Radiators
1986-03-29
Hot Tin Roof
Martha's Vineyard MA

Set 1
d1t01. Blind Crippled and Crazy
d1t02. Little Sister
d1t03. 30 Days
d1t04. House of Blue Lights /
d1t05. Walking Backwards
d1t06. Straight 8
d1t07. Good Things Come /        
d1t08. Burning Away //         
d1t09. She Got the Boogie >
d1t10. Little Sadie     
Set 2
d1t11. Nightmare on the Misery Train >
d1t12. Take Your Dead Ass Home!
d1t13. Domino >
d1t14. Everybody's Got Something to Hide >
d1t15. Domino >
d1t16. Tears of a Clown
d1t17. Devil's Dream
d1t18. Like Dreamers Do
d1t19. Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right + ///  
d1t20. Hard to Tell
d1t21. Danang
d1t22. encore: Soul Kitchen

the Radiators:
Ed Volker          keyboards, lead vocals
Dave Malone        guitars, lead vocals
Camile Baudoin     guitars
Reggie Scanlan     bass guitar
Frank Bua, Jr.     drums

 /     tape paused
//     tape flips
///    tape swap
+      slight RT channel drops, or transfer warble ~45

Recording Information: Part of a longer story, but tech stats were:
1st Gen AUD: (tape 1) AKG c422 90' fig 8 placed onstage 3.5 ft up on footlight stand approx 2.5 ft ROC > Nakamichi 550 | Maxell MX90
1st Gen AUD: (tape 2) Same mic info as above >Sony TCD5M  ##
Original Transfer tape 2: Nakamichi Dragon > Nakamichi LX-5 Maxell MX90
Digital transfer: Nakamichi LX-5 > Benchmark Sonic AD2k 24/48 > Marantz PMD661|SD
Processing: SD| Audacity [levelling, NR]|cdwaveditor [tracking]|TLH [file conversion]|foobartagger
Recorded by: Sean Murtha, Mike Davis, Kenny Davis
Transferred by: Kyle Holbrook
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Yes. This is not a soundboard recording. The venue was tiny, the tapers arrived and arranged to set up a stereo microphone on the stage. Location being everything, the vocals are not at all as loud in the mix as typical soundboards from this era.
=======================================================================================
the Executive Crew story:
Sean tells the story:
The reason for Sean and Mike and Kenny being at this show was it was the day between the Portland and Providence Grateful Dead shows and someone had mentioned to them to try and go. Neither of them having been on Martha's Island they had no idea how crazy it would be just travel wise, let alone getting tickets to the tiny Hot Tin Roof. Of course to get to the Island one has to take a car ferry, which can be the bane of travelers who are unprepared for it. 

"I can remember meeting Kyleâ€™s pal Jim Morrison in the bus ride from the ferry to the hotel++.  It was for sure a bit of a stretch of the both body and mind to make this show, I think all the rest of my time that I was on the island was sleeping, donâ€™t remember eating or the ferry ride back...
Cant remember exactly who, but I know there were other hard core rads fans from all over I had seen from both dead shows and rads shows there but it was a $ ticket/show on 'the vineyard'"
++[Ed.note- Yes, I knew a guy named Jim Morrison, who at was attending Tulane in New Orleans which is why he knew of the Radiators]

The Nakamichi 550 broke in the middle of the show so they had to get a D5 in place having had the mics onstage and of course being complicated to switch gear in the middle of a show. You can hear some distortion on tape 1 as the Nak dies, then also on tape 2 as they had the D5 set too high. Something about needing batteries and it was Martha's Vineyard so they had never paid more for D cell batteries! The Nak 550 took EIGHT D cell batteries! Even with the high price, they had enough D Cells. The 9 volts which were needed to power the small cigarette sized AKG B18 portable power supplies were near impossible to locate. 

The Hot Tin Roof literally had a tin roof. It was so humid and just warm enough inside for the roof to drip water, ONTO the STAGE! and of course the audience was getting dripped on as well.

The decision to run the AKGc422 at 90 degree XY figure 8's was a great decision. It gives us the most potential to work with it and maximize what was captured in 1986. We called it Bi-Directional as our understanding was each capsule captured both its' front quadrant but also the rear quadrant in opposite phase. We had used that pattern for the Dead in Rochester 1985.

The sound quality of the recording is unique from a Radiators taping perspective in that most Rad's shows are Soundboards which emphasize the vocals and keyboards/bass. At times this onstage recording sounds like you are sitting on the stage with the band and a bit off axis from a vocal monitor. As such the vocals are generally weak, especially Ed's, but the bass, drums and guitars are amazing, at times you can hear Camile and Dave's tone dramatically shift as they switch between effects boxes. At times the full band sound is evened out and the sound can be quite in your face. 

As for the show itself:
The Little Sister has the band shaking off the rust and travel jitters, warming up the fingers.
Straight 8 is a great rendition.
The Burning Away has a GREAT Camile solo. The Little Sadie rocks with a nice Reggie bass boogie in the middle. The Domino > Tears of a Clown sequence is some great jamming inside of those classic tunes.
Like Dreamers Do rocks this recording. The combination of drums and bass with amazing Camile leads is pure Radiators radiatin'! From there until the end the sound quality is just a scoche better.

In loving memory of Kenny Davis



