ZZ Top
Memorial Auditorium
Buffalo, NY
April 15, 1986
The SF Tapes Volume Three

(Likely) Recording Gear: Sony TC-110 w/built in microphone

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

01 Got Me Under Pressure
02 Sleeping Bag
03 Waitin' For The Bus
04 Jesus Just Left Chicago
05 Gimme All Your Lovin'
06 Ten Foot Pole
07 Manic Mechanic
08 Heard It On The X
09 Rough Boy
10 Cheap Sunglasses
11 Arrested For Driving While Blind
12 Legs
13 Sharp Dressed Man
14 Can't Stop Rockin'
15 Stages
16 Velcro Fly
17 Tube Snake Boogie
18 La Grange
19 Tush

Known Faults:
-Velcro Fly: start slightly cut

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 cassettes 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 Billy Joel 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 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.

ZZ Top, Memorial Auditorium, Buffalo, NY, April 15, 1986

The third edition of the SF Tapes jumps a decade and a border. In April 1986, SF made the drive from Toronto to nearby Buffalo to catch ZZ Top on tour in support of their album Afterburner which had been released in late October 1985.

Afterburner was the follow up to 1983's Eliminator which saw ZZ Top all over MTV thanks to hits like "Legs" and "Gimme All Your Lovin'." It sold 11 million copies. Afterburner did five million, still a remarkable figure, but its biggest hit "Sleeping Bag" was not at the same level as those mega smashes.

The setlist includes all of those popular singles, though I did find it curious that the Top play their MTV songs mid-set, and use other material to open, close and encore.

This show flies by at 18 songs in just under 90 mins. Taping in an arena-sized venue, SF must have had a great seat because he pulls an excellent recording. Samples provided. Despite ZZ Top's popularity in the 1980s, they weren't a band that was widely taped so we hope this new addition will be a welcome one for fans.

We've made a correction to SF's recording gear which is retroactive to all the releases in the series so far, and that is he did not use an external microphone, but the deck he employed had a built-in mic.

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 of the tape transfers and wrote the introduction to the series above. We'd also like to thank Professor Goody for helping as always with tape pitch and to mjk5510 for post production.

BK for JEMS

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