SEX PISTOLS
December 09, 1976
Electric Circus
Manchester, England, United Kingdom
SOURCE:
unknown > Aiwa Radio Cassette Recorder
EXTRACTION:
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223Q > Exact Audio Copy v0.99 prebeta 5 > Cool Edit Pro 2.0 > CD WAVE 1.98 > Trader's Little Helper 2.7.0
GENERATION:
"Never Mind The Bans" CD + "Pretty Blank Disc Twelve" CD > WAV [44.1kHz/16bit] > FLAC [Level 8] (see NOTES)
LENGTH:
48:06
TRACKS:
01. Anarchy In The UK
02. I Wanna Be Me
03. Seventeen
04. (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone [Paul Revere & The Raiders]
05. Satellite
06. Submission
07. Substitute [The Who]
08. No Feelings
09. (banter)
10. Liar
11. Pretty Vacant
12. (tuning)
13. God Save The Queen
14. Problems (cut)
NOTES:
Frustrated by a recent heavily-edited remastering of the master tape (April 2013), I decided to
piece together the most complete version of this show from circulating incomplete sources. The
"Never Mind The Bans" CD includes the encore of "Problems", but has less audience chatter at the
beginning and a few minutes of banter/tuning edited out. The recent remaster is the exact same
edit as this CD. The boot LP "Anarchy Tour '76", later released on CD with the Pretty Blank
15-CD box set, does not include "Problems", but is more complete at the beginning and includes
all of the between-song tuning and banter. It also runs at/close to the correct speed, unlike
the "NMTB" CD and the 2013 remaster, which are noticably slowed down.
I extracted both CD sources with EAC and opened them in CEP2.0. I speed-corrected the "NMTB"
source to match the speed of "PBD12" - linear compression, high precision resample - and opened
both tracks into a multitrack to check for phasing that would indicate time discrepancies.
Where the banter was complete on the "NMTB" source, I left it untouched. Where there was more
banter/tuning on the "PBD12" source, I deleted the between-song portions on the "NMTB" source
and inserted the appropriate amount of silence to match the "PBD12" source. I then silenced
the songs on the "PBD12" source, as the "NMTB" source is better overall sonically. I mixed
down the two source tracks to a single stereo track (-1.5dB for "NMTB", -3.0dB for "PBD12";
both CD sources are a little "hot", but "PBD12" more so...). I double-checked all transistions
to make sure the waveform was seamless and saved the mixed-down file. Wrote up a .cue file,
split into tracks with CD WAVE 1.98, and encoded to FLAC with Trader's Little Helper 2.7.0.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it was only about two hours effort. The resulting show is the
most complete available, and is fairly seamless, with no awkward jumps or volume shifts as you
might expect. This wouldn't be possible if the two incomplete boot releases were not sonically
similar and from the same source recording. It's certainly not as enjoyable as a clean and
unedited transfer from the master tapes, but it will tide me (and hopefully the other five Sex
Pistols collectors in the world) over until such a source is available.
Should anyone wonder, I decided against using the April 2013 remaster in any capacity for a
couple of reasons. The digital EQ applied by the taper made the recording sound a bit more
crisp, but pretty thin in the low end for my tastes. In addition, there are some odd things
going on with the remaster looking at it in spectral view. Three tracks (Anarchy, Submission,
and the "Stop Gobbing" banter have a full and natural frequency response, while the other tracks
all show a steep high-end rolloff from 12000kHz - 20000kHz. It also seems strange that a fresh
remaster from the master tapes made in January 2013 has the same edits as a 2004 boot release.
Overall, the new source just seemed a little too "fiddled-with" to use for this project. Ah,
the delightful world of Sex Pistols live tapes! As a Nirvana guy, I have a deep and newfound
respect for the state of the Nirvana trading community :D
FLAC FINGERPRINTS:
01 Anarchy In The UK.flac:f7c0d9feafb6b58345b01b6614ba82e8
02 I Wanna Be Me.flac:66fe461f560479b0c63dba2034e4aa7b
03 Seventeen.flac:8dba5f2f7e9e743de37d0baf9ee2ab71
04 (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone.flac:a2520e9a7e50b580654b27a58da1df2e
05 Satellite.flac:8b0da350f8a224a4ade7188b13a0fb56
06 Submission.flac:c3aecbcc83f715a3278abe61afad00c7
07 Substitute.flac:89708485014970cdeb12321888f575f0
08 No Feelings.flac:dc2cbe541ab8cecda058ee19f01ac98e
09 (banter).flac:36ae386f5803a3d158f263117ecd4295
10 Liar.flac:89fb49bbf797843d7f82e7c8eea3c230
11 Pretty Vacant.flac:550f07bcf77e5db8e756d684da0cf909
12 (tuning).flac:9cfe173f924facafaf4095d4538296f0
13 God Save The Queen.flac:1d35dbdafb5121930c5a4bfb2b979c28
14 Problems.flac:8b104dcda6a29968a86b1e247e0fa0ab
RECORDED BY:
MT
EXTRACTED/FUCKED ABOUT WITH BY:
DLR
PLEASE DO NOT SELL OR ENCODE TO MP3!