The Slits + Mutants @ Berkeley, CA 1980-11-23

The Slits: https://we.tl/t-ThNMUTVHmK

 Mutants: https://we.tl/t-Uu6Q4l78cE

 

 

The Slits
Keystone
Berkeley, CA
1980-11-23 (Sunday)

THTP Release 122

NOTE: The Slits' Official bootleg 'Typical Girls Live In Cincinnati & San Francisco USA' featured tracks from this US tour, in Cincinatti, OH, and The Stone, San Francisco. Their other Bay Area shows, at San Francisco Rat's Palace, 1980-11-25, Tuesday, and the Keystone Berkeley 1980-11-23 were not used in the Slits record. According to Terry, who knew the Slits' manager well, the manager told him that the Slits in fact did NOT do soundboards at the Keystone Berkeley and SF Rat's Palace shows, and they also did not use Terry's recordings from these shows, although they were offered them. The SF show part of their record therefore had to come from their show at The Stone, San Francisco, 1980-11-21 (Friday). Hopefully this clears up the long-standing confusion about which shows were used to make the Slits Typical Girls 'bootleg'.

Tracklist for official release:
1, New Town
2. Walkabout
3. Man Next Door
4. Life On Earth
5. Grapevine
6. Typical Girls
7. Fade Away
8. In The Beginning
9. Or What Was It?

Recording chain:
Stage mics > splitter (split to house snake/SBD and TH snake) > TH dedicated snake >
Peavy MkII 12 channel mixing board (10 channels snake, 2 channels audience mics) >
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck (Dolby B on) > TDK SA-90 tape

Archival Process:
1999: Sony TC-KA3ES > TDK SA-90 tapes playback (NO Dolby) > BBE 462 Sonic Maximizer (to clean up tapes) >
Tascam DA-30 DAT > HHb DAT-125 DAT tape
2002: HHb CDR-850 Professional CD Recorder (In real time) > HHb CDR74 Gold 100 year archival grade CDRs
2005: Transfered to HDD in AIFF file format

Dime release processing: AIFF Master Files > FFMPEG > 16 bit FLAC 8 > tagging, cover artwork, checksums.

Recorded, preserved, and master AIFF files provided by: Terry Hammer

Setlist:
01. New Town
02. Walk About
03. Man Next Door
04. Life On Earth
05. I Heard It Through The Grapevine
06. Or What It Is
07. Typical Girls
08. Fade Away
09. Animal Spaces
10. In The Beginning There Was Rythm > encore applause
Encore:
11. I Heard It Through The Grapevine > Instant Hit
12. > crowd

Length: 1:01:19

Band:
Ari Up (Ariane Forster) - vocals
Viv Albertine - guitar
Tessa Pollitt - bass
Bruce Smith – drums

Notes:
* Ari Up RIP 2010

* There's some mixing board hiccups on the first track, New Town.

* This was part of a series of shows/appearances the Slits did in the SF Bay area on this tour: Friday, 11-21, The Stone, which provided the SF tracks used on their self-released bootleg); 11-22, Keystone Palo Alto; 11-23, in store appearance at Berkeley's Leopold Records, and in the evening, the Keystone show (THTP 122); and finally the 11-25, and more underground, SF Rat's Palace show (THTP 123).
* The Mutants were the support act (THTP 42), and Don Letts did DJ honors. The Slits had also done an in-store appearance earlier in the day at the great Leopold Recoreds (Berkeley record store on Durant, right by the UC Berkeley campus).

