Ed Perlstein, who has archived collections by Nick Gravenites, Spencer Dryden, Steve Keyser (John Cipollina’s manager) and others, and who currently possesses John Cipollina’s personal tapes, was given the approval of John’s sister, Antonia, to share John’s live and studio outtake recordings in the interest of keeping his music alive for future generations. Steve Keyser, who recorded most of John's live shows with several different bands while he was his manager, has allowed Ed to digitize his master cassettes, and to share them with John’s fans and collectors.

Charlie Kaiser has given us access to his soundboard masters. He was the Front Of House soundman and recording engineer for virtually all of John's bands from about 1983 until his passing. This included Thunder and Lightning, Dinosaurs, Terry and The Pirates, Problem Child, and any of the spinoff bands.


Thunder And Lightning
Cancun Grill,
Tiburon, CA
01/20/1984

Source: sbd + 2 stage mics + vocal feed > Realistic 4 channel stereo mixer > cassette master (Sony TC-D5M / Maxell XLII-S 90)
Transfer: Nakamichi CR-7A > Tascam DA-3000 (DSF 1-bit/5.6MHz) > Tascam Hi-Res Editor > 24/96 wav
Lineage: wav 24/96 > iZotope RX 10 Advanced > iZotope Neytron 4 > iZotope RX 10 Advanced > CD Wave > flac16

Set I

01 tuning
02 Help Me
03 Down In The Bottom
04 Fantasy World
05 Small Walk-In Box
06 Mama Don't Allow
07 I Did It For The The Band
08 Four Floors Or Forty
09 Blues In My Bottle
10 My Party
11 Six Weeks In Reno
12 Outro (Dekalb Blues instrumental)

Set II

13 tuning
14 Killing Floor
15 Pride Of Man
16 Southside
17 Love Me Or I'll Kill You
18 Run Out Of West
19 You Can't Hurt Me No More
20 Just Because
21 Walkin' Blues
22 I'll Change Your Flat Tire Merl
23 Up To No Good
24 Going Down
25 Who Do You Love
26 Outro (Dekalb Blues instrumental)


Nick Gravenites - guitar, vocals
John Cipollina - guitar, vocals
Doug Kilmer - bass, vocals
Greg Elmore - drums


Source: recorded and mixed Charlie Kaiser
Transfer by Jim Blackwood
Pitch checked by Seth Kaplan
Addition editing and tagged by Mike Schuncke
Artwork by Bruno
Edited and Mastered SIRMick May 2024


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