Pylon - 1988-07-23 Athens, GA (sbd M1)

40 Watt

Athens, GA

July 23, 1988

soundboard recording (EX quality; from cassette copy of master)

00 stage entrance, tuning

01 Driving School

02 Cool

03 Working Is No Problem 

04 Gravity

05 Altitude

06 Show

07 Crazy

08 Danger

09 No Clocks

10 Read a Book

11 There It Is

12 Weather Radio

13 Volume

14 Beep

15 Stop It

16 pre-encore applause, etc.

17 M-Train

18 Feast On My Heart

19 pre-encore applause, tuning, etc.

20 Dub

SAMPLE: Cool

Pylon:

Randy Bewley (R.I.P.) - guitar

Vanessa Briscoe Hay - vocals

Curtis Crowe - drums

Michael Lachowski - bass

LINEAGE: online download of 16-bit lossless file > Audacity 3.7 for Mac for normalization & DC offset, track splits, removal of dead spots, adding fades, tagging > FLAC16   -NO EQ, NO COMPRESSION, NO NOISE REDUCTION-

Do yourself a favor: get Pylon Box

ROB SEZ: HUGE thanks to the kind trader who shared this with me. He prefers to remain anonymous, and told me this is from a first-generation cassette copy of the soundboard master. As received, I only needed to split and tag the tracks, normalize, apply fades, and remove dead spots. No eq, compression or noise reduction was used; no small animals harmed.

Vanessa not only thanks the 40 Watt, but also R.E.M. -- the reason for which is not evident, since REMTimeline has the band in N.Y. state in this part of July, and they played no known gigs on 23 July. 

I like this recording a bit better than the 1983 soundboard I shared last week. Vanessa's voice is more prominent in the mix, and the band sounds tighter than ever. Please enjoy.

FLAC

MP3@320

    

Pylon - 1983-06-29 Athens, GA (sbd M1)

40 Watt

Athens, GA

June 29, 1983

  

soundboard recording (M1 - EX quality)

  

SAMPLE TRACK: Buzz

Pylon:

Randy Bewley (R.I.P.) - guitar

Vanessa Briscoe Hay - vocals

Curtis Crowe - drums

Michael Lachowski - bass

The recording I'm sharing is pretty good.
But this official release is AMAZING.
A must have; go get it.

ROB SEZ:  HUGE thanks to the kind trader who shared this with me. He prefers to remain anonymous, and told me this is from a first-generation cassette copy of the soundboard master. Sounds pretty damn good to me! Apparently, two sets were played this night: Set 1 is comprised of tracks 1-9. The tape flip happened near the end of Yo-Yo and the start of K. About 30-45 seconds from the end of the former was lost as a result, but only a few seconds of the latter's opening notes are missing. Otherwise, this is the complete performance. 

 

As received, I only needed to split and tag the tracks, remove dead spots, create fade-ins and fade-outs, and apply 1 pass of modest eq to bring the high frequencies into better balance. No compression and no noise reduction.

Vanessa: if you happen to read this, please remember that I did ask! 42 years later, I hope you'll agree there's no real harm in letting the band's fans hear this amazing performance. No one's making any money here. This is from a fan for fellow fans.

    

FLAC

MP3@320

R. E. M. - 1982-01-22 Greensboro, N.C. (sbd - upgrade)

Friday’s
Greensboro, N.C.
Jan. 22, 1982
  
soundboard recording (quality: EX; ‘File Under Kudzu’ boot CD rip, revised Jan. 2026)

LINEAGE: online download of flac files (File Under Kudzu bootleg CD rip) > Audacity 3.7 for Mac for normalization & DC offset, re-tracking, removing dead spots, fades, tagging > flac NO EQ, COMPRESSION or DIGITAL FILTERING

ROB SEZ: As received, this was a startlingly clear and crisp recording, well suited to a knock-you-off-your-chair performance by R. E. M. The debut single was out and most of the Chronic Town debut EP had been recorded. This gig marks the live debut of Catapult (already sounding fully formed and nearly ready for the studio), and features a best-ever cover of Ghost Riders In the Sky, plus a one-off song with no title. If I were to rank best R. E. M. performances from the early 1980s, this would easily make my top 5. January 1982 found the band barnstorming its way through Georgia and N.C., with many more gigs and states to follow in the ensuing months. R. E. M. also played Friday's on Nov. 6, 1981.  

