The dB's - Peppermint Lounge, NYC 1982 - NEW FIND!

Peppermint Lounge 
New York, N.Y.
Jan. 22, 1982

audience recording (sound quality: VG+; from Gene Poole master recording)
      

FIRST SET

The other Fab Four: Peter, Will, Gene & Chris

photos by Julia Gorton except Will Rigby by (unidentified)

01  Black and White
02  We Were Happy There 
03  Ups and Downs
04  I Feel Good (Today) 
05  pH Factor
06  Amplifier
07  Ask for Jill
08  Living a Lie
09  Excitement
10  Bad Reputation
11  Happenstance
12  Neverland

SECOND SET
13  intro
14  Up Around the Bend 
       (CCR cover)
15  Soul Kiss
16  Big Time
17  Living a Lie
18  Molly Says
19  The Summer Sun
20  Judy

21  In Spain

The dB's by Julia Gorton, c. 1982

courtesy of The Winston-Salem Journal

    

22  Big Brown Eyes
23  Storm Warning
24  Excitement
25  I Thought (You Wanted to Know)
26  Tobacco Road (John D. Loudermilk song 
        via Spooky Tooth) 
27  The Fight

The dB's:
Chris Stamey – guitar, vocals
Peter Holsapple – guitar, vocals
Gene Holder – bass guitar
Will Rigby – drums

ROB SEZ: In case you ever wondered about the value of this new-fangled thing called the Internet, wonder no more. Through the magic of the web, here now is one of two recently-surfaced dB's audio artifacts. Both are courtesy of the tape archives of Gene Poole and the audio expertise of elegymart. The first one, offered here, is vintage dB's. It was captured during the brief period after the guys recorded Repercussion but before Chris left the constraints of the band to pursue other musical adventures. Mr. Poole managed to capture very good quality audio without undue, non-musical intrusions. Recently, elegymart lovingly transferred the raw audio and made it available to us (read his fine notes about the recording below). There was a speed problem I corrected before offering it to you here, so this is my take on GP's original recording. Next week: a 1987 dB's live recording, newly-unearthed, also courtesy of Gene Poole & elegymart.

FLAC
   
MP3@320 

THE GENE POOLE COLLECTION VOL. 170

We're bringing you two sets this time from the classic line-up of the dB's from the Peppermint Lounge. 

The band have just come back from playing Los Angeles, and this was their supposedly final show before embarking for an European tour (Robinbrevard's live gigology shows they continued playing some US east coast dates into February, so who knows). There's also an ad for this show that appears to be edited and has the old 128 West 45th Street address on it, but the Peppermint Lounge should have closed out of that location by 1978. By 1980, the club would have been firmly established at its downtown address.

The dB's play what they consider a tight set at 11:30 PM, followed by their much later and looser set at 2:00 AM. Admission was half price before 10:00PM, which seems to have encouraged Gene to be there on time. Consider these other following elements: Gene continues to be an avid follower of the dB's to this day, plus his recordings of 1982 vintage were not plagued with mic problems as they were in later years, and he was usually able to situate himself in the sweet spot at the Pep. Yeah, this one's a keeper.

The dB's only repeat two songs in each set, "Living a Lie" and the heretofore still unreleased "Excitement." There's enough variety between the two sets, and their early catalog was chock full of power pop goodness, so you're bulletproofed against disappointment here. The quirkiness of the late show turns up covers from Creedence and the Nashville Teens (there is a mid-cut due to a tape flip on the latter, however). The Pep DJ sounds thrilled enough by the CCR that "Sweet Hitchhiker" is cued up to play after the band concluded the evening.

Enjoy,
elegymart