Hüsker Dü
The Roxy
West Hollywood, California
May 8, 1986
RG Master Cassette via JEMS
New Wave LA Series Vol. 36

Recording equipment: unknown microphone and unknown cassette deck

JEMS 2020 Transfer: RG Master Cassette > Nakamichi RX-505 (azimuth adjustment) > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 capture > iZotope RX6 > iZotope Ozone 6 > CD Wave > ffmpeg > FLAC

01 Flip Your Wig
02 Every Everything
03 Makes No Sense At All
04 Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill
05 I Apologize
06 If I Told You
07 Private Plane
08 Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely
09 Chartered Trips
10 What's Going On
11 Terms Of Psychic Warfare
12 Powerline
13 Books About UFOs
14 Hardly Getting Over It
15 Sorry Somehow
16 Eiffel Tower High
17 Green Eyes
18 Celebrated Summer
19 Never Talking To You Again
20 Love Is All Around
21 Pink Turns To Blue
22 All This I've Done For You

JEMS is pleased to extend a series of historic recordings made by our longtime friend and diehard music collector RG. He was on the scene in LA as a teenager, began recording shows in 1977 and continued on well into the 2000s. Our series will focus on tapes he made between 1977 and 1987.

What sort of music was he into? Well, one simple way to put it is KROQ music, meaning the bands that LA’s “world famous” new wave radio station was playing were the bands he saw and recorded. First wave if you will, with forays into indie and punk(ish) artists. The early years are dominated by UK artists breaking in the US. Over time his work expands to US bands in the second wave. Some of the artists RG taped include:

Siouxsie & the Banshees (Vol. 4)
Madness (Vol. 8)
The Specials (Vol. 6)
OMD (Vol. 10)
The Damned (Vol. 25)
The Stranglers (Vol. 1)
Public Image Limited (Vol. 3)
John Cale (Vol. 9, Vol. 30)
Magazine (Vol. 21)
The Buzzcocks (Vol. 7)
Orange Juice (Vol. 13)
U2 (Vol. 28)
Wreckless Eric (Vol. 27)
The Cramps (Vol. 22)
Johnny Thunders (Vol. 18)
Talking Heads (Vol. 24)
Iggy Pop
XTC (Vol. 2)
The Jam (Vol. 31)
The Only Ones (Vol. 19)
The Undertones (Vol. 17)
Boomtown Rats (Vol. 5)
The Birthday Party (Vol. 15)
Penetration (Vol. 26)
The Bluebells (Vol. 12)
The Plimsouls (Vol. 11)
Athletico Spizz '80 (Vol. 29)
Killing Joke (Vol. 14)
Jonathan Richman (Vol. 16)
The Records (Vol. 20)
Robert Fripp (Vol. 23)
Bram Tchaikovsky (Vol. 32)
Peter Gabriel (Vol. 33)
R.E.M. (Vol. 34)
Elvis Costello (Vol. 35)
Hüsker Dü (Vol. 36)

Later on he caught The Smiths, R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, The Replacements and many more.

RG used good, not Millard-level recording gear, which means his tapes are mostly solid and listenable, with the occasional very good one and also sorta crappy one. What makes his tapes compelling is that RG was recording in a particularly vital window of time. In many instances these were the first or second times these acts played Los Angeles. Some never did proper US tours, only playing select dates in key markets like LA or NYC. Also, for many of these gigs, RG was the only taper. He grabbed a few local radio broadcasts along the way, too. 

Because these shows were almost exclusively at clubs like The Whisky and The Roxy, the sets are generally short, 45 to 60 minutes because that's what you did at The Whisky. On occasion, RG would copy his own masters to save tape and we have done our best to distinguish what’s a true master and what’s a first generation copy. If there’s a doubt, we will note it. Regardless, the series will offer the lowest generation copies available of his recordings, digitized directly for the first time from RG’s tapes which had been stored in boxes for the last 15+ years.

We continue the New Wave LA series in the '80s with one of its greatest trios, Hüsker Dü, playing the second night of a three-show stand at The Roxy. The band had just released their major-label debut, Candy Apple Grey, on Warner Bros. in March, several songs of which feature here.

The power trio never wasted time on stage and they blast through this bang-bang set, playing with passion and adrenaline. 

Because of the high-volume sonics of Hüsker Dü's sound, many tapes of them are distorted or at least crispy, and RG's recording is no exception but it is still pretty clear and captures the power of the band effectively. Samples provided. RG also taped the Dü a year later, when they toured behind their final album, Warehouse: Songs And Stories.

We’re so grateful to RG for letting JEMS dig through his tape boxes and pull out the assets for this series. He witnessed amazing SoCal music history. Tip of the hat as well to cpscps who volunteered to handle post-production on our series which is a huge help to us and makes it possible to get more music in your hands. Stay tuned for more New Wave in LA.

BK for JEMS