Live @ LoveSexy, Hoboken, NJ, Mar 7, 1997

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Num	Title	Writer
1.	My Street (5:16)	Jim Robertson
2.	Lorain (4:15)	Anthony Marchese
3.	Disappoint (4:23)	Jim Robertson
4.	Leaving New England (3:45)	Anthony Marchese
5.	Dear Prudence (3:43)	The Beatles
6.	Phoebe Snow (4:03)	Jim Robertson
7.	Lima Airlift (3:00)	Jim Robertson
8.	Garden State Building (4:29)	Jim Robertson
9.	Hazel Eyes	Jim Robertson
10.	Pearl / Tokyo Salsa (5:16)	Jim Robertson
11.	Outtake 1 - snippet of 150 Miles from soundcheck (0:09)	Jim Robertson

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Every MP3 file includes artist, title, album, and date info as well as album cover art.

Album notes

The original source recording was from a recordable Walkman that Jim would duct-tape to the wall near his bass amp or otherwise find a nearby location for it. In 2017 Jim digitized these files. All attempts were made to keep between-song chatter. Only long stretches of silences have been edited out.

I originally tried to play the cassette back through the original Walkman, but it was playing far too slowly (I guess the Walkman is 20+ years old, too.) And, when I put the gig tape in a modern cassette deck, it played back FASTER than it was originally recorded. (Right? Because the original was recorded at a slower pace.)

I brought the faster file into Pro Tools as a .wav file, and by playing along with my guitar, I determined it was about half a step too high. OK, so how to stretch the sound file to make it play LONGER, and thus LOWER in frequency?

Easier said than done.

I could stretch the sound file in Pro Tools, but it didn't change the pitch. (Unlike real tape.) So, the song played slower/longer, but at the original pitch.

Then, I figured out how to make Pro Tools to change the pitch lower, but the song still played at the faster pace -- faster than the original performance.

If it was a semi-tone HIGHER than original, then how can I figure out how to change the TIME to bring it down the semi-tone and have it play at the original speed?

It took me a while to puzzle it out. I finally figured, if (abstracly? theoretically?) a frequency had 400 peaks in 1 minute, then if I reduced it to 200 peaks in a minute, it would be an octave lower. So, 400 peaks needs to be played in a TWO minute span. (The music needs to be stretched TWICE as long to make it an octave lower.)

So, if lowering the pitch by an octave means a 100% increase in speed, then a semi-tone change in pitch must be a one-twelfth increase in TIME. Or, an %0.083333 increase in speed.

So, a 60 second .wav file should be stretched by 5 seconds to be 165 seconds in order to bring it down a semi-tone. I did it, and -- voila! It worked!

My Street was a staple by this point. Played in every one of the 8 alt.sex.dentist gigs. A good song, inspired by a "Robertson Street" sign Jim spotted on a trip to New Orleans. The port cities of Hoboken and New Orleans suggested geographical similarities, and the attitude of "British kitchen-sink" fims helped fill in the rest of the story. A "muscular" song -- with maybe a nod to Pinball Wizard with the Asus4 gesture. Great backing vocals by Ant. God bless Tom for trying to entertain the audience.

Lorain was a great song Anthony wrote about his Cleveland days. Another song we played in all of our 8 gigs. I think Ant has a story about how he committed to writing a song with the "next four chords I play" -- which turned into Lorain A nice muscular song.

This was the first and only time we did Disappoint -- from Jim's PULASKi SKYLiNES demo/album. Jim (in 2017) still thinks it is among the most beautiful song he ever wrote. I think Jim had just finished writing it a month or two prior. Sounds a bit out of tune, but ... whatever.

Leaving New England was another pongniant song written by Ant about mortality. It was also played in every one of our 8 gigs.

This was the first and only time we performed Dear Prudence. This was always one of our favorite Beatles songs to play -- going back to our high school days. A wonderful John Lennon composition I'm glad we performed and recorded. Of course, years later Tom would name one of his daughters Prudence.

This was the first and only time we did Phoebe Snow. Kudos for Ant playing Jim's demo solo nearly note-for-note! This was freshly-written "country song" (?!) demo-recorded by Jim in the months prior.

This was the first and only time we did Lima Airlift. This one -- also from Jim's PULASKi SKYLiNES demo/album, seems to have stood the test of time. Jim's 3rd Gear band has covered this song. Of course, it cops from 38 Specials' Hold on Loosely.

Garden State Building was also a staple -- having also been played at all 8 of our gigs. Certainly one of our more "ethereal" songs. Ant sounds a bit out of tune -- the composition of "drone guitar" can certainly expose such weakness.

Hazel Eyes was not recorded. It must have been missed when side 1 of the tape ran out, and Jim needed to flip the cassettee. Remember, this was back in the days of analog tape cassettes.

Pearl / Tokyo Salsa was (yet again) another staple. We played it at every one of our 8 gigs. Of course, by now, you all know that this Jim composition was inspired by The Cure's The Blood from their breakthrough Head on the Door album.

Outtake 1 - snippet of 150 Miles from the soundcheck. Jim digitized this just out of his archival instincts.

Discussion

No post-gig email has been kept or survived the 20 year interval between the gig and the creation of this digital archive.

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Assets

Live @ LoveSexy, Hoboken, NJ, Mar 7, 1997

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Album notes

Discussion