Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - Detroit 1975 (1975-10-04) FLAC

GENRE: Rock 
FORMAT: Lossless (Flac) 
SIZE: 949 mb (3% Recovery) 

Recorded live at Michigan Palace, Detroit, MI on October 4, 1975.
Excellent soundboard recording.
ER Archives Vol. 13 via JEMS.

TRACKLIST:

01 Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
02 Spirit in the Night
03 It’s Gonna Work Out Fine
04 She’s The One
05 Born to Run
06 The E Street Shuffle > Having A Party
07 Backstreets (patched)
08 Kitty’s Back
09 Jungleland
10 Rosalita (cut)
11 Detroit Medley
12 Sandy
13 Ain’t Too Proud To Beg
14 Quarter to Three
15 Little Queenie
16 Twist and Shout


NOTES:

Welcome back to lucky number 13 in a series of releases (preceded by 11 Bruce titles and one Hall and Oates released on DIME) from the ER Archives, the collection of an active '70s taper and trader who stepped away from collecting, leaving his tapes dormant until now. ER's collection contains previously uncirculated shows as well as upgrades to circulating tapes, both audience and soundboard. He used high-end tape decks and good tape, so his copies of even well-known shows have proven to be improvements.

Volume 13 is a project that’s been in the works since ER’s tapes first arrived: an upgrade of one of the best ‘75 shows, Detroit, October 4, 1975. As explained in detail here (http://jungleland.dnsalias.com/torrents-details.php?id=36408), the ER Archive tapes of this show were copied from Ed Sciaky's reels in the late '70s. Through other sources, the Detroit tapes wound up in wider circulation and on bootlegs, but as most of you probably know, this recording has always been the most problematic of the ‘75 soundboards.  

It now seems clear that the master recording of the concert was marred by tape alignment issues that caused a wave-like swishing of the sound, especially in the high-end. The audio kind of rides up and down, locking in and sounding fine and then drifting out of alignment again. While a constant throughout the show, for the first 90 or so minutes the effect is moderate and doesn’t distract terribly from the listening experience once you get used to it. The problem becomes more pronounced in the encores, where a presumed switch to a second master tape exacerbated the issue.

On top of that and likely related to the same problem, circulating copies of the recording have major pitch problems which only get worse as the show proceeds. Both Midnight Beat’s First Night In Detroit and Anubis’ Walk Like Heroes have major pitch problems, with the latter dragging terribly for more than half the show. Because the pitch isn’t consistent, it isn’t a simple fix.

Now before you get all excited about this upgrade, the wave-like swishing is still there. As noted, it is almost certainly a problem on the master itself. But thanks to the keen ear and tuning fork of Tapeboy, we have applied pitch adjustments throughout the show that vastly improve the end result and make the show a whole lot better to listen to. The pitch still isn’t perfect but it is much closer to accurate.

On top of that, like all the ‘75 boards in the ER Archive, his copy of the show has less hiss, as well as richer sound and clearer vocals than extant copies. Given the pitch corrections and better underlying recording, we think this is a material upgrade. Samples provided. On top of that, thanks to a recent find by our partner mjk5510, we’ve been able to fill in a missing bit of “Backstreets” with an audience recording of the show that was released as the "DS Archives Volume 7". Sadly, the end of “Rosalita” is missing on both sources.

So why did it take us so long to release Detroit? Because it was on the only two tapes in ER’s collection that used an alternate 4-track configuration on the recording. Instead of the traditional 1:3 and 2:4 (where tracks 1 and 3 are left and right on one side, 2 and 4 are left and right on the other), the reel to reel ER used to copy Sciaky’s tapes could set each track independently. The Detroit tapes were recorded 1:2 and 3:4, and therefore would not playback properly on a two-track machine. Given that JEMS doesn’t have a working 4-track, we had a friend use his lovely Ampex 440B to transfer the tapes.

As for the show itself, it’s a peach but you know that already. Super versions of “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine,” a hometown “Detroit Medley,” the first-ever “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” plus “Little Queenie” and “Twist and Shout” because they just wanted to keep playing.  

Once again pushing this tape over the finish line is JEMS' production supervisor mjk5510. Thanks to him for final polish, research and patching. Tapeboy deserves major ups for taking the time to break down the pitch problems to manageable pieces and apply serious adjustments.

And of course, massive thanks once again to the ER Archive for opening up the vault doors and sharing this recording with the fans. Feel free to let him know how you feel in the comments.

BK for JEMS

(links in comments)
(PASSWORD = ra)
Enjoy !