X
The Edge
Toronto, ON
July 10, 1980
SF Master Tapes Volume Eight via JEMS

(Likely) Recording Gear: Sony TC-110 and Unknown Microphone

JEMS Transfer: Master Cassette > Nakamichi RX-505 azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 3.1 capture > iZotope RX10 Advanced and Ozone 9 > FLAC

First Set
01 Your Phone's Off The Hook
02 When Our Love Passed Out On The Couch
03 Sex And Dying In A High Society
04 White Girl
05 Beyond And Back
06 Los Angeles
07 Nausea
08 Universal Corner
09 Johnny Hit And Run Paulene
10 The World's A Mess: It's In My Kiss
11 City Of Electric Lights
12 Soul Kitchen

Second Set
13 Soul Kitchen
14 Los Angeles
15 Universal Corner
16 Beyond And Back
17 The Unheard Music
18 Your Phone's Off The Hook
19 White Girl
20 Year 1
21 Johnny Hit And Run Paulene
22 Back 2 The Base
23 Nausea
24 Sugarlight
25 The World's A Mess: It's In My Kiss
26 Sex And Dying In A High Society (aborted)
27 Sex And Dying In A High Society

Known Faults: Second set opener "Soul Kitchen" joined in progress

Welcome to The SF Tapes, a series of master recordings made by a friend of longtime JEMS pal ML.

SF hailed from Canada, and after his passing in 2022, ML rescued his tapes from near destruction � salvaged after sitting neglected in a garage for a couple of years. We can�t thank ML enough for recovering SF�s recordings and bringing them to the JEMS Archive for evaluation, conservation and transfer.

And what a haul it is. SF made hundreds of recordings in clubs, concert halls, festivals, and arenas � not just around Toronto, but also in Western New York (Buffalo, Rochester), Montreal, Ottawa, and beyond. From Howlin� Wolf and Lyle Lovett to Weather Report and Suicide, he captured an impressive breadth of artists and genres.

ML and SF first crossed paths in 1974 at Albert�s Hall, a club above the Brunswick Tavern in Toronto. �I thought, �There he is again � this guy�s been to all three nights!�� ML recalled. They bonded quickly over music, with SF recounting his adventures at early editions of both the Ann Arbor Blues Festival and the Mariposa Folk Festival in the early �70s.

That friendship spanned decades and miles, as ML and SF followed The Who in 1979, 1980, and 1982; Springsteen in 1978, 1980, 1984, 1985, and 1988; and even made trips to Europe � first in 1985 to see John Cale and Pete Townshend�s Deep End, and again in 2019 to catch Cale in Paris. (ML notes that Cale played three straight nights � each with a unique setlist.)

Like JEMS patriarchs Jared and Stan, ML and SF were kindred spirits. SF began recording in 1973 (ML in �71), starting with a Sony TC-110 before upgrading to a series of Sony D6 Professional Walkman recorders and the ever-reliable Aiwa CM-30 microphone.

Their concert nights didn�t always end when the headliners left the stage. Sometimes they�d catch a show at Massey Hall or Maple Leaf Gardens early in the evening, then head to a jazz or blues club for a final set � hence, some of SF�s club recordings are incomplete, having been caught mid-show or near the end.

As the �80s wore on, SF got married and became a family man. He still made it to the occasional show with ML, often letting him handle the taping.

SF had a bit of a mad professor air about him � his newspaper collecting was legendary, and he wasn�t always meticulous about labeling his clippings or his tapes. Recordings could be scattered: unlabeled ones, a part one here, a part two there, or missing entirely. ML often stepped in to label, organize, and preserve what he could.

We�re incredibly glad he did. His generosity of spirit � like that of his great friend Jared � brings us this remarkable SF series.

X, The Edge, Toronto, ON, July 10, 1980

The SF Tapes return to 1980 and another show at Toronto's punk-New Wave club, The Edge. This time, it's for L.A. icons X, on what was surely their first tour outside of California.

In fact, beyond another 1980 tape attributed to London, this appears to be one of the earliest X recordings anywhere beyond the Golden State. X's debut album Los Angeles had been released in April, undoubtedly prompting the band's initial foray across the country, and in this case, the Canadian border.

What makes SF's recording such a fun listen is that it sounds like X is playing to a crowd of at best a few dozen, yet the band has incredible energy and delivers an outstanding performance. Better still, John Doe is pissed off all night about the sound, getting into an argument with the front of house engineer during the last song of the set, an exchange that goes:

"Look. Look. You, asshole sound-man! You've been switching these levels all fucking night. Now get 'em fucking right or don't do it! You've got 'em up, you got 'em down, you got 'em all over the fucking place. Now get 'em fucking right!"

"I haven't touched them, asshole."

"Alright, then your sound system is fucked."

"Well, maybe it is."

"Yeah, well you're fucked."

The sound-man then threatens to turn off the power, but X is blasting through its final song anyway, so it didn't matter.

This exchange and a few topical tidbits (e.g. sharing news that The Germs had broken up) mark the show with that period's punk-rock energy. The band smashes two sets, running through every song on Los Angeles, plus several from its follow-up, Wild Gift, which was still ten months away from release. SF recorded both sets, which means lots of duplicated songs but twice as much X.

While SF's recording equipment isn't high fidelity, it really meets the moment here, capturing the atmosphere and the band's energy. Samples provided.

Part of the charm of the SF series is the wide range of artists he recorded as noted above, which means there's lots to look forward to in the future. We say R.I.P. and express our gratitude to SF for taping these concerts in the first place and special thanks to ML for making this collection available to JEMS for preservation and distribution. Slipkid68 has been on point coordinating the series. He also handled some tape transfers and wrote the introduction to the series above. We'd also like to thank Professor Goody for weighing in on tape pitch and to mjk5510 for post production.

BK for JEMS

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