* Bruce Smith was the drummer for the Pop Group, Mark Stewart's original band, and later, worked with Adrian Sherwood's Onu stable of musicians. Budgie (Peter Clarke) immediately preceded him in the Slits after Palmolive's departure, but I believe it was Bruce on this tour.
* About band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slits
"The Slits were a British post-punk band formed in London in 1976 by members of the groups The Flowers of Romance and The Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up (Ariane Forster) and Palmolive (a.k.a. Paloma Romero, who played briefly with Spizzenergi and later left to join The Raincoats), with Viv Albertine and Tessa Pollitt replacing founding members Kate Korus and Suzy Gutsy. Their 1979 debut album, Cut, has been called one of the defining releases of the post-punk era.
...
Their Dennis Bovell-produced debut album Cut was released in September 1979 on Island Records, with Neneh Cherry joining as additional vocalist. The album's sleeve art depicted the band naked, except for mud and loincloths. Palmolive left the band around this time: it is often claimed that this was partly because she did not like this artwork, including by Palmolive herself, but according to Viv Albertine Palmolive had been asked to leave the band before that, and does not appear on the record. She was replaced by the drummer Budgie (Peter Clarke), formerly of The Spitfire Boys and later of Siouxsie and the Banshees.
The Slits' sound and attitude became increasingly experimental and avant-garde during the early 1980s, when they formed an alliance with Bristol post-punk band The Pop Group, sharing drummer Bruce Smith and releasing a joint single, "In the Beginning There Was Rhythm/Where There's a Will There's a Way" (Y Records). This was followed by a bizarre, uncommercial, untitled album of mostly homemade demo recordings, and a few more singles. The band toured widely and released another album, Return of the Giant Slits before breaking up in early 1982. Ari Up went on to be part of the New Age Steppers."

* Ari Up's later project, New Age Steppers, were another in the almost endless whirlwind of creativity found in Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound studios/label releases. If you never checked out On-U Sound stuff, that's an oversight you might want to remedy!! Adrian and Lee Scratch Perry have just done a few new releases on On-U, also worth checking out.

* About the Stone clubs:
The Keystone Berkeley, The Stone (San Francisco), and Keystone Palo Alto were all linked somewhat.
Keystone Corner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Korner
Keystones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_(Berkeley,_California)
- Keystone Korner (750 Vallejo Street, SF) was jazz club in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, which opened in 1972 and continued operation until 1983. Many live recordings were made at the club. Jessica Williams was the house pianist for a number of years. Keystone Korner's Freddie Herrera opened Keystone Berkeley (2119 University Avenue, Berkeley, less than 1 block away from UC Berkeley campus), a larger venue, then sold the Keystone Korner to Todd Barkan. The Keystone Berkeley closed in 1984.
- Keystone Palo Alto, at 260 California Avenue, opened 20 January 1977. The Keystone Palo Alto closed in 1986. The club became the Vortex in the mid-1980s, then The Edge in 1989, and closed in April 2000 to be remade into a restaurant, finally as Illusions, a restaurant and nightclub. The building was at various times during the last 50 years, a Purity Market, a Natural food store, a German restaurant, called the Zinzanatti Oom Pah Pah Lounge, a club called Sophies, it then was demolished in October 2013.
- Marty Balin's Matrix at 3138 Fillmore Street closed in early 1971. Peter Abram, along with John Barsotti and Dave Martin, re-opened the club at 412 Broadway, previously Mr D's in late summer 1973 but it was not really a success. The New York Dolls played September 4-6. Bob Marley and The Wailers played October 19-20, October 29-30. Iggy and The Stooges, The Tubes and Sugardaddy played Halloween 1973.
412 Broadway, San Francisco, then hosted the play Bullshot Crummond, then, from 1980 to 1990 it was The Stone, later it was the home of Broadway Showgirls Cabaret.
[Note that The Stone (SF) was basically right across the street from the Mabuhay Gardens]

* "I really recommend ginseng tea... ginseng tea... hahah.. and healthy food... and sleep... cause that's going to get you out of the rock'n'roll dumps, you know..."

* Includes flyers for their Stone shows, and for their Leopold Records in-store appearance.

===========================================================

No distribution in lossy formats!!
No selling!!
No bootlegging!!
No remastering!!
Yes sharing. Definitely share.

Support the artists when or if they play, and buy their records/merchandise.

Please correct any errors or oversights in this information in the comments section so the information can be as accurate as possible.

