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Dan Bern Live at The Bottom Line on 1998-11-11

by Dan Bern

Publication date: 1998-11-11 ( check for other copies)

Topics: Bottom Line, Bernstein, TLM170, flac16, 16 bit, folk, BARN

Collection: DanBern

Band/Artist: Dan Bern

Early Show
1. crowd / banter - like an old smokey shack
2. Ken Starr
3. banter - new NY songs
4. New York Women
5. banter - the poet and the painter
6. Rollerblades
7. When In New York
8. banter - Katerina Witt
9. Tiger Woods
10. One Thing Real
11. banter - a celebration of freedom
12. Jersualem
13. banter - tuning
14. I'm Not The Guy
15. Oh, Sister
16. banter - musican rivalries
17. Talking Woody, Bob, Bruce & Dan Blues
18. Like Most American Men
19. New American Language
20. encore break, inviting Martha Wainright, Duke McVinnie, and Merle
21. Warm *+^
22. banter - a playroom
23. Sunday +^

Late Show
1. crowd
2. Waiting For Van Gogh -> ^*%
3. Hannibal ^*%
4. Chelsea Hotel ^%
5. banter - Giamatti
6. Gamblin' With My Love (Pete Rose) ^*+%
7. banter - brand new songs
8. New York City
9. banter - car trip songs
10. Sacre Coeur
11. banter - Yom Kippur
12. Fasting
13. Eric's Binoculars
14. Girls On Wilton
15. Burn ->
16. Lithuania ->
17. Yellow Star ->
18. Kids' Prayer
19. banter - kind of a serious song
20. Einstein Was Wrong ->
21. Return To Sender
22. encore break
23. Closets And Drawers ^%
24. thanks

Notes

^ = w/Duke McVinnie on guitar
* = w/Merle, a drum machine
+ = w/Martha Wainwright on vocals
% = w/Jarrod Kaplan on percussion

Susan Werner opened

Recorded, transferred, mastered, and tracked by Scott Bernstein (October 2010)

Taper Notes:
BARN64 is dedicated to Joe Kivak, a legendary taper in his own right who has been gently but persistently prodding me to get this one out and posted for years. Well, here you go, Joe!

Note that if you have ever heard this recording before, I have spent hours working up a completely remastered version of the show which is be a HUGE improvement over any version you have previously heard. I removed many many loud claps during quiet moments during songs, individually brought down every single super loud (I'm talking double the volume of the vocals and guitar) hit on the drum machine, and generally evened out the volume of the show to make it more listenable.

My thoughts about this show:
To totally butcher one of the most famous opening lines in history -- it was the best of Dan, it was the worst of Dan. He was living in NYC (he relates the story of how he was offered the opportunity to i ndulge his artistic ambitions at a hotel on 23rd and 5th where each room was painted by a different artist) at the time and had a whole slew of new songs which he proceeded to play from his song book on a music stand. Some of these songs were REALLY good (Sunday, Closets and Drawers) and some not so much. And he had guests supporting him for a few songs in each set -- Duke McVinnie mostly doing guitar atmospherics (nice), Martha Wainwright adding vocals to some songs (really nice!), and the unfortunate Merle, the drum machine which sounds embarrassingly bad (note to the guy who yells "No more drum machine!" in the second set -- I agree wholeheartedly!).

OK, let's get into the other stuff at this show -- opening with a bunch of new stuff, pretty much all new to the audience, the quality of which was up-and-down, moving through a Dan 101 set of "hits" (strong versions of Talkin' Woody, Bob....), a few laughs, the original "New American Language" (which has one more verse and not quite as slick as the version that made it onto the album of the same title), and finally bringing out Martha and the gang for the encores. Not bad at all!

