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 1985-07-06


Source: Sunn SPL-2212 console main mix out (Stereo) > soundboard 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 > Samplitude Pro X6 > 24-bit 96 kHz wav
Lineage: wav > Adobe Audition 2025 > iZotope RX 11 Advanced > flac16

Set I

01 Chicago Is Your Home
02 Brown Paper Bag
03 Down In The Bottom
04 Small Walk-In Box
05 Four Floors or Forty
06 You Cant Hurt Me No More
07 Six Weeks In Reno
08 Pride Of Man
09 Fantasy World
10 Set outro


Set II
11 Nicks Highland Fling
12 I'll Pull the Trigger
13 Bad Luck Baby
14 Walkin Blues
15 Run Out Of West
16 Who Do You Love
17 Going Back To Anna
18 Set outro

Set III

19 Why-O
20 I Did It For The Band
21 I'll Change Your Flat Tire Merl
22 Help Me
23 My Party
24 On Top Of Old Smokey
25 Herpes Blues
26 Buried Alive In The Blues
27 Set outro



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


Comments:

- Help Me includes 'Joseph' on harp


Source: FOH mix + recording by Charlie Kaiser
Transfer by Jim Blackwood
Pitch checked by Seth Kaplan
Tagged by Mike Schuncke
Artwork by Bruno
Edited and Mastered by Bruno
January 2026


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