If you can find related materials like flyers, posters, ticket stubs, even photos, etc, please add them in a comment and I will add them to the main release folder, so that can be included on the next re-seeding. Every bit is welcome, and as I am time constrained on this project due to the amount of material, I cannot spend as much time on each release doing research as I would like, so if we can add to and improve the information and release contents during this series, that would be great.

Please make an effort to pick at least one of these THTP releases and keep it seeded for as long as you can, particularly the lesser known groups. That will really help out long term.

===========================================================
About Terry Hammer and the THTP:

Someone put my feelings very well about these recordings in the following quote. I can't really improve on their words beyond noting that these recordings sound absolutely and utterly stunning, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to be able to present these to you here in their original, first generation, lossless hi-fidelity versions, for the first time ever.

"[These recordings were] recorded and preserved by collector/engineer Terry Hammer, for broadcast over the UC Berkeley station KALX and several others from the 1979 -1981 period. Anyone who spent a night at one of these clubs knows how chaotic the atmosphere was. That he was able to, not only get a decent feed from the sound mixing board, but was also able to get clean recordings was something of a miracle. And the fact this guy did it over and over again is pure dedication to the cause of preserving history for decades to come. Fortunately for everyone, he’s been making these gems of history available and their value as historic documents is inestimable. This is really exciting stuff and I am grateful for Terry’s foresight and deft skill."
src: https://pastdaily.com/2014/06/25/gang-four-live-american-indian-center-san-francisco-1980-nights-roundtable-concert-edition/

As Terry notes about the process of recording these shows: "Like all of my live recordings this was mixed direct to 2-Track Reel To Reel (and Cassette deck for backup and personal use) using headphones. Sitting in the club with the loud P.A. sound trying to drive the amp in my mixing board loud enough to hear what I was mixing.If you've ever been to a live concert,then,you know how loud it can be."

If you've ever been looking for an excuse to upgrade your sound system, these recordings certainly should provide you with some motivation, because they have incredible sound. And if you already have a quality sound system, you are in for a treat!! The audio goes straight to 20k hz, no losses I can detect. Due to the reality of tapes, even high end as used here, the low end starts at 47 hz.

And if you want to learn more about this incredible musical era, listen to the stuff you haven't heard, there are amazing gems in there.

Do we call these soundboards? Technically not precisely because this is not the house mix, these shows were mixed using a dedicated mixing board, with an additional 1 to 2 audience mics (1 for Mab because he needed 11 snake inputs), 2 at other clubs) in the mix. But I call it the Terry Hammer Tape Project (THTP) to make sure there is no doubt about the project's creator.

TECH:
Note that Terry made 2 master recordings (recording at the same time) when he mixed these shows live:
1: Reel to reel, for the radio stations:
Technics RS-1500 Reel To Reel (mostly TDK Audua L-1800 & LB-1800 tape with back coating or Scotch 206 / 207 with back coating. Maybe a few Maxell UD-XL). All the KALX shows went to KALX, they supplied the reel to reel tape.

2: For his own use, and as backup in case something happened to the reels:
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck (Dolby B on) > TDK SA-90 tape

Terry isn't sure, but thinks the audience mics he used maybe were Electro Voice EV-DS35's.

Info: http://www.bbesound.com/products/sonic-maximizers/482i.aspx

===========================================================
 - teetering

+

Mutants
Keystone
Berkeley, CA
1980-11-23 (Sunday)

THTP Release 42

Recording chain:
Stage mics > splitter (split to house snake/SBD and TH snake) > TH dedicated snake >
Peavy MkII 12 channel mixing board (10 channels snake, 2 channels audience mics) >
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck (Dolby B on) > TDK SA-90 tape

Archival Process:
1999: Sony TC-KA3ES > TDK SA-90 tapes playback (NO Dolby) > BBE 462 Sonic Maximizer (to clean up tapes) >
Tascam DA-30 DAT > HHb DAT-125 DAT tape
2002: HHb CDR-850 Professional CD Recorder (In real time) > HHb CDR74 Gold 100 year archival grade CDRs
2005: Transfered to HDD in AIFF file format

Dime release processing: AIFF Master Files > FFMPEG > 16 bit FLAC 8 > tagging, cover artwork, checksums.

