Three Sisters - Live at Slim's - April 7, 1995

I was there. It was amazing. I really want this whole show to see the light of day. I couldn't believe Walter put this together for one show -- it was so tight.

Too cool for school! Walter and Donald were channeling another Cosmos, always one step ahead of the majority of the world.. I just love both of these major dudes! Lary

nice one!

Note the date

Nice job, Dan. I like it!

Hi everybody, I cleaned up the audio on this song a little, and wow! Close your eyes and you'll feel like you're there. I have used EQ to get the bass and lower midrange much louder but nice and balanced, and used a little multiband compression to make the new powerful bass sound more even and tame some of the peaks. I also tweaked the stereo spread a little so the right and left channels sound more balanced.

If you are interested, you can download it here from my Google Drive site:

FLAC: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-u3AsdZVzkLgkZoY9fQmm1M1BuV39nRg

MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dzHZSRS6NDgYVjWHW8G6X-TNyoz0Z4CB

Caveat: In this case the WB Media moderators did not discourage me from making this alt version and posting it within WBMedia. But I know they have concerns about the practice becoming widespread, and tell me they will address it in the next Newsletter.

Hi Marco- welcome, and thanks for all the comments. The video and avatar on your profile page give new meaning to the the idea of a ‘tasty’ guitar

So probably this whole concert was recorded?

Must say: Girlfriend is also my favorite Walter song.

Most likely it would have been through Metal Leg, which was really the only SD grapevine at that time. I was living in Denver at that time but was still plugged in with those guys. As soon as I heard, I made arrangements to go!

just 100- that is crazy. from the tape however it sounds like you made a lot of noise since it sounds like an enthusiastic audience --- good showing guys. I wonder what the people who were just there for a drink thought of the yelling horde of 100. I've also long wondered how someone like me, on the east coast and not plugged into any particular Grapevine , would have even known about a show like this .

Oh, and even though the capacity was like 500, I think there were maybe 100 there for the show, if that. I remember feeling disappointed for WB about that.

Loved hearing the memory of the show from TZG above. It matched my own, for what it's worth. The only (small) different memory I have is that the "smoke 'em if you got 'em" line referred back to "Hard Up Case" (not "Book of Liars") on the '94 tour, which is when I heard Walter first say that.

Hello there mod... tzg here, using that dude tohnz computer whlle he's out directing traffic among the entitled and enlightend. Nice guy, but he sure could use a maid...

Slim's is a mid-sized (for SF) bar type venue that holds around 500 people. As you walk in the rectangular room the stage is on the left, the bar runs along the far side of the room and to the right back (as you face the stage) in an L shape. The soundboard is in the back left corner, which is less than ideal. I've seen a lot of shows there, and about a 3rd of them have sounded like crap, which, depending on the band, may be exactly the sound they intended. However, whoever did the sound for WB had the room dialed in... easily one of the best sounding shows I've ever seen there. I was standing middle center a little more than halfway toward the front.

tzg

tzg- great stuff, thanks.

How many did the place hold?

Sound of the clip is fantastic -- it's a board tape I'm told. What was the sound like in the hall for the audience?

So... my friend Time Zone Guru was very stunned by this particular choice of song from the hazy past, because like a true Easter miracle it seems to have resurrected memories long buried among brain cells thought long deceased. Apparently several lifetimes ago tzg attemped to recall the WB Experience years after the fact for a not-quite-lemon-nor-mustard colored group of... uh... still undecided. Or maybe it was for Mizar 56.5. Anyway, in spite of being in possesion of an actual set list from the very scene of the Art Crime, there was still some self doubt as to what he actually heard. So for kicks and wiggles tzg thought it might be interesting to some, and annoying to others, to look back on that flawed recollection, and tzg never likes to miss a chance to be annoying...

tzg would like to thank wbm, mod, Mulder and Scully... especially Scully... for helping him replace that missing time, and for the cyber implant that seems to be working grelibjb iib qpknc...

Wednesday, December 22nd 2004 - 06:37:41 PM

Who is tones and why does he keep following me everywhere I go?

Here's the hastily re-edited review I sent a friend about WB's gig...

---I snagged the set list from Walter's show off the stage via a compassionate roadie after the show. Fortunately it's dated - Friday, April 7, 1995 - Slim's, San Francisco. (Local trivia: Slim's is a bar/nightclub co-owned by Boz Scaggs) As I remember it, the gig was a one time only thing, a benefit for a children's charity run by a friend of Walter's. Tickets weren't on sale very long before the show, so I only had about two weeks to look forward to this gig. I went with Denise, a Dan - particularly Walter - fan (friend of a good friend of mine who I met at a party about 12 years ago, where we struck up a conversation about Laura Nyro that still hasn't stopped...).

I bussed it into the city because I was "Santana" at the time - car less (sorry...) and made it early enough to meet Denise for the first time, go in and see nothing in particular was happening yet, and decide it was safe for us to go across the street to the deli and grab some food, chat, and make it back for Walter's set:

Lucky Henry

Down in the Bottom

Book of Liars

Surf and or Die

Three Sisters (?)