The only source I know for this performance is the bootleg CD File Under Kudzu, my starting point for this revision. If anyone offers awards for worthy bootlegs, this one should be nominated. Great choice of performance, extraordinary sound quality, and nice packaging (see image scans from Discogs in the download folder). I can't claim this is necessarily a sonic upgrade compared to other versions. In light of how amazing the performance and recording already were, I was looking for an excuse to share it. A light revision and re-tracking job is my justification, and I feel this is a better listening experience than previous versions. 

For context, here's Peter Buck from an interview by David Fricke in 1990 (from R. E. M. The Rolling Stone Files): 

“There was a place in Greensboro, North Carolina, called Friday’s. It was a pizza parlor, and the guy had bands play. It was an L-shaped room; you could see through the bar to the ovens, with the guy with the long stick with pizzas on it, and see us, too. He’d charge a dollar, we’d get 150 people in there, and we’d get the door. People would let us sleep on the floor. There were clubs like that in every city.”

FLAC

MP3@320

R. E. M. - 1984-10-06 St. Louis, MO (FM - McKenzie Tapes source)

Graham Chapel
Washington University

St. Louis, MO

Oct. 6, 1984

FM recording (courtesy of the McKenzie Tapes project)

Sound quality: VG to VG+

  

LINEAGE: McKenzie Tapes recording (16-bit wave file) > Adobe Audition 2025 for de-noising, phase correction, and normalization > AIFF file > Audacity 3.7 for Mac for track splits, 1 additional pass of NR, and EQ > FLAC

SAMPLE: West of the Fields (live 1984-10-06)

01 Harborcoat
02 West of the Fields

03 Kohoutek
04 Pilgrimage
05 7 Chinese Bros.
06 So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry) 
07 Hyena
08 (Don't Go Back to) Rockville
09 Barney Miller Theme - Chicken Train

10 Sitting Still
11 Letter Never Sent
12 Gardening at Night (fades in)
13 9-9 - Frogmore - Windout
14 Old Man Kensey
15 Pretty Persuasion
16 band exit - crowd - return to stage
17 Little America
18 Second Guessing
19 Paint It Black
20 In the Year 2525 (false start)
21 In the Year 2525
22 We Walk w. Behind Closed Doors
23 Femme Fatale
24 1,000,000

25 Moon River

This recording is missing the first song played as well as the final 5.

About this recording & performance:
I started with a diamond-in-the-rough lossless recording kindly provided by Tom G. from the McKenzie Tapes Project (learn more at themckenzietapes.com). The recording had no known lineage, but my ears heard a generated FM recording that suffered from multiple deficiencies. On a quality scale, I would have rated it a C-. After a couple of attempts at digital revision over the past 2 years, I’m finally happy with the result. It’s now a decent-sounding FM recording that merits an overall grade of B in my rating system, with just a few sections that dip slightly. In sum, this is quite listenable, even for fans who only want to hear higher quality recordings. Performance wise, this is one to savor: the band is on, and having fun — tight and confident this far into the tour, but loose enough to play requests (ex: a rousing version of the rarely-played Paint It Black). This is one of my favorite live recordings by the band in 1984.

FLAC

MP3@320

 

R. E. M. - 1981-09-23 Tyrone's O.C., Athens, GA (sbd - Bert13 revision)

Tyrone's O.C.
Athens, GA
Sept. 23, 1981

soundboard recording (quality: EX)

UPGRADE: Although this is not a substantial upgrade in sound quality compared to the older versions in circulation, this one features phase & speed correction. Overall, it's the best this recording has sounded. The performance is spectacular!

01 Just a Touch
02 Ages of You 
03 1,000,000
04 Get On Their Way

05 There She Goes Again

What the heck is Bill doing with that shoe??

06 Action

07 Wait*
08 Sitting Still
09 Permanent Vacation
10 Mystery to Me
11 White Tornado
12 I Can't Control Myself
13 Burning Down
14 Shaking Through
15 Laughing
16 Romance
17 Pretty Persuasion
18 That Beat
19 Stumble
20 Radio Free Europe
21 Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)

22 The Lion Sleeps Tonight 
23 Skank
24 Gardening at Night

25 Windout

26 9-9 

soundcheck:
27 unknown instrumental
28 Sitting Still
29 1,000,000
30 The Lion Sleeps Tonight

    *On "Wait," Lynda Stipe and Cyndy Stipe sing backing vocals

 

FLAC

MP3@320

HUGE THANKS to Bert13 for the digital revision & permission to share