A Chicago taper has perhaps the most important archive of American indie/underground live recordings ever made

this is INSANE

https://archive.org/details/aadamjacobs

just look through this, you'll be amazed

I was at that New Pornographers Hideout show in Feb 2001, but I was sure it ended with them covering Randy VanWarmer's "Just When I Needed You Most." (Maybe there was an earlier show?)

Anyway, I've seen Aadam at a million shows setting up his equipment in the years since then (as has our board's jaymc), and he was always skittish about letting folks listen to the recordings, so it's been especially fun that he dropped all of them at once.

yeah def remember seeing this guy at shows all the time and being vaguely annoyed by his gear being up by the stage though now i appreciate the results

Collection is great - sole way I able to listen to the one Hüsker Dü show I went to (on my birthday!).

whoaaaaaa

well ok then, riding out the rest of my workday with a GBV set from 1995, LFG

Anyway, I've seen Aadam at a million shows setting up his equipment in the years since then (as has our board's jaymc)

Yup, Aadam is good people

Damn Dirty 3 in 95

Good profile of him from a few years ago:
https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/taping-guy/

Wow, there are 10 of my old band's shows in the online archive, including our fourth show ever (opening for Earlimart in 2003).

thought this was going to be about Malachi Ritscher,

I'm surprised I or anyone hasn't posted about him and the archive yet. In fact I was worried for a second that he had died! When I get home I will post a link to the documentary on him.

remarkable, thanks ums

https://vimeo.com/866218283

could've sworn i started a thread about this when it all started going up ... but I guess not! a real treasure trove.

Every time I go to the Hideout I now notice the outlet installed just for his use (as seen in this doc).

I feel like they have been uploading stuff to the archive for a couple of years now. Aadam is/was great, because while he had an allegiance to certain bands he was also a huge supporter of the Chicago scene in general. A couple of my bands, it was great to play a show at, say, Empty Bottle or Lounge Ax to a handful of people, and yet Aadam would still be there taping, as if the show were actually important.

Looks like I did post about it here:

Live Music Archive Bootlegs Site

saw fountains of wayne in there and my generation’s genetic coding required me go and i don’t regret it and 24 songs holy shit. valley winter song is now my substitute for two goddamn months at 65° in denver with only lots of rollerskiing

Thanks! Really enjoying this 1993 Moonshake show (much better fidelity than the Philly 1993 show that's on YT): https://archive.org/details/ajc02228_moonshake_1993-07-02

Just listened to a little of this Boredoms show so far (live at Intonation Festival, 2006), and am appreciating the stereo separation of the two drums sets in the mix! Nice. https://archive.org/details/ajc00957_boredoms_2006-06-24

This is amazing. Thank you ums and Josh.

Looks like I did post about it here:

Live Music Archive Bootlegs Site

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, February 4, 2026 6:19 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i haven't worked as a writer professionally for a long time but i still have my clickbait headline instincts tbh

What This Chicago Man Taped Will Change the Way You Think About Music Forever

haha ums i actually googled this thread title yesterday to see if you took it from a headline somewhere

This One Simple Trick Will Allow You To Listen To Your Favorite Concerts Whenever You Want

this site rules, I forget how I heard abt it, prob from tyler on bsky

Holy moly. Searched up my era of Chicago showgoing (95-03) and in addition to all the stuff I went to, there's at least a dozen shows I suddenly remember being very mad about missing! Gonna be painful if the recordings are so good I get even more upset I wasn't there. Equally psyched to play through early-90s stuff I wasn't around for (Versus, Air Miami, Beat Happening, the one early Vandermark show) and maybe most of all to find out what it sounded like when Aluminum Group played the Fireside Bowl (the vibe-match between band and venue there feels both hard to imagine and also maybe perfectly Chicago?).

This is clearly too wonderful of a thing to criticize, but there is this funny thing where, years ago, taping a lot of the bigger acts here probably felt like capturing something marginal that would otherwise get lost, and there was no way to sense how many of them would end up in positions where their live material is pretty readily available — with some stuff I kind of wish he'd ended up capturing the openers and documenting more of the music that actually did fade away a bit! But you'd have to see the future to know that, and he's clearly done an amazing job capturing loads of key stuff in his taste zone, plus more than enough surprising or under-documenting things to spend months going through.

