Wolfgang's Vault

Just what the name says.
Chris M
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Postby Chris M » Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:20 pm

I stand corrected.
"I've had 40 years experience with hearing tape and vinyl. I was recording tapes before you were born" - Grant

David R. Modny
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Postby David R. Modny » Fri Dec 22, 2006 4:07 pm

Jelly wrote:
And there are voice-overs on some of those recordings, for instance The Allmans Winterland 73.


That particular show isn't a King Biscuit Flower Hour concert though. What I'm referring to is the KBFH *host's* segment intros and outros on the broadcast versions (e.g. "Hi, and welcome to the King Biscuit Flower Hour..." or "We'll be right back...") which often were right over the music itself. The shows they're streaming on Wolfgangs are the unedited (in most cases), pre-broadcast tapes. :)

elcelc
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Postby elcelc » Sun Dec 24, 2006 5:46 pm

Chicken : egg. Bill Graham : bootleg. I have to believe many of these bootlegs were taken out of the archieves years ago anyway. From the artists I'm familiar with, the concerts that are showing up on Wolfgangs are the same concerts that have been on bootleg and there has yet to be any "Great Lost Show" to appear. Maybe that was just a cautious approach by Wolfgangs for legal reasons. "Hey it's been on a bootleg for 30 years already. Why shouldn't we broadcast it?"

I would LOVE to see the vault open up but this could be a legal nightmare with every backup singer who ever sang at the Fillmore et al grasping for money.

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Jeff T.
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Postby Jeff T. » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:16 pm

David R. Modny wrote:Wolfgangs made a deal to be the internet repository for the KBFH shows starting this past Nov. 20th.


Are you sure that they didn't buy the tape collection outright, or you know it was an "internet only" deal?

I'm just asking what you think and not arguing your position.

Seems a new owner would be a good thing at this point since the old owners were able to get Pat Benatar, Triumph, Billy Squire, etc. issued (wow) on CDs, but failed to get much of the really good stuff out. I really hope that with the new year here, the latest desperation of the record industry we will see some neat stuff come out soon. At least the Wolfgang group have some "deep pockets" and hopefully will be able to "make it happen" as they say in the biz.

"In 2006 The King Biscuit archives merged with the Bill Graham Archives. Together these archives form an unprecedented history of live rock music. In the coming months and years we intend to make this incredibly rich archive available to the public in a variety of forms. Stay tuned! "

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Jeff T.
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Postby Jeff T. » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:26 pm

elcelc wrote:Chicken : egg. Bill Graham : bootleg. I have to believe many of these bootlegs were taken out of the archieves years ago anyway.


Those killer Led Zeppelin 69 shows only appeared in good sound around 93-95 on bootlegs in the CD era. So at any rate, I agree that there may not be much coming in audio we do not already have in one form or another.

But I do have some odd funny feeling that they are sitting on some cool filmed concert footage that those office runners who likely ran off copies of the audio were not able to transfer at that time. I wonder how many people had the keys to that basement storage room? Perhaps not many, as the poster collection, handbills, and tickets seemed to be all there.

I do recall very well a fire in Bill Grahm's offices in San Francisco back in the 80s. He was said to be heartbroken about it due to losing all this cool stuff including rare posters. Yet we now know he had another secret stash of goodies.

David R. Modny
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Postby David R. Modny » Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:06 pm

Jeff T. wrote:
Are you sure that they didn't buy the tape collection outright, or you know it was an "internet only" deal?


The might have bought it outright. I was going by "merge" press release, so who knows. Maybe both parties have a financial interest? I do know that the KBFH is still broadcasting new, weekly "best of" shows (i.e. airing on XM). So, my guess is that the DIR Network is still involved somehow.

They really should do some kind of pay lossless download thing. I'd be curious to know what their original deals were with the bands regarding future rights, particularly sales. I'm sure many would welcome the opportunity to own something like, say, The Who '73 Largo show - *complete* and in pristine quality.

So far, it seems the commercial discs (not including the KBFH VA comps) they have released over the years have been mostly "second tier" artists, IMHO. That's gotta be a rights/royalties thing.

Not to change the subject, but ditto for the Westwood One/Superstar Concert shows. Some of those were even better than the Biscuits in my opinion.

