Lenny Kaye And The Nuggets + Jim Carroll Band + Social Unrest @ San Francisco, CA 1980-05-08

 

LIMITED TIME / LAST TIME

https://pixeldrain.com/l/RcWbEEVq

Lenny Kate and the Nuggets
Mabuhay Gardens
San Francisco, CA
1980-05-08 (Thursday)

THTP Release 102

Recording chain: 
Stage mics > splitter (split to house snake/SBD and TH snake) > TH dedicated snake >
Peavy MkII 12 channel mixing board (11 channels snake, 1 channel audience mic) > 
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. Dirk intro > Hat's Off To Larry
02. Yummy,Yummy,Yummy
03. La Bamba
04. Some Kinda Wonderful
05. Silence Is Golden
06. Tracks Of My Tears
07. Child Bride
08. Spider & The Fly (Beast Language)
09. Rock'N'Roll Nigger > encore applause, Dirk >
Encore:
10. For Your Love
11. I'm Set Free > Dirk outro

Length: 54:48

Band:
Lenny Kaye - guitar, vocals
Jimmy Wilsey - bass
Derrick Ritchie - drums
Larry Block - saxophone

Notes:
* This is the first night recorded, the next night's show (Friday, 1980-05-09) can be found on THTP 48. Jim Carroll Band (THTP 22) was the next band to play. Social Unrest (THTP 36) opened, which made for a strange bill, lol.
* This collection of musicians was basically put together to play covers, based on Lenny's in-depth knowledge of obscure tracks from obscure and not so obscure artists. Lenny also put together a group by the name in New York, but those guys were local musicians there too, like here.

* About Lenny Kaye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Kaye
Obviously, he was a founding member of the Patti Smith Group, and tours with them still.
"As musician, writer, and record producer, Kaye was intimately involved with an array of artists and bands. He was a guitarist for poet/rocker Patti Smith from her band's inception in 1974, and co-authored Waylon, The Life Story of Waylon Jennings. He worked in the studio with such artists as R.E.M., James, Suzanne Vega, Jim Carroll, Soul Asylum, Kristin Hersh, and Allen Ginsberg. His seminal anthology of sixties' garage-rock, Nuggets, is widely regarded as defining the genre.
...
Following the Patti Smith Group's final performance in September 1979, Kaye joined the Jim Carroll Band, as well as fronting his own Lenny Kaye Connection". 
Note that the wiki article does not appear to be aware of the Nuggets, only the Lenny Kaye Connection. 
While it's a somewhat overused term, I think the term 'renaissance man' fits Lenny like a glove. I had not realized that he was the guy who made the legendary Nuggets collection before doing this research.
* More about Lenny Kaye: https://www.discogs.com/artist/227730-Lenny-Kaye
Oddly, this page also does not seem to be aware of Lenny Kaye and the Nuggets. I wonder if this was a band he put together between his Connection and Jim Carroll work? I found one mention of Lenny Kaye and the Nuggets playing at CBGB. Terry remembers it like this: "Lenny and a bunch of musicians from the Bay Area that he threw together on short notice to play some oldies for a few nights." Maybe he did the same thing with different musicians in NYC for the CBGB gig?

* Terry: "Also,the "Amazing" Jimmy Wilsey (from the Avengers) on bass & vocals (that's Jimmy singing Rock Around with Ollie Vee), also he was lead guitar player for Chris Isaak & Silvertone. That's his "AMAZING" signature guitar solo on Chris's BIGGEST HIT and video of Wicked Game! R.I.P. Jimmy, we love you my brother!"

* Derrick Ritchie was from Sudden Fun.

* Lenny currently has a day job on the faculty of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.

* 'Nuggets' is a reference to the Lenny Kay produced compilation album:
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuggets:_Original_Artyfacts_from_the_First_Psychedelic_Era,_1965%E2%80%931968
" It was assembled by Lenny Kaye, who at the time was a writer and clerk at the Village Oldies record shop in New York
...
The resulting double album was released on LP by Elektra in 1972 with liner notes by Kaye that contained one of the first uses of the term "punk rock". It was reissued with a new cover design by Sire Records in 1976."
It's hard to understate how influential this album was on people really into music at the time, the Elevators, Count Five, The Seeds, basically laid out a roadmap for underground rock to follow after they vanished.

* Dirk: "What goes on up here is just incidental to your scandalous lives..."
* Dirk: "No, I won't have it with you, you ugly bozo...not even for my usual price of 500... here's tape..."

