This Post is long but it's well-worth the read.

That thread about The Sweet from the 70s' prompted me to remember what it was like back then: being young, in a rock band and having "my whole life ahead of me" instead of behind me. We tend to forget things as the years go by. Memories and the feelings associated with them often have to be dredged-up or excavated as in an archaeological dig; and even then all that it affords us is just a taste or fleeting glimpse of what it was like "way back when" and experiencing events first-hand.

I was one who tried to tape record as much as possible: jam sessions, goofing around, candid dinner table conversations and especially gigs. I have an archive of very entertaining stuff.

My earliest recording of a gig is from 1975 at the "Brass Lantern" in Somerville, MA, directly across from where Club 3 is/was today. Back then it was called "Ken's". I was in a band from Maine called "Winterwood Fire" .We had this house gig in Somerville for about four months during which we played every Thursday through Sunday, four nights a week.

This particular night the lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist had to go back to Maine for some reason and the drummer and I salvaged the gig by recruiting two of my local buddies that I grew-up with and played in another band with. We were disciples of Black Sabbath back then and we played them well. That other band was called, "Colossal Syndrome". That name still makes me laugh!

We didn't have much time to apprise the drummer of the material we already had down and it is especially apparent in a song like War Pigs with all those neat drum fills that Bill Ward did. It was good enough though. We rounded-off the repertoire with songs from UFO, Kiss, Deep Purple and Bad Company. The first Kiss Alive album had just been released so that was a big deal at the time.

The place we played at, "The Brass Lantern", or as I used to call it, "The Crass Slattern", was a genuine, old-fashioned den of iniquity ("I oughta slap-on a 10¢ cover charge to keep out the riff-raff"). I remember the bartender, "Obie", a Goliath of a human being and as tough as they come. Then there were the junkies: "Flea", "Jackie", (who we used to just call "Junkie" which kind of neatly put things in perspective) "Mac" and an assortment of other hoodlums. I watched those guys boot-up right in front of me in the club sitting at a booth (boot) a number of times. On several occasions, knife fights erupted while we were playing a song.

I was only seventeen (the drinking age was 18 at that time); young and innocent. I looked like Nigil Olson during the "Good-bye Yellowbrick Road" era. I remember walking into that hellish place without any fear because somehow, I knew that no harm would ever come to me simply because I was "in the band". (Yeah right, tell that to Brian Connolly of The Sweet....). This sentiment kind of gives credence to Elton John's "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player". "Yea, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death".....

It is interesting in that there was a cult in India during the early 1800s' called "The Thugs" that would ritualistically waylay and murder innocent people as part of their religious practice. There were certain groups of people that their beliefs forbade them from killing; among them were musicians. Hey....."We're gonna live!!!" Refer to this link on the Thugs, paragraph 19:

damninteresting.com/?p=873

The song, "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain and Tennille was constantly playing on the jukebox and the sublimely beautiful "Miracles" by Jefferson Starship was receiving much airplay. When I think back to that time, those songs seem to echo in my mind like the ghostly soundtrack to the movie "American Graffiti".

Anyway, back to the recording. The entire night was recorded on a cheapo cassette deck with a condenser mic placed on top of the soundboard to the right of the stage area. Not the best quality recording but you can still hear everything that went on.

I hope that you enjoy it!

lowellrocks.com/mp3/981

I changed my avatar to a picture taken back in 1975 at the band's house.

COOL!!! War Pigs by Alvin and The Chipmunks!!! hhahahaha Is it my computer or the recording that's going fast??? Although fast, it does sound good, I love Sabbath!!!!!!

Okay, I think I have an idea why the chipmunk thing is happening.

I have 2 browsers: Mozilla Firefox and Internet Exporer. I uploaded the mp3 through Mozilla. I 've been keeping Mozilla as my default browser. Whenever I open Lowellrocks with Explorer I get the chipmunks. I will reload the mp3 on through Explorer and see what happens.
There may be certain differences between the two browsers that I don't understand.

Barb did you listen to it? Is it sped up?

Plays fine for me.

Thanks Barb!

I wonder what's going on with that? I'm still getting reports of chipmunks......

So it plays at a normal speed for you Open Window?

Thanks for the feedback Open Window!

I'm closing in on the problem. It seems that the lower the bit rate of the mp3, the less likely it will play sped-up.

The other mp3 that I have posted, "Messin' With The Kid" was ripped at 56k. The current mp3 of War Pigs was ripped at 64k.

No one seems to complain about chipmunks at 56k.
For some reason, it will play correctly on some computers but not others.

I'm going to resample War Pigs at 56k and see what happens...
Hopefully that will "level the playing field".

Here's the latest link.....

lowellrocks.com/mp3/989

It's a problem having to do with a discrepancy between disc speed and caching I think. Still looking into it.

By the way, I like it! It brought me back to a time when there was just nothin' else but REAL ROCK, man. I loved Sabbath! Still do, but back then it was like religion ... know what I mean?

By Jove I got it!!!!

It works now on both browsers. Now to email others for them to check.....

Yes Chris,

It was only because three people had complained about the chipmunk problem. I was getting it as well when I used Internet Explorer.

It's a weird problem and I don't understand why it played correctly for some and not for others.

Thanks Gary!