TWO DOLLAR PISTOLS
The Brewery, Raleigh, NC
February 7, 1996

Source: CSB mics (battery box, low-end roll-off) clipped on ceiling, 18" apart, centered 20 feet from the stage > Denon DTR-80P (DAT, 16/48)
Transfer: Master DAT > Tascam DA-20 > M-Audio Audiophile USB > PC > Audacity > iZotope RX7 (de-clicked, de-hummed, minor edits, light EQ, normalizing) > CD Wave Editor (tracking) > FLAC (level 8)
taped and transferred by mrpember, live sound by Jac Cain

This is a 16/48 recording

01- There's Nobody Like You [Roger Miller cover]
02- A World So Full of Love [Roger Miller cover]
03- Someday You’ll Be Mine
04- Your Place in the Sun
05- Let Me Be Your Fool
06- ‘Til You Did Wrong By Me
07- Everytime I Turn Around
08- Honky Tonkitis [Carl Butler cover, written by Tex Atchison]
09- It’s Not Love (But It’s Not Bad) [Merle Haggard cover, written by Hank Cochran]
10- Half a Mind [Roger Miller cover]
11- Pick Me Up on Your Way Down [Charlie Walker cover, written by Harlan Howard]

Total time:

John Howie: acoustic guitar, vocals
John "Lefty" Price: electric guitar
Pat "Quick Draw" McGraw: bass, backing vocals
John "Doc" Kempannin: fiddle
Bill "Lucky" Ladd: pedal steel
Chris "Just Chris" Phillips: drums

On a bill with the The Old 97s and Freightwhaler. This was maybe their 3rd or 4th show, John's voice just floored me. For the next year or so I very rarely missed a Two Dollar Pistols show, and in some cases my friend Rick and I were half of the paying audience. I learned a lot of what I know about country music from John Howie.

On this night I clipped the little CSB microphones to the ceiling and ran a cable back to my DAT deck at the soundboard. I was still experimenting with this and used a cheap, unshielded Radio Shack cable and as a result there was very noticeable hum that I was able to reduce (but not eliminate) in iZotope. The original recording has really nice stereo seperation but was very bass-heavy (legendary Raleigh sound engineer Jac Cain wanted everyone to feel the bass drum thump deep within their chest), and to my ears was improved quite a bit with some light EQ. Sample provided.

mrpember, April 2021