12.08.12
Way back in the day
Here is an astonishingly good audio recording (for the setting — there are a couple moments of warble, one presumes a consequence of the aged analog tape) and better than fair video of the Highway Kings and me at the Four G’s Hotel in Bethlehem, ca. 89-91. Amusing, no? I still have the hat. (It was my father’s which probably makes it 60 or close to it.)
It was recorded and shot by Joe Hancaviz who made an amazing series of such recordings. They documented the independent music scene on the south side of Bethlehem, PA, from ’89-’91. The bands shot revolved around the Four G’s and you could often hear their records and tapes played by the community staff at Lehigh University’s radio station, WLVR, of which Joe was and is a member. It was grass roots modern rock, every bit as vital as what was going on in the big metropolitan centers of the country and Joe Hancaviz recorded the warp, woof and flavor of it. This was the CBGB’s of the Lehigh Valley in southeastern Pennsylvania.
I can only assume that for Joe it was a labor of love. He did it free of charge. Believe me, readers, it took time to set up and tend to during these evenings. And the patience needed to endure the unique atmosphere in the place? Well, let’s just say not everyone had it.
Years later Joe shouldered the job of restoring these old and deteriorated videotapes, digitizing them and uploading the results to YouTube, where they make an impressive archive.
On Facebook, he briefly described how he made the recordings back in the day:
I figured it out as I went along, using cheap equipment from Radio Shack. I did this one before I even had a proper mixer. I used a cheapo DJ mixer that only had two mic inputs. To get four more, I used the mic inputs on two cassette decks (set on record/pause) and ran them into the mixer through the RCA jacks. Necessity is the mother of invention!
I’d say!
Joe continues to shoot the locals in the Lehigh Valley, doing an extraordinary job.
The original studio version of Highway Patrol is here. By the time the video was shot we’d been playing it for four years and the live version had evolved into it’s own thing, distinct from the original.