THE RAINMAKERS
May 2, 1989	
Lampkin Activity Center,
Northwest Missouri State University,
Maryville MO

The Rainmakers Remaster Project RMRP-03

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

For more information:
Please visit http://www.mjochim.com/rainmakers/remasters/intro.html
Please join the RainmakersRemasters Group at http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/RainmakersRemasters/

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Tracklist:
DISC 1 (56:24)
01.  One More Summer (04:51)
02.  Downstream (03:07)
03.  Hoo Dee Hoo (04:54)
04.  Tornado Of Love (04:47)
05.  Doomsville (04:42)
06.  No Romance (04:21)
07.  Snakedance (05:16)
08.  Government Cheese (05:51)
09,  Spend It On Love (03:30)
10.  The Wages Of Sin (03:22)
11.  The Lakeview Man (03:40)
12.  Long Gone Long (04:14)
13.  The One That Got Away (03:06)

DISC 2 (51:25)
01.  Small Circles (03:35)
02.  Information (05:08)
03.  Nobody Knows (03:55)
04.  Drinkin' On The Job (17:59)
05.  Rockin' At The T-Dance (03:08)
06.  I Talk With My Hands (06:03)
07.  Amazing Grace (02:00)
08.  Let My People Go-Go (04:40)
09.  Big Fat Blonde (04:35)

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


Lineage:
Single-Point Microphone > Sony Cassette Recorder > Master Cassette Tape > Cassette Tape (1st Generation) > Goldwave v5.08 (track editing & cutting, denoising) > mkwACT v0.97 > .shn

Files:
SHNs............22
MD5s.............1
TXT..............2
ART..............2

Size:  785,804,037 bytes

MD5 Checksums:
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RMRP-03 NOTES


The Show:

The sessions for The Rainmakers' third Mercury album, "The Good News And The Bad News," had been held in Los Angeles and Austin during December 1988 and January 1989.  With the completed album turned-in, the band awaited it's release by playing a few weekend shows during the Spring of 1989.  These were warm-ups for what was anticipated to be their biggest tour yet, scheduled to begin with an extensive swing through Europe (and which would have included The Rainmakers' first shows in what was then still Communist Russia).  However, the album's release was pushed back to the end of May and the European tour was pared-down to include just one British date and nine gigs in Norway.  A last-minute opportunity to open for The Doobie Brothers on their U.S. reunion tour proved too great a chance to turn down.

The last of these warm-up dates was the May 2nd show at Bob's alma mater, Northwest Missouri State University. Although The Walkenhorst Brothers and Steve, Bob & Rich had previously played on-campus in such venues as the Satellite Lounge, and Steve had played there as a member of Pure Prairie League, this was the first time the full band had performed in the large Lampkin Gymnasium. They were determined to make it a show to remember. As it turns out, Steve's wife was due to deliver their second child the night of the show.  This is reflected by the band performing impromptu versions of such songs as "She's Having My Baby" and "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" during a lengthy Train Weck Medley.

It really is a high-energy show, which was my main criteria for including it early in the RMRP series; I felt that the obvious fun the band was having far outweighed the dodgy sound quality (see below).  My favorite part of any of The Rainmakers' concerts during this time period were the medleys during "Drinkin' On The Job."  These were never rehearsed; someone would begin a riff and the other members of the band would (usually) pick up on what song it was and they would perform a few verses.  Sometimes, it would sound like a complete train wreck and fans took to calling it the "Train Wreck Medley."  The medley on May 2, 1989, was one of the longest -- clocking in close to 18 minutes.  I particularly like the version of "Mony Mony," played at the request of a member of the audience -- see if you can recognize the voice of who screamed the request ;-).  This show also includes my second favorite version of "Let My People Go-Go" (preceded by a version of "Amazing Grace"); check out the cool organ-like harmonics during the middle break, played by Steve on his guitar.


The Recording:

Well, the sound of this recording will never win any awards. It was taped with an analogue Sony Walkman-type cassette recorder by a member of the audience. Although only a single-point microphone was used, resulting in a mono recording, the microphone was elevated above the heads of nearby audience members so there isn't a lot of interference on the tape (talking, loud clapping, etc.).  The taper captured the full show, with a few brief portions of music missed due to tape flips. The nice thing is that there was very little high-end distortion on the recording, difficult to do at a Rainmakers show since this particular recorder didn't allow the taper to set levels. You will also notice that the taper moved to a different spot (more to the left of center-stage) during the encores.


The Remaster:

Like all off these remasters, the first process was transferring the raw audio onto my computer's hard disk drive. I hadn't previously converted this show to digital so the source was a first-generation dub of the master cassette tapes. These were two Maxell XL-II 90-minute chrome tapes; the original dub was without any noise reduction. I am now using a Windows-based PC and my sound-editing software of choice is Goldwave (I'm using v5.08; one of these days, I'll check to see if there's an update available).  I record each side of the source tape as one large WAV file; this particular show resulted in three WAV's.  I then place the track markers at an appropriate spot at the beginning of each song -- Goldwave is setup to cut the tracks along the proper sector boundaries.  
At the tape flips, I restore the continuity of the music - if the flip occurs during a song, I edit the two halves together as best as I can.  Other people who remaster shows take patches from other shows to fill in the missing pieces; I don't like to do that as it's often very difficult to sonically match the different audio sources.  Usually, the missing section is so minor that it's not noticeable unless you really are searching for it.  On the Maryville show, the most obvious flip came in the middle of "The Lakeview Man."

A few of the other flaws in the original recording that have been smoothed-out (but not entirely eliminated) in the remaster include some microphone drift during "Snakedance" (a possible dropout), a tape glitch at the end of "The Lakeview Man," a slight dropout at the beginning of "Born To Be Wild," the beginning few notes of "I Talk With My Hands" were missing, and the taper paused his recording immediately after "Let My People Go-Go."  

My next step on this show was to find a suitable denoising level in order to remove the hiss from the recording.  On this remaster, I had to try several different levels -- slightly too much or slightly too little and it created a strange metallic "swirling" noise during the quieter sections of the recording.  Once a "perfect" level was found through trial-and-error, I created a preset that I could apply to each individual track (takes less time and less CPU cycles to denoise a shorter piece of music rather than an entire tape side).

With the 15 years of hiss reduced to a tolerable level, it was time to "beef up" the recording.  Since this recording was in mono, I first had to recreate a stereo image.  This was accomplished by merely copying the left channel and pasting it into a right channel file, while trying to keep the individual instruments in their proper place (i.e., Steve's guitar on the left, Rich's bass on the right, etc.). Although now in "fake" stereo, the overall sound of the recording was still very tinny.  I tried several levels of reverb, delays, etc. to try and give the recording a "fuller" sound. Often, these attempts had really odd results -- occasionally, I'd break down laughing because they sounded so ridiculous; more often, it was an excercise in frutration. In the end, I decided to leave it "as is." 

After a while, your ear does become accustomed to the less-than-stellar sound. And, at times, it does sound remarkably good -- the ambience of the hall itself is very present during portions of the recording which I find most enjoyable.  I hope you will agree.  No, the sound won't earn any awards, but I think it's a nice addition to the collection.

Enjoy the show!

Mark Jochim
March 22, 2005