Junky Girl

My Waterloo

This Moody Bastard

Hat Too Flat

Hard Up Case

Cinder Annie

Girl Next Door - encore

Jaz Jam (not played)

I have very broad impressions of that evening, and an odd bunch of vividly specific memories, because I was conscientiously trying to remember too much of everything, which in this case, defeated the intended purpose... Ironically, I didn't drink or otherwise that evening, though it's possible subsequent events have taken their collective toll. But here are the facts as I got 'em...

I remember being a little taken aback when the band broke into "Lucky Henry" - my specific reaction being "Opening with such a rhythmically dense song... that's different... pretty ballsy... cool." Around this time I start checking out the band... I remember it was the same keyboard player (bald, Yul Brenner-ish... I'm lousy with names...) as from the previous tour ('94), and a different everybody else... I think. I remember being pretty stand-offish about the bass player reading charts, thinking " How could you not learn these songs by heart." (Yep, petty jealousy. Even at the time I realized I was being pathetic...). The band of course was impressively tight; "Down in the Bottom" totally caught the groove on the album. A few songs in I think Walter remarked that the gig had been fairly quickly rehearsed, which would account for the copious about of eye contact between the keyboard player and the rest of the band...

There was a cool moment as Walter was introducing "Book of Liars". Someone yelled, "Smoke 'em if you got 'em", to which Walter chuckled and said, "Yeah, that's right. Smoke 'em if you got 'em". The reference was to the previous year's Dan tour, when he had introduced "Book.." as a kinda mutated reggae tune, and said, "So smoke 'em..." Those of us that remembered chuckled too...

I remember "Surf and or Die" being excellent. "Junkie Girl' was just amazing. Actually, all the songs stuck close to the album arrangements, and were well represented. My only regret about the show was no "Girlfriend", which was my favorite song at on the cd the time ( one of my all time recorded Walter moments is when he goes; "that's why, I'm all..." right before the chorus on "Girlfriend". So perfectly cool, deadpan, chill, Springer, au courant [in '94], and nailed. I tend to tweek on the esoteric details sometimes, like the way Donald pronounces quarter "qwa-ta" in songs. Love it.) And I don't think they did "Cringemaker" either, which would have been perfect for the Friday night bar party type crowd.

Now, the weird thing is I don't remember the song "Three Sisters", unless it is another song with with different title, like "Cinder Annie" = "Little Kawai". I tend to have better recollections of unfamiliar songs, especially by Don and Walt. For instance, I remember "Girl Next Door", or "The Girl Next Door to the Methadone Clinic", as being a kind of slow tempo country waltz (try it with the longer title, pausing after "girl" and "door") with funny lyrics I remember as "affectionately sardonic." (yet another great tune) That said, I think I would have at least a small recollection of something called "Three Sisters", so I'm pretty sure it didn't happen, barring any X-files-esque "missing time".

Speaking of "didn't happen", they didn't play "Jaz Jam", which I assume would have been along the lines of "something in the key of..." in case they needed to fill time. That would have been interesting.

Walter seemed to be in good humor the whole night, and really seemed to enjoy himself. He said "Goodnight. Thanks for coming out." and left the stage. The crowd was really impressed and responded with sincere enthusiasm, not polite "this is where we are supposed to clap" stuff. I remember being elated, but dumbfounded that it was over. Somehow I had the presence of mind to stagger towards the front of the stage and ask a stage tech for the set list still taped to the stage...

I'm sure I've got more details stored up there somewhere, but like I said I don't remember much of the stuff I usually remember, like what the other members of the band besides the keyboard player looked like. Weird. ---

There ya go. Hope it makes sense... lol... I'll answer any questions you guys want to shoot me if I can find the answers buried under all these years of lost memories. I'm off to do a little post-solstice mopping up. Damn pagans make such a mess...

Happy post-solstice everyone.

your

tzg

Wow! Thanks so much for sharing this. Hope there's more to come...

Thank you! This is great to hear.

What can I say? First of all, thank you for sharing another little piece of Walter, and for driving me a little past half crazy trying to solve the easter egg hunt. But what did I get as a reward? This monster of a performance has been stuck in my head non stop since I found it during the egg hunt.

I told my friend the other day when I was listening to the demo that's been floating around for years "I really hope one day I get to hear this song done right with a full band." Yes, the songwriting shone through, but the fucking Casio keyboard sound quality doesn't do it the justice it deserves.

The band rehearsing it in the other recording posted Sunday knocked me out of my chair. But this? What gets me here is the instrumental break and the soloing over those killer changes. The last few bars of the guitar solo (starting around 2:32)... hoo boy, that's the kind soul possessing voodoo shit that sucks you into the song and never lets go.

I'm confused, is this the easter egg?

BTW: The quality is so very remarkable. If more recordings comprising of some or all of the show are available, it really should be considered for official release.