(Plus honestly it's probably mostly indierock dead-enders and/or people who were around at the time who crave documents of all the bubbling-under acts? Like, it was 100% unquestionably the correct call to use your tape on Pavement in 92 and not the opener Frances Gumm, even if a future dork like me might end up with copious digital access to the former and more curiosity about the latter.)

yeah tbh i'm bummed my old band isn't on here lol, i'm sure he was set up at at least one show we played

Pretty sure he typically taped everything, openers and all. I haven't checked the site in a while, but he's not the one uploading the stuff, so maybe there is some editorializing/prioritizing going on?

Found a couple of shows from a band I was in, cool!

what is the current ability to tape such shows? with the change of the economics in music, and the ability to distribute online, has access changed? does free distrubution generate conflict? do bands insist on rights to control and own them?

The band and venue had to be OK with it, and in the case of Aadam it was usually sort of an opt-out policy. It's also why he never really circulated his recordings himself, since he didn't want to be part of the bootleg eco system. That said, it seems everything gets or can be easily recorded or captured these days, at the least on phones, in pretty good quality. I doubt there is even a market for bootlegs. What made what Aadam did special is that he recorded a bunch of small audience stuff that was largely of interest to the (usually) few people who were in the room with him. For every Nirvana gig he recorded there were a dozen by Eleventh Dream Day. Though not (yet) the one that for years was my favorite show ever, EDD at Lounge Ax with Ira Kaplan on second guitar. Maybe 1994?

yeah I have a recent Michael Hurley cassette tape bootleg that was recorded entirely on an iPhone

i know that they put up a few yo la tengo tapes from aadam's collection and the band and/or label asked them to take them down ... it's sort of nebulous, but most bands I think are fine w/ audience tapes from days gone by showing up. no one is making money off of it anyway, a true labor of love from all involved.

and though it's still more of a jam band thing, having good recordings on archive.org has been a net plus for a lot of bands, good advertisement for the live show etc. i like it anyway!

For sure. It also raises an interesting philosophical paradox, in that you never know what recording may be of historical value until it's been recorded and history has caught up. And yet, you can't record everything, and even when you come close, or as close as possible, the volume itself becomes part of the value, a la this Aadam Jacobs archive, or the Dead or whatever else. Just think of the countless bands we *wish* were comprehensively documented. Then again, it becomes its own sort of Zeno's Paradox, in that it brings you the listener closer and closer to the band itself, while always being at a distant remove from the people on stage, their hours of rehearsals, their work in the studio, and so on. I'm always reminded of one of the funniest things I've ever heard at a show, an Eleventh Dream Day show, in fact. It was at the Empty Bottle, and some guy in the front yelled to Rick Rizzo that he'd been to every single Eleventh Dream Day show in Chicago. "Oh yeah?" Rizzo replied. "Well, I've been to every single Eleventh Dream Day show everywhere." We can only get so close.

ha over the past couple years i’ve ventured into archive site, sorta lost enthusiasm after i realized it’s jam fixation —incl somebody’s dorm trunk sourced 1984 digital video re recording of day 3 of the 72 kilauea fest with a 210 min take of space which was totally the phil zone— but i think i found a pair of great gybe shows

recording of day 3 of the 72 kilauea fest with a 210 min take of space

please tell me this is real

i both joek about and would check out but alas

This is an incredible treasure trove and I've already downloaded a dozen things. That said--while also being loath to criticize this wonderful, free thing--did aadam not care much for jazz? Surprising to search for Fred Anderson, Brotzmann, et al and come up empty, given the locale and the time period. A small nitpick, really, as there's plenty here to keep us busy for a long time.

Empty Bottle Tapes: https://corbettvsdempsey.com/records/the-bottle-tapes/

all taped by the late Malachi Ritschler

looks like only about ~15% of the collection's been uploaded so far

https://bsky.app/profile/ajc-project.bsky.social/post/3m5r4v4hhuk2t

Was just looking into that. There are now 2,065 files on the Internet Archive (less than three months after that Bsky post, which says 1,500+), so it seems like things are chugging along.

If I remember right, he also taped TJ & Dave performances (considered some of the best longform improv) and maybe other comedy/improv?

Chicago Reader article on this from over a year ago says it'll likely take at least five years (or I guess four now) to upload everything:

https://chicagoreader.com/music/gossip-wolf/aadam-jacobs-collection-internet-archive-concert-recordings/

If I remember right, he also taped TJ & Dave performances (considered some of the best longform improv) and maybe other comedy/improv?