* 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/ 

The First Taping of what was then to be called"The Fab Mab Live", was the Readymades on December 8 ,1979. The Fab Mab Live broadcasts would go on until June of 1981 [but KUSF took the broadcasts over from KALX and Terry January 1981]. Some of these performances were given to the Maximum Rock'N'Roll magazine run by Tim Yohannan, and were distributed to the PBS network for broadcast across the country on various PBS stations that carried the Maximum Rock'N'Roll radio program of interviews and some of [Terry's] live songs of the artists being featured. 

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). Terry made Dirk buy the tape for the Mab so Terry had him keep them in his warehouse. Those were destroyed in the fire.

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

3. Terry stopped doing the Fab Mab Live recordings for KALX in January 1981. He turned it over to KUSF then and they actually installed a phone line and broadcasted live from there. So all Fab Mab shows after January 1 were Terry at the soundboard, recording straight into his cassette deck.

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

===========================================================
About Dirk Dirksen and the Mabuhay Gardens/On Broadway:

Dirk Dirksen (RIP 2006), aka 'The Pope of Punk', was the music promotor and MC (but really more accurately, the impresario) of the Mabuhay Gardens/On Broadway punk clubs. Dirk was an incredibly interesting, sharp-witted, biting, cutting element of the original San Francisco punk scene. His legendary introductions and post set commentaries are preserved in many of these recordings. Dirk was a nephew of United States Senator Everett Dirksen. 

Shows at the Mabuhay started probably in 1977. The On Broadway was an upstairs night club right next to the Mabuhay that opened in summer 1981 and closed 1984. Terry recorded / broadcast Mabuhay gardens shows weekly. He was also the first soundman at the On Broadway when it opened in 1981 (they initially only did Friday/Saturday night shows).

The Mabuhay Gardens was originally a Filipino night club/restaurant run by Ness Aquino (RIP). One fateful day he was approached by Jerry Paulsen, who offered to try to fill the club on slow nights (Monday/Tuesday) with punk shows. Dirk took the booking and MC duties over from Jerry, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"...deliberately baiting and trading insults with audience and band members, which had the effect of raising the energy of audience and performers alike. In order to maintain the show's fast pace, he would move past an encore to get to the next band and tell the audience, "Eat it." Dirksen's abrasive persona (which was largely a performance) was a central part of the atmosphere of the Mabuhay.
...
Dirksen was the sole person responsible for connecting the English punk rockers with those in the United States. By creating an exchange program, punk bands for England and NY came to the Mabuhay and vice versa, staying in each city performing a few nights at a time."

Terry remembers him like this:
"He believed in theatre and group participation that's why he was sarcastic. He wanted to get a rise in people and get them to participate. He was a really nice person if you got to know him."

Dirk was also active with the organization H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers), the organization started by Kathy Peck of the Contractions (also part of this THTP series).

It was hard to really know how diverse his interests were until I went to his memorial service in San Francisco, where his punk friends and connections were only a fraction of the people who spoke in his memory. He was involved in various charities, the Mission Recreation Center, the list was quite large.

Apparently a book about Dirk Dirksen will be coming out Summer 2020.

Wikepedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabuhay_Gardens
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Dirksen
SF Gate obituary: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dirk-Dirksen-pope-of-punk-amused-insulted-2466523.php

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




Jim Carroll Band 
Mabuhay Gardens
San Francisco, CA
1980-05-08

THTP Release 22

Recording chain: 
Stage mics > splitter (split to house snake/SBD and TH snake) > TH dedicated snake >
Peavy MkII 12 channel mixing board (11 channels snake, 1 channel audience mic) > 
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck (Dolby B on) > BBE 482 Sonic Maximizer > TDK SA-90 tape

Archival Process: 
1999: AKAI-GXC-570D Cassette > TDK SA-90 tapes playback (NO Dolby) > BBE 482 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. Catholic Boy
02. Tension
03. City Drops Into The Night
04. Nothing Is True
05. It's Too Late
06. Three Sisters
07. Wicked Gravity
08. Crow
09. People Who Died
10. Sweet Jane
11. Dirk outro
12. Dirk outro continued

Length: 50:26

Band:
Jim Carroll - vocals
Brian Linsley - guitar
Terrell Winn – guitar
Steve Linsley - bass
Wayne Woods - drums

Notes:
* Jim Carroll, who gained fame from his book "Basketball Diaries" (RIP 2009, and if you were familiar with his lifestyle, that was pretty amazing for him to last that long!). He was in the New York City clique of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe.
* Band was signed to Rolling Stone records at this point.
* The support band this show was Social Unrest, who came from Hayward, California.
* Brian and Steve were local boys from El Cerrito, CA, and the band was originally known as "Amsterdam".
* About band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carroll
* "Nothing Is True" is a good reflection of the Patti Smith / NYC Rimbaud influenced poets/singers/song writers of that era. Many people do not realize how intellectual and well read the first wave of punk rockers really were.
* "I'm here to give you my heart... you want a fashion show..." - that about sums it up...

