Bob Dylan Arlington Theater Santa Barbara, CA May 11, 1992 JEMS Master Recording Gear: Sony ECM-939 Stereo Microphone > Sony D6C Walkman Pro JEMS 2016 Transfer: master cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 2.0 (24/96 capture to .wav) > iZotope RX and Ozone > Peak Pro XT (edit / index) > xACT 2.35 > FLAC 01 Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 02 What Good Am I? 03 Union Sundown 04 Just Like A Woman 05 Drifter’s Escape 06 Queen Jane Approximately 07 Watching The River Flow 08 Love Minus Zero/No Limit 09 Little Moses 10 Gates Of Eden 11 Desolation Row 12 Cat’s In The Well 13 Idiot Wind 14 Times They Are A-Changin’ 15 Highway 61 Revisited 16 Absolutely Sweet Marie 17 Ballad Of A Thin Man 18 Blowin’ In The Wind Known Faults: -Love Minus Zero/No Limit: start slightly cut -Highway 61 Revisited: start slightly cut Why was JEMS sitting on a quarter-century old Bob Dylan master you might ask? Fair question. I attended this show shortly after moving from Seattle to LA and I went with major Dylan fans who were taking in most of the west coast tour (notable for such setlist gems as “Drifter’s Escape,” “Queen Jane Approximately,” “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” “Desolation Row,” “Idiot Wind” and “Ballad Of A Thin Man”). We had excellent seats; if memory serves I was right in front of the PA stack stage left, with an unobstructed line to the speakers until late in the show when Bob encouraged the audience to come up front as he was wont to do on that tour. Recognizing my good fortune from a taping-location perspective I recall mounting the microphone on the arm of my chair where it stayed until the crowed filled in at the end of the set (you’ll hear that moment clearly). I had every confidence I was making a fine recording and indeed I did until I flipped the tape after the first 45 minutes. Because upon playback the next day, during the sweet first notes “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” I heard a faint but unmistakably irritating high-pitched tone running through the song and the entire second side of tape. I don’t know what caused it, but some kind of deck or mic malfunction must have occurred on the flip. Once I heard that high-pitch wail, I could not un-hear it. To me, the tape was ruined by the presence of the tone and therefore I never traded the recording that I can recall. Fast-forward 20 years, and after becoming fluent in the use of iZotope’s RX software, it struck me that there must be a way to remove the offending tone. Yet, try as I might, I just couldn’t seem to identify the frequency. While I hoped to eventually crack the code myself, earlier this year I turned to my pal Hoserama in hopes that his expertise might provide a solve. And so it did. He isolated the base of the tone and its harmonics, then applied notch filtering to take them out without adversely effecting the rest of the recording. In layman’s terms, he zapped out the nasty sound. While this isn’t a perfect recording, for the first 14 songs it has a pleasing, clear, up-close sound and it only drops at little for the last four once the microphone had to move and people surrounded the stage. There are several highlights in the set list and the acoustic performances are strong, especially “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and “Little Moses.” It is easily the best of many tapes I made on the Never Ending Tour. Samples provided. According to LoselessBob, there is but one known recording of the show, from “Legendary Taper D” and also found on the bootleg CD Going To Arlington. Hopefully this compares favorably. I want to especially thank Hoserama for finally correcting this vexing problem and allowing me to put this show out after sitting on it for so many years. Kudos to PH and CH for taking me to the show in the first place; a long friendship with CH began that night. Also thanks to mjk5510, for his stalwart support of JEMS releases. He took this one across the finish line for you to hear it. BK for JEMS