David Bowie 1997-09-08 radio acoustic sessions Seattle, WA

David Bowie
Seattle radio acoustic sessions x 2, David with Reeves Gabrels.
8th September 1997

Downloads>Audacity>FLAC

Two great shows - both were speed corrected.

Show 1 - 107.7 The End
Some radio interference - good stereo sound quality (interference reduced by EQ-ing)

Show 2 - The Mountain
Very good stereo sound quality

Show 1 - 107.7 The End
29:19
01 I Wanna be your dog riffing
02 chat
03 Scary Monsters
04 chat
05 I Can't Read
06 chat
07 Always Crashing in the Same Car.
08 dj ends show

Show 2 - The Mountain
30:30
09 Intro and interview
10 The Supermen
11 Dead Man Walking
12 interview
13 Always Crashing in the Same Car
14 interview
15 Scary Monsters
16 outro

Recommended shows! - two radio shows in Seattle in one day!

TO BE PLAYED LOUD

The End show here is great - an intimate and interesting one to one interview with David, it's a really nice chat.
He's in an enthusiastic, and very cheery mood - "shall we do the funny one?", he asks Reeves, who replies "depends
on what you think funny is?"...and with self-deprecating humour he proffers "*anything* from Tin Machine". David
reveals in the chat (track 4) that one night in a Tin Machine gig (during Heaven's in Here) they broke into the
'Inchworm' song. :)

David's answers to questions about his early days are an interesting insight - he talks about the records he liked,
the ones his cousin Kristina bought, and of what working in the Xerox shop led to. I really, really like this interview!
I listened to it again and again while applying the fixes, and I suspect I will enjoy returning to it again in the future,
as it's such a joy to hear!

The good humour continues in The Mountain show, too, for me at least until he does the old man voice thing (grrrr...).
He does interestingly sidestep a negatively worded question the interviewer starts reading out from the public's
questions, telling a story about his step-sister being re-christened Iman, as well as that being his wife's name. The
mask slips a couple of times with David and Reeves' bonhomie together, but no matter, for the most part there's a lot
of good natured fun to this latter show as well.

Technical / sound quality notes - particularly re The End show.
The 'TO BE PLAYED LOUD' command is pertinent...I found in my final preparations, when skipping through the tracks
at a quiet volume, the slight roughness of the recordings meant these could well be - and were - the sort of recordings
I would normally skip. How wrong I was!
Both shows were speed corrected as best I could, by comparing to other shows from that time. The radio sound on the
107.7 The End show is a little rough here and there, and this increases halfway through. There is a clear stereo
picture though; if the occasional roughness blights it for you, do try to persevere, you'll be glad you did! From
halfway through I had to EQ it and used de-click. It was either that and manually remove each click, which would have
turned a job which has taken several hours, into several days. This reduced the interference that crept in as much as
I could, and this did make it a lot more listenable. When it came to the music, the heavier treatment was only applied
where necessary. Slight wonkiness in the tape towards the end meant that considering any speed changes was abandoned:
on the basis of the slight wonkiness, the fact that David and Reeves possibly used different guitars (and even
different keys for one song between acoustic shows), I just decided to go with the fact this sounded 'about right'.
It is also noted that there is some wow and flutter (speed wobble) creeping in during Always Crashing in the Same Car,
in The Mountain show, and in noticeable during Scary Monsters during that show too. There is nothing I could do about
this, as software to deal with this can only be bought for an absolute fortune. A shame, as the company who make it
could make a lot of they let people pay for one-off usage, but there you go.

I really enjoyed working on this and listening through these shows. If these are for you, I hope you enjoy them too!



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