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

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/ 

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). Terry made Dirk buy the tape for the Mab so Terry had him keep them in his warehouse. Those were destroyed in the fire.

2: For his own use, and as backup in case something happened to the reels: 
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck > TDK SA-90 tape > BBE 482 Sonic Maximizer > (transfered to) Tascam DA-30 DAT > HHb CDR-850

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

===========================================================
About Dirk Dirksen and the Mabuhay Gardens/On Broadway:

Dirk Dirksen (RIP 2006), aka 'The Pope of Punk', was the music promotor and MC (but really more accurately, the impresario) of the Mabuhay Gardens/On Broadway punk clubs. Dirk was an incredibly interesting, sharp-witted, biting, cutting element of the original San Francisco punk scene. His legendary introductions and post set commentaries are preserved in many of these recordings. Dirk was a nephew of United States Senator Everett Dirksen. 

Shows at the Mabuhay started probably in 1977. The On Broadway was an upstairs night club right next to the Mabuhay that opened in summer 1981 and closed 1984. Terry recorded / broadcast Mabuhay gardens shows weekly. He was also the first soundman at the On Broadway when it opened in 1981 (they initially only did Friday/Saturday night shows).

The Mabuhay Gardens was originally a Filipino night club/restaurant run by Ness Aquino (RIP). One fateful day he was approached by Jerry Paulsen, who offered to try to fill the club on slow nights (Monday/Tuesday) with punk shows. Dirk took the booking and MC duties over from Jerry, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"...deliberately baiting and trading insults with audience and band members, which had the effect of raising the energy of audience and performers alike. In order to maintain the show's fast pace, he would move past an encore to get to the next band and tell the audience, "Eat it." Dirksen's abrasive persona (which was largely a performance) was a central part of the atmosphere of the Mabuhay.
...
Dirksen was the sole person responsible for connecting the English punk rockers with those in the United States. By creating an exchange program, punk bands for England and NY came to the Mabuhay and vice versa, staying in each city performing a few nights at a time."

Terry remembers him like this:
"He believed in theatre and group participation that's why he was sarcastic. He wanted to get a rise in people and get them to participate. He was a really nice person if you got to know him."

Dirk was also active with the organization H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers), the organization started by Kathy Peck of the Contractions (also part of this THTP series).

It was hard to really know how diverse his interests were until I went to his memorial service in San Francisco, where his punk friends and connections were only a fraction of the people who spoke in his memory. He was involved in various charities, the Mission Recreation Center, the list was quite large.

Wikepedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabuhay_Gardens
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Dirksen
SF Gate obituary: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dirk-Dirksen-pope-of-punk-amused-insulted-2466523.php

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










Social Unrest
Mabuhay Gardens
San Francisco, CA
1980-05-08

THTP Release 36

Recording chain: 
Stage mics > splitter (split to house snake/SBD and TH snake) > TH dedicated snake >
Peavy MkII 12 channel mixing board (11 channels snake, 1 channel audience mic) > 
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. Dirk intro > Capital Hill (bad sound check)
02. Sports Palace
03. Join The People Who Joined The Army
04. Special Olympics
05. Pawn Shop
06. Rush Hour
07. Suburban Housewife
08. Mr. Suit
09. Viet Nam Vet
10. Teacher's Pet
11. No Religion (bad,fade outs)
12. I Don't Care About Love
13. Peace And Flowers Are Dead
14. Sick And Tired Of The Suburbs
15. I Love You
16. City Police
Encore:
17. News At Eleven > Dirk outro

Length: 31:35

Band:
Creetin K-os (Bobby Weaver) - vocals 
Doug Logic (?) - guitar
Danny Norwood - guitar
John Vollick - bass
Mark Monti - drums

