What's your favorite "poorly"-recorded LP or track

[David Piper]

Just checked YouTube. It was actually H Street's "This is Not the New H Street" video, for any skaters out there!

[ashcat_lt]

BTW...that's cool that you worked with Low. Mind if I ask which tunes you've worked on with them?

The versions of "Cut" and "Lullaby" found in the boxed set are from the demo I recorded with them. I'm not sure if they went all the way back to the 4-tracks and re-mixed them, or just remastered.

If actual lo-fi counts, I'll throw in the New Bad Things too. They had some really great stuff, and sounded like complete Hell.

[thieves]

I bought the Operation Ivy cd this past weekend, and man was it a throwback! I was introduced to them in 1989 on the "Hocus Pocus" skate video from H-Street. I actually don't think their stuff was poorly recorded, but it reminded me of all the other stuff I listened to in high school. A lot of early 90's straight edge hardcore bands, largely from Boston or the Northeast, like Kingpin, Mouthpiece, and Shelter. I also LOVED Ashes, who were in what I would think of as the second wave of emo bands.

But it got me thinking about the sonic quality of all those records... there's this thin, edgy sound that pervades a lot of them. Looking back I think it might have been that lots of them were recorded on ADATS. I also wonder if there were Sonic Maximizers and other 'voodoo boxes' at work, and I also think a lot of those kids in their late teens were probably playing pretty cheap guitars and amps, which contributed to the sound too. I also listened to a lot of this stuff on cassette tapes that were 2nd and 3rd generation dubs.

Sometimes I really miss this sound, and also the excitement I got as a kid listening to bands where the recordings were so raw and so clearly not part of the mainstream. It sounded different than anything else, and you had to sort of wade through the fact that it wasn't a pristine recording to access the music. I remember being sort of proud I listened to this stuff, and that's a feeling I miss!

i was under the impression that most of these bands used cassette 4-tracks and/or 8-tracks.

[allbaldo]

The Bad Brains' ROIR cassette was/is one of the most awesome records ever... and it's definitely not recorded well. Maybe that's part of it's charm.

[Jettison]

The first two from Samiam. DEBUT and SOAR. Sonicaly kind of poor. Awesome records.

Lag Wagon. TRASHED, the guitars are pretty thin sounding. Awesome record.

[the Wozz]

a couple of things come to mind.

I'm going to go with the standard I-LOVE-EARLY-GBV-LO-FI-ERA STUFF answer. Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes are monumental achievements in home sound recording.


Wu Tang: Enter the 36 Chambers - The production is so raw and energetic. Its like a Black Flag album, but with steady beats and flowing than screaming and searing guitars. Shame On A Nigga for not liking this album.


Mountain Goats: All Hail West Texas - It was recorded on a damn boom box. It sounds like it was recorded with a swarm of mutant bees hovering over the mic, but the songs are simple and great.