Crazy Head | 1994-12-31 | God Street Wine

4:43:00

SBD

REMASTER

Taper:

Scott Bernstein + Brendan O'Neill

Transferrer:

Scott Bernstein

SHNID:

gsw1994-12-31.2024-remaster

Source:

Soundboard+Audience matrix

Lineage:

Original Master Recording: SBD feed + B&K4011s -> Mackie 1202 mixer -> Denon DTR-80p (master@16/48) Master DAT playback: Sony R500 -> Sound Devices 722 digital input (@24/48) Mastered: (Acoustic Set, Electric Set 1, Soundcheck): Files processed in Steinberg Spectralayers 10 using Demixing tool to create individual instrument stems, isolating the vocal track, adding a tiny bit of EQ and compression, and then mixing it back into the original recording at a boosted level. (For entire show:) File processed in Soundforge Pro 17.0 for volume normalization, and patching about 10 dropouts from the DAT transfer in "Crazy Head" and "Epilog" (from the pre-existing recording on archive.org -- but to make the patches clean I needed to invert both channels as they were out of phase from my recording), sample convert from 44.1 to 48hkz, and match the volume levels); 24 -> 16 bit dither using POW-r Dither with POW-r #3 noise shaping. Tracked in CDWav. Tagged in Tag&Rename 3.9.15

Taper Notes:

View NotesTotal time: 4:43:01

Note that the file names from the soundcheck are appended with "s4" (indicating Set 4) so that they appear at the end of streaming playback on archive.org instead of at the beginning.

You can hear the matrix mix changing quite a bit during track 3 in the soundcheck as we were getting the levels right -- but I have smoothed out the many volume changes so that it's now very listenable. 
The Dinner Guest seems to be slightly re-arranged from the version they played a month earlier.

Taper Notes:
I'm still really enjoying my deep dive into these ancient GSW recordings.  For BARN241, I present to you a VERY special show -- their big New Years' Eve gig at Irving Plaza in NYC which I had the honor of attending and recording.  For this special night, the band presented an acoustic set followed by *2* electric sets (the second starting at midnigh).  

For this special night, Brendan O'Neill hooked us up with a Mackie 1202 mixer, a soundboard feed from the band, and the excellent idea of running a pair of rented B&K4011s mounted and hung down at the front left and front right edges of the balcony at the end of a pair of very long mic cables (not the back corners, but actually just a few feet from the stage -- to minimize the potential for time delay between the mics and board feed).  We mixed the 2 sources live on headphones at the show.  Should have been awesome -- but at some point I noticed that there were not really enough vocals coming through on the recording.  Eventually -- between the 2 electric sets, we tracked the problem down to the fact that the soundboard feed we were receiving did not include the vocal subgroups for some reason.  That was fixed, and the 3rd set has plenty of vocals.

Since we were the only tapers at the show, the only recording that has circulated for all of these years had been one which was vocally deficient (the only vocals you could hear were from the audience mics...but they were only in the matrix mix up to a certain percentage).  Flash forward to 2024 and technology has come to our rescue.  Thanks to new AI-based de-mixing technology (first used in a very public manner in the Peter Jackson's 2022 epic "Get Back" Beatles documentary to rescue and reconstitute the audio), this technology is now making its way into our hands.  I had been waiting for an excuse to play around with it...and this recording was my opportunity to give it a whirl.  Here is a recording with a serious deficiency -- not enough vocals in the first 2 sets of the night.  Yes, in previous times, I would have found an EQ setting that attempted to boost the vocal frequencies -- BUT, due to the nature of EQ, there would have been no way to just EQ the vocals.  It would have also effected the frequencies of the guitar, keys, some of the drums, and possibly even some of the high bass frequencies.  After testing out a few different audio tools with de-mixing capabilities, I settled on Steinberg Spectralayers Pro 10.  I loaded up the audio of one set, clicked the "De-Mix" function, waited an entire day...and sure enough, Spectralayers created a bunch of individual instrument "stems" for me from the 2 channel stereo mix:  vocals, bass guitar, keys+guitar (in one track), drums (all in one track, but there was an additional feature that could have split out the individual drums into their own tracks), and "other".  And it was exactly what was advertised -- each channel contained only what was advertised with little to no bleed-through of other instruments.

