Blues Traveler
"Let's Travel" demo, 1988
Recorded at Skylab Studios
Englishtown NJ
Master:Original demo tape>DAT by Ken Brownstein, original tape provided by Hisham ElShakhs
Conversion:Tascam
DA-20>Egosys U2A>Sound Studio 2.1.1b3>AIFF>xACT 1.4d24 by Dave Mallick [greenone@bluestraveler.net]
CD 1 [48:49.74]
01. Gotta Get Mean [04:05.33]
02. Corn Mash Blues [03:44.27]
03. Alone
[07:28.12]
04. Mother Funker [07:18.55]
05. But Anyway [05:12.41]
06. Shotgun
Shell [06:14.32]
07. Slow Change [07:54.57]
08. Black Cat Jam [06:51.42]
Notes: Left-channel weirdness at 3:33-3:36 of t05, small dropout at 5:04. This is not the band's earliest
demo but it was their most popular and widespread back before the days of CD and lossless trading.
Recorded sometime in
mid-1988, it's believed to be only the second demo recording featuring the original band lineup of John (billed simply as
"Popper" in the liner notes), Brendan, Chan and Bobby. This marks the only known studio recordings of "Corn Mash Blues",
"Mother Funker", and "Black Cat Jam". A SHN copy of this demo circulated as early as 2000, but the tracks were out of
order (side B went before side A), the first track cut in, and the last track cut out. Several years later, an auction popped
up on eBay with an old classmate selling this demo and the 1985 "Blues In My Soul"; after bidding against each other for a
few days, Ken and I decided to declare a truce and split the goods but make copies for each other. We won, he chose the "Let's
Travel" demo, and copied it to DAT soon after...upon which I promptly forgot about it. Until now. Thanks to Hisham for
being willing to part with a high-school memory, and to Ken for helping me blow an embarrassing sum of money on two decrepit
cassettes whose combined age exceeds my own...