In the late 90s I purchased a Tascam Portastudio 414 4-Track Casette Recorder. It records on regular casette tapes but at high speed and it uses the full physical bandwidth of the tape itself (so you can only record on one side). Both of these things provide marginally better sound quality. Its funny to me now that I can remember really being nervous to buy the thing originally becuase it was 'so much money'. I have gotten so much use out of it that it paid for itself long, long ago.
In recent years I have spent alot of time converting these old tapes to digital mp3s, as the tapes continue to degrade with time. I still have probably 15 tapes of Low Profile which I may never convert, but as of today I have converted every other band I've recorded. I'm happy to share some of these immortal recordings with you here.
Over the years I have recorded countless sessions from countless bands. I recorded 4-6 sessions of Pie in the Sky. This was espically prudent (tho I couldn't have known at the time) becuase before they broke up, they only recorded 3 songs in the studio, a split EP with Half Stachon. So many of the recordings I made are the only existing evidence of these songs. Many of them are truly great songs, and it would be a shame had they been relegated to memories only.
Pie in the Sky shared a practice space with Half Stachon. It was in Forest Park. I hung out there many, many times watching them reherse, pounding brews and being involved in various jam sessions myself on all available instruments. It was a great fucking time, and in the years that have passed and I've hung out at other bands practice spaces, I know now that these guys were getting a GREAT fucking deal. I dont know exactly what they were paying, but I've been to many practice spaces that were less then 25% of the size. Pie in the Sky's practice space was bigger then my fucking condo is today! And it needed to be, to house the debauchery and ROCK that was produced there.
Anyways, I have 4 sessions in my possession, all recorded 'at the space'. I have converted them to digital and hosted the files here, and discarded the tapes. I know there were others but they are no where to be found. I clearly remember a tape where I played the 1st 1-2 songs on bass with washburn. We played 'Nothing Knew' right away and I remember I came from work and had huge boots on. I had them completely untied all crazy and I was thrashing super hard and I jumped during the song. The combination of a sloppy jump, my own excitement and the boots caused like an earthquake and you could hear the guitar totally fuck up for 2 seconds like I tackled Jim. This memory haunts me, becuase I cannot find the fucking tape. I also had a tape of Low Profile playing some songs on their gear, including a version of 'Mr. Pig' that was like 5 minutes long and everyone was yelling shit into the mics during one of the breaks in the song.
So help me to secure this music forever -- I figure the more people that have these songs the better, so they are never completely lost.
click here to view a movie from 1998 at the kraft bowl.
40mb -- so right click, save target as...
Session #1December 11th 1998
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Session #2Date Unknown
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Session #3January 18th 1999
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Session #4March 1st 1999
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