At this point, I was able to take the extracted vocal stem track (which came only from the audience mics), add a little EQ and compression (thanks to Bill Mulvey who suggsted EQ and compression settings in SoundForge) and mix it back into the original recording at an appropriate volume level.  (It was VERY tempting to over-compensate and mix in too much of the vocal tracks into the first 2 sets).

Anyway, it took me nearly a month of work to polish this recording into the state that you now hear (note that my fresh DAT  transfer had a few dropouts in set 3 only...and I have patched those from the existing recording that has been up for a long time on archive.org which is from the exact same source.)  And I won't even say "I hope you appreciate the combination of technology and tenacity that has brought this to you" -- because I KNOW that you will!  I can say that first and foremost, I have personally LOVED making this recording nearly perfect -- 29+ years after it happened!!!!

A few words about the music itself:  I won't get into as much detail about the show itself as I usually do, but I will say this -- you have here a snapshot of a band truly at the top of its game.  A band that is PSYCHED about the release of their major label debut, not having compromised its integrity in any way...excited about their future and truly celebrating with a big gig on NYE in the greatest city in the world.  A few highlights:  the acoustic set is lots of fun, even including possibly the only acoustic version of "Twitchin'".  Rare covers of "I've Found a New Baby" and "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" open and close the set.  The first electric set is rocking with especially great takes on "Hellfire", "Morning Cigarettes", and "Feel The Pressure".  If you want to hear what is arguably the best God Street Wine set ever, dig into the 2nd electric set.  Every song performed in the 2nd set deserves a nomination for "best ever version" of that song.  A few notes I took while listening: "Best ever 'Bring Back the News', best ever jam at the end of 'Hungry Again', SPECTACULAR beautiful jam out of 'RU 4 Real?', ON FIRE 'Henrietta' containing a jam on U2's 'All I Want is You', SCREAMING best ever jam on 'The Other Shore'".  You get the idea.  Also worth mentioning: The post NYE countdown PARTY that is GSW's cover of The Commodores (with Lionel Richie) "Brick House" is the launching pad to takign EVERYTHING to the next level.  "Taking A Deep Drag..." is another song take that may never be topped.  And the covers in the encore are really the cherries on the ice cream cone -- 2 Beatles' covers and a one time(?) great take on of Jimi Hendrix's cover of "Hey Joe".

SPECIAL BONUS:  We were allowed in during the soundcheck to set up our recording, and I somehow managed to capture most or all of the soundcheck for the electric set (but none of the acoustic set -- I think we went out do get dinner while that was going on...), and I've included it here and you're hearing it for the first time anywhere.  In addition to some vocal harmony checks, we get a unique soundcheck jam (I don't believe it's an actual song), a full version of "Feel The Pressure" (played in the actual show), their recent (at the time) instrumental composition "The Dinner Guest" (not played in the actual show), and lots of funny banter -- all vocally enhanced with de-mixing technology that I've applied.

Also of note: Aaron ad-libbed some special lyrics to "Vanity Street" for the occasion:  "...to be among my kind before the year is end" :) -- and also worth nothing: you can hear someone in the audience who REALLY wants the band to play their song "Stupid Hat" (admittedly, a great song) and yells for it again and again, but the band does not comply!

All told, including the soundcheck, enjoy 4 hours and 43 minutes of TOP NOTCH, remastered, PRIME GSW at the top of their game.

ENJOY!

Recorded by Scott Bernstein (+Brendan O'Neill)
Transferred (1/30/2024), tracked (2/14-24/2024), mastered (2/24-3/7/2024) and posted (3/18/2024) by Scott Bernstein

Special thanks to Bill Mulvey for his suggested EQ and compression settings on the isolated vocal track

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