The Missouri 1971 concert

After listening intently to the better quality May 1971 concert that has been in circulation for about a year I have wondered if it actually represents either a really strange mono recording on a little tape recorder of some kind

or

actually a really pretty unique and amazing multitrack recording which has been purposefully messed with by someone either holding a master recording or low gen to the original.

The person/persons responsible have released two versions of it over the last 21 years with the second better.

The reason I suggest this is that if you listen to it closely it holds the kind of audio characteristics of tapes that certain people have messed up deliberately and then either sold or released into trading circles. I had a copy of the Hendrix 1970 show at Seattle and this had been done to it deliberately. Sometimes people sabotage old recordings just for the hell of it and to cause a bit of mischief.

My suggestions

By this I mean

i) possibly holding a microphone to a speaker and then wandering around nearby and in front of said microphone occasionally - which all contribute certain noises that sound like someone working nearby picking things up etc. To my ears it sounds like a very close room reverb that has been introduced to the original recording. There is a kind of distance to it that doesn't sound natural at all.

ii) The significant increases in volume and isolation in parts of certain of the guitars, either Williamsons or Ashetons

iii) the appearance and disapperance at different points of a pretty funky sounding bass guitar channel

iv) The lack of constancy of a venue reverb across the recording which would be startlingly obvious if it was a straight audience tape recorded in one place.

v) The wild variations in stereo levels at 'You don't want my name' sounds like someone messing with master levels and the sporadic appearance of drums across the piece.

vi) wierd scratch sounds that appear here and there as if coming off vinyl or someone adding those noises just to introduce another layer of fluff on it.

Interested to hear others ideas on this recording. It freaked me out in 1987 when I first heard it and it still does now - sublime music and some of the Stooges best playing in my opinion. To me it represents an honest reflection of the innate ugliness and depravity of America's industrial wastelands and the culture that created it.

23rd Express wrote:

After listening intently to the better quality May 1971 concert that has been in circulation for about a year I have wondered if it actually represents either a really strange mixing desk/4 track recording of some kind done on the night

Is this a different gig or cleaned up version of what appears n "1971 & Early Live Rarities"?

what i understand this is a michael tipton recording.
the version from stafighter live 1971 was found by a dutch collector who got it from someone in the usa,he send the tape to revenge who released as starfighter live 1971 because ron asheton thought the quality was to bad to be released,in an interview (in motorbooty?)he said he wanted to sue the french for releasing this..........

G, F#, E wrote:

23rd Express wrote:

After listening intently to the better quality May 1971 concert that has been in circulation for about a year I have wondered if it actually represents either a really strange mixing desk/4 track recording of some kind done on the night

Is this a different gig or cleaned up version of what appears n "1971 & Early Live Rarities"?

a slightly cleaned up version of what appears on 1971 & early live rarities. but definitely what you could consider an upgrade.

Thanks Shakes, anything would be an improvement Does anyone have a torrent for this?

i would share my copy, but i was asked not to. sorry. i have to respect the wishes of what people send me.

No problem, I understand.

I don't think I could notice much difference between the two, I'll give it a good A/B listen when I'm back home though.

Wouldn't it be nice to hear a 1st gen issue from the Tipton tape 'cos I really like the gig. I don't know much a about recording technology but it just sounds like someone recorded this off to the side of stage, with Iggy not singing into the mic very well.

G, F#, E wrote:

Thanks Shakes, anything would be an improvement Does anyone have a torrent for this?

Hi, i'm a newbie so please go easy if this isn't the correct protocol round here, but would this be the gig...?

http://punknotprofit.blogspot.com/2007/06/stooges-live-1971-early-live-rarities.html

Nice user name by the way, G, F#, E.

[quote="spenny"]

G, F#, E wrote:

Thanks Shakes, anything would be an improvement Does anyone have a torrent for this?

Hi, i'm a newbie so please go easy if this isn't the correct protocol round here, but would this be the gig...?

http://punknotprofit.blogspot.com/2007/06/stooges-live-1971-early-live-rarities.html

Nice user name by the way, G, F#, E.[/quote

this is the worst quality version

spenny wrote:

Hi, i'm a newbie so please go easy if this isn't the correct protocol round here, but would this be the gig...?

http://punknotprofit.blogspot.com/2007/06/stooges-live-1971-early-live-rarities.html

Nice user name by the way, G, F#, E.

Thanks spenny but that isn't exactly what I was talking about. Thats the 1971 gig but not with the supposed improvement of quality that Shakes is on about. Though mc says theres not much difference between the two.

ANYWAY

Thanks for the compliment and you've made me relisten to "1971 & Early Live Rarities" again, which is always good. I love "You Don't Want My Name", its so sleazy

neven wrote:

this is the worst quality version

This is the version I have, is it really that awful compared to the other version?

yeah, the live rarities version is just inaudible. at least with the upgrade tape you can hear some vocals a bit clearer.

Hi MC,

Listening to Factory show at the moment. Yes, I agree with you - it is a probably a stage side recording but it's still the variations of mix I don't get.

If it was in one place on the stage beside the musicians there would at least be certain consistencies even with mix fluctuations going on at the front of house.

Even with the automatic compression at a loud volume on a reasonable tape recorder and microphone of the day it still - to my ears sounds with too many inconsistencies and sudden drops in volume. Like on the tune with chorus 'I need ya' after the guitar solo.

Some kind person posted a picture of Rock Action from I believe this show on another part of this forum. You can see the shadow of a mike on his right kick drum so there were mics on stage at least. If the pictures are from the same gig? However in the end it could just well be that all of the band simply turning up and down their amps but the jumps are too deep eq wise for me. Also Ron plays a short solo on on the 5th tune and his volume increase in the mix doesn't sound like a guitarist midway through a solo grabbing his volume knob.