― Come On, (Eazy), Thursday, February 5, 2026 4:35 PM (two hours ago)

He definitely did -- I have copies of a few TJ & Dave shows which were his filming (but I got from someone else), and I remember seeing him up front for at least one improv show I was in 20+ years ago. I don't know if this project will encompass the video stuff but I hope so.

as far as xpost jazz & related, I've found several shows involving Ken Vandermark. also, if you count improv, 75 Dollar Bill, and one so far by Tortoise. Just now, I thought to check for ones led by Jeff Parker, and yesss!

oh dang Vandermark 5 was so great

Sunwatchers up in there too!

(Don't get me rong: Side 2 was never a buzzkill, or even a plateau.)

• Can now confirm that listening to Aluminum Group shows is a treat. Maybe especially if you nostalgically picture how gorgeous it'd have been to be around Fireside Bowl on a late-summer night hearing stuff like "Chocolates."

• I'm loving that he appears to have been a serious Randall Lee stan — there's loads of Ashtray Boy, Cannanes, and even a Nice show with a good capture of "Dear John," a song I adore and did not think I would ever, ever hear a live recording of.

• Dug into some satisfying Husker Du, Liz Phair, and Nymb as well, but damn, it's hard to make a plan of attack for even starting to sample everything that looks interesting. Might just start by doing, like, a Virtual Lounge Ax Era program for a while.

• Didn't realize there was so much left to come — this'll be fun to follow as it fills in over the years. The timing and the arc of his focusing on this is just wildly perfect. And yes, jazz over the same era was pretty much equally well-documented by Ritscher; I assume tapers are extremely cautious about overlapping beats.

• If this guy was born in 67 and went to Evanston Township, pretty sure that means he was in high school with John Cusack. That dude's made some money off rock-geek stuff, maybe someone should hit him up to chip in for processing tapes.

Never thought about looking for Ashtray Boy stuff, they were so fun live. We toured with them a couple of times and occasionally shared a guitarist and/or other band member.

My instinct, as a collector, is to download all my favorites sets, or anything that might be a favorite set, but then I'd basically end up with just a copy of a chunk of the site, which misses the point. I like nabisco's strategy of essentially setting up some restrictions and programming a playlist.

When you said one of your bands was in here a part of me was like damnit, just one is gonna mean no Toulouse! There are more Hyde Park shows than I would have expected, though, so who knows what turns up eventually. Would make sense if uploads so far have focused on important acts, and could dip later toward the more local / ephemeral stuff I'd flip out over. A while back the Empty Bottle put out that book about its history, with a running sidebar listing every show since the beginning, and at some point I went through and made a list of all the area openers I'd sort of forgotten seeing a lot — will have to dig that up as a guide for stuff to search.

(I should say, it's not like regional-interest stuff is remotely absent, there are even Big'n and Yum-Yum shows in there.)

few shows if Green Bay joke punk legends Boris the Sprinkler

also Uncle Tupelo in 1991 was an absolutely smoking live band

the default view on archive.org is sorted by “most viewed”, which makes sense i guess but often

fun to check out just the 1980s shows, it’s only like a 100 or so so it’s way more digestible. i was listening to the 1985 JAMC show show, and saw the sonic youth smart bar 1985 show, one of the first ones in the collection! good job aadam!

https://archive.org/details/ajc01302_sonic-youth-1985-08-11soundcheck

no Toulouse!

Shockingly not well documented live, I don't think. Aside from whatever handful of cassettes and whatnot we have in a shoebox somewhere, lol.

It’s funny, I associate Aadam with Thax Douglas, who, at many of the same shows, would get up and read one of his poems before the band played. Both guys relied on the goodwill of the performers to go with it.

i actually searched the archive for "thax douglas" the other day, thinking there might be a track listing starting with "01. thax douglas intro."

I told Lucy Sante about this last night in a group email, and she said:

Some of you may already have seen this, but the tape I made at CBGB of a Television/Talking Heads show on January 24, 1976, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary by being shared all over the internet: https://archive.org/details/television1976-01-24.unk The T-Heads archivists had approached me and digitized and cleaned it, and I encouraged them to make it public. I'm sorry my batteries were dying during the second Television set; "Guiding Light" is especially wobbly. Overall, though, the tapes, made on generic cassettes with a cheapo recorder and stored in a shoebox all these years, sound at least as good as most of the commercially distributed bootlegs from those years. It's also ghostly for me, because at the end of some of the Television numbers you hear a whoop from my old girlfriend Eva, dead now almost 28 years. Oh, and the Talking Heads (trio and still pretty green): https://archive.org/details/th1976-01-24.unk.sante

There's a Bluesky page, not sure if these are new shows he's posting or just randomizing the archive hourly.

