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.

Suzanne Vega
The Vic Theatre
Chicago, IL
September 17, 1985

Recording generously loaned from the Aadam Jacobs Audio Archive

Mastering:
Cassette -> Nakamichi CR-7A -> NI Komplete Audio 6 -> Adobe Audition (.WAV 24/48) -> iZotope RX11 declick and spectral repair ->SpectraLayers 11 remove audience noise -> WavePad speed/pitch change to 102%, slight compression, normalization, and split tracks -> TLH convert to FLAC

Recorded by: Aadam Jacobs
Transferred by: Ryan J
Mastered by: robgronotte

Setlist: (1:11:15)

01 intro
02 Tom's Diner
03 Some Journey
04 chat
05 Small Blue Thing
06 chat
07 Cracking
08 Undertow
09 The Queen And The Soldier
10 chat
11 Knight Moves
12 chat
13 Gypsy
14 chat
15 Calypso
16 Straight Lines
17 chat
18 Luka
19 Freeze Tag
20 chat
21 Left Of Center
22 Marlene On The Wall
23 band intros
24 Neighborhood Girls
25 encore
26 Black Widow Station
27 encore
28 The Rent Song

Recording 02210 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.