For the late show, there were a lot less people in the audience, and Dan started with some solid versions of some classic songs (baseball fans will enjoy the great Gamblin' With My Love), unfortunately somewhat marred by the painful drum machine, moved into more new songs, mostly of questionable quality, by which point in the set, only the hardcore fans were left in the venue. You can hear that by the halfway point in the late show, the audience was clapping respectfully, but as opposed to most Bern shows where the audience is highly animated, yelling at Dan onstage, clamoring for requests, etc., they are completely silent. Dan seizes on this opportunity to somehow find his way to playing the ultimate segue straight from the depths of his heart to a RAPT audience -- Burn -> Lithuania -> Yellow Star -> Kids' Prayer. Afterwards he thanks the audience for their endurance: "I realized about half way through that run of songs that you guys just don't want to be hearing this..." -- ah, but we did. And this particular stretch of tunes still resonates in my (and apparently Joe Kivak's) mind 12 years later.

It's hard to follow up the depths of those emotional songs, but Dan manages to do a 180 and play a few quick lighthearted tunes to wrap up, followed by the poignent Closets and Drawers to end the show. What a night!

Enjoy!

Scott

A rundown of my previous BARN archival releases (all can be found on archive.org except as noted):
BARN1 - Col Bruce Hampton and the Code Talkers at Bret & Joyce's wedding 9/17/2005
BARN2 - Col Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit (w/guest Warren Haynes for all of set 2) Wetlands 11/20/1993
BARN3 - moe. Wetlands 7/8/1995
BARN4 - Dan Bern Bottom Line 7/31/1998 (late show)
BARN5 - moe. Birch Hill 10/31/1996
BARN6 - moe. Maxwells 1/20/1996
BARN7 - Dan Bern Central Park Summerstage 9/19/1997
BARN8 - Dan Bern, Bottom Line 8/1/1998
BARN9 - moe. Bayou 4/5/1997
BARN10 - moe. Irving Plaza 4/4/1997
BARN11 - moe. AKA 9/7/1995
BARN12 - Yolk AKA 9/7/1995
BARN13 - Robert Walter/Johnny Vidacovich/James Singleton/Donald Harrison Preservation Hall 4/30/08
BARN14 - Phish Las Vegas, NV 10/31/1998 (on bt.etree.org)
BARN15 - Phish Great Went @ Loring AFB, Limestone, ME 8/16/1997 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN16 - Phish Great Went @ Loring AFB, Limestone, ME 8/17/1997 (on bt.etree.org), includes orchestra set - by request
BARN17 - Phish Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO, 8/4/1996 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN18 - Phish Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO, 8/6/1996 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN19 - Phish Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO, 8/7/1996 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN20 - Phish Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO, 8/5/1996 (on bt.etree.org) - by request
BARN21 - God Street Wine, Irving Plaza, NYC 6/24/1993
BARN22 - Leftover Salmon, Wetlands, NYC 10/1/1994
BARN23 - Anders Osborne, Manny's Carwash, NYC 11/5/1997
BARN24 - Anders Osborne, Manny's Carwash, NYC 11/6/1997
BARN25 - moe. Pool Party, Morganville, NJ 6/2/1996
BARN26 - Widespread Panic, Stone Pony, Asbury Park, NJ 11/7/1992 (on bt.etree.org)
BARN27 - Stew ["Passing Strange"], The Turning Point, Piermont, NY 4/6/2003 (on bt.etree.org. dimeadozen.org)
BARN28 - Stew ["Passing Strange"], Joe's Pub, New York, NY 5/22/2003 (on bt.etree.org)
BARN29 - Percy Hill, Lion's Den, NYC 3/16/1996
BARN30 - Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Irving Plaza, 8/3/1995
BARN31 - Percy Hill, Wetlands, NYC 6/8/1996
