Rush - Power Windows Demos (Mr. Sifter Remaster)

Rush
Power Windows Demos

Remastered by Mr. Sifter, Feb. 2024

Middletown Dreams
The Big Money
Mystic Rhythms
Marathon
Emotion Detector
Grand Designs
Territories
Manhattan Project

So, who knows if the story below that came with the original distribution is true, but there's so little unreleased Rush studio material out there that this tape seemed worth the time to work on and see what could be done. The quality and sonics varied from track to track, and overall it (understandably) bears all the hallmarks of a 2nd or 3rd gen dub or poor quality cassettes/decks used in making this source tape. 

Don't expect miracles, but I have tried to draw a bit more detail and depth out of what was on the cassettes, as always it may or may not be to a listener's particular tastes. I reduced some of the tape noise, rebalanced the sound to bring Geddy's vocals out a bit more, and did some overall EQ. 

Source: (see below) > iZotope RX > iZotope spectral de-noise > mastering via Ozone

Google Drive Link

Original notes: 

RUSH

Power Windows Demo Tape
Original Version (No Noise Reduction)
UltimoGuitarist's cassette tape of the Power Windows Demos
Encoded with Tag&Rename

"Alright guys. I think i've stumbled across a rare gem that no one out there has or has heard.

Our drummer showed played me a cassette tape of Power Windows in its entirety before it was even taken to the recording studio. That's right, sort of like a pre power windows personal recording of Alex's.

Now, he says that he's probably the only one who has it, and here's why.

Apparently a friend of his was walking downtown in Toronto, and Alex Lifeson's son had this tape, and was shouting out, "listen to my dads new album power windows!!" etc. And this friend of my drummers was given the tape by lifesons son, and then gave it to our drummer since he knew he was a hardcore Rush fan.

So now our drummer has this tape, and he's certain that no one else has it, so I wanted to check in with you guys to see if anyone else out there has it, and whether or not its worth it to make it public.

For the record, he played the tape for me, and I listened to manhattan project, and he wasnt lying. Completely different arrangements and a nice home made sound to recording. It's like sitting in the house with them while they jam. Quite amazing.

So he's going to back it up to CD, and give me a copy, and i'll make it public for you all to hear if this is something that no one knows of. So let me know.

This isnt one of those lame threads of someone just making up BS for something to do. I wouldn't yank your chains. This thing is real, and im willing to share it with you guys if you wanna hear it. I'm gonna stay on him and make sure he puts it to CD for me."

Blog Exclusive: The Allman Brothers Band - 6/28/1992 Roy Wilkins Auditorium, St. Paul, MN (Mr. Sifter Remaster)

 

Google Drive Link

The Allman Brothers Band
June 28, 1992
Roy Wilkins Auditorium
St. Paul, MN 

Remixed & remastered by Mr. Sifter, Feb. 2024

Remaster notes:

As the original description says, this was an almost mono, very flat sounding SBD. Split into stems via DeMix Pro I was able to achieve a decent stereo image and bring out Woody's bass, which seemed almost nonexistent in the original tape. The bass extraction is sometimes inconsistent, but it's better than it was before at least. Unfortunately the keys were a bit buried and there wasn't much that could be done about that, but Dickey, Warren, and Gregg's vocals are nice and clear now. Added a slight bit of verb to make it feel more in line with a proper live album, and fades between "Black Hearted Woman" and "Seven Turns" to make that transition slightly less jarring due to the cuts in the source tape.

1. Don't Want You No More
2. It's Not My Cross To Bear
3. Statesboro Blues
4. Don't Keep Me Wonderin'
5. Blue Sky
6. Nobody Knows
7. Black Hearted Woman (cut)
8. Seven Turns
9. Midnight Rider
10. Southbound
11. Melissa
12. Pony Boy
13. Warren solo
14. Hootchie Coochie Man
15. Get On With Your Life
16. True Gravity
17. Revival
18. Whipping Post
    
    

greg allman - keyboards, guitar, vocals
dickey betts - guitars, vocals
butch trucks - drums, tympani
jaimoe - drums
marc quiones - percussion
warren haynes - guitars, vocals
allan woody - bass 

Original notes: 

Lineage: DSB > DAT 48 kHz  > my DAT clone
Transfer : Donnie Loeffler , Jan 2024 NO POST PROCESSING !!!!
DAT > s/pdif > Mac > Audacity > 44.1 kHz > FLAC 

I received this in a  trade from “jerry” way back in the mid 90s on DAT.  According to the notes on the tape it is listed “DSB” for digital soundboard; it sounds like that to me, no real cassette hiss or analog “saturation”. ABB soundboards are really just monitor boards, they are stereo but with a narrow field and they sound rather “flat” in comparison to other artists soundboards i.e. Grateful Dead.  I saw the ABB in Louisville 1992 2nd row and never could find a tape, so this is the closest date I could find and a soundboard.  There are some egregious cuts , “black hearted woman” is cut on the end which BLOWS since they have a nice triplet “other one” type jam at the end of that tune; why there is a cut there? Did someone flip a cassette down the line?  Yes, there is a small drop out in “blue sky” that I seamed and the beginning of “seven turns” is cut , there could be a acoustic tune missing in front, they didn’t open with “seven turns” very much or at all according to set lists?  However, it’s a good listen and clean otherwise; it’s difficult to hear a bad performance by this line up … EVER.  It’s my favorite line up besides the original line up .  1992 was the BEST year for the line up as well … find a copy of the commercial 1992 LIVE releases, or even better , buy them or download them to support ABB family , all of them are good: Live set 1 and 2, and latter released “play all night: March 10/11, 1992 Beacon Theatre … this source has been previously circulated but this is a “new transfer” … 

Kiss 1986/03/27 Asylum Tour: Eric Civic Center, Erie, PA (Mr. Sifter Remaster)

 

KISS
1986-03-27
Erie, PA


A rare SBD from the Asylum tour, albeit one absolutely destroyed by a constant buzzing on the source tape that the FOH engineer took all the way until Gene's bass solo to fix. I did the best I could to remove it as much as possible using Ozone DeNoise, it's still embedded in the music but much less obtrusive. Added some light EQ/mastering touches but otherwise left the recording as-is.


01. Detroit Rock City
02. Fits Like A Glove
03. Creatures Of The Night
04. Cold Gin
05. Bruce Kulick Solo
06. Uh! All Night
07. Eric Carr Solo
08. War Machine
09. Love Gun
10. I Still Love You
11. Gene Simmons Solo
12. I Love It Loud
13. Heaven's On Fire
14. Rock And Roll All Nite
15. Tears Are Falling
16. Lick It Up

KISS: Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Carr, Bruce Kulick

Google Drive Link

Elton John 1995/08/30 Riverport Amphitheater, Maryland Heights, MO (Mr. Sifter Remix & Remaster)

 

Elton John

Wednesday August 30, 1995

Riverport Amphitheater

Maryland Heights, MO

Remastered by Mr. Sifter, Jan. 2024.

Remaster notes: 

Split and remixed using DeMix Pro and Logic Pro. Mastered with Ozone 11. Remixed to achieve a better balance and also achieve some minor stereo separation with keys & guitars. Drums and bass EQ'd to have better presence, and added a slight bit of reverb to the final mix to make it feel more like a live album and less like a straight SBD feed. There are some brief dropouts in the original source, they are noted by the original seeder at the bottom.

Like my previous entry from 1989, this fills a gap in the official Elton live catalog, with nothing official from the Made In England tour as yet appearing. Unfortunately only 4 songs from that album appear, but they're great, and a couple other rarities like "Dixy Lily" and "Come Down In Time" round out the setlist nicely. 

1995 band: 

Elton John – piano and vocals

Davey Johnstone – electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, mandolin, backing vocals

Guy Babylon – keyboards, backing vocals

Bob Birch – bass guitar, backing vocals

Ray Cooper – percussion, spoken vocal on percussion solo

John Jorgenson – electric and acoustic guitars, saxophone, backing vocals

Charlie Morgan – drums

Original source notes:

Source: Mono SBD > XLR > DBX 160XT (leveling) > Sony TCD-D8 > DDS 90M (16/48)

Transfer: Sony TCD-D100 > Custom S/PDIF Cable > M-Audio Microtrack II > Kingston CF/16GB-S2

Lineage: Wavelab 6 (EQ, +2db) > r8brain PRO > CD Wave Editor (FLAC6) > Live Show Tagger

Credit: 

Marshall Stacy - recording and DAT loan!

Kobi (liveween.com) - gear loan

James E / BlingFree - transfer, edit, track and FLAC

Set:

01 I'm Still Standing

02 I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues

03 I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That

04 Sacrifice

05 Dixie Lilly

06 Honky Cat

07 Come Down In Time

08 House

09 Simple Life

10 The One

11 Piano Solo

12 Take Me To The Pilot

13 Made In England

14 Someone Saved My Life Tonight

15 Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

16 Bennie & The Jets

17 Levon

18 Rocket Man

19 Band Intros

20 Can You Feel The Love Tonight

21 Believe

22 Pain

23 Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)

24 Drum Solo

25 Pinball Wizard

Encore:

26 Bitch Is Back

27 Your Song

28 Funeral For A Friend

29 Last Song

Notes:

Light static throughout recording

Dixie Lilly - Static at end of song

Honkey Cat - 4 Drop-outs

Someone Saved My Life Tonight - 1 Drop-out

Last Song - Heavy static in middle

Funeral For A Friend - 1 Drop-out

Google Drive Link

The Jayhawks 1995/02/12 People's Bar & Grill, Ames, IA (Mr. Sifter Remix & Remaster)

 

The Jayhawks

People's Bar & Grill,

Ames, Iowa

2/12/1995

Source: sbd> DAT

Transfer: DAT> Tascam DA20mkII> M-Audio Transit

Remixed & remastered by Mr. Sifter, Jan. 2024 using Demix Pro, Logic Pro & Ozone 11. 

The original source for this show can be found/downloaded here: 

https://archive.org/details/tj1995-02-12

Remastering notes: 

This was a nice, clean mono soundboard from the early TTGG tour. Opened up the soundstage a bit with electrics on the left and Karen's piano on the right while adding some light mastering touches to beef things up without ruining the dynamics. 

PLEASE READ: The first half of "Tomorrow The Green Grass" was marred by either SBD feed problems or PA problems, where the only thing cleanly recorded for most of the track was the vocals. As such, I patched together an instrumental track flying in the rest of the band from the third verse into the first couple minutes of the song, it's not perfect but it's better than what was there, particularly since it's a relative live rarity. The rest of the show was captured well, with this version hopefully containing a better blend of instrumentation and vocals. 

 1. Tomorrow the Green Grass

 2. Clouds

 3. Settled Down Like Rain

 4. Two Hearts

 5. Wichita

 6. Nothing Left To Borrow

 7. Martin's Song

 8. Ten Little Kids

 9. I'd Run Away

10. Sister Cry

11. Blue

12. Real Light

13. Waiting for the Sun

14. Six Pack on the Dashboard

15. Bad Time

16. Miss William's Guitar

17. enc. Sioux City

18. Reason to Believe

19. Lights on the City

Archive.org Link

Elton John - 1989/08/02 Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts, Mansfield, MA (Mr. Sifter Remaster)

Elton John
8/2/1989
Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts, Mansfield, MA
Sleeping With The Past Tour

Lineage: soundboard > ? > Maxell XLII cassette copy (probably 2nd or 3rd gen.) > played on tascam 112 with pitch adjustment into soundforge (wav) > flac (sb's aligned) 

Remixed & remastered by Mr. Sifter, Jan. 2024.

1. Bennie And The Jets
2. Island Girl
3. Harmony
4. Tiny Dancer
5. Sleeping With The Past
6. The Bitch Is Back/Brown Sugar
7. I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues
8. Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters
9. Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters Part Two
10. Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
11. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
12. Daniel
13. Candle In The Wind
14. Sacrifice
15. Blue Eyes
16. Philadelphia Freedom
17. Burn Down The Mission
18. Healing Hands
19. Kiss The Bride
20. Stones Throw From Hurtin'
21. Sad Songs (Say So Much)
22. Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me
23. I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That
24. Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
25. I'm Still Standing
26. Rocket Man

Elton John: piano and lead vocals 

Davey Johnstone: guitar and vocals 

Fred Mandel: guitar, keyboards 

Guy Babylon: keyboards

Romeo Williams: bass 

Jonathan "Sugarfoot" Moffett: drums 

Mortonette Jenkins: backing vocals 

Marlena Jeter: backing vocals 

Natalie Jackson: backing vocals 

Google Drive Link

Van Halen - "Civic Disobedience" 1976-05-29 Pasadena, CA (Mr. Sifter Remaster)

 

Van Halen
5/29/1976
Pasadena, CA
Conference Building
Pasadena Convention Center

Original source: "Civic Disobedience" Bootleg

Remixed & remastered by Mr. Sifter, Jan. 2024 using Demix Pro, Logic Pro & Izotope Ozone 11.

A great pre-Warner Bros. Van Halen show, full of early versions of several classics (Dave is still trying to decide what the lyrics of "Runnin' With the Devil" are going to be), a few songs that would soon be replaced by newer compositions, and a couple of choice covers. Of course, this one wasn't going to win any audiophile awards, but I corrected the hard panning of the original tape to hopefully more accurately represent the live sound in the room, and just tried to clean things up a bit. Turn it up and enjoy.  

1. On Fire 3:40
2. Somebody Get Me A Doctor 4:40
3. Babe Don't Leave Me Alone 3:54
4. I'm The One (Show Your Love) 4:53
5. Runnin' With The Devil 3:56
6. Let Me Swim 6:34
7. Let's Get Rockin' 3:01
8. Eyes Of The Night 4:46
9. In A Simple Rhyme 5:11
10. La Grange 5:54
11. Honolulu Baby 2:43
12. Eruption 2:50
13. House Of Pain 3:20
14. Fools 5:20

Google Drive Link