Percy Hill
The Lion's Den
New York, NY
7/13/1996

Original master recording: SBD + 2xOktava MC-012s -> Mackie 1202 mixer -> Denon DTR-80p (master @ 16/48)

DAT playback:  Sony R-500 -> Sound Devices 722 digital input (@24/48)

Mastering:  Soundforge Pro 10.0c - *All file manipulation in Soundforge done at 24 bits*.  Applied 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 to 16 bits using using iZotope MBIT+ with Ultra noise shaping, with high dither settings, and some minor clap scrubbing.  Tracked in CDWav.

Set 1
1.  intro
2.  Monkey Man
3.  Lifetime
4.  Been So Long
5.  banter - the the hurricane
6.  Prison Sentence
7.  Watermelon Man
8.  Chicopee
9.  Rush Hour Traffic
10. When I Go
11. setbreak announce / Happy Birthday to Mark

Set 2
1.  intro
2.  Fallen
3.  Broken Window
4.  Hi & Lo
5.  banter - Wetlands on 9/28
6.  Old New
7.  Sooner Or Later
8.  Casa De Vino ->
9.  Othello ->
10. percussion duet ->
11. Othello
12. encore break / announcements
13. Something To Show
14. Way Back Home
15. encore break 2 / announcements
16. Larger Than Life
17. crowd

Scrubbed a few claps from this recording in S1T4(1 clap), S1T10(11 claps), S2T3(1 clap), S2T4(4 claps), S2T14(14 claps), S2T16(4 claps)

Taper notes:
I decided it was about time to come back around to another ancient Percy Hill show for the next item in my BARN series -- it has been around 9 months since I posted some good old Percy, and I wanted to hear some more of them.  :)  BARN121 represents the 4th old Percy Hill show I've posted (the 3rd from 1996 alone, with the "Original" lineup), and the first time I ever got to see them do a full-on 2 set show!  At this point they'd already done at least 1 opening gig at Wetlands, and a one setter here at The Lion's Den (which eventually got renamed to "Sullivan Hall"), and now they gradudated quickly to a 2 set show at this tiny venue.

Boris Lvovsky and I brought out the gear to do a matrix mix....and sometimes the matrixes mixed live at the venue are more successful than others, as you're mixing your recording on the fly under loud conditions.  Also there is a good possibility of gremlins messing with perfection as there are a lot of extra cables and things to get right.  Well on this night, the gods were smiling upon us because this mix is sublime.  Frankly, 16 years later, this is exactly how I'd want my recording to sound even if I were doing it in a studio.

They basically run through nice jammed out versions of their entire repertoire at this point (minus a song or 2) plus a pretty rare cover of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" -- utilizing Nate Wilson's flute playing to full effect.  Highlights, beyond the Herbie cover, include a nice long "Rush Hour Traffic", a flute-augmented "Fallen", and a big "Othello" with a great percussion segment.  Even after all of that the band gets called back for *2* long encore segments totaling near on 30 minutes!

This is great stuff, and a time period that is not at all well represented in circulating recordings from this band, so I'm going to continue to help fill in the blanks as I have a whole bunch more shows from this time period still to come...

Enjoy!

Scott

Recorded by Scott Bernstein and Boris Lvovsky, transferred (9/2011), mastered and tracked (3/5-6/2012) by Scott Bernstein