BARN32 - Bad Livers, Mercury Lounge, NYC, 11/15/1999 (opening for Leftover Salmon)
BARN33 - Bad Livers, Mercury Lounge, NYC, 11/16/1999 (opening for Leftover Salmon)
BARN34 - G. Love And Special Sauce, Central Park Summerstage, NYC 6/18/1995
BARN35 - The Band, The Great Lawn, Central Park, NYC 5/16/1993 (on dimeadozen.org)
BARN36 - The Band, Mountain Stage Radio broadcast, Charleston, WV, recorded 4/4/1996 (on dimeadozen.org)
*** Start of New Orelans Jazzfest Appreciation mini-series (note that BARN13 technically belongs in this series) ***
BARN37 - Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, Tipitina's, New Orleans, LA, 5/5/2008
BARN38 - Steve Kimock Band, Tipitina's, New Orleans, LA, 5/6/2001 (2AM show)
BARN39 - The Funky Meters, Tipitina's, New Orleans, LA, 5/6/2001 (11PM show) (on bt.etree.org)
BARN40 - Anders Osborne, Tower Records instore, New Orleans, LA, 5/7/2001 (on bt.etree.org)
BARN41 - Joe Krown Trio w/Walter "Wolfman" Washington, Russell Batiste + special guest Mike Gordon, Tipitina's, New Orleans, 5/5/2008
BARN42 - Russell Batiste and Friends, The Howlin' Wolf, New Orleans, 5/1/2008 (on bt.etree.org)
BARN43 - Global Noize, The Howlin' Wolf, New Orleans, 5/1/2008 (on bt.etree.org)
BARN44 - Deep Banana Blackout, The Howlin' Wolf, New Orleans, LA 5/6/2000
BARN45 - Bela Fleck And The Flecktones, The Saenger Theater, New Orleans, LA 5/5/2000
BARN46 - Medeski Martin And Wood, The Saenger Theater, New Orleans, LA 5/6/2000 (on bt.etree.org)
BARN47 - String Cheese Incident, The Saenger Theater, New Orleans, LA 5/5/2000
BARN48 - Soulive, House Of Blues Parish, New Orleans, LA 5/5/2001
BARN49 - String Cheese Incident, Cajun Queen Riverboat, New Orleans, LA 5/3/2000
BARN50 - New Mastersounds, House Of Blues Parish, New Orleans, LA 5/2/2008
BARN51 - Funky Meters, Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN 6/13/2003
BARN52 - George Porter And The Runnin' Pardners, Village Underground, NYC, 5/19/2001
BARN53 - Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Tramps, NYC 10/29/1993 late show
BARN54 - The Meters, Tramps, NYC 5/15/93 late show
BARN55 - The Meters, Tramps, NYC 10/29/93 late show
BARN56 - Wild Magnolias, Wetlands, NYC 2/10/2000
*** end of New Orelans Jazzfest Appreciation mini-series ***
BARN57 - Blues Traveler, Livingston Gym @ Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 4/17/1993
BARN58 - Phish, Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 10/29/1998
BARN59 - Jazz Is Dead, Bottoow,m Line, NYC 2/7/1998 (late show only)
BARN60 - Grateful Dead, Cal Expo Amphitheatre, Sacramento, CA 5/27/1993
BARN61 - The Dude Of Life (w/Trey Anastasio and Jon Fishman for entire sh plus Page McConnell for a bunch), Wetlands, NYC 2/5/1994 - on bt.etree.org
BARN62 - ALO, High Sierra Music Festival Main Stage, Quincy, CA 7/3/05
BARN63 - Leo Kottke & Mike Gordon, High Sierra Music Festival Main Stage, Quincy, CA 7/3/2005
BARN64 - Dan Bern, The Bottom Line, NYC 11/11/1998

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Addeddate: 2010-10-20 01:21:07

Identifier: danbern1998-11-11

Lineage: Original Master Recording: Neumann TLM-170 (subcardoids, FOB) -> Sonosax -> Tascam DAP1 (@16/48) Master DAT playback: Sony R500 -> Sound Devices 722 digital input (@24/48) Mastered: Soundforge Pro 10.0b - *All file manipulation in Soundforge done at 24 bits*. Removing hundreds of loud claps plus some bursts of feeback from the PA, volume normalization, sample rate conversion 48khz to 44.1khz using iZotope 64-Bit SRC set higher than "Highest Quality" setting w/anti-alias filter, then dithered back to 16 bits using using iZotope MBIT+ with Ultra noise shaping, High dither settings. Tracked in CDWav.