Aadam Jacobs Collection


In case you've never heard of him, Aadam Jacobs is a Chicago area taper who is one of the most prolific of all time, recording at least 10,000 sets of music over more than 30 years. Some have made it online, but most of his masters were uncirculated and been heard by no one before (probably even by himself).

He and his vast collection got more widely known a few years ago, when a 70 minute documentary was released, called "Melomaniac" (person with an exaggerated, excessive, or abnormal passion for music) https://letterboxd.com/film/melomaniac-2023/

This prompted efforts to back up his recordings and to make most of them available on the Internet Archive, which became the "Aadam Jacobs Collection". We have just reached 3,000 sets uploaded and a few of us will be making some of the recordings available on DIME, in hopes of getting the word out to more listeners, and of finding a few more people who are willing to work on the editing / tracking of the recordings. And thanks to robgronotte for writing this comprehensive information, which I shamelessly edited to use here!

You can read more about the project here:
https://aadamjacobscollection.org/

And you can browse the full archive (available to stream or download) here:
https://archive.org/details/aadamjacobs

If you would like to volunteer to help with the project, send a friendly email to;
aadam.jacobs.collection AT gmail DOT com.

Ray Davies
"Storyteller Tour"
Park West
Chicago, IL
October 15, 1995

** 24 BIT **

Master recording generously loaned from the Aadam Jacobs Audio Archive

Source: Realistic PZM mics > Sony TC-D5M > Cassettes (M)
Transfer: Cassettes (M) > Yamaha K-220 > Sony PCM-A10 > FLAC @ 24 bit/48 kHz
Mastering: FLAC > iZotope RX11 Advanced v11.0.1.3871 (De-Click) > Sound Forge Pro 14.0 Build 140 [splicing, minor edits, normalize, & fades) > Boz Digital Labs T-Bone2 plug-in (tilt EQ)] > CDWav (tracking) > Trader's Little Helper (level 5) > FLAC > TagScanner 6.1.20 (tagging)
Recorded by: Aadam Jacobs
Transferred by: Brian Emerick
Mastered by: Dennis Orr

Setlist: (2:06:05)
01 Intro/Crowd
02 Dedicated Follower Of Fashion
03 Autumn Almanac
04 Sunny Afternoon
05 Victoria
06 "Reading"
07 20th Century Man
08 "Reading"
09 London Song
10 That Old Black Magic (with "Reading")
11 Tired Of Waiting For You
12 "Reading"
13 Set Me Free
14 "Reading"
15 See My Friends
16 "Reading"
17 X-Ray
18 "Reading"
19 Art School Babe
20 "Reading" (with Harry Rag tease)
21 You Really Got Me (blues version)
22 "Reading"
23 Animal
24 "Reading"
25 You Really Got Me (rock version)
26 A Well Respected Man
27 "Reading"
28 Americana (Hey Big Fat Cowboy)
29 "Reading"
30 I Go To Sleep
31 Two Sisters
32 "Reading"
33 The Moneygoround
34 Dead End Street
35 Lola
36 "Reading"
37 The Ballad Of Julie Finkle
38 "Reading"
39 To The Bone
40 "Reading"
41 Village Green
42 "Reading"
43 Days
44 Waterloo Sunset
45 "Reading"
46 You Really Got Me (Reprise)
47 Crowd

Ray Davies - vocals & guitar
Pete Mathison - guitar

Show Notes:
The "Readings" were from Ray's book "X-Ray: The Unauthorized Autobiography".

Mastering Notes:
Tape flip (end of track 21)
Tape flip (end of track 39)

Recording 02903 from the Aadam Jacobs Collection Project, coordinated by the Live Music Archive at the Internet Archive
Contact info: aadam.jacobs.project AT gmail DOT com


The Aadam Jacobs Collection on the Live Music Archive is a growing online archive of live concert recordings made by Aadam Jacobs, a longtime Chicago music taper who documented thousands of shows over more than three decades. His recordings include live performances by local and touring artists across a wide range of genres and eras, from the 1980s through the 2010s.

Aadam’s archive - encompassing well over 10,000 individual live recordings - is being digitized, annotated, and uploaded to the Internet Archive so that fans, researchers, and the public can discover and enjoy these historic performances. The project is a major preservation effort, involving cataloging, transfer from original tapes, metadata creation, mastering, and upload of shows spanning the length of his collecting career. Jon Langford of the Mekons once described the prospect of carrying out all this work as a "mad undertaking"; the dozens of volunteers who make up the project are committed to completing it nonetheless, with a credo of "no tape left behind."

Recordings in the collection range from early local acts and indie rock bands to notable performances by influential groups, now made accessible as digital downloads and streams. Examples include shows by Phish, Fugazi, Guided By Voices, and many others, each originally recorded by Jacobs and coordinated through the Live Music Archive project.
The collection not only preserves rare and previously unavailable material, but also celebrates Aadam Jacobs’ role in documenting live music culture, offering a rich window into concert history for listeners everywhere. You can browse the entire collection here: https://archive.org/details/aadamjacobs.

If you have questions or are interested in joining the project as a contributor, please reach out to us at aadam.jacobs.collection AT gmail DOT com.