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Dream Syndicate: Steve Wynn, Karl Precoda, Kendra Smith, Dennis Duck
This is the original line-up on their first trip to the East Coast after the release of “Days of Wine and Roses.â€
I deejayed at Maxwell’s so I could set-up in the deejay/sound booth, but with a 6-channel board (8-channels minus one broken and one for the deejay mixer) soundboard recordings were out of the question. I would unplug my Nikko cassette deck from home and lug over to the club. I never did buy my own mic’s… just used whatever spares might be lying around (with decidedly mixed results). This is one of the better-sounding tapes I ever captured and I had a few things going in my favor; the mic’s were stationary, the power source was constant and the band had good equipment and didn’t play too loud.
I was really excited about seeing the Dream Syndicate and it was a great night. There had been a big blizzard the day before and there was a foot-and-a-half of snow on the streets of Hoboken. I don’t think the band expected people to come out and see them with weather like that, but Maxwell’s had a local walking distance crowd and the show was reasonably well-attended… the New York fans probably stayed home.
They played two sets that night, which was unusual at Maxwell’s, but is great news as far as this recording goes. None of the material repeats. I can’t recall why they did two sets, but I’m guessing that the opening band cancelled because of the blizzard. At the beginning of the second set that’s deep-voiced me responding to Steve Wynn’s enquiry about the stage lighting and soundman Ira Kaplan confirming, “Yeah, behind the drums.†This is back in 1983… Yo La Tengo’s international acclaim was still but a glint in Georgia and Ira’s eyes.
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