venerdì 13 ottobre 2023

Ozric Tentacles - 1994-10-13 - Dallas, TX (SBD/FLAC)




(Soundboard FLAC)

Recorded Oct. 13, 1994 at Trees, Dallas, TX 

Source: Soundboard -> ? -> Cassette -> ? -> CD-R 
-> Exact Audio Copy -> WAV -> SHN -> ? -> FLAC (44 kHz/16 bit) 
-> Trader's Little Helper 2.7.0b172 -> WAV (44 kHz/16 bit) 
-> Adobe Audition CS6 5.0.2b7 (Remaster) 
-> Trader's Little Helper 2.7.0b172 -> FLAC (Level 8) 
-> foobar2000 1.1.11/Masstagger 1.8.4 (ID3 Tags) 

Ed Wynne - Guitar, Synthesizer 
John Egan - Flute, Voice 
Seaweed (Christopher Lenox-Smith) - Synthesizer 
Zia Geelani - Bass 
Rad (Conrad Prince) - Drums 

Disc One 
101 - Og-Ha-Be (14:06) 
102 - O-I (5:33) 
103 - White Rhino Tea (7:28) 
104 - Astro Cortex (5:48) 
105 - Vita Voom (4:40) 
106 - There's A Planet Here (7:42) 
107 - Myriapod (6:04) 

Disc Two 
201 - The Throbbe/Synth Jam (17:05) 
202 - Erpland (5:49) 
203 - Dissolution (The Clouds Disperse)/Vibuthi Jam (19:10) 
204 - Kick Muck (10:36) 
205 - Sniffing Dog (11:04) 

Total Time: 1:55:06 

Remastering Notes: 
- Remove digital silence between "Og-Ha-Be" and "O-I", between "There's A Planet Here" and "Myriapod" and between "Myriapod" and "The Throbbe". 
- Remove dead space and smooth volume changes around tape cuts at the end of "Vita Voom", "There's A Planet Here" and "Erpland". 
- Remove approximately 22 seconds of overlap between "Vibuthi Jam" and "Kick Muck". 
- Remove noise and padding at the end of the recording. 
- Apply -44 cents pitch correction (stretch by 2.59%). 
- Repair clipped samples. 
- Attenuate overall volume levels by 3 dB. 
- Apply fade-in at the beginning and fade-out at end of the recording. 
- Retrack with alignment on sector boundaries. 

Additional Notes: 
- Three tape cuts were present in the trade CD-R from which this show is sourced. All occurred during the audience applause and, therefore, no music was affected. 
- A fourth cut was present at the end of "Vibuthi Jam", apparently arising when the recording was digitized, as some overlap exists between that track and the following track, "Kick Muck", however, the overlapping waveforms were not digitally identical. No music was contained in the part that was removed, and the match was good enough so that the transition is inaudible. 
- Track 102, "O-I", contains static noises during the first minute, which are apparently due to a faulty feed on the stage as evidenced by the noises occurring before delay is applied to the signal. Since this was part of the live experience, no attempt was made to correct it. 
- Track 107, "Myriapod", contains guitar level increases at 0:04 and between 0:10 and 0:13. Since this was also part of the live experience, no attempt was made to correct it. 
- No noise reduction or equalization was applied during the remastering process, however with the exact lineage of the recording prior to this being unknown, it is possible that irreversible audio editing has taken place at some point.


This was Ozric Tentacles' first and only foray into DFW, and they could not have picked a better small venue in the Metroplex to play. Trees is a nightclub in the Deep Ellum part of Dallas, just east of downtown, with a long and storied music history, replete with tales of T-Bone Walker learning the ropes from Blind Lemon Jefferson in the 1920s and 1930s, and Robert Johnson playing there at the time he recorded nearly half of his 29 songs at a studio only a few blocks away. But what sets Trees apart from other clubs in the Dallas area is the superior sound. With support posts made to look like tree trunks over a standing room floor area, a small balcony to the right of the stage and a larger balcony in back above the bar area, there are very few places inside that are not sonic sweet spots. It was closed down in 2005 and reopened four years later under different ownership and has won several "best of" music awards as judged by the Dallas Observer, which is pretty much the authoritative source of all things entertainment in the Metroplex. 

As for the show, it is quite simply the best concert experience I have ever had the pleasure of... uhm... experiencing. And I am not alone in that manner of thought, although some friends who had made the 12 hour trek to Boulder for the April 26 show would certainly rate that #1, since the setlist for the tail end of the Jurassic Shift tour is without peer as US shows go, not to mention that stalwarts Joie Hinton and Merv Pepler were still with the group at the time, and the cohesion was never better with Ozric Tentacles. But this was the next best thing. 

A most remarkable moment occurred during "The Throbbe" when, standing some 4 or 5 feet from stage center, throbbing to the music in my own little box-shaped world, I snapped out of it long enough to notice that everyone around me was doing the same. A giant amoeba could have descended upon the city at that instant and we'd all have happily been gobbled up, or whatever it is that amoebas (or amoebae for the linguistically precise) do when they consume people blown away by supreme music. 

Last year, I was fortunate enough to get a copy of the complete show from soundboard tape, and all thanks go out to that fellow Dimer and keeper of the definitive live Ozric oeuvre for the ultimate turn-on. If some modicum of amusement can be had by him from the effort to make the recording flow a little bit better, then that alone would have made it worthwhile. Said 
effort mostly involved speed correction and cleaning up a few things here and there. For speed correction, "Myriapod" was the obvious choice for analysis since two of the first 3 notes are E's an octave apart. Repeated listening to the intro, and especially the part beforehand where some idiot yells out "Myriapod!", conjuring up a tepid response from the band, also brought back a not-so-fond memory: that idiot was me! In my defense, I couldn't help myself, I mean, the setlist was sitting right there next to the monitor. Ahem.... 

Details of the remastering process can be found in the included info. No attempt was made to correct anomalies that could be attributed to the live sound, such as some static during "O-I" and guitar level adjustments at the beginning of "Myriapod". Similarly, no effects, EQ or NR were applied, and the amplitude was tweaked for normalization, stitching and fading purposes only. Also included are scans of a merchandise flyer that was handed out at the booth. I looked everywhere for a ticket stub to scan too, and have asked everyone I know who was at the show if they could find theirs, but have concluded that we must have paid in advance by credit card and been admitted through the will call line. 

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