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  1. Originally posted by TheRealEdge:It's sad when band members die and PF music is no longer made.

    It's the passing of time, but I can't help but feel such a melancholy for the past.

    Listening to Dark Side for the first time. Seeing the band play in stadiums - such exciting times.

    We are still lucky to have Dave and Rog - as I know 'em - but it feels like history already.

    I guess we're all going to feel this way about U2 sooner or later.
    You forgot Nick and his great A Saucerful Of Secrets tour...
  2. Yeh sorry hadn't forgotten about Nick I was just thinking of the main 2 guys who could still write another amazing PF album together - but as we Floyd fans know, this will never happen
  3. Originally posted by TheRealEdge:[..]
    Yeh sorry hadn't forgotten about Nick I was just thinking of the main 2 guys who could still write another amazing PF album together - but as we Floyd fans know, this will never happen
    I must say except for his first album in 1978 I don't really like David's solo albums. Roger has some good stuff on his last album - but it's just repeating old Floyds sounds (not complaining though ). I thought you mean members who are still touring (looks like Dave is already finished - I wish I could see him with Rick on 2006-7 tour with Echoes )
  4. Originally posted by Alvin:[..]
    I must say except for his first album in 1978 I don't really like David's solo albums. Roger has some good stuff on his last album - but it's just repeating old Floyds sounds (not complaining though ). I thought you mean members who are still touring (looks like Dave is already finished - I wish I could see him with Rick on 2006-7 tour with Echoes )
    I think the 'magic' happens when they are all in the studio and that's where 'Dave and Rog' could conjure up some amazing tunes - well, when Nick is stopping them from killing each other having contrasting musical directions

    A Floyd tour could easily happen.

    They would sell out stadiums/arenas in seconds and all fans would be happy to hear the classic tunes mixed with a new album.

    It could be one last tour where they could relive their masterpieces and go back in time (no pun intended) to when they were giants.

    But it won't happen - there's more chance of ABBA or Kate Bush touring or even ABBA touring with Kate Bush as support!

    Can we start one of those petitions where they will HAVE to discuss it in parliament in the UK after receiving 100,000 signatures? Because that would happen
  5. Originally posted by TheRealEdge:[..]
    I think the 'magic' happens when they are all in the studio and that's where 'Dave and Rog' could conjure up some amazing tunes - well, when Nick is stopping them from killing each other having contrasting musical directions

    A Floyd tour could easily happen.

    They would sell out stadiums/arenas in seconds and all fans would be happy to hear the classic tunes mixed with a new album.

    It could be one last tour where they could relive their masterpieces and go back in time (no pun intended) to when they were giants.

    But it won't happen - there's more chance of ABBA or Kate Bush touring or even ABBA touring with Kate Bush as support!

    Can we start one of those petitions where they will HAVE to discuss it in parliament in the UK after receiving 100,000 signatures? Because that would happen
    I guess almost every parliament should discuss it - there would be 100.000 signarures in almost every country
  7. Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets - Live at Roundhouse is the best PF related release in last 25 years
  9. Here you go:

    https://we.tl/t-PHVwT2JoKl

    Pink Floyd
    Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena
    Los Angeles, CA
    April 26, 1975
    Mike Millard Original Master Tapes via JEMS
    1644 Edition
    The Lost and Found Mike the MICrophone Tapes Volume 18

    Recording Gear: AKG 451E Microphones (CK-1 cardioid capsules) > Nakamichi 550 Cassette Recorder

    JEMS 2020 Transfer: Mike Millard Master Cassettes (TDK KR90) > Nakamichi CR-7A (azimuth adjustment; Dolby Off) > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 capture > iZotope RX6 > iZotope Ozone 6 > MBIT+ resample to 16/44 > Audacity > TLH > FLAC

