Now Online: a Treasure Trove of 1000s of Secret Concert Recordings
For decades, a guy named Aadam Jacobs has been recording live music shows. His collection of over 10,000 shows since 1984 feature the likes of Nirvana, R.E.M., The Pixies, Björk, Depeche Mode, Liz Phair, Sonic Youth, The Cure, Phish, Fugazi, and so many more. With the help of archivists, the entire collection is making its way onto The Internet Archive.
The growing Aadam Jacobs Collection is an internet treasure trove for music lovers, especially for fans of indie and punk rock during the 1980s through the early 2000s, when the scene blossomed and became mainstream. The collection features early-in-their-career performances from alternative and experimental artists like R.E.M., The Cure, The Pixies, The Replacements, Depeche Mode, Stereolab, Sonic Youth and Björk.
There’s also a smattering of hip-hop, including a 1988 concert by rap pioneers Boogie Down Productions. Devotees of Phish were thrilled to discover that a previously uncirculated 1990 show by the jam band is included. And there are hundreds of sets by smaller artists who are unlikely to be known to even fans with the most obscure tastes.
All of it is slowly becoming available for streaming and free download at the nonprofit online repository Internet Archive, including that nascent Nirvana show recording, with the audio from Jacobs’ cassette recorder cleaned up.
Some of the shows, like this pre-Dave Grohl one from Nirvana, were recorded before the bands hit it big. It’s wild to hear their performance of About a Girl get about three claps from the audience.
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This is phenomenal, an absolute treasure trove. Adam Jacobs is my age and was interested in a lot of the same music. I've already got a dozen tabs open and I've sent the link to five different people. This is gonna ruin my productivity for days. I can't believe how good the sound quality is!
Same here -- midday productivity ruined! Tons of bookmarks. And it's a real walk down memory lane for me, since I went to school twice in Chicago. The minute I saw "Schuba's", I was sucked in.
This is an astonishing collection and amazing to see all these bands recorded. While there's a tradition of recording shows in the jam band world and other places, but it was usually frowned upon if not outright forbidden to record indie/punk/rock shows. The sound quality is so great and I'm so happy this exists. Absolutely the best thing I've come across on the internet this year.
It's been really fun sharing this site with my friends and then firing links back and forth to amazing shows.
D's & L's-era (and after) Stereolab is my fave, as with everything else ruined by over-met expectations I was immediately looking for 'ska' or 'dj' and not much hits besides the Hood Internet at a street festival!? Other stand-outs to me are Flying Lotus, Sugarcubes in 87 just way ahead of their time, (still drum machine-era?) TMBG, (too short!) Cinematic Orchestra, Cibo Matto, Reggie Watts, and (hashtag crying at work) Shugo Tokumaru solo.
So great to see a link from Block Club Chicago on KDO - they do amazing hyperlocal reporting for us in Chicago. I've lived in several of the neighborhoods that a lot of these clubs were in and it is always fun to see links to the city's past, back before these areas gentrified.
Going through some of these recordings made me think of two more Chicago links I wanted to share. First, an upcoming documentary called Last Night At Lounge Ax (also a Block Club link!) - a legendary Chicago venue that closed in 2000. Second, Wellness, a novel I really enjoyed that is mostly about a couple trying to navigate middle age but also spends a lot of time in 90s Chicago when the couple met and hung out at a lot of the same places this guy went to tape his shows back in the day. Ok, done geeking out on niche Chicago topics for the night :)
Thanks for posting this, so cool! Thought I'd share a little app I made over the weekend to help me discover new bands in the collection http://ajcd.app
(fyi I confirmed with the https://aadamjacobscollection.org/ that it's ok to share)
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