FREIGHTWHALER
Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
February 2, 1996
The Honky Tonk-A-Rama

Source: CSB mics (battery box, low-end roll-off) clipped on glasses > Denon DTR-80P (DAT, 16/48)
Transfer: Master DAT > Tascam DA-20 > M-Audio Audiophile USB > PC > Wavelab 5.0 > iZotope RX7 (de-clicked, minor edits, light EQ, normalizing) > CD Wave Editor (tracking) > FLAC (level 8)
taped and transferred by mrpember

This is a 16/48 recording

[song titles are from archive.org, I can't verify the titles]

01- Not In High School Anymore*
02- Daddy's Gonna Die*
03- Picture Of Jesus On The Dashboard*
04- Medicate Me Now Please
05- At The Drive-In
06- The Spaceship Song
07- The Ghosts Are Out Tonight
08- That Waltz Song
09- Bar Lights

* acoustic

Total time: 

Ryan Adams: acoustic and electric guitar, vocals
Sloane Doggett: guitar
Skillet Gilmore: drums
Chris Laney: bass
Nicholas Petti: pedal steel

Freightwhaler was a short-lived side project for Ryan Adams and some friends from North Carolina and Georgia. They played at most 4 or 5 shows, all in early 1996. Skillet and Nicholas were in Whiskeytown at the time, Sloane and Chris were in Ithica Gin (at least I think Chris was in that band). Ryan was writing a lot of songs back then, Whiskeytown fans will know "Bar Lights" (I believe this is the live debut of that song) but I think the others were unique to this brief period.

The recording is pretty good, they started earlier than I thought so at the beginning you can hear me mounting the mics on my glasses and walking closer to the stage. This show has made the rounds and is available on archive.org (listed as a Ryan Adams show) but is the first time this has been shared directly from my DAT master. I spent some time trying to clean up a number of issues, especially at the beginning.

The Honky Tonk-A-Rama was an annual roots-rock festival at Local 506 intended to highlight countryish bands from North Carolina. The first one in 1996 was notable because a rare ice storm hit over the weekend which made travel extremely treacherous, many musicians and most of the people with tickets didn't make it which made for a very unique and cool vibe for the hardcore folks in the building on those two nights.

Honky Tonk A-Rama lineup:

Friday, February 2, 1996

The Tremblers
Freightwhaler
Zen Frisbee
Tweaker
Backsliders

Saturday, February 3, 1996

Two Dollar Pistols
Trailer Bride
Pine State
Jolene
Old 97s
Chicken Wire Gang

mrpember, April 2021