    01 Millard Mic Test and Band Tuning
    02 Raving and Drooling
    03 You Gotta Be Crazy
    04 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)
    05 Have A Cigar
    06 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX)
    07 Speak to Me
    08 Breathe
    09 On the Run
    10 Time
    11 Breathe (reprise)
    12 The Great Gig in the Sky
    13 Money
    14 Us and Them
    15 Any Colour You Like
    16 Brain Damage
    17 Eclipse
    18 Echoes

    Known Flaws:
    Small cut/tape flip in “Have a Cigar” and “Any Colour You Like”

    Welcome to a truly extraordinary new chapter of JEMS’ Lost and Found Mike the MICrophone series presenting recordings made by legendary taper Mike Millard, AKA Mike the MICrophone, best known for his masters of Led Zeppelin done in and around LA circa 1975-77. For further details on how some tapes in this series came to be lost and found again, as well as JEMS' history with Mike Millard, please refer to the notes in Vol. One: http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=500680

    To date the Lost and Found series has presented fresh transfers of previously unavailable first-generation copies made by Mike himself for friends like Stan Gutoski of JEMS, Jim R and Barry G. These sources were upgrades to circulating copies, and in most instances marked the first time verified first generation Millard sources had been directly digitized in the torrent era.

    Now, we are ecstatic to present what had been previously unthinkable, unimaginable, perhaps even impossible: a direct, high-resolution transfer from Millard’s original master tapes.

    Yes, you read that correctly, Mike Millard’s master cassettes, long rumored to be destroyed or lost, have been found. Not all of them, but many, and with them a much more complete picture has emerged of what Millard recorded between his first show in late 1973 and his last in early 1992.

    The reason the rediscovery of his master tapes is such a revelation is that we’ve been told for decades they were long gone. Internet myths suggest Millard destroyed his master tapes before taking his own life, an imprudent detail likely concocted based on assumptions that because the master tapes had never surfaced and Mike’s mental state was troubled, he would do something that rash WITH HIS LIFE’S WORK. There’s also a version of the story where Mike’s family dumps the tapes after he dies.

    The truth is, Mike’s masters remained in his bedroom for many years after his death in 1994. We know at least a few of Millard’s friends and acquaintances contacted his mother inquiring about the tapes after his death to no avail. But in the early 2000s, longtime Millard friend Rob S was the one she knew and trusted enough to preserve Mike’s work.

    Here’s Rob’s account of how Millard’s master tapes were saved:

    After Mike left us, I visited his mom Lia occasionally, usually around the holidays. She’d talk about the grandkids and show me pictures. She had no one to help out around the house so I did some minor improvements like fixing a kitchen shelf that collapsed and another time a gate that hadn’t worked for years.

    After a few visits, I explained to Lia how the tapes were metal, up to 25 years old already and would eventually deteriorate. She agreed to let me take the tapes and make copies. We went into Mike’s bedroom and it was exactly like I remembered it when I was there years before. I loaded up every tape I could find and went to work copying them. Oldest first, some requiring “surgery.”

    Months later when I was done copying, I compared what I had copied to a list Mike had compiled of his masters and realized there were many shows missing. I returned the tapes and asked Lia if we could see if there were any more somewhere else in the house. We went into a back bedroom and found a bunch of boxes filled with more original master tapes. I loaded them up, thanked Lia and left. This was the last time I would see her. I copied the rest of the tapes and stored the masters in a cool dry place until late last year when Jim R. reached out. We had known each other through Mike. After speaking with Jim, and later BK who had tracked him down, I knew their partnership was the “right way” to get this music out to everyone who wanted it, and I’m sure Mike would have agreed.

    ###

    Initially, Rob copied a large batch of Millard’s master cassettes to DAT and returned them to the house. The second time around, he was given a large portion of the cassette collection, different from what he had copied to DAT.

    The first round of DAT transfers features some of Millard’s most famous recordings of Led Zeppelin, ELP, the Rolling Stones and Jethro Tull. The second traunch of actual cassette masters includes his captures of Yes, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Rush and Pink Floyd.

