Friday, January 14, 2011

JH - 1968-08-04 - Sam Houston Coliseum


Posted by at

3 comments:

Dr. Forrester said...

Source 1 info -

The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Sunday, August 4, 1968
Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, TX

1 Red House#
2 I Don't Live Today
3 Spanish Castle Magic#
4 Fire#
5 Voodoo Child (slight return)
6 Purple Haze
7 Manic Depression#
AUDIO:
¡ audience recording; 35 minutes, very good quality (1-7)

Also includes the newly-discovered short tape of Columbus OH 3/3/68:

8. Intro
9. Tax Free
10. Fire

From Chris Dixon's 30th Anniversary Series © C S Dixon

August 4, 1998 marks 30 years since Jimi's show at Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas. For an audience tape of the period, the quality isn't bad. The instrumental balance is OK with drums a bit low and the vocals are mostly audible though plagued with feedback at times. The tape is, however, a frustrating listen as many songs are cut, some severely, and there are some dropouts within. Also, there's a lot of mic handling noise by the taper- almost sounds as if the mic is hidden in the clothing and you hear the rustling of the fabric (if they'd only stayed still!...). Oh well....

Tape begins at the opening notes of 'Red House'. Leads me to believe the taper missed the first few songs, as it's highly unlikely that Jimi started the show with RH (it was usually his mid-set 'refuge' but ya never know- if he did do it first, it would probably be the only time...). Good rendition but not one of those 'magic' ones IMO. Middle section has 12 bars each of 'full volume with fixed wah' (that 'octave fuzz' I thought I heard on the previous day's tape may have been the wah after all, as the sound on this is similar and you can hear the sweep of the wah as he depresses it and leaves it in the down position), 'slapped' chords (much clearer than previous day), clean sound, ending with full on fuzz (but no wah) and into the last verse...
'I Don't Live Today' goes out to soldiers in Detroit, Seattle, Washington and oh yes, Viet Nam. Also to the audience. And all minorities. And the American Indian..... just about covers it, I'd say!
'Spanish Castle Magic' sounds great through the first verses, then just as Jimi's really getting into the solo the tape cuts and suddenly we're into 'Fire'...arrgh! (When we join 'Fire', Jimi's playing the 'Sunshine of Your love' riff over Mitch's fills!)
'Voodoo Child (Slight Return)' makes it's second documented concert appearance (third if you count Dusty) and American debut. Pretty close to album version...
Tape ends with 'Manic Depression'- second to last ever recorded version (appears once more 10/68 Winterland). Always good to hear this but only one problem- it cuts of after about 20 *@$& seconds!! (see: arrgh)....

January 14, 2011 at 10:43 AM
Dr. Forrester said...

Source 2 info -

Jimi Hendrix Experience
Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA 1968-08-04 AUD

Lineage:
master (reel ?) > unknown gen traded cassette > Edirol R 09 > wav > flac

This tape is not sourced from any ãbootleg" (as well as ATM, JPIO, etc) release.
This transfer is sourced from my traded cassette copy.


Tracks:

01. Red House 11:16
02. I don«t live today # 05:06
03. Spanish Castle Magic # 02:00
04. Fire # 01:31
05. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) 05:32
06. Purple Haze 03:44
07. Stage Banter /Manic Depression # 01:01


I have recently started to review my Hendrix tape collection from the early 90ties. All of this stuff is on audio cassettes, spread over different boxes on my attic. In recent years, my main aim has of course been to upgrade all those shows, with the help of torrent sites, and the nice effect of also having them in digital format.
I have rarely really compared what i downloaded to my cassette copies. It would be a task impossible form e. But sometimes, I discover a tape from long ago, and I go for it (as was the case with my copy of the Dusty Springfield show from 68, which seemed to be an upgrade to most circulating versions).

Now this show.

I compared it to a version I downloaded from either DIME or (then) Bootcity, and to my ears, my cassette sounds way better. More ambience and high range sound, then again a bit more hiss than the older torrented tape. The old torrent version is much more muffled, and has some high range ãphasing" hiss, which is not on my tape.
I wish I could have compared my copy to the ATM version, but unfortunately I do not have it.

The recording has a lot of cuts. On ãI don«t live today", during the guitar solo, there seems to be an accidental overdub of someone playing guitar (recorded at very low speed, so now it sounds like Micky Mouse). This seems to have been on a very early copy (maybe even the master (?). On the digital version i had downloaded, this is cut out. I left it in to present you the tape as I received it.
Also important: my cassette is running too fast. I did not want to mess around with it, as I believe someone else could do a better job than I am capable of.

It would be interesting to track back the ãchain" of this tape. To the best of my knowledge, and judging from the way it is labelled, I must assume that I got it from a guy called Gordon Johnson, from Liverpool in 94/95...I have lost contact to him long ago. Anyone here know about him???

Any feedback is most welcome, thank you!

If you reseed this on other sites (which you are welcome to do) please include this text file.

Pass it on....

Enjoy!

Brought to you by olvator 4/2008

January 14, 2011 at 10:44 AM
Anonymous said...

Hi, I was at this show and still have my ticket stub, it cost $6.00. What I wanted to say is that he did start the show with Red House. I remember it was strange to me at that time I had not heard that song or any blues music really. Starting off the show with something slow was unexpected but I was amazed and was truly Experience after that. I was only 15.
Fred Brown

July 4, 2012 at 1:51 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)