Okay, B-Sides is officially published. There are a lot of interesting chapters in the book. I'll highlight some of my favorites over the next few weeks but will start off by tipping my cap (and a draft beer) to Joe Bonomo for writing about Hank Thompson's Smokey The Bar. If you're not familiar with Hank (and his ace group, the Brazos Valley Boys), he's a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame who specialized in a sophisticated fine-tuned country swing sound that went back to Bob Wills.  He had a lot of hits in the 50s and 60s (more than Wills) and was still active into the early 21st century.  If you've seen the movie Crazy Heart, the Jeff Bridges character "Bad Blake" was modeled after Hank Thompson in his later career after the Brazos Valley Boys disbanded and Hank's commercial star descended.  Hank would tour like Chuck Berry, working with local bands without rehearsal. That would explain why the concert I saw in 1989 was really cringeworthy. I probably owned several dozen Hank records and was totally psyched to see him live.  But the back-up band was clueless and tried to render themselves invisible as the (mercifully brief) set unfolded. Regardless, do yourself a favor and dial up some classic Hank over the weekend.  You'll be glad you did.  (Unfortunately, Smokey The Bar has never been reissued as near as I can tell. But Dance Ranch is a great starting point.)

Which brings me to my main topic today...how can you hear the Springsteen show I wrote about?  For quite a long time, it was available in its entirety on YouTube but it seems to have disappeared recently.  Not sure why that would happen as there are tons of Springsteen postings on YouTube.  Bruce Inc. seems to have given up long ago trying to prevent uploads of independent origin.  When I took my son to see Bruce in the early 2000s, someone on Bruce's crew had a fit that my son was trying to take a few pictures on his cheesy cell phone from the front row of the second level.  Kept shining a laser pointer at him (must be nice to be that important).

So where to find it?  Do a search and if you're familiar at all with "recordings of independent origin" and how they're shared, you'll find it.  Below is a description from the posting where I discovered it.  What really blows my mind is that Hobart and William Smith is a small college and my friends and I were at the center of the Springsteen fan base.  My friend Peter Kapp took over the concert committee reigns after I graduated (he basically produced the 1975 Born To Run tour concert at the Geneva Theater for Mike Appel).  So it would seem to have been likely that if a tape of this quality was made by a student, it would have found its way to Peter.  I'm going to try to find out the ultimate source of the tape and will report back.

Springsteen has been releasing concert recordings through nugs.net for a while but very little from the 1970s (he's just gotten around to the legendary oft-bootlegged 1978 broadcasts).  I've read a lot of the commentary on fan sites and there's been a debate as to why there's no releases from 1975 or earlier.  A few of the main opinions as to why are:
> high quality tapes don't exist
> tapes exist but the ownership is murky (seems to me though that Bruce has enough money to be able to solve that problem with a check).
> Jon Landau is loathe to highlight how great Bruce was before Landau took over from Mike Appel.  It goes against the myth (perpetrated by Dave Marsh and others) that Landau saved Bruce from the clutches of the evil / clueless Appel. (That narrative doesn't quite explain how Bruce made arguably his two best albums with Appel behind the board.) I'll write more about Appel in future posts.  Having worked with him on a concert and witnessed five early Springsteen shows, I've always firmly believed that Mike is the largely unsung hero in the Springsteen story. It's been great to see him get more credit in recent years for his pivotal role and for he and Bruce to reconcile.  I was at the concert in Buffalo (Clarence's last concert) where Bruce acknowledged Mike (he had flown up with the band) and cheered mightily.

This is an audience tape and as someone with thousands of ROIOS, I can tell you that an audience tape of this quality from the early 1970s is rare indeed.  A lot of the Springsteen fans on chat boards obsess over the quality of the nugs.net releases and would probably bristle over the release of an audience tape.  That's never been a problem for me if the captured performance is as tremendous as this one.  Play with your stereo knobs to dial in the best sound and turn it up loud. After a few moments you'll be swept along and not even notice that the sound quality isn't equal to an official live release (which as we all know may not be that "live" after all the overdubs in post-production).

So here's the info.  Happy hunting...



Bruce Springsteen 
Geneva Theatre 
Geneva, NY 
December 7, 1974 
previously uncirculated show and recording 
ML reel source via JEMS 

recording gear: unknown tape recorder > stereo mics 

JEMS 2015 Transfer: Likely first-generation reel copy (3-3/4 IPS) > Otari 5050 mkII azimuth-adjusted transfer > USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 (24/96) capture > IZotope RX + Ozone 5 > iZotope RX MBIT+ resample 16/44.1 > Peak Pro XT (volume smoothing / edit / index) > xACT 2.21 > FLAC 

01 Incident on 57th Street 
02 Spirit in the Night 
03 Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street? 
04 I Want You (Bob Dylan cover) 
05 Growin’ Up 
06 E Street Shuffle 
07 It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City 
08 Gimme That Wine (Clarence Clemons lead vocals) 
09 Jungleland 
10 Kitty’s Back 
11 New York City Serenade 
12 Rosalita 
13 Sandy 
14 A Love So Fine 
15 Wear My Ring Around Your Neck (Elvis Presley cover, written by Carol and Moody) 
16 Quarter to Three (Gary US Bonds cover) 

Known Faults: 
-E Street Shuffle: splice 

JEMS is pleased to release another lost and found recording, this of a previously uncirculated show at the Geneva Theatre in Geneva, NY, December 7, 1974, Bruce and the band’s second to last gig of the year. According to the indispensible Brucebase, the concert was booked by the local Hobart & William Smith College and featured Jae Mason as the opening act. 

Geneva turns out to be an unusually solid tape for the era, recorded with two mics in stereo and remarkably free of material cuts. The crowd around the mics, presumably the taper and his friends, are going crazy but it only adds to the atmosphere on this highly listenable document of a fantastic period in Springsteen’s concert history that featured Suki Lahav on cello. 

While the show is largely standard for the era, that sells short a set list that includes a stunning “Incident” to open, the striking cover of Dylan’s “I Want You,” and an epic three-song stretch that moves from the as-yet-unreleased “Jungleland” to “Kitty’s Back” to what just might be the longest ever performance of “New York City Serenade,” clocking in north of 24 minutes of majesty. 

From the sublime to the ridiculous, due to Bruce breaking a guitar string, we’re treated a rare lead vocal from the Big Man, Clarance Clemons, on the time-filling vamp, “Gimme That Wine.” The show wraps with a rousing “A Love So Fine” into a storming “Wear My Ring” and last but not least, “the greatest dance record ever recorded,” “Quarter to Three.” 

The tape itself is one of half a dozen reel-to-reels loaned to JEMS from ML, which were all low-gen copies of known recordings with this one major exception. A big thank you to him for shipping out the reels and letting us release the show. Thanks as well to AM and PR, whose enthusiasm for Geneva got me even more excited about it. Tapeboy handled the pitch adjustments, which are much appreciated. And last but not least, thanks to mjk5510 for catching the files as always when they come off the post-production line. 

BK for JEMS 

EDITED ARTWORK FOR A 3CD SET IS IN THE COMMENTS...