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 recently 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
Chi Chi Club,
San Francisco, CA.
08/04/1984


Source: Soundboard Cassettes (1st Gen)
Transfer: Cassettes > Tascam 122 MkIII > ESI 24-bit USB Audio Interface > MAC pc > wav 24/96
Lineage: wav 24/96 > iZotope RX 11 Advanced > iZotope 11 Master Rebalance > iZotope RX 11 Advanced > wav 16/44.1 > Cd Wave > Flac 16



Set I

01 tuning
02 Blues In My Bottle
03 Pride Of Man
04 Down In The Bottom
05 Trouble In Mind
06 Small Walk In Box
07 Four Floors Or Forty
08 Help Me
09 Six Weeks In Reno
10 Dekalb Blues
11 Nick's Highland Fling


Set II

12 Hollywood Baby
13 Run Outta West
14 On Top Of Old Smokey
15 Dancin' Fool
16 Going Back To Anna
17 Fantasy World
18 Ten Days Of Rain
19 Who Do You Love
20 Southside
21 You Can't Hurt Me No More


Set III

22 Tired Of Spending Money
23 Bad Luck Baby
24 I Did It For The Band
25 My Party
26 Herpes Blues
27 Left Hand Soul
28 banter
29 Buried Alive In The Blues
30 Good Night Irene
31 Momma Don't Allow Me



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


Source provided by Steve Keyser
Transferred by Ed Perlstein
Pitch checked by Seth Kaplan
Files tagged by Mike Schuncke
Artwork by Bruno
Edited and mastered
SIRMick
July 2025

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