Recorded, preserved, and master AIFF files provided by: Terry Hammer

Setlist:
01. Man From Omichron
02. Space Song
03. Think,Think,Think
04. Opposite World
05. Noises And Numbers
06. Furniture
07. Insect Lounge
08. Odd Man Out
09. Message To The World
10. New Drug > encore applause
Encore:
11. Love Song
12. War Against Girls
13. Sofa Song

Length: 40:24

Band:
Freddy Mutant (Fritz Fox) - vocals
Sue Mutant (Sue White) - vocals
Sally Mutant (Sally/Sellier Webster) - vocals
Brendan Earley — lead guitar
Paul Fleming - bass
John Gullak - rhythm guitar
Dave Carothers - drums

Notes:
* As the band approaches 1981, you can hear the group is much tighter, more powerful, and dominant in their performance. I will never fully understand why they did not gain wider success. A friend who played in the SF scene around the same time thinks it was because they were literally only 18 months ahead of their time (because of the B-52s and groups like them making record companies scurry to sign bands that appeared similar, though the Mutants are nothing like the B-52s).
* Band website: http://www.sfmutants.com
* There's an odd thing about Fritz Fo, he seemed old beyond his years in these early years, and when I saw the Mutants during the last 10 years, one thing that struck me about Fritz was that rather than getting 'older' per se, he had simply become the person he had always been. It's hard to explain this if you haven't seen them, but it's slightly disconcerting.
* About band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mutants_(San_Francisco_band)
* "The Mutants are an important band in the history of San Francisco punk rock and new wave music. They are known for their theatrical performances which often include elaborate props, projections, and comical antics. They are credited with being one of the first "Art-punk" bands in San Francisco, and were one of the most popular bands of the San Francisco punk scene during the late 1970s and early 1980s." - But this doesn't really give a fair impression of how great their performances were!!
* The Mutants were one of the very early punk bands to start the initial San Francisco punk scene, and as such, reflect the wide musical and creative diversity that was the hallmark of the first gneeration of punk rock.
* One of the most striking things about the Mutants live was their 3 singer attack, with Fritz taking lead vocals and Sally and Sue singing backup, in their wild outfits. Truly the best of San Francisco's legendary Art Institute, the birthplace of many early San Francisco punk bands.
* What's that you say? You never heard the Mutants? Then how did you ever find your way to the Insect Lounge?
* Snakefinger helped produce their album 'Fun Terminal', whose record cover showed the old Fun Terminal that was an entertainment/pinball arcade right across the street from the (then) 1st and Mission East Bay Bus Terminal. The upstairs of the Fun Terminal had more than a few all nighters and parties. Unfortunately 'Fun Terminal' did not fully capture the frenetic wildness of the Mutant's at their twisted and out there live best. CD Presents released a live album, "Savoy Sound — Wave Goodbye" as well.
* Here are some good videos that capture the energy of the Mutants:
Joe Rees/Target Video: Mutants: New Drug (Mabuhay 1978):
https://youtu.be/m9ZZXJrf7g0
Joe Rees/Target Video: Mutants: Furniture (Mabuhay, 1978):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue3nGNjt38E
Search and Destroy (a big punk weekly): Louder Faster Shorter (UXA, Dils, Avengers, Sleepers, Mutants [Insect Lounge], Mabuhay 1978):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufHdeaKQiiM
* Joe Rees' Target Video was the multimedia part of the San Francisco scene. Before there was MTV, there was Target video, who had a small space in the Mission, I think on South Van Ness, a bad neighborhood at the time, where people in the punk and art world would go, often after hours, to watch this new format of 'music videos'.
* Search and Destroy (RE/Search publications, edited by V. Vale between 1977 and 1979) was the go to source for up to date punk and other out there music news and information (pre internet, that is). Reprints are available online.
About Search and Destroy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RE/Search
* "Maybe we need a new... connection... I'm sick of your politics... I don't care if you are a communist... we need a new drug.. we need a new drug... Maybe we need... a revolution... We're not the problem, we are the solution...". This in a sense perfectly encapsulates the mindset that swirled around much of the scene at the time, but there's more to those lyrics than meets the eye.
* Includes photos.