Talking Heads were probably already too big by the time Aadam started recording. I haven't checked thoroughly, but it seems like the Metro might be the largest venue he taped at.

That said, looking forward to those Sante links!

Bluesky feed is new uploads as they're uploaded, I believe

rad

Thanks---link please?

https://bsky.app/profile/ajcproject.mas.to.ap.brid.gy

Trying to sift through to find New Zealand acts who toured - there's a bunch of Clean / David Kilgour, some Tall Dwarfs, Alastair Galbraith ... the Renderers are alluded to on a Barbara Manning bootleg that they opened for, so hopefully that set was recorded and will make its way online eventually.

yeah the aadamjacobs archive is one of the tabs i perpetually have open haha, me being me my first thought was "WOW LOOK AT ALL THOSE CHEER-ACCIDENT SHOWS"

i haven't checked it since aug 2025, probably due for a recheck

holy shit a tape of manishevitz encoring with "i heard her call my name"? there's a very niche audience for that and i'm part of it

Television!

Bluesky feed is new uploads as they're uploaded, I believe

Put this link in your RSS reader and you'll see the new uploads when they happen
https://archive.org/services/collection-rss.php?collection=aadamjacobs

Okay, what do y'all think: use this thread or start a separate one for posting periodic "I found/recommend this cool thing in here" pointers?

I say post 'em here

yeah I think all of them here is best

one of the odder things in there — Phish opening for Alex Chilton at the Lounge Ax in 1990

https://archive.org/details/ajc01505_phish_1990-11-09

Infamously!

A Peter Jefferies set has just been posted:

https://archive.org/details/ajc02773_peter_jefferies_1993-08-13

Interestingly the notes refer to it being part of an Xpresseway tour, and a later joint set by Jefferies and Alastair Galbraith... also that Sandra Bull played that night, so maybe her set was recorded too? Keeping everything crossed!

yep the joint set is up now too

so good

Oh wow, and the Sandra Bell set!

https://archive.org/details/ajc02774_sandra_bell_1993-08-13

!!

joint set for reference
https://archive.org/details/ajc02776_pj_ag_1993-08-13

Sandra Bell:

https://archive.org/details/ajc02774_sandra_bell_1993-08-13

and the Galbraith solo, what an embarrassment of riches
https://archive.org/details/ajc02772_alastair_galbraith_1993-08-13

"what an embarrassment of riches"

For that is surely what it is. Again, wow.

Oh yeah. Thank you both for the update!

Yessssssssssss

Need to digitize the Head In The Clouds tour doco that those shows were part of!

No details accompanying this 1998 tribute to Eric Dolphy at Velvet Lounge, but this show calendar lists it as:

Eric Dolphy Project: (Kyle Hernandez (bass), Jeb Bishop (trombone), Tim Mulvenna (drums), Ken Vandermark (reeds)

https://archive.org/details/ajc01320_tribute-to-eric-dolphy-1998-06-26

(Also, that show calendar is fun to browse if you're at all into improvised music. Lots of '98 opportunities to see Jim O'Rourke in a >50-seat venue.)

Yes and speaking of improvised music, I found 75 Dollar Bill, Sunwatchers, Vandermark w Joe Morris as well as the 5, Jeff Parker (as leader or solo as well as w Tortoise), and

AMM Live at Arts Bar 1984-05-27 (Aadam's first recording)

Need to digitize the Head In The Clouds tour doco that those shows were part of!

― etc

YSI???

I saw Jefferies on a tour with Two Foot Flame? did I imagine that? I swear that was the lineup, in the PNW circa 1995

(and yes I know he was in TFF)

Setlist.fm lists a Portland show in 1995 so you're prob not imagining. PJ relocated to Vancouver for a year or so around that time and moved in with Jean Smith of 2FF. He talks about this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAmdClWlBP8

Posted yesterday on Bluesky: Peter Jefferies set supporting Two Foot Flame in 1995...

https://archive.org/details/ajc02778_peter_jefferies_1995-10-21

ha nice, so I didn't dream it - I remember being specifically excited about Morley's presence as I was familiar with his other work at that point

Also...

https://archive.org/details/ajc02777_peter_jefferies_1995-03-30

https://archive.org/details/ajc02771_peter_jefferies_1994-09-10

xxxxpost speaking yet again ov improvised music---here's Edward Wilkerson, whom I knew (listening-wise) with 8 Bold Souls:
https://archive.org/details/ajc01454_edward-wilkerson-quartet-2005-03-05

some 2012 dino jr shows in the latest batch