It started pretty innocently. A simple conversation about the Aadam Jacobs Collection in a private discord channel.
So it began….
I brought this info to the AJC team. Everyone acknowledged that it would be a cool find, but we were in the very early stages of this project; we’re still in the very early stages of this project, and searching for 1 tape in a collection that’s measured in the tens of thousands seemed like a fool’s errand. Nonetheless, our fearless leader, Vanark, reached out to Aadam to see if he recalled taping Alex Chilton at Lounge Ax in November of 1990 and if he happened to record Phish’s opening set. In short order, we got the response:
“Yes”
So then we waited.
The team working on this project is spread across North America and Europe. We all have families and jobs that occupy our time. Many of us actively tape and share recordings of our own. Additionally, only one of us has actually met or spoken directly to Aadam.
That is to say, what we are doing, and the way we are doing it, is not normal. Aadam’s home isn’t a lending library that we stroll into, paw through his collection, and take what seems interesting. We get batches of music, and whatever it is, we work through it. All or nothing. No Tape Left Behind. For context, I’ve mixed 55 shows for the effort. Of that 55, I hadn’t heard of about 25 of the bands before working on them. For all of us, the idea of this massive tranche of music from one of the great music cities in the world not being preserved was an impossibility.
The project started with a giant trove of CD-Rs Aadam had made by a friend. As we worked our way through these, logistics were being hammered out for the rest of the physical media. We have several people with professional-level equipment in various parts of the country prepared to do tape and DAT transfers. But how are we getting them there? Who’s paying for shipping? Does the USPS even have funding and exist as a Government agency anymore?
Enough about us, you’re probably just here for the Phish.
Here it is. The master cassette of a Phish show no one had heard in 12,623 days.
So here is the chain of events that led to you listening to this right now: Vanark flew from Boston to Chicago and went to Aadam’s home. He gathered up as many cassettes and DATs as he could fit in his carry-on and flew home. Then, he cataloged everything, packaged them up for transport, and shipped them off to RyanJ in South Carolina and JohnB in Philly for transfer.
Ryan is the archivist behind the unbelievably comprehensive NinLive archive. Alongside his passion for Nine Inch Nails, he has a passion for archiving in general, and he has assembled an incredible collection of equipment for transferring physical media to digital formats. Ryan transferred Aadam’s master cassette via a Nakamichi CR-7A > NI Komplete Audio 6 >Adobe Audition > WAV.
The WAV was sent back to Vanark, who eventually passed it to me for mastering. We noticed something interesting as soon as we took a listen; it seemed that each channel of the stereo recording was an individual source. The left channel, we guessed, was a PZM mic, which Aadam used often. The other channel was clean enough that we wondered if it was a board feed. Aadam confirmed that the source was two mics and no board feed; the PZM we had assumed and a TEAC ME-120. The TEAC, as mentioned, sounded excellent but lacked ambiance and was a touch light on bass, and was a bit forward in the mix. The PZM had excellent bass and room presence but was a bit blown out.
The edict of this project has been to master with as light a touch as possible. Considering that, I very nearly released the recording exactly as Aadam captured it, but the nerd in me couldn’t resist playing just a little…
I split the stereo recording into two mono files. I placed a version of the TEAC source on each channel with a bit of EQ and compression, then blended the PZM source in at a significantly lower volume to give it some low end and room vibe. I then took that file and used a plug-in that helps manipulate the soundstage to get it centered and add some width.
So, how does it sound?
Honestly, it sounds amazing, particularly with headphones. I am continually shocked at how good many of Aadam’s recordings are. Considering we started with a 35-year-old cassette, I did not have high hopes, but seconds into the start of “Suzy Greenberg” you can hear the vitality and excitement that makes early Phish shows so intoxicating.
I’ll leave the deep analysis to the phish.net folks, but on a purely sonic level, “The Landylady” from this show is, in my opinion, superior to the recordings from 11/8 and 11/10. It offers more punch, life, and energy. “Possum,” as with most early 90s versions, sees Trey doing his best Hank Scorpio with a flame thrower impersonation. “The Lizards,” always a joy to hear, features a particularly beautiful rendition of the ending instrumental section with the resonance the Languedoc is known for on full display.
So here we are: a plane trip halfway across the country, two rounds of USPS, and considerable hemming and hawing on how to master this, and, finally, a missing piece of one of music’s most well-documented bands has been recovered. History is written, and we can all finally hear another example of Trey screwing up the lyrics to The Lizards.