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Jeff T.
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Postby Jeff T. » Sun Jan 07, 2007 1:39 am

David R. Modny wrote:Not to change the subject, but ditto for the Westwood One/Superstar Concert shows. Some of those were even better than the Biscuits in my opinion.


No worries! Now if I may drag this further off topic, I'll add that THE SOURCE radio shows were also sometimes better recorded and mixed than the Biscuit. It all depends on the artist, and how much we are interested in their work. This is a nice Source show from 1983:

http://tinyurl.com/yku89g
http://tinyurl.com/yaq2a3

And then there was the SUPERGROUPS IN CONCERT series. I used to go nuts over owning these box sets with 3LPs and cue sheets. I got over it finally in recent years. Here are a couple from 1979 and 1980 I think.

http://tinyurl.com/ycze25
http://tinyurl.com/yzhcgk
http://tinyurl.com/v698u

I have these scans on my HD because these (along with other vintage KBFH) sets are being blown outta my collection on ebay over the next few months. I collected these sets like you, and now have some really good needle drops of them and feel now is a good time to cash them out.

Funny that none of my local record friends got into the radio show end of it. To me they are like the ultimate rare live item. The top of the food chain of bootlegs. I used to be so turned on by these, I wore out the Maxell XL-UD II cassettes of some of them. By the time I was doing CDRs of these I felt like I was Bob Clearmountain working at Ocean Way Recording doing the editing and mastering. :P

I actually have two sets of these shows on CDR. One has the full show with commercials and announcer, the other edited and mixed seamlessly with just the music. And of course photo copied cue sheets remain on file in the CDR vaults.

All this stuff is supposed to be fun and exciting. I collected these radio shows to share it and not to say "Hey look what "I" have". I enjoy hearing Roxy Music fumble through a live set on the Avalon tour trying to re-create their current studio sound (without a hope in hell of succeeding).
Last edited by Jeff T. on Tue Jan 09, 2007 2:22 am, edited 2 times in total.

David R. Modny
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Postby David R. Modny » Mon Jan 08, 2007 11:35 pm

Yeah, I was a pretty loyal taper of the radio concert/interview shows between 1977-1987 myself (e.g. Superstar, Supergroups, KBFH, BBC Rock Hour, Innerview, Off The Record). I originally taped on cassette, graduating to a Beta Hi-Fi deck in 1984. I then started collecting a few choice titles in their original transcription form. I have the Hollies 2-LP 1983 Source show - which used to be one of the big-ticket radio shows, value-wise (wayyyy overpriced by The Old Hippie...RIP), until it was commercially released on CD and its worth plummeted...lol.

In terms of vinyl sound, the different LP's from the different networks could be all over the place. I have a Chicago Westwood One set from 1982 where they unfortunately decided to cram the whole 90 minute show on to 2 LP's. Pretty hard to get decent fidelity with 27 minutes on one side! Though recording wise, as noted, these shows are the ultimate "bootlegs" for collectors. I'd love to hear the actual master tapes!

I have some Biscuit shows on CD and several Superstar Concert Series shows on disc as well. But, the (usually) heavily edited Biscuit shows tend to lose some of their allure for me in CD form.

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JWB
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Postby JWB » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:44 pm

The '75 Black Sabbath show that was leaked by somebody at KBFH is nothing short of remarkable. There are some pops and clicks but I removed them easily in CoolEdit. Supposedly they pro-recorded 3 shows from this era for KBFH, and none of them were ever used? In fact, the sound and mix is extremely similar to "Live At Last" once you swap the channels and fix the EQ. I wonder if it was recorded by the same crew. They used a few tracks from this show for "Past Lives" but supposedly the quality is much worse than the boot!

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Jeff T.
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Postby Jeff T. » Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:23 pm

JWB wrote:The '75 Black Sabbath show that was leaked by somebody at KBFH is nothing short of remarkable. There are some pops and clicks but I removed them easily in CoolEdit. Supposedly they pro-recorded 3 shows from this era for KBFH, and none of them were ever used? In fact, the sound and mix is extremely similar to "Live At Last" once you swap the channels and fix the EQ. I wonder if it was recorded by the same crew. They used a few tracks from this show for "Past Lives" but supposedly the quality is much worse than the boot!


I like that 75 Sabbath recording much more than the Live at Last release.

