The Minutemen
1985-04-20 (Saturday)
All Ages Show - 8 PM
The Living Room
Providence, Rhode Island, USA

"Duct Tape!!"

01  Joe McCarthy's Ghost
02  It's Expected I'm Gone
03  West Germany
04  Theater Is The Life Of You
05  One Reporter's Opinion
06  The Maze
07  Love Dance
08  Static
09  Search
10  Hey Lawdy Mama
11  Lost
12  Definitions
13  Vietnam
14  Substitute
15  "Fuck You Reagan" (Unknown Jam)
16  Black Sheep
17  Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs
18  My Heart And The Real World
19  King Of The Hill
20  Take Our Test
21  The Product
22  Time
23  Tour-Spiel
24  Ack Ack Ack
25  Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
26  The Cheerleaders
27  The Glory Of Man
28  Maybe Partying Will Help
29  History Lesson (Part II)
30  Party With Me Punker


d. boon - guitar, vocals
mike watt - bass, vocals
george hurley - drums


Recorded by: Allan Wood
Tranferred by: Sir Demon Brown (corndogs.org)

Lineage: 

Sony handheld recorder & Maxell XL II-S 90 cassette > dubbed onto second cassette, with equalizer fiddling (summer 1985) > mailed to SDB/corndogs > tascam portastudio 02 > gadgetlabs wavepro 8/24 24bit 44.1khz > wavelab 5.01b > WAV files > FLAC


Notes:

I saw news of the band's "Double Nickles" tour in Rolling Stone magazine. Living in northern Vermont and working Monday-Friday, a long drive and show on a Saturday night made the most sense.

Somehow I figured how where the gig would be (the listing in the magazine gave only the city) and called the club, getting directions and making sure I would be able to get a ticket. I drove down alone that morning from Colchester, Vermont. I got to the Living Room in the early afternoon. Whoever was working that day was nice enough to let me hang around the "living room" part of the club -- there were several couches and chairs on one side -- for a few hours while he cleaned up the empty plastic cups on the floor from the night before.

The band arrived mid-afternoon in their white van -- they had played in New York City the previous night -- and hauled in their stuff. I chatted with them for a minute or three at some point. I was there for the soundcheck. I wish I had taped it, but I was wary of using up any of the juice from my AA batteries before the actual show. All I remember now is that one of the songs they ran through was "#1 Hit Song" -- which was not in that night's set list.

I taped the show with a crude hand-held Sony tape recorder (it wa smaybe 4x6 or 5x7 in size) that in no way was designed to record concerts! I stuck a small piece of black electrical tape over the bright red recording light and stood directly in front of the stage -- maybe 30 feet back. 

Also included in this torrent are a few pictures I took (one-handed?) as well as the Rolling Stone clip and an index card the band signed for me before the show. If someone wants to make some art, that would be cool.

After "The Maze", Boon had some guitar problem and yells out "duct tape!" While he fixes his guitar, Watt and Hurley play "Love Dance". Some of the pictures I took show Boon with a broken strap, playing the guitar at arm's legnth. That may have been the problem -- or the broken strap came later. It's been a few years! ... Anyway, I like the name "Duct Tape" for this show.

The sound is not great, but I think it's listenable once you get used to it. ... Anyway, you had no idea this show existed before today and now you can get a copy! Any Minutemen is good Minutemen!

After the show, I drove part of the way home, before pulling off into a rest area and sleeping in my back seat. At home after the show, I fiddled around with the original tape with a simple little equalizer and dubbed it onto another cassette. That's the tape I mailed to Sir Demon Brown to transfer and convert to flac. He tried tweaking the sound, but told me he ended up leaving it "as is". 

When I dubbed it onto the second tape back in 1985, I moved The Glory Of Man before The Cheerleaders -- to better fill up that side of the tape, I suppose. (Dumb idea.) SDB put the song back in its correct position, but the transition is not seamless. There is a small gap of silence.

I never expected to share this cassette with anyone. However, after downloading dozens of Minutemen shows from this site (and Corndogs), I'm thrilled to be able to share this 24-year-old recording with fellow fans.

Scruffy the Cat was the opening band.

***

Two samples below. Also, songs are short enough to d/l another one to check it out.
