THE RAINMAKERS
May 31, 1986
Parody Hall,
Kansas City MO

The Rainmakers Remaster Project RMRP-01

Remastered by Mark Jochim <m.jochim@att.net>,
January 2005

For more information:
Please visit http://www.mjochim.com/rainmakers/remasters/intro.html

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Tracklist:
01. Christine (3:03)
02. Cool Down (2:55)
03. The Book Of Life (3:23)
04. Government Cheese (2:58)
05. The Wages Of Sin (3:04)
06. Long Gone Long (3:58)
07. Big Fat Blonde (4:16)
08. Downstream (2:55)
09. Let My People Go-Go (4:01)
10. Kissin' Time (3:09)
11. Rockin' At The T-Dance (3:10)
12. Don't Let Go (3:10)
13. Drinkin' On The Job (4:45)
14. Nobody Knows (3:36)
15. Hello I Said (4:08)
16. I Talk With My Hands (3:58)
17. KCUR-FM Interview (7:07)
Total Time:  (64:19)

Personnel:
Bob Walkenhorst:  lead vocals, acoustic guitar
Steve Phillips:  electric guitar, vocals, lead vocal on "Nobody Knows"
Rich Ruth:  bass, vocals
Pat Tomek:  drums

Lineage:
[source 1:] SBD > FM Broadcast > Technics Stereo Deck > Master CS (Maxell XL-II) > Akai GXC 570 Pro Deck > Audiomedia III Soundcard > ProTools; [source 2:] SBD > FM Broadcast > Unknown Master CD > CDR > CDR Trade > EAC (secure mode) > Goldwave v5.08 > mkwACT v0.97 > .shn

Files:
SHNs............17
MD5s.............1
TXT..............2
ART..............2

Size:  491,765,760 bytes

MD5 Checksums:
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RMRP-01 NOTES


The Show:

This recording can either be called the last Steve, Bob & Rich (plus Pat) gig or the first Rainmakers concert.  Local press advertisements listed the May 30 and 31 Parody Hall engagement as by Steve, Bob & Rich.  But as lead singer Bob Walkenhorst exclaims before launching into a powerful version of "Downstream", "we are changing the name of the band..."

The band had plenty to celebrate that night.

The "little band from K.C." had been playing together for more than four years by then -- first as Steve, Bob & Dave;  Boystown was a short-lived name before the change to Steve, Bob & Rich by the summer of 1983.  The trio self-released an LP (Balls) the following year and by 1985 were attracting major-label attention.  PolyGram Records won the bidding war and signed the group that fall; drummer Pat Tomek joined shortly after, freeing Bob to abandon the standup drums he used to play and allowing him to concentrate on front-man duties.

Bob and Pat, along with guitarist Steve Phillips and bassist Rich Ruth, spent the spring of 1986 recording their first Mercury/PolyGram release at Ardent Studios in Memphis.  The May 30 and 31st shows marked their "triumphant homecoming".  Everyone in the audience -- as well as onstage -- were very proud of the imminent mid-July release of the record.

To add to the festivities local FM station 89.0 KCUR were present the second night, recording the band for their popular "City Spark" series.  It was also the eve of Bob's 33rd birthday.

The three one-hour sets the band played each night during those Parody Hall shows featured many songs they had been playing for years at that point.  Some songs, such as "Let My People Go-Go" and "Big Fat Blonde", had originally been released on the Balls album and proved so popular they were re-recorded for release on the debut Rainmakers LP.  Others, including Steve's "Cool Down" and Bob's "Hello I Said", would never be officially released and would soon disappear from the live shows altogether.  The show even included several tunes that would eventually be released on their second album, Tornado, in October 1987  (these include "The Wages Of Sin" and "I Talk With My Hands").


The Recording:

KCUR-FM broadcast a heavily-edited mix recorded during all three sets performed on May 31, 1986.  The original broadcast occurred the weekend after the show and a slightly different version was repeated during the Fourth of July weekend.  This first volume in the Rainmakers Remaster Project originates from recordings of both broadcasts.

The first airing of the "City Spark" Rainmakers show featured the most music -- about 55 minutes worth, from "Cool Down" to the closing "I Talk With My Hands".  I taped this from the radio myself (using a Technics RS-B11W stereo cassette deck -- "old faithful," I called it -- onto a single Maxell XL-II cassette tape, without Dolby noise reduction); the tape flip occurred between "Hello I Said" and "I Talk With My Hands".  It was this master tape that provided the bulk of this remaster.

The July 5, 1986, rebroadcast featured less music but added one song -- "Christine".  After "Nobody Knows", the audience was faded-out and a short backstage interview with the full band was added to the program.  This interview was also recorded the night of May 31st, but was intended to be held until shortly before the album's scheduled release (the band try to pretend it's July at that point, but they wouldn't play at Parody Hall again for almost two years).

I only received a copy of this second broadcast source recording in early January 2005.  A fellow member of the Rainmakers Official Message Board had noticed that the setlist of the show as listed on my Trading List didn't quite match the copy she had.  Her copy had actually come from someone else who had taped the rebroadcast and converted the show himself.

Knowing that I could combine the two recordings to make a more complete show actually planted the final seed for this remastering project; I'd long planned to remaster some of my earlier Rainmakers analog-digital conversions using improved knowledge and equipment.  I decided the May 31, 1986, show would be a perfect place to start.


The Remaster:

Since the show was professionally recorded to begin with, very little work needed to be done on the tapes.  I did decide to do a fresh transcription from my original master cassette, rather than just redoing the previous conversion I'd made in 1999.

Combining the two source recordings proved to be a little more problematic.  My original tape ("source 1") was in stereo, both channels were balanced, the sound was bright and clear with good dynamics.  There was, naturally, some hiss but it wasn't excessive.  The newly-received CDR ("source 2") was also in stereo, but the channels were significantly out-of-balance and recording levels were fairly low.  This had the result of there being much less hiss than my recording.  One other problem was that this second source had gaps or fade-outs between every track.  I did run a spectral analysis and determined the source 2 recording hadn't previously been converted to mp3.  In the end, it was decided to just keep the additional material from this rebroadcast ("Christine" and the interview) and mix those into the source 1 recording.

I took great care on getting the stereo phasing correct on source 2's "Christine", which I then frequency balanced to blend in as good as possible with the source 1 recording.  The last notes of this song were faded-out on the source 2 recording but I matched it by mixing the first guitar note of "Cool Down" into the fade.  It's difficult to spot the join even if you know it's there!

The ending interview was a bit easier to deal with since it wasn't connected to any song.  I just balanced the channels and raised the volume level somewhat.  Unfortunately, this increased the noise bed creating some additional hiss.  In the end, I decided not to denoise this (or any portion) of the show -- after a couple of attempts at noise reduction, I decided the hiss sound more natural.

The recording does suffer somewhat from the compression added by the original radio broadcasts.  Unfortunately, there really isn't much I can do about that -- other than trying to obtain a pre-broadcast recording from the radio station itself (perhaps they have the rest of the show in their vaults!).

Once I was satisfied with the overall sound, I cut the tracks along proper sector boundaries and converted to .shn.

I think this show is a good introduction to the band -- it presents them on the verge of their first national release and the resulting critical acclaim while showcasing the band's tightness from playing so many previous gigs together.

Enjoy the show!

Mark Jochim
Janaury 18, 2005