    As exciting as it is to access Millard’s masters of the shows we know and love, there are many new recordings in both collections from artist like Elton John, Queen, Thin Lizzy, Eric Clapton, The Who, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Guns N’ Roses, Linda Ronstadt, David Bowie, the Moody Blues, U2 and more.

    Even with an information gap in the mid ‘80s when Millard was surely taping but there is no tape or written evidence as to what he captured, we have now confirmed some 280 shows Millard did record. Of those, there are master cassettes for approximately 100 shows, DATs off masters of another 75 and first generation analog copies for 20-25. Together, that nearly quadruples the number of extant Millard recordings. In the coming months we will release more amazing shows from the recovered treasure, some familiar, some entirely new. But we had to start somewhere.

    And so we begin this new era of Mike the MIC master tapes with one of the most beloved recordings in the Millard canon: his incredible capture of Pink Floyd on night four of the band’s five show stand at the Sports Arena in LA on the Wish You Were Here tour. This recording has been bootlegged and circulated in many forms, most recently from what are claimed to be (and in fairness probably are) first-generation sources that sound excellent. In fact, we were preparing to post Jim R’s first generation cassettes made by Mike (which have particularly brilliant cassette art) before this fortunate turn of events.

    Mike’s master recording is sublime, a sonic marvel not merely for what it captures from the stage but for how little the audience can be heard, save for when you want to hear them. It is full, rich and close in a way that makes the argument for why the best audience recordings can be more satisfying than a soundboard tape. Mike used TDK KR 90 cassettes, an early chrome tape which would soon be rebranded to the more familiar SA 90.

    The tapes were recorded Dolby on, but for this edition transferred Dolby off, as Mike did himself when he made copies for friends. The sonic signature should be familiar to those who have done close listening to the best first-generation sourced versions (like buffalofloyd’s update of Sigma’s Definitive Millard), but hopefully that title more accurately applies to this version.

    To our ears, the Millard master transfer is everything you love about the extant recording and more: lower lows, clearer highs, less hiss. It is balanced, warm and immersive. We’ve made the recording available in both consumer friendly 1644 and audiophile 2496 editions, with mastering at a bare minimum to let the pure power of the capture shine through. Samples provided.

    Millard’s dear friend Jim R was with Mike at the show and shot the original unpublished photos we are fortunate to include with this release. Here’s what he recalls:

    Mike and I attended the Pink Floyd concert on April 26, 1975. I pushed him in the wheelchair.

    It was the fourth night of a five night stand at the LA Sports Arena. Due to Pink Floyd’s popularity, tickets were in extremely high demand and expensive. As a result, we attended only the one night. Since the LA Sports Arena was owned by LA County, all of the choice seats were controlled by downtown ticket brokers. Fortunately, we were in tight with several of them and had our choice of where to sit.

    Ahead of time, we heard about the high quality sound system Pink Floyd was using and that it would be a Quadrophonic setup. Knowing that, we decided on seats a little further back than normal, in the 16th row in order to pickup some of the Quad sound. Indeed it was a fantastic sound system with PA stacks in each corner of the floor.

    What really makes this show one of the most memorable of the 200 or so concerts Mike and I attended together was the fact that there were over 500 drug busts made during Pink Floyd’s LA run (detailed in a big LA Times story about the crackdown). Regardless, we were able to sneak in a Nakamichi 550 cassette recorder, which is the size of the yellow pages phone book and nearly 15 pounds. Amazingly, people got busted for a couple joints and somehow we smuggle in a huge tape deck and get away with it. What a rush!

    The recording turned out superb and it was aided by a very polite crowd. At the very beginning of the recording Mike says "testing 123.” The lighting was on the dark side (pun intended), and since we sat 16 rows back, my pictures turned out a little on the fuzzy side. Oh well.

