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Resources

LowLow Live at Maggie Mae's on 1996-03-15 (March 15, 1996)

Collection: : LowMusic
Band/Artist: Low
Date: March 15, 1996 (check for other copies)
Venue: Maggie Mae's
Location: Austin, TX

Source: 1st gen digital clone of DAT audience master @ 48kHz (unknown mics and deck)
Lineage: Sony portable DAT deck > Audiomedia III > Sound Designer II > Logic Audio 4.x > SR convert > Sound Designer II > glitch reduction, normalization, fades > WAV > SHN > xACT (SBEs fixed) > FLAC
Taped by: M. W.
Transferred by: goldenband
Keywords: Low; Lowtorrent; Duluth; Sparhawk

Description

01 Introduction
02 Anon
03 Swingin'
04 Caroline 2
05 Below and Above
06 Violence
07 Do You Know How to Waltz?
08 David and Jude

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Reviewer: mrsdb - - April 25, 2008
Subject: Only worth it for Waltz
The performance and recording are only adequate even before the heavy metal band start playing downstairs (what's up with Alan's voice this show? maybe needs slowing down?). However, a performance of "Do You Know How To Waltz?" is always worthy of some attention at least.

Notes

I debated whether to upload this performance to the Archive, as of all the recordings of Low live that I've heard, it's probably the least enjoyable. It's not just that the crowd is disrespectful and talkative (though they are), nor that the sound quality is pretty lousy (though it is).

For if these were the only problems with this tape, that'd be one thing -- in their early days, Low were used to bad P.A. systems and noisy crowds. But adding insult to injury, in the middle of Low's set (during "Caroline 2"), another band (possibly a Scandinavian hardcore band?) started playing downstairs at high volume. The results are very audible and totally disastrous, completely destroying whatever ambience may have remained.

All that said, the one thing that's not bad about this recording is Low's performance. They're clearly rattled, but prove once again that they're a class act. For a few songs they play their usual setlist, trying to make the best of the situation in an effort not to disappoint those members of the audience who came to hear them. When that proves untenable, they unleash a ferocious "Do You Know How to Waltz?" that drowns out the band downstairs, the chattering crowd, and everything else besides. It's the high point of a show that could easily have had no high points at all, and makes this otherwise-painful tape worth a listen.

Sound quality is about 7/10, surprisingly poor for a DAT recording. However, this was probably not the taper's fault, but rather the result of a bad P.A. system -- the audience noise sounds perfectly reasonable, it's the music that ends up sounding like an out-of-tune A.M. radio (and it gets worse as the recording continues).

There were some loud pops and static near the beginning of "Do You Know How to Waltz?", probably from some sort of mic cable issue; I've done my best to reduce these. There's also a moment of diginoise just before the end of this recording, while the audience is applauding and calling for more; since it doesn't affect the music, I don't think it's worth worrying about (and it may well be native to the original DAT). Other than that, I normalized the recording and added fades in and out, and that's pretty much it.

Thanks to M.W. for sharing this tape with me.