In fact, I can't recall ever hearing a Biscuit that I didn't think sounded at least very good. Most of them have presence and detail. And when one gets leaked out without announcer, well.... then they are heavenly.

To think that some artists that do not have live albums of the peak periods in their careers - sometimes there remains a live radio show sitting around waiting to be liberated.

It would be nice if someday someone that worked at KBFH told us what's there and how it survives. Until then, those 1970s reels and the later LP sets sent to radio do indeed suffice. :D
Last edited by Jeff T. on Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

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krabapple
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Postby krabapple » Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:53 am

A few years back King Biscuit released a two-CD set of their ELP live recordings (I'd never heard ELP on King Bisguit back in they day, though I did hear them on ohte rlive radio shows). I was surprised to find that one of the shows (incomplete on the CD) was the exact same performance used for the official live ELP album ("Welcome Back My Friends (etc)") but with a somewhat different mix (eg much less reverb on the vocals). Unfortunately, the KB recording is only a little better than the LP (which is one of the crappiest-sounding live albums I know of)...so much so that I wonder if the LP was just the KB tape, doctored in the studio.
"I recommend that you delete the Rancid Snakepit" - Grant

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Jeff T.
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Postby Jeff T. » Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:56 am

Indeed, ELP (along with others) used the Biscuit tapes for a full on live album. Other artists have generally used a few tracks here and here rather than a full KBFH session.

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Postby Chris M » Fri Jan 12, 2007 1:10 am

Anyone have the skinny on the Who '73 KLB broadcast? I have the Tales From The Who boot as well as a CDR sounds MUCH better but has a different tracklist.
"I've had 40 years experience with hearing tape and vinyl. I was recording tapes before you were born" - Grant

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Jeff T.
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Postby Jeff T. » Fri Jan 12, 2007 1:49 am

Chris M wrote:Anyone have the skinny on the Who '73 KLB broadcast? I have the Tales From The Who boot as well as a CDR sounds MUCH better but has a different tracklist.


That CD (the one that looks like a MFSL OMR) does sound good. I did not notice it has different track list when compared to the TMQ vinyl boot.

At any rate, I'm happy that I have some of the show and that it sounds good. Funny when the band comes in wrong with the backing tape on "The Real Me"

At any rate, no real story to report. KBFH did the show, much of it not around. I'll bet Pete and band feel feel it is ragged and not worth release.

'The beach is the place where a man can feel...

David R. Modny
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Postby David R. Modny » Fri Jan 12, 2007 2:45 am

Chris M wrote:Anyone have the skinny on the Who '73 KLB broadcast? I have the Tales From The Who boot as well as a CDR sounds MUCH better but has a different tracklist.



There was a re-broadcast (different edit) of the show in the late 90's. Thus, a KBFH/ DIR network radio promo silver disc exists. Having not heard the CD boot, I'd assume it's lifted from that? As I recall, My Wife was on the re-broadcast. There have probably been other re-airings as well over the last 30 years. All the radio concert series networks tended to slightly alter the track lineups when possible on re-airings - making collecting them all the more frustrating when trying to assemble complete or near-complete shows.

I do have the the Tales From The Who colored vinyl boot, which I purchased 25 years ago. Sound quality was pretty lousy on that...sounded like it was just lifted from a taping off the air. The original '74 airing was supposedly in Quad (no pun intended).

As far as *original* recording quality goes, the KBFH radio shows (and others for that matter) would vary from show-to-show. Both DIR and Westwood One's mobile units were pretty much state of the art by the time the 80's rolled around. Yet, some shows aren't that great sounding, while others are stellar. Also interesting is just how much better some of the KBFH official remixed, *released* discs sounded compared to their earlier promo vinyl and CD transcription (i.e. broadcast) discs. I have several KBFH radio discs from the 80's and 90's where they actually built some analog compression into the mastering (obviously for their FM stations), whereas the remixed commercially released counterparts didn't...and sound better as a result.

Westwood One's truck in particular recorded some nice shows along the way. (i.e. In Concert & Superstar Concert Series). I have some Superstar Concert CD's from the 90's that are stellar. Conversely, as I noted earlier, I have a 1982 WW1 Chicago show on vinyl that while recorded pretty well (e.g. multi-miked stereo panned drums), had it's fidelity obliterated by trying to squeeze too much on to an LP side...no bass!