Mike Shiflet - Opening Act [905 tapes]

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I had no idea how old this tape was until I received some more recent 905 releases all of which numbered in the 70s, this one is 19. So I guess it’s as good as gone from all distros now, and Mr. Shiflet has probably moved on too, but what the hell.

As suggested by the title the tape contains two live sets from 2008 opening for Astro and TV Pow in St. Louis on the A-side then for Michael Johnsen and Jack Wright in Cleveland on the flip. Both sets are recorded from the desk, so there’s no room acoustics or crowd mutterings getting in the way, and no applause. I’m guessing what we have here is edits of the whole though as both are squeezed onto a C20. The St.Louis show excerpt plunges straight into an obliterated tone cutting in and out and clipping like an overdriven speaker hanging from a loose connected thread. The whole set is equally destroyed, not a clean tone in sight, every frequency is sent through the Shiflet mincer, as if Shiflet is putting his whole rig through Christian Marclay’s Guitar Drag technique, a contact mic tail rattling across various textures of gravel and tarmac.

My favourite of the two though is definitely the Cleveland show. The rough, grainy texture of the previous side still dominates, though here not shredding the tones so much as just roughing up their edges. The timbres on offer here are more varied and their progression into and out of one another managed by a series of careful segues leading the listener along through the blasted hues of Shifletian meltdown. This tape is a far cry from attentive tone combinations exhibited on the split with Ryan Jewell (reviewed below) but where the attentiveness shines through it hits the spot.

905 tapes