Young Marble Giants
Western Front, Civic Center
San Francisco, CA
1980-10-26
THTP Release 47
Young Marble Giants originated in Cardiff, Wales during 1978. Their minimalism was influenced by the punk scene, but in sharp contrast they stripped their sound back to basics, creating music based around the vocals of Alison Statton and the sparse instrumentation of brothers Philip and Stuart Moxham.
Another John Peel band, the legendary DJ began playing their music on Radio 1 after the release of their album Colossal Youth. He introduced their sound to a larger nationwide audience. There is a ninety-minute recording of the show broadcast on Tuesday 26 August 1980, available on the John Peel Wiki that includes the Young Marble Giants session, listen to musical history as it was being made.
The band released their debut and only full-length studio album, Colossal Youth, in February 1980. The debut single 'Final Day' was released in April 1980 and two of the tracks 'Radio Silents' and 'Colossal Youth' were included in this live set. (Dates are according to Discogs, Peel played tracks from the album in early April and the single in June)
This recording was made and preserved by collector / engineer Terry Hammer, for broadcast over the UC Berkeley station KALX, one of many others from the 1979 -1981 period. Terry would get a decent feed from the sound mixing board, then mixed direct to 2-Track Reel To Reel (and Cassette deck for backup and personal use) using headphones. It was mixed using a dedicated mixing board, with an additional one to two audience microphones in the mix.
These recordings were released on the Dime torrent site and provoked a storm of interest. They are easily found under the title 'Terry Hammer Tape Project' or THTP for short.
Setlist:
01. Dirk intro >
02. N.I.T.A.
03. Holidays
04. Choci Loni
05. Radio Silents
06. Music For Evenings
07. Colossal Youth
08. Searching For Mr. Right
09. Credit In The Straight World
10. Brand New Life
11. Include Me Out
12. Wurlitzer Jukebox > Dirk outro
Length: 35:51
Band:
Alison Statton - vocals
Philip Moxham - bass
Stuart Moxham - guitar, keyboards
Recording chain:
Stage mics > splitter (split to house snake/SBD and TH snake) > TH dedicated snake >
Peavy MkII 12 channel mixing board (10 channels snake, 2 channels audience mics) >
AKAI GXC-570D Cassette Deck (Dolby B on) > TDK SA-90 tape
Archival Process:
1999: Sony TC-KA3ES > TDK SA-90 tapes playback (NO Dolby) > BBE 462 Sonic Maximizer (to clean up tapes) > Tascam DA-30 DAT > HHb DAT-125 DAT tape
2002: HHb CDR-850 Professional CD Recorder (In real time) > HHb CDR74 Gold 100 year archival grade CDRs 2005: Transfered to HDD in AIFF file format
Dime release processing: AIFF Master Files > FFMPEG > 16 bit FLAC 8 > tagging, cover artwork, checksums. Recorded, preserved, and master AIFF files provided by: Terry Hammer
thebasement67: (16bit 48kHz files > WAV > 16bit 44.1kHz > Flac 8)
Very nice recording! Thank you so much for sharing all the wonderful stuff on your blog. This is very much appreciated! Cheers Dan
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post! I was fortunate to see them the very same day as this show - as the advert you included states, they played that evening at the Keystone Palo Alto, just 30 miles south of San Francisco. It was a wonderful show with Cabaret Voltaire headlining.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, guys. A special gig seeing both YMG and the Cabs.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Would love to hear the Cabs set too.
ReplyDeleteInfo on the Hammer recordings was made available in the Bootlegs of the Year document and the means of findng them. If you go to the Dimeadozen tracker they are still available there.
ReplyDelete