Townes Van Zandt
Union Chapel
Islington
London
10-Dec-1994

*** This is not the same show as the Tomato Records "Live at Union Chapel London England". That was recorded on 23rd April 1994 and has more songs and in a different sequence. See http://pnwpest.org/coopl/tvzschedold.html for tour schedule which lists both shows ***

Original Recording-1994:
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Source: AUD
Lineage: Master (Uncirculated)
Aiwa HS-F160+Tie Clip Mic > Maxell XLII tape

Digital Transfer-Dec 2008:
==========================
Aiwa AD-F410 Tape Deck > Sony MZ-RH1 HiMD > USB/Sonic Stage to PC > Audacity (Combine 2 parts of last song, Trim start and end, Fade out) > CD Wave (Track Spilt) > Traders Little Helper (Flac 8)

a BCL recording

Setlist:
========
01. Intro
02. Two Girls
03. Dollar Bill Blues
04. Katie Belle Blue
05. The Hole
06. The Shrimp Song
07. Pancho and Lefty > Ira Hayes > Marie
08. Talking Thunderbird Blues
09. No Place to Fall
(tape flip)
10. Jokes - Penguins / The Blues
11. My Starter Wont Start
12. To Live is to Fly
13. Buckskin Stallion Blues
14. Jokes - 3 shots of gin / Airplane Glue
15. Blaze's Blues
16. Tecumseh Valley > The Catfish Song
Encore:
17. A Song For > Lover's Lullaby


Some words of warning about the sound:
======================================
- There were a couple of guys near me who yelped and laughed throughout. Mainly this is confined to between the songs, but they ruin "The Shrimp Song" completely. Terrible stuff, probably the worst I've experienced at a gig. It was a sit-down show in a church, so it wasn't practical to move, and I couldn't bring myself to tell 2 drunk guys to STFU.

- IIRC I was quite far back and being in a church, the sound was a bit echoey.

- The tape seems to have suffered a bit from 14 years on a shelf, it sounds a bit "watery" at times.

- I was using a cheap recorder in them days, with Auto-Levels, which meant it had a mind of it's own. It's tries to prevent itself from clipping, and doesn't always get it right.

- The tape ran out during "Lover's Lullaby", and continued on a 2nd tape, so there's a few seconds missing there. I combined the 2 parts together in Audacity.

- In spite of all these negative remarks, it's quite listenable. I'll post a couple of MP3 samples so you can see what you think before downloading.

- First I tried transferring the whole show to PC using CDWave and Audacity, but seemed to end up with some diginoise both times. And I tried to Amplify and Normalise the WAVs to increase the volume, but it would only work on selections, not on the whole show in one go, which was of no use. So I gave up on all that and reverted to using my MiniDisc to get PCM/WAVs which also allowed me to increase the recording level.

Notes:
======
I was a huge Tindersticks fan in 1994, and when I heard their version of "Kathleen", I decided to see what the author was like by going to this show. Being an Indie-Kid, I knew nothing about Townes before this.

I hadn't eaten that evening, so on the way to the venue, I went into a chipper on Upper Street for some food. There was a distinguished looking gent in a grey rain-mac in the queue and he sat near me eating his Fish & Chips. I think we were the only ones eating in. An hour later when the show started I found out that that was Townes. Pity I hadn't known beforehand.
While waiting in the pew for the show to start I saw Stuart Staples of Tindersticks arrive - a good omen. I was blown away by the show. Sure, he wasn't at the top of his game, but the power of the songs was amazing. I bought "No Deeper Blue" from the Merch Stall and was hooked. Over the course of the next 6 months I tracked down nearly every album (good going for pre-Internet proliferation). It was a wonderful phase of musical discovery for me.

I've been promising this show to renowned Townes-fan Pat H since 2005, so I'm glad to finally get it out there. I knew there was a fragment on a 2nd tape which I couldn't find for ages, and I wanted to ensure I had the whole show before making it available. This one also goes out to marastha and scdegraaf and to anyone else who's seeded Townes shows on Dime.


Make sure to visit the official web-site, run by his wife Jeanene...

http://www.townesvanzandt.com/

...there's all sorts of wonderful CDs and DVDs on sale there.