    ###

    Meeting Jim, then Barry and ultimately connecting with Rob has added incredible new chapters to my personal Mike the MIC story that started in 1986 when I first saw a box of Millard tapes and heard stories about how he recorded. I’m lucky and grateful that we all four of us share a deep appreciation for what Mike documented over the years and the on-going belief in his mission to share the music among friends, which is why we do this.

    As joyous as this initial Millard master release has been, it is bittersweet. The person who showed me that original box of Millard tapes and told me the stories was Stan Gutoski, the S in JEMS. He met Mike face to face on two occasions and the pair had a few phone calls, sharing notes on how they recorded shows, comparing gear and ultimately trading copies of their recordings. Game respecting game. During a 1992 meet up in SoCal, they even spoke about losing their fathers and hugged each other in camaraderie, something Stan never forgot.

    Sadly, on Friday, January 24, 2020, Walter Stan Gutoski, passed away. He was 74.

    Stan had gone into the hospital in December because of a spinal infection that severely limited his mobility. I spoke to him at the time, sharing various JEMS updates which always lifted his spirits, even as he sounded weak. He was released, but his condition didn’t improve after he left the hospital, and in mid January I got updates from his son that didn’t sound promising. Last week, his son told me Stan was back in the hospital battling pneumonia, and it was clear his health was rapidly deteriorating. I began to consider how soon I could fly up to see him.

    On Thursday night, I asked if there was an opportunity to call Stan in the hospital, and his son said perhaps he could put me on speaker phone for a minute if his dad was up to it. Sensing that might not happen, I followed up with a text: “Please tell Stan I love him dearly and that we found Mike Millard’s master tapes a few weeks ago.”

    His son replied, “Wow. The taper’s ‘Ark of the Covenant.’ That’s amazing. I’ll tell him.”

    Mid morning the next day, Friday, his son texted, “Good morning. My dad passed away a few minutes ago.”

    It was the stomach punch I knew was coming, but not this fast. Way too fast. I started crying. His son then texted:

    “My brother and I and my youngest son stayed with him until 6:30 am. He never went to sleep. He kept fighting it. He was impressed about the 280 shows [Millard recorded]. He kept making me repeat the number. He wanted to know what years and what cities/venues. I guess he can just ask him now in person. [They are] hanging with Jared watching Tom Petty and George Harrison play.”

    If ever there was a moment of happiness and sadness at the same time, reading that text was it. While I’m not religious, the thought of Mike Millard, Stan Gutoski and our late, great friend Jared Houser (the J in JEMS) all hanging together in heaven is something I am only too happy to believe.

    ###

    JEMS is thrilled to partner with Rob, Jim R and Barry to release Millard's historic recordings and to help set the record straight about the man himself. It has been 25 years since Mike passed away and his legend only continues to grow. Along with the tapes, Rob also had a copy of Mike’s tape list circa 1983, which details all his master tapes including his own quality rating system: Stereo-EX, Stereo-Good, Stereo-Fair and Stereo-Poor. He was a tough critic of his own work: the outstanding recording of the Rod Stewart and Faces 1975 show at the Forum only rated Good.

    We can’t thank Rob S enough for reconnecting with Jim and putting his trust in our Millard reissue campaign. He has kept these precious tapes under wraps for two decades, but once he learned of our methods and stewardship, he agreed to contribute his DATs and cassettes to the program.

    Our production support team also deserves credit. Thanks to Goody for giving this his stamp of pitch approval and to mjk5510 for his essential work on all JEMS projects. We can’t do it without you.

    Finally, cheers to the late, great Mike the MICrophone, Jared Houser and Stan Gutoski. May they rest in peace. Can’t wait to hear the heaven tapes someday.

    BK for JEMS
  10. for me Pulse is the best album and i play it regularly on spotifiy, even to calm down my daughter for sleep, its just perfect for me
  11. That is some amazing read. Millard never ceases to provide & amaze, even decades after passing. What a legend.
  12. New song about Ukraine crisis