Built To Spill
Minneapolis, MN, USA
First Avenue
13 October 1997 / early all-ages show
(total running time: 01:31:58)

disc one (44:12):
1-001 start (0:25)
1-002 Joyride (6:43)
1-003 Temporarily Blind (5:11)
1-004 The Plan (3:55)
1-005 Center Of The Universe (4:23)
1-006 Time Trap (8:02)
1-007 Untrustable (5:49)
1-008 Sidewalk (4:13)
1-009 Else (5:26)

disc two (47:45):
2-001 Stop The Show (4:01)
2-002 By The Way [Heavenly] (4:24)
2-003 The First Song (3:05)
2-004 Carry The Zero (6:25)
2-005 Distopian Dream Girl (5:31)
2-006 Nowhere Nothin' Fuckup (24:16)

Doug Martsch: guitar, vocals
Brett Nelson: bass
Scott Plouf: drums

live soundboard/audience "matrix" feed, mixed live through 4-channel mixing console, using Sony MDR-V6 headphones:
L&R stereo channels from soundboard; L&R channels from Tandy PZMs mounted on 15' ft stand at approx. 90 degree pan angle.
Estimated source mix: 80% SBD / 20% AUD.
Any "phasing" or shifts in the mix were done live as the performance was taking place, in an attempt to establish a balance between the board feeds and the mics - especially in the first couple of songs, but nothing that should detract from the music itself.

I was running two decks from the mixing console, so I could hand Doug a cassette immediately after the set, and keep one for myself.  The decks didn't start at exactly the same time, and track 2-006 ran a bit over the length of a C-90 cassette, so there were a few seconds of track 2-006 on the second master, which I was able to copy on the first tape, and the remainder of the track on a second cassette, both of which were subsequently patched together for this version of the recording.  Other than the brief patch, this is entirely straight from my master cassettes.

I'm not sure where the confusion came from about the two sets played that day, but there defintely were two sets - an early all-ages set, and a later 21+ set.  Reportedly, the opening bands for the early set were Lifter Puller (who have since sort of morphed into The Hold Steady), and Two Girls And Earl.  That may be incorrect, despite the info on the MNHS page, as First Ave often couldn't keep their records straight, and also because I generally recorded Lifter Puller, and I don't have any record of a tape with that date.  The bill for the late set also featured The Hang Ups, and The Shipping News (whom I also recorded).

Azimuth-optimized analog/digital transfer to HD, tracking done via CDWav editor.
Sound Forge processes applied: DC offset;
volume level adjustments for each individual track, to compensate for live "on-the-fly" mix, and to try and esatablish a more accurate stereo image.
Traders Little Helper processes aplied:
SBE check and repair (report included);
.flac conversion (level 8).

Thanks to vinylhawk for being cool about letting me bump what would have been his first upload to DIME (great choice to start with, though!).  I asked if he would pull his version, as I noticed it seemed to have a lot of incongruities, which happens after something has been through the trading circles a bit, and I didn't want to see the trading pool get any more mucked up by an unknown gen version.  I probably traded this out once or twice back in the day, and it apprently went through a few changes, based on vinylhawk's notes.  There are slight differences in time lengths, and none of the glitches which were reported previously.  Also, this version includes a much longer version of  "Nowhere Nothin' Fuckup", which does include vocals - and does have a brief glitch near the end, as mentioned above, from a tape flip. This version also includes the first track of the set, "Joyride".This version should effectively replace any old copies of this show that are apparently floating around.  Hope any of this info helps clear things up a bit.

As with all of my torrents, I'd like to ask that downloaders refrain from posting any so-called "artwork" on this torrent. I know people like to do that sort of thing, like they're making their own album art or something, but we all know that there are some scallywags even here on DIME that grab things like that with these torrents, and sell them on eBay. Besides, that kind of artwork seems like it would be a personal thing for each listener, anyway.

On the other hand, if someone feels like tweaking the audio properties of these files a bit, I'm sure no one could stop you from doing that - but if you do tweak it and decide to share it with others, please make sure you let people know that it's a re-worked version, okay?

Heck, why not just enjoy the music!