Hi, I'm Shadow, and in the early 80s when I lived in Sheboygan, I used to follow my favorite bands around with a tape recorder and a camera case full of microphones and cables (and my Dad's antique Argus camera). I've finally digitized those tapes, and here they are with some of the pictures. I even found newspaper clippings for some of the shows! (Remember looking in the newspaper to find out who was playing where?) It's been quite an adventure digging up all this stuff and putting it back together; apologies in advance if I got any names wrong. If you have any more information about these bands, please contact me: cenbe@protonmail.com or @cenbe@mastodon.sdf.org on Mastodon.
Although it's definitely not what I was listening to at home at the time, this is good-time, high-energy music, and Sheboygan was lucky enough to have some kick-ass bands playing it. Remember Alliance? The Boss? Electro-Motive Force? Trinity? Climb into my time machine and let's head back to the Downtowner! Tory's tending bar!
Almost all of these tapes were made at the Downtowner, a bar on 8th Street between Center and Penn. I remember it as usually packed, sometimes rowdy, and always lots of fun. Also, they had string cheese. Real string cheese. For all you audiophiles out there, I made the tapes using a pair of Audio-Technica AT816 mics straight into a Yamaha cassette deck. I haven't equalized or cleaned up the tapes at all; I just ran them through a USB interface to my laptop and exported them to MP3s using Audacity running on Linux. There's remarkably little degradation, although I'm sure the tapes sounded better 40 years ago.
Click on the band pictures to make them more bigger!
Let's start with Alliance! Alliance was a very exciting and powerful band, very raw. I think I only saw them twice; once at the Downtowner, and once at Mr. Glen's on 8th and Michigan (pictures below). I still remember standing in front of Todd and that black Stratocaster... and on the cassette liner, I wrote "THEY WERE LOUD!!!".
January 7, 1984 (the Downtowner)
This show had a good crowd and the band delivered! There are four parts because they stopped for a moment during the first set to address an electrical issue. I apologize; it sounds as though I ran out of tape at the end of the very last song. Trust me, they received the customary Downtowner screaming ovation when they were done.
After one of the songs (an original by the bass player called "New Revolution", about halfway through part 4), the singer mentions that they made a studio recording of it... anybody know anything about this?
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Alliance at the Downtowner, 1984-01-07
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Alliance at Mr Glen's, 1984 (?)
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And here is the mighty Boss! These guys had tremendous energy and good musicianship as well -- they even played Rush songs (see the opening of the third set on 1984-01-21 for a great example)! The Boss were very popular, and were practically the house band at the Downtowner, where I saw them play many times. I took the photos on the right, but I don't know the dates (it seems to me they got a fancier backdrop later, if that narrows it down). The lower four pictures are from a show at Croatian Hall; here's the poster. I even have an autographed 17x20" Boss poster... and some broken strings from their last show at the Downtowner!
May 21, 1983 (the Downtowner)
To make these tapes, me and my buddy Pony would schlep all the equipment from my apartment at Enz Manor to the bar in a taxicab, and I'd keep out of the band's way until there was a chance to mount the microphones. For all these shows, they were placed similarly to those in the Alliance diagram: strapped to various railings and walls with duct tape. I have only a vague memory of where I had the tape deck.
| first set, part 1 | third set, part 1 | |
| first set, part 2 | third set, part 2 | |
| second set, part 1 | encores | second set, part 2 |
July 2, 1983 (the Downtowner)
This is from when the band used to start their show with "Twilight Zone". The stage would be dark, you'd hear the sound of the little girl from Poltergeist saying "They're heeeere...", and BAM! the lights would come up and they'd launch right into that song. It became their trademark. I'm afraid the last part of the first set is missing, due to... shall we say, operator error. But there's a bonus: I was at the bar that afternoon and saw the band setting up for a sound check, so I asked if I could bring my gear early and get proper levels. Afterward, they asked me to play it back for them; we went out to their van to listen, and I felt like a teenager with an all-access pass! You'll notice that the sound is clearer since the bar was almost empty at the time (there are three songs).
| afternoon sound check | second set, part 1 | |
| first set, part 1 | second set, part 2 | |
| [last part of first set missing] | third set, part 1 | |
| third set, part 2 |
