Live CD Set
From the Producer

This project was undertaken in an effort to preserve some of the music contained in a rapidly deteriorating collection of old tapes I'd been moving around with me for nearly 20 years. Some restoration work was required just to play many of these tapes, and many hours of listening and searching through hundreds of hours of recordings brought together this collection. Many songs are obviously missing, as acceptable versions could not be found, as well as the limiting factor of time, space , and production costs.

The songs are of varying quality due to the original recording and equipment limitations and current tape condition. Most tapes were used to record many times over and show their wear.

There were two basic techniques used to record the live shows. The earlier recordings were made using the mono output of the big-knobbed Peavey PA Mixer on one channel of the recorder. This contained three vocals and one organ/leslie mic. The other channel of the recorder was fed by a room mic which picked up the rest of the instruments. This technique yielded a very weird out of phase sound but still presents most of the instruments audible in the mix.

The later recordings were made with the Yamaha PM1200 mixer and more mics were added to cover guitars and two drum mics. Some of these, when the situation permitted, were even in stereo!

Tape machines varied from cassette to open reel 1/4 " 1/4 track with a mix of tape speeds, mostly very slow to use less tape.

All recordings are presented in their complete original form, unedited, except The Other Side and Sea Hunt . All late starts, chopped tails, dropouts, buzzes, hums, distortion, wow, flutter, hiss, noise, clicks, pops, crackles and Racky's organ getting unplugged in the middle of Alnashar, are on the original source tapes. No processing, denoising, equalization, compression, or expansion was used in this assembly due to the time and budget constraints of handling this bulk of material.

All editing and assembly done at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CA using Sonic Solutions system.

All original recordings engineered by Dennis Alichwer except Get Over Man recorded at Back Shed Studios, Paterson, NJ. All of volume 1 except Looks Like You Lose , Tune Changer, and On the Cusp recorded at Ramapo State College 2/10/78. All of volume 3, except Alnashar, Mountain Peak, and Sea Hunt were rehearsal recordings on the front porch of the Schnecksville, PA farmhouse 7/25/78 and 8/2/78. All other songs recorded at various live shows from Ramapo S tate College, The Hainesburg Hotel, The Stables, The Pittstown Inn, The Blinker Inn, Bottom of the Fox, and the Red Oak. Most record dates were 1977 and 1978.

The intent of this project is solely to preserve some of the memories of these times and provide all those closely involved with Mad Fables (at the time I worked with them, 1975 to 1978) with copies to stir their own memories.

All songs Copyright © 1979 Racky Rhapsodies. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in whole or part in any form without written permission of the publisher.

Hope you all enjoy!

Dennis Alichwer,

Berkeley, CA 1997