Freightwhaler  
February 2, 1996 - 
Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC  
"Honky Tonk-A-Rama"  

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: 45:58

Ryan Adams - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vox
Sloane Doggett - guitar
Eric "Skillet" Gilmore - drums
Chris Laney - bass
Nicholas Petti - pedal steel guitar  

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]

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
the Backsliders

Saturday, February 3, 1996--  

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

mrpember, April 2021

vanillag NOTES (1/4/2022):  
--HUGE thanks to mrpember for recording & sharing this beauty from his master & reworking it!!  
--did some more research on this, confirmed date & song titles, players, etc. & added some more detail to the info
--There seems to be no real consensus on whether this band's name was spelled 'Freightwhaler' or 'Freight Whaler'...even 
the wikipedia page for their unreleased album splits the difference, listing the album as "The Freightwhaler Sessions" & the 
band as "Freight Whaler' & also 'Freightwhaler (Freight Whaler)'.  So, I guess it doesn't really matter, but I'm gonna defer to 
mrpember's expertise here & stick with 'Freightwhaler'.  
--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freightwhaler_Sessions
--added the ffp fingerprints to the text file
--added pictures of the venue
--https://indyweek.com/music/features/remembering-alt.country-s-big-1996-showcase/
--https://www.nodepression.com/honky-tonk-a-rama-local-506-chapel-hill-nc/  

ffp:  
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t01.flac:c9d22525028c807a2b730c1026bf1e83
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t02.flac:7981c747bb2affeb680f6aa9a81b0fcd
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t03.flac:1617a115d663ce30ec84abab26f8efc6
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t04.flac:fe66443f81657a7a3caf0362f8b3ce54
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t05.flac:e5ef0ff3463697d4e63bfb44e3698a3d
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t06.flac:7f9049cd4f8cad603c012b1fb51db4d1
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t07.flac:74b1684b7080523e60e944f2a1cf06a4
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t08.flac:5c7cfd1d975af31d9edb580891c02f61
Freight Whaler 1996-02-02 Honky Tonk-a-Rama Local 506_t09.flac:27d6908bc9b42fc98285ab9d1063fff5