Notes:
* Dirk at his sarcastic best: "You don't seem to know them otherwise you would have already shouted their name... totally unknown group.. from the East Bay... real suburbanite revolutionaries... here they are...Social Unrest"
* I'm not certain about Doug Logic, and couldn't find his real name, but that members list is the best I could do.
* About group: https://www.discogs.com/artist/328030-Social-Unrest
"Hardcore/thrash group, from Hayward, California. Formed in 1980. Social Unrest released their first 7" record in 1981 and were quite influential in the development of the Bay Area hardcore scene throughout the 1980s. "
* More specifically, Social Unrest was from Hayward, which is a few towns down from Oakland in the East Bay, just north of Fremont and San Jose. Social Unrest is a good example of the 'second wave' punk bands, who often came from suburbs, and played 'hardcore'.
* More on Social Unrest: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/social-unrest-mn0000753478/biography
"Part of the lively Northern California punk rock scene of the '80s, Social Unrest were a hardcore outfit whose abundant energy and defiant anti-authoritarian stance set a standard followed by many of their peers. "
* Good page on SU: http://gug65.free.fr/history.html
"Social Unrest hailed from Hayward, near San Francisco, in 1980.They soon established themselves as one of the leading forces of the Bay Area early HC Thrash scene. The manic, political vocals of Creetin K-os were well supported by screeching guitars & ultra-fast tempos .
The band released their 1st 7 " ( now much sought after) in 1981 on Infra Red Records.
" Making Room for Youth" was produced by none other than Dead Kennedys guitar player
East Bay Ray."
* Some of these tracks were released on their first single Making Room For Youth: 
 https://www.discogs.com/Social-Unrest-Making-Room-For-Youth/master/248170
 Making Room For Youth//Join The People Who've Joined The Army//Rush Hour
* There's a certain irony when in 'Peace And Flowers Are Dead' the singer tells hippies to 'get a haircut', an exact echo of what the establishment types said to the hippies only some 15 years earlier...
* "And how... here's tape..." was how Dirk often announced the end of a band's set.
* Includes photos and, in a new feature, the text of the gug65.free.fr Social Unrest history page (pages like this tend to vanish with no notice, so to keep the information intact, it's included here).

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

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). Terry made Dirk buy the tape for the Mab so Terry had him keep them in his warehouse. Those were destroyed in the fire.

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

===========================================================
About Dirk Dirksen and the Mabuhay Gardens/On Broadway:

Dirk Dirksen (RIP 2006), aka 'The Pope of Punk', was the music promotor and MC (but really more accurately, the impresario) of the Mabuhay Gardens/On Broadway punk clubs. Dirk was an incredibly interesting, sharp-witted, biting, cutting element of the original San Francisco punk scene. His legendary introductions and post set commentaries are preserved in many of these recordings. Dirk was a nephew of United States Senator Everett Dirksen. 

Shows at the Mabuhay started probably in 1977. The On Broadway was an upstairs night club right next to the Mabuhay that opened in summer 1981 and closed 1984. Terry recorded / broadcast Mabuhay gardens shows weekly. He was also the first soundman at the On Broadway when it opened in 1981 (they initially only did Friday/Saturday night shows).

The Mabuhay Gardens was originally a Filipino night club/restaurant run by Ness Aquino (RIP). One fateful day he was approached by Jerry Paulsen, who offered to try to fill the club on slow nights (Monday/Tuesday) with punk shows. Dirk took the booking and MC duties over from Jerry, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"...deliberately baiting and trading insults with audience and band members, which had the effect of raising the energy of audience and performers alike. In order to maintain the show's fast pace, he would move past an encore to get to the next band and tell the audience, "Eat it." Dirksen's abrasive persona (which was largely a performance) was a central part of the atmosphere of the Mabuhay.
...
Dirksen was the sole person responsible for connecting the English punk rockers with those in the United States. By creating an exchange program, punk bands for England and NY came to the Mabuhay and vice versa, staying in each city performing a few nights at a time."

Terry remembers him like this:
"He believed in theatre and group participation that's why he was sarcastic. He wanted to get a rise in people and get them to participate. He was a really nice person if you got to know him."

Dirk was also active with the organization H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers), the organization started by Kathy Peck of the Contractions (also part of this THTP series).

It was hard to really know how diverse his interests were until I went to his memorial service in San Francisco, where his punk friends and connections were only a fraction of the people who spoke in his memory. He was involved in various charities, the Mission Recreation Center, the list was quite large.

Wikepedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabuhay_Gardens
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Dirksen
SF Gate obituary: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dirk-Dirksen-pope-of-punk-amused-insulted-2466523.php

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 - teetering