AILSA CHANG, HOST:
One man's collection of original concert recordings is being described by one of his collaborators as a mad undertaking. And many of those recordings feature iconic bands that at the time were just small acts, playing small shows. Like, see if you can guess which band played this now very popular track way back in 1989.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIRVANA: (Singing) I'll take advantage while you hang me out to dry. But I can't see you every night. Free.
CHANG: Any guesses? That is Nirvana singing the song "About A Girl." That is just one of the many recordings that Aadam Jacobs features in his now digitized collection on the website Internet Archive. Jacobs joins us now from Chicago. Welcome.
AADAM JACOBS: Thank you. Nice to be here.
CHANG: Oh, it's so nice to have you. Wait, so how in the world did you get permission to record, like, bands such as Nirvana and also get the rights to own, keep and maintain these recordings?
JACOBS: Well, Nirvana were really nobodies at the time I taped them. They were opening for local Chicago bands the two times I saw them, so...
CHANG: Wow.
JACOBS: Like any band that I have recorded, I simply just asked them first. And most bands are OK with it because most of the bands that I ask are not so popular that it would seem like a problem.
CHANG: Yeah.
JACOBS: I was rarely taping bands in large venues. And, of course, I don't have access to the bands in that situation, so I would have to do things secretly. Sometimes the band would know. The security might not.
CHANG: (Laughter).
JACOBS: And so, yeah, I just asked.
CHANG: How quaint. Well, what's really cool is because these bands that you captured, they were just starting out - right? - they were still playing small clubs, and you captured these really interesting moments like with that song we just played, "About A Girl" by Nirvana. This is how the crowd reacted to the end of that song when it was played at the Dreamerz Club in Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIRVANA: (Singing) I do.
(APPLAUSE)
CHANG: Ouch. That sounds like a golf clap (laughter).
JACOBS: Yeah.
CHANG: Why do you think the crowd reacted that way at the time?
JACOBS: They did not have a huge fan base here...
CHANG: Yeah.
JACOBS: ...That being their first concert. It was mostly the folks who had great interest in what was going on in Seattle on the Sub Pop label or interest in the headlining band, who I mixed that night. They were called Precious Wax Drippings. And it's fun to hear.
CHANG: It is fun.
JACOBS: And that happens on other recordings as well. I'm listening to the band play, like, one of their most popular songs, and the crowd's never heard it before. And the response is just so minimal.
CHANG: Wow. It's so weird to now know how big Nirvana became.
JACOBS: Yeah.
CHANG: Another thing that surprised me about your recordings is how crisp and clear they are. Like, here's one of your original recordings from 1986. It's from a live show that the band The Cardigans did at the Double Door in Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THE CARDIGANS: (Singing) I will never know 'cause you will never show. Come on and love me now. Come on and love me now. I will...
CHANG: I mean, that is pretty high quality...
JACOBS: Yeah.
CHANG: ...For a show like that, right?
JACOBS: Yeah. Yeah, I...
CHANG: How did you do that?
JACOBS: I'm really good at what I do...
CHANG: (Laughter).
JACOBS: ...With the minimal equipment that I have. That was just a stereo mic recording.
CHANG: Wow.
JACOBS: But I had permission from the band, and I just set my mics up the way I typically did in that venue and made sure - using my headphones, of course - I made sure that everything sounded great in my headphones. And if it sounds great in my headphones, it's going to sound great on the tape.
CHANG: I love it. Another very cool thing about these recordings is that you can feel when you're listening to them that you are in a place. Like, we hear introductions. We hear the applause.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED EMCEE: Ladies and gentlemen, Elektra recording artist Tracy Chapman.
(CHEERING)
CHANG: You hear the clinking of glasses, bottles.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLINKING GLASS)
CHANG: What do you think all that ambience adds to the listening experience?
JACOBS: For me, personally, a lot. There are a lot of live recordings that completely remove that. The professional ones do. They're multitrack...
CHANG: Yeah.
JACOBS: ...Recordings, and they mix the recording at a later date. If you were at the concert and you know what the concert sounded like originally 'cause you were there, and you hear the recording later, it's not the same.
CHANG: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRACY CHAPMAN: (Singing) You got a fast car.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Ow.
CHAPMAN: (Singing) I want a ticket to anywhere. Maybe we can make a deal. Maybe together we can get somewhere.
JACOBS: And these are audio snapshots, and it's wonderful to have all that extra stuff in there.
CHANG: Totally. It transports you.
JACOBS: Yeah. It really does.
CHANG: What do you think is next for the digital archive or any of the original recordings you have?
JACOBS: Well, some selected recordings will be on vinyl sometime soon. I've got a plethora of ephemera, like posters...
CHANG: Oh, yeah.
JACOBS: ...And flyers and set lists.
CHANG: Oh, cool.
JACOBS: And yeah, lots of that stuff. The people who can use it for research or whatever...
CHANG: Yeah.
JACOBS: ...Will be able to because there's a lot of stuff there that's extremely unique.
CHANG: You got your work cut out for you.
JACOBS: I do.
CHANG: Aadam Jacobs, the curator, collector and archivist behind No Tape Left Behind, a massive collection of more than 2,000 concert recordings from the 1980s to 2019, featured on the website Internet Archive. Aadam Jacobs, this was so fun to talk to you.
JACOBS: Oh, that's wonderful. Likewise. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