===========================================================

No distribution in lossy formats!!
No selling!!
No bootlegging!!
No remastering!!
Yes sharing. Definitely share.

Support the artists when or if they play, and buy their records/merchandise.

Please correct any errors or oversights in this information in the comments section so the information can be as accurate as possible.

If you can find related materials like flyers, posters, ticket stubs, even photos, etc, please add them in a comment and I will add them to the main release folder, so that can be included on the next re-seeding. Every bit is welcome, and as I am time constrained on this project due to the amount of material, I cannot spend as much time on each release doing research as I would like, so if we can add to and improve the information and release contents during this series, that would be great.

Please make an effort to pick at least one of these THTP releases and keep it seeded for as long as you can, particularly the lesser known groups. That will really help out long term.

===========================================================
About Terry Hammer and the THTP:

Someone put my feelings very well about these recordings in the following quote. I can't really improve on their words beyond noting that these recordings sound absolutely and utterly stunning, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to be able to present these to you here in their original, first generation, lossless hi-fidelity versions, for the first time ever.

"[These recordings were] recorded and preserved by collector/engineer Terry Hammer, for broadcast over the UC Berkeley station KALX and several others from the 1979 -1981 period. Anyone who spent a night at one of these clubs knows how chaotic the atmosphere was. That he was able to, not only get a decent feed from the sound mixing board, but was also able to get clean recordings was something of a miracle. And the fact this guy did it over and over again is pure dedication to the cause of preserving history for decades to come. Fortunately for everyone, he’s been making these gems of history available and their value as historic documents is inestimable. This is really exciting stuff and I am grateful for Terry’s foresight and deft skill."
src: https://pastdaily.com/2014/06/25/gang-four-live-american-indian-center-san-francisco-1980-nights-roundtable-concert-edition/

As Terry notes about the process of recording these shows: "Like all of my live recordings this was mixed direct to 2-Track Reel To Reel (and Cassette deck for backup and personal use) using headphones. Sitting in the club with the loud P.A. sound trying to drive the amp in my mixing board loud enough to hear what I was mixing.If you've ever been to a live concert,then,you know how loud it can be."

If you've ever been looking for an excuse to upgrade your sound system, these recordings certainly should provide you with some motivation, because they have incredible sound. And if you already have a quality sound system, you are in for a treat!! The audio goes straight to 20k hz, no losses I can detect. Due to the reality of tapes, even high end as used here, the low end starts at 47 hz.

And if you want to learn more about this incredible musical era, listen to the stuff you haven't heard, there are amazing gems in there.

Do we call these soundboards? Technically not precisely because this is not the house mix, these shows were mixed using a dedicated mixing board, with an additional 1 to 2 audience mics (1 for Mab because he needed 11 snake inputs), 2 at other clubs) in the mix. But I call it the Terry Hammer Tape Project (THTP) to make sure there is no doubt about the project's creator.

TECH:
Note that Terry made 2 master recordings (recording at the same time) when he mixed these shows live:
1: Reel to reel, for the radio stations:
Technics RS-1500 Reel To Reel (mostly TDK Audua L-1800 & LB-1800 tape with back coating or Scotch 206 / 207 with back coating. Maybe a few Maxell UD-XL). All the KALX shows went to KALX, they supplied the reel to reel tape.

2: For his own use, and as backup in case something happened to the reels:
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck (Dolby B on) > TDK SA-90 tape

Terry isn't sure, but thinks the audience mics he used maybe were Electro Voice EV-DS35's.

Info: http://www.bbesound.com/products/sonic-maximizers/482i.aspx

===========================================================
 - teetering