Can someone mention who did their live sound at this point?

[quote="neven"]

spenny wrote:

G, F#, E wrote:

Thanks Shakes, anything would be an improvement Does anyone have a torrent for this?

Hi, i'm a newbie so please go easy if this isn't the correct protocol round here, but would this be the gig...?

http://punknotprofit.blogspot.com/2007/06/stooges-live-1971-early-live-rarities.html

Nice user name by the way, G, F#, E.[/quote

this is the worst quality version

Yeah, the sound on that one is terrible. I hadn't listened to it before i posted it. Apologies. It was looking for decent '71 era Stooges bootlegs that led me to this forum this morning, so i thought i'd share it with you good folks. Sometimes it's easy to think you're the only Stooges obsessive in this world. Think i'll visit here more often.

Well that's the only 71 boot around at the moment but fingers crossed we'll see a few more soon.

Here are the only pictures I know of this show:
http://www.i94bar.com/stoogepix/index.html
is the mike shadow in one of these?

Nitebob would know who was doing sound here.

mc wrote:

Well that's the only 71 boot around at the moment but fingers crossed we'll see a few more soon.

Here are the only pictures I know of this show:
http://www.i94bar.com/stoogepix/index.html
is the mike shadow in one of these?

Nitebob would know who was doing sound here.

My professional involvement with the Stooges starts in 1973...Raw Power era. I would guess Eric Haddix did the 1971 shows. Reading this thread, I pulled out the Starfighter cd, which I purchased in Japan. I am glad it exists, because in those days there was not much available to record shows.

nitebob

Sorry, but are you the same Nitebob who roadied for Aerosmith in the 70's?

spenny wrote:

Sorry, but are you the same Nitebob who roadied for Aerosmith in the 70's?

Yes, I was Aerosmith's sound engineer from 1975-1978

Thanks for the insight Nitebob

Does anyone know how to find Michael Tipton?

nitebob

Additional info on the Missouri gig...

... Scott was back in action for their next gig, scheduled for St. Louis’ Music Palace on Wednesday, May 26th. However, the band encountered more problem as one of their roadies arrived too late with the equipment, causing the crowd to riot at the club when they were informed that there would be no performance. Ron recounts, “We were playing in St. Louis and we were in Michigan and he [a roadie] decided, ‘Well, I’ll take the equipment truck and drive.’ He took it to a wedding instead, made us miss the gig. They rescheduled the job for the next day. It was a terrible little stage at a horrible place. We thought there would be no job, and we waited up all morning ‘till the nine o’clock news. There was a riot at the club we didn’t play at so we went, ‘Yay, hooray!’” The venue officials felt the Stooges’ audience was going to be too rowdy and rescheduled the gig for another venue, the Factory in St. Charles, a St. Louis suburb.

The Factory show was curtailed after 40 minutes when Iggy accidentally hit Ron in the head with his microphone. Iggy told the crowd that they couldn’t finish the show because Ron needed medical attention. Afterwards, Iggy hung out in the lobby and talked to people because the band felt bad about cutting the show short. As a result of the shortened set and the additional costs caused by the rescheduled show, the promoter withheld the money and would not pay the band. To make matters even worse, the Stooges discovered that someone had taken their rented car, leaving them trapped in St. Louis without money and mode of transport with scheduled concerts at the Tumbleweed in Walled Lake, Michigan (May 28th), the Toledo Sports Arena (May 29th), and a rock festival in Pittsburgh, the East Coast First Great Lighter Than Air Fair (May 30th). They called Fields, desperately asking him to wire them money so they could return. Still, it was too late and they missed the three gigs.


Comments:

Not entirely sure they missed the Toledo show - we're trying to investigate that.


Most 1971 gigs were about 40 minutes in length, featuring the same six tunes played in St. Charles (described elsewhere on the forum) so the audience probably didn't miss much.

Per

I think Paul T has Tipton's details drop him a PM.

G, F#, E wrote:

No problem, I understand.

dirt from iggypop.org has a copy,maybe you can get it from him?

Apologies to you Shakes, I've now had a good listen to the two versions and there's definitely a noticable difference (before I was just comparing them on my shitty computer speakers).

So I burnt a CDr of the Factory 71 and had a good comparison session this morning against the Starfighter CD on my main hi-fi system.

The upgrade has clearer vocals and sound in general. There's quite a lot of gunk and other noise artifacts (on Starfighter) which is stripped away and various noise dropouts on the Starfigher CD are not on the upgrade version.

By no means would I call the upgrade a good bootleg but it's definitely better than the Starfighter version.

To my untrained ear I'm guessing the upgrade version is much closer to the 1st gen recording while Starfighter is from a tape of a tape of a tape of a tape that sat around in someones car stereo for 20 years, or something like that.

Finally downloaded a torrent of the cleaned-up St. Louis show. Starfighter should be slapped for putting out that unlistenable sludge and making me buy it on vinyl and then later again on CD (hoping for a sonic upgrade). The cleaned-up version, while still muddy, is vastly superior. You can actually hear the songs and stage-banter. Is that Ron playing lead on 'I Got a Right'?.

'See Me Dancing' ,in particular, is a relevation. Totally smoking jam. Too bad they did'nt tape this when they were laying down 'I'm Sick of You' etc.

In no way will this deter me from picking up the new Easy Action box. In fact, I'm more excited than ever now.

Sure would be nice if the good people at EA dug up a copy of the 'R.G. Jones at Wimbledon' demos, but now I'm just being wildly over-optimistic.