don't hold your breath.
* It's not hard to see why Rockabilly grew so influential in the scene during these years, the music is smoking, very similar to punk in feel and intensity except it started in the late 40s/50s if you follow the roots back far enough.
* Images included.

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No distribution in lossy formats!!
No selling!!
No bootlegging!!
No remastering!!
Yes sharing. Definitely share.

Support the artists when or if they play, and buy their records/merchandise.

Please correct any errors or oversights in this information in the comments section so the information can be as accurate as possible.

If you can find related materials like flyers, posters, ticket stubs, even photos, etc, please add them in a comment and I will add them to the main release folder, so that can be included on the next re-seeding. Every bit is welcome, and as I am time constrained on this project due to the amount of material, I cannot spend as much time on each release doing research as I would like, so if we can add to and improve the information and release contents during this series, that would be great.

Please make an effort to pick at least one of these THTP releases and keep it seeded for as long as you can, particularly the lesser known groups. That will really help out long term.

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About Terry Hammer and the THTP:

Someone put my feelings very well about these recordings in the following quote. I can't really improve on their words beyond noting that these recordings sound absolutely and utterly stunning, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to be able to present these to you here in their original, first generation, lossless hi-fidelity versions, for the first time ever.

"[These recordings were] recorded and preserved by collector/engineer Terry Hammer, for broadcast over the UC Berkeley station KALX and several others from the 1979 -1981 period. Anyone who spent a night at one of these clubs knows how chaotic the atmosphere was. That he was able to, not only get a decent feed from the sound mixing board, but was also able to get clean recordings was something of a miracle. And the fact this guy did it over and over again is pure dedication to the cause of preserving history for decades to come. Fortunately for everyone, he’s been making these gems of history available and their value as historic documents is inestimable. This is really exciting stuff and I am grateful for Terry’s foresight and deft skill."
src: https://pastdaily.com/2014/06/25/gang-four-live-american-indian-center-san-francisco-1980-nights-roundtable-concert-edition/

As Terry notes about the process of recording these shows: "Like all of my live recordings this was mixed direct to 2-Track Reel To Reel (and Cassette deck for backup and personal use) using headphones. Sitting in the club with the loud P.A. sound trying to drive the amp in my mixing board loud enough to hear what I was mixing.If you've ever been to a live concert,then,you know how loud it can be."

If you've ever been looking for an excuse to upgrade your sound system, these recordings certainly should provide you with some motivation, because they have incredible sound. And if you already have a quality sound system, you are in for a treat!! The audio goes straight to 20k hz, no losses I can detect. Due to the reality of tapes, even high end as used here, the low end starts at 47 hz.

And if you want to learn more about this incredible musical era, listen to the stuff you haven't heard, there are amazing gems in there.

Do we call these soundboards? Technically not precisely because this is not the house mix, these shows were mixed using a dedicated mixing board, with an additional 1 to 2 audience mics (1 for Mab because he needed 11 snake inputs), 2 at other clubs) in the mix. But I call it the Terry Hammer Tape Project (THTP) to make sure there is no doubt about the project's creator.

TECH:
Note that Terry made 2 master recordings (recording at the same time) when he mixed these shows live:
1: Reel to reel, for the radio stations:
Technics RS-1500 Reel To Reel (mostly TDK Audua L-1800 & LB-1800 tape with back coating or Scotch 206 / 207 with back coating. Maybe a few Maxell UD-XL). All the KALX shows went to KALX, they supplied the reel to reel tape.

2: For his own use, and as backup in case something happened to the reels:
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck (Dolby B on) > TDK SA-90 tape

Terry isn't sure, but thinks the audience mics he used maybe were Electro Voice EV-DS35's.

Info: http://www.bbesound.com/products/sonic-maximizers/482i.aspx

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- teetering

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

Images for this show: