ARMCHAIR BEA: Who am I?

I'm Jason Jack Miller, dammit. I like to write fiction that contains a healthy dose of the unusual, somewhere in-between urban fantasy and magical realism. My novel, THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK is about a guitarist who falls in love with the wrong girl, the type of girls who may, or may not have gotten him involved in a deal with the devil.

Music is my other passion, and if you take a look at some of my other posts you'll see that I'm highlighting performances from artists who appear in my book. All downloads are 100% safe and 100% legal. I like to think I'm providing a soundtrack for the book.

Please leave a comment if you stopped by. If you'd like a free eBook version of my novel, THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK, email me at jasonjackmiller at gmail dot com and I'll send you the link and a Smashwords coupon code.

Follow me on Twitter @jasonjackmiller I follow back!

THE MUSIC AND PRESTON BLACK Foo Fighters, Austin City Limits, September 29, 2008

From THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK:

     I took a deep breath.
     Maybe it was cliché to start soft and let it build, but that was what worked. "Stairway", "Everlong", "Two Step". I didn't really see myself having a choice. So I sang the first verse a capella. Just like Ernie Currence sang in his kitchen, except in tune. I slapped my knee with my hand. "I never knew my mom or a dad. No, I never knew my mom or dad. Didn't know when I was born, didn't know when I'd die, didn't know nothing about the how or why. Preston Black didn't know his mom or dad."
     The ironic thing was the way they ate it up. Their attentiveness was obvious, because I'd seen a lot of crowds who could give a shit. And I wondered how many of them believed my story, and how many of them thought it was bullshit, but liked it anyway.
     I continued a capella, but this time Katy played, squeezing out a dissonant drone from her fiddle like fingernails down a chalkboard. She twisted the minor key, giving the song a gothic stain.
     "Preston Black couldn't quench his thirst. Preston Black couldn't quench his thirst. But he'd go to the bar every night and be dry again by the morning light, Preston Black couldn't ever quench his thirst."
     Katy built on the song's melody, playing notes complementary to mine but never the same note. Her tones and my words filled the space above the crowd with strange, new chords. Smothered them with noise.
     While Katy played I turned around and eased the Twin's volume up. I looked for the sound guy, maybe trying to tell him I was about to drop bombs. When he nodded I got ready for the next verse.

Buy the THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK on Amazon.

Download the show at Sugarmegs.com

Foo Fighters

HD Digital Broadcast on KEDT-TV (Austin City Limits)
Captured on Motorola DCH 6416 Digital Video Recorder
Transferred via Zoom H2 (line-in via RCA jacks) at 44.1 kHz, 16 bit

Zoom H2 > wav file > Sony Soundforge 8.0 > Traders Little Helper > flac

Sony Soundforge was used to split the large wav file into tracks and to fade in at the beginning and fade out at the end. TLH was used to correct sector boundary errors and to convert to flac.

This show was originally broadcast on PBS Soundstage on January 17, 2009 but was recorded on September 29, 2008.

01. Young Man Blues 5:31
02. Skin and Bones 4:55
03. My Hero 5:30
04. But Honestly 5:35
05. Everlong 9:48
06. Monkeywrench 1:48
07. All My Life 4:31
08. Aurora 9:24
09. The Pretender 4:59
10. Interview 1:17

Band Credits
Dave Grohl – vocals, guitar
Taylor Hawkins – drums, vocals
Nate Mendel – bass
Chris Shiflett – guitar, vocals
Jessy Greene – violin, cello, vocals
Drew Hester – percussion
Rami Jaffee – keyboard, accordion, piano, mellotron
Pat Smear – guitar

A Turbo Music Production

Please do not remaster or convert files to MP3 or any other format with the intent to redistribute them. Please share this content freely in its original format.

THE MUSIC AND PRESTON BLACK Yonder Mountain String Band, Fillmore Auditorium April 17, 2004

From THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK:

    "Okay. I made a mixtape for you."
     "You serious? It'd been years since anybody made me a mixtape, and this weekend I get two."
     "Well, a CD. Just some stuff you may have never heard. Sara Watkins, Yonder Mountain String Band, Uncle Earl." She handed it to me with an apologetic smile.
     "Thanks a lot. I'll listen to it today." I got my stuff from the back seat.
     "Yeah, right." Katy tooted as she drove away.
     I stood on the corner waiting for whatever would happen next. Walnut Street looked a lot different today than it did Friday night on my drunken stroll up High. The sidewalk felt a little slippy, so I shuffled my feet, my Tele acting like a counterweight to all of the material Jamie had loaded me down with.
     I thought about heading straight to Dani's, but remembered she said she'd be up at the library. Pauly's message that he'd be on the road for a few days reminded me I had the apartment to myself. My stomach growled. The easiest thing would be to take it into the diner to see mom. But she'd know I hadn't been talking to Pauly and ask a lot of questions and tell me how sin makes us a prisoner of Satan and all that. Seemed like a lot of trouble for a cheeseburger.

Buy the THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK on Amazon.

Yonder is the band that delivered me to traditional music. This show sounds amazing, like you're riding the rail at the Fillmore. Great mix of songs--two Beatles covers and some Ozzy. (And The Misfits, too.) If you're afraid to commit, start listening at Troubled Mind and stayed tuned through the encores.


http://www.archive.org/details/ymsb2004-04-17.sbd.flac16

Listen:


Collection: YonderMountainStringBand
Band/Artist: Yonder Mountain String Band
Date: April 17, 2004 (check for other copies)
Venue: Fillmore Auditorium
Location: San Francisco, CA

Source: SBD > Lunatec V2 > Sony PCM-M1 (44.1khz)
Lineage: Sony PCM-M1 > Oade Active 7-pin > Hosa Coax > Delta DiO 2496 > WaveLab 4.0g (record, fades) > CD Wave v.1.92 (splits) > shntool > FLAC16 (level 8)
Taped by: Brad Leblanc
Keywords: Live concert

Set 1: No Expectations, Another Day, River*, Mental Breakdown, Sunday Afternoon, Left Me In A Hole, Crow Black Chicken^, Where They Do Not Know My Name^, Death Trip^, Near Me, Not Far Away, New Horizons > I'm Only Sleeping > New Horizons

Set 2: And Your Bird Can Sing > Sideshow Blues, Mossy Cow, Country Boy Rock & Roll, Sorrow Is A Highway, Troubled Mind > 20 Eyes, Kentucky Mandolin > Just The Same, Lord Only Knows (Part One) > Sometimes I've Won + > On The Run > Peace Of Mind > On The Run

Encore: 40 Miles From Denver, Crazy Train


http://www.archive.org/details/ymsb2004-04-17.sbd.flac16

THE MUSIC AND JASON JACK MILLER Bob Marley, Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA, December 2, 1979

It's a big joke that every white kid gets a copy of Bob Marley LEGEND at freshman orientation, but for me it was REBEL MUSIC and it was my junior year in high school. Must have been all those skip days to Morgantown with Harold and Jim. Following the smell of patchouli into COOL RIDGE on High Street. I can't remember swimming in Meadow Run or jumping off the bridge into the Yough without hearing REBEL MUSIC in my mind.

In the golden months between Cheat Season and July, Mike Duff and I would sit around playing Redemption Song in his old Chevy van. Something about Bob Marley and summer and rivers.

Then one day WAR cocked me right between the eyes. 'This cat is serious,' I remember thinking, and it embarrassed me that I'd been so superficial with regard to his music.

It took me a few more years to figure out KAYA, and THREE LITTLE BIRDS and POSITIVE VIBRATION was his way of saying your glass isn't always half-empty and it isn't always half-full. Sometimes you just got to drink what's in it.

Buy the THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK on Amazon.

I found an AMAZING show on Sugarmegs.com. Amazingly clear. Download it here and give LEGEND to your little brother.

Bob Marley & The Wailers
December 2, 1979
Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
Santa Cruz, CA

Excellent sound quality pre-broadcast soundboard recordings from best circulating copies.

CD#1: Early show main set 67:28
01 crowd noise & Bob's talk before 1st song 0:29
02 > Rastaman Vibration 5:14
03 Wake Up and Live 5:19
04 Them Belly Full 3:25
05 Concrete Jungle 5:10
06 I Shot The Sheriff 4:28
07 Running Away 3:25
08 > Crazy Baldhead 4:19
09 Ambush In The Night 3:57
10 The Heathen 5:06
11 War 4:50
12 > No More Trouble 1:57
13 Ride Natty Ride 4:25
14 Africa Unite 4:25
15 One Drop 4:11
16 JamminÕ 6:33
17 thank yous & crowd noise before encores 0:08

CD#2: Early show encores 17:19
01 Is This Love? 3:28
02 Natty Dread 3:43
03 Exodus 4:26
04 > Get Up Stand Up 5:40

CD#3: Late show main set 65:21
01 crowd noise & intro before 1st song 0:23 [from alternate cassette source]
02 Rastaman Vibration 5:17
03 Wake Up and Live 5:06
04 I Shot The Sheriff 4:36
05 Them Belly Full 3:35
06 Concrete Jungle 5:42
07 Ambush In The Night 3:51
08 Running Away 3:13
09 > Crazy Baldheads 4:04
10 Heathen 4:28
11 Ride Natty Ride 4:16
12 War 4:15
13 > No More Trouble 1:46
14 Africa Unite 4:17
15 One Drop 3:59
16 Jammin' 6:24

CD#4: Late show encores 25:55
01 No Woman No Cry
02 Natty Dread
03 Is This Love?
04 > Exodus
05 > Get Up Stand Up

These shows were recorded and at least one show was broadcast live by KUSP-FM, who still own the master reels but are not giving them out. These are copies made in 1980 from those masters for one of the sound crew who mixed the show. They loaned him the reels and a Revox A77 so more than one copy was made at the time and these transfers are the best sounding of them.

I guess this wasn't the only live broadcast from their tour, but I remember that KUSP said that they convinced Bob Marley to let these shows be broadcast by telling Bob that KUSP was within range of Soledad Prison and that the prisoners would be allowed to listen to them, so he agreed.

These recordings have circulated widely, but usually as just one show and either from the FM broadcast or from multi-generation copies of these tapes.

Early show lineage: 7.5 ips 1/2 track reel master > Dolby B cassette recorded on Sony TCD5 transferred with Nakamichi Dragon > Macintosh with DigiDesign AudioMedia III card > Pro Tools > AIFF > Toast Titanium > CD.

Late show lineage: 7.5 ips 1/2 track reel master > 3.75 ips 1/4 track Dolby B reel recorded & transferred with Tandberg 9241XD > Macintosh with DigiDesign AudioMedia III card > Pro Tools > AIFF > Toast Titanium > CD. This late show reel had a few dropouts, but they are barely noticeable and probably only when listening with headphones.

CD extraction with Toast Titanium > xACT (Flac files created with sector boundaries verified). md5 filw created with checkSUM+.

The encores from both shows can be burned onto one disk if you prefer to burn it that way to save a disc.

ENJOY!

THE MUSIC AND PRESTON BLACK Led Zeppelin, Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, USA 1975.02.12

From THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK:

     "I loved to practice, and I couldn't wait for Monday afternoons to show my guitar teacher how much I'd practiced. The first time Jeff played "Crazy Train" for me would've been better than the day I lost my virginity and the day I smoked my first joint had both things not happened on the same day. Week after week he turned me on to new guitarists--Kirk Hammett, Randy Rhoads, Jimmy Page, Joe Satriani. "I practiced until my knuckles looked like marbles."
     Because of Jeff I learned to love music more than I ever loved Tony Hawk or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I pestered him for more songs, more riffs, and more guitarists for the next three years. When the time came for him to pack up and leave for college I figured I had to strike out on my own. I just needed to know where to start.
     Jeff said, "Start with the blues."
     I bought a slide, an old Coricidin bottle like Duane Allman used. But when I tried to get into Elmore James and Muddy Waters, I ended up with a bunch of CDs I never listened to more than once or twice. Being a white kid growing up in a patch house on the outskirts of Morgantown, West Virginia, the blues may as well have been N.W.A. or Public Enemy. I thought Jeff'd steered me wrong.
     So I started hitting record stores like Charlie Watts hit Mick Jagger after that 5am wake-up call. I knew my personal thread through the music went deeper, and I was more than just an orphan who'd been passed around like a bottle of Boone's. Music made me all too keenly aware that I could be more than my guidance counselors ever expected me to be. I had my own roots and didn't have to buy into somebody else's past or culture to feel complete. I didn't know nothing about my mom or dad, but I knew I was conceived to Led Zeppelin III and I knew when I finally kicked it, I'd kick with a guitar in my hands.

Buy the THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK on Amazon.

When I started playing guitar YouTube didn't exist. Everything I knew about Zeppelin came from Rolling Stone and guitar magazines. In those articles Jimmy Page is forever choking that Les Paul like he was choking the devil himself. Robert Plant's hair is always spread out like a Raphaelaen halo. Jonesy and Bonzo are somewhere else.

My mind's image of Zeppelin is Plant and Page, shoulder to shoulder and forever frozen like Michelangelo's Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel. In my mind they never walked onto the stage and they never said goodnight. In my mind they are always halfway through Since I've Been Lovin' You or The Ocean. Always climaxing. Never stopping to take a breath.

Download Led Zeppelin That's Alright New York at Sugarmegs.com.

Artist: Led Zeppelin
Date: 1975.02.12
Title: That's Alright New York
Label: The Godfatherecords (G.R.327/328/329)
Venue: Madison Square Garden
Location: New York, NY, USA
Source: Soundboard

Lineage: My Original Silver CD > EAC > WAV > FLAC

*Note: This title that Godfather released is flat out Amazing. I own 7 different labels of this show and without a second thought after Jimmy hit that first cord; This is…”The Example of Supreme.” All the current labels should grab a copy of this and frame it, hang it on their walls, and while gazing at it, realize this is Mastering at it’s Finest!
-bostonbro

Disc 1
01. Rock And Roll
02. Sick Again
03. Over The Hills And Far Away
04. In My Time Of Dying
05. The Song Remains The Same
06. The Rain Song
07. Kashmir

Disc 2
01. No Quarter
02. Trampled Underfoot
03. Moby Dick

Disc 3
01. Dazed And Confused (incl. San Francisco)
02. Stairway To Heaven
03. Whole Lotta Love
04. Black Dog
05. Heartbreaker (incl. That Alright Mama)

Review #1:
A great show! It may have been a blizzard outside but the Garden was rocking this night! "We came four blocks in the snow to get here ... you realise that? People were calling me on the telephone today and saying 'Is it gonna be on?' For a minute I was wondering about my anatomy, then I realised there was some discrepancy about the weather. Isn't it good though that it snows? Doesn't it change the vibe of the city? I think it's great!" The band is in excellent form and delivers a great show. Robert sounds good and strong, Jonesy and Bonzo are amazing as always, and Jimmy is incendiary tonight, especially at the end of Sick Again. He extends the solo in Over The Hills And Far Away to an incredible length and soars. No Quarter is dedicated to Jones that "...made Monthy Python's Flying Circus a flop in New York" tonight and his imppecably clean fingernails. Moby Dick is like a hurricane and Dazed And Confused just blows everybody out to the cosmic level! A bunch of heavy solid encores with an excellent Heartbreaker with some lyrics of Elvis Presley's That's Alright Mama thrown in closing this amazing eveing. This is definitely a triumph for the entire band and, not only a strong concert but also probably the best from the 1975 US Tour. "Ladies and gentlemen of New York ... you're too much ... and we ain't so bad ourselves!" and the show was over.
-Argenteum Astrum

Review #2:
When Empress Valley released the soundboard for this show it was a revelation of sorts. Not only was it previously uncirculated but it sounds as if it’s a professionaly mixed multi-track recording. The general consesus among collectors was that this recording was the best of the best and could not get any better. UNTIL NOW!!! Godfather has pulled off a miracle. This new release has taken what was already a three layer cake and added the richest icing possible. Godfather has improved the seemingly unimprovable. They did what was said couldn’t be done. They have taken the best sounding soundboard out there and turned it into the best sounding soundboard ever… Sure Flying Circus is great but this recording blows it away. Godfather used a professional recording studio to work their magic on this release. This release may definitely take the place of the official Live Led Zeppelin releases in my collection. This release has a beefier sound to it which overall makes this a slamming recording. There’s absolutely no hiss present and this is as clean as it gets. This release will help to set Godfather’s Legacy in stone.
One thing that has confused me over the years is that inside the first edition of Luis Rey’s “Led Zeppelin Live” book he lists both the audience and soundboard sources for this show. Mysteriously the next two editions of his book have only the audience source listed. Obviously Mr. Rey had access to the soundboard long before any of the rest of us did. We’re talking at least 10 years in between the first edition of his book and the release of Flying Circus. I don’t ever remember too much of a stink made over the listing of the Soundboard and no actual soundboard circulating. Someone in the know got to Mr. Rey and hushed him up. Conspiracy Theories at their finest. That right there proves to me that there’s still plenty of stuff circulating amonsgst the “Elite” collectors that the rest of us have no idea about.
This release is packaged in the typical Godfather Gatefold with numerous pictures of the band. Inside is another short summary by Mr. Paul De Luxe. He basically writes a short summary of the show. The soundboard source has been previously released as Flying Circus (Eelgrass & Empress Valley Supreme Disc) and Madison Square Graffiti (Red Devil). Audience source #1 has previously been released on LP as The Final Option (Rock Solid Records & The Swingin’ Pig Records), In Concert (Rock Solid Records), In Person (Rock Solid Records), Live At Madison Square Garden 1975 (no label issues & Zep Toepper), Live In Madison Square Garden Part 1&2 (Box Top Records), Madison Square Garden (The Swingin’ Pig Records) & Madison Square garden 1975 (The Swingin’ Pig Records) and on CD as The 10th US Tour (Whole Lotta Live), Can’t Take Your Evil Ways (The Diagrams Of Led Zeppelin), Can’t Take Your Evil Ways Un-Cut Version (The Diagrams Of Led Zeppelin), Four Blocks In The Snow (The Chronicles Of Led Zeppelin), Good To Be Back In New York City (Planet), Heartbreakers Back In Town Pts 1&2 (TNT Studios), The Jumpleg (Tarantura), Ladies And Gents (Tarantura2000), M.S.G. 1975 (Last Stand Disc, both issues), & Shakin’ All Over (Triangle Records). Audience Source #2 has previously been released on CD as Four Blocks In The Snow (The Chronicles Of Led Zeppelin) & That’s All Right NewYork (Electric Magic)”. The combined sources have been previously released as “Four Blocks In The Snow (Small Fish CD-R). DVD-A versions were released as Flying Circus (Empress Valley Supreme Disc) & Heartbreakers Back In Town (Genuine Masters).
I’ve always held Flying Circus in high regard due to the sound quality but this release has taken over the coveted spot of “Best Soundboard in Circulation!” Hands down it wins! Thanks must got to Godfather for taking something amazing and making it extraordinary. Eat Your Heart Out Empress Valley.
-Collectors Music Reviews

Art and Checksum Included

Enjoy
-bostonbro