12/18/2011 The first ever HD Nothingface live...

I'll never forget trying to find NF footage on the net around 2004-2006.  Tons of leads, rumors of pro recordings, now....all washed away with time.  It came back to me one day, like a patient recovering from amnesia: The old NF website killer27.com had grainy video stills taken from this footage back in 1999. 

I asked myself , self: Who has this footage?  How many walls would I have to take down to find a copy of it?....and it all came down to one important detail....  Not having ANY of the original screen captures, I somehow managed to find 3 stills on an archived yahoo chat group... and there it was:  a still of Bill onstage from Edgefest clearly showing the video screen tower in the air behind him, broadcasting the same image.

Like many things that ended up on nothingfacelive.com, I began scouring the net for any possible word combination of Nothingface video screen, Nothingface festival film, Nothingface open air, but the search ran dry. (not knowing at the time it was called Edgefest) It lit a fire under me, and several weeks later I typed in "Nothingface Broadcast" and couldn't believe I had found it: Common World Productions, the company that filmed all the bands, and provided the tower video screen broadcast for Edgefest.  I made contact with Vicki @ CWP who informed me yes, the master was sitting on the shelf carefully stored with 100's of other tapes.  She liked that I was persistent, and enthusiastic about the band’s music.

Vicki said it was the complete recording on broadcast quality HD VHS, and she had also filmed 3 of the songs in U-Matic wide tape for 93X radio, in case they wanted to make a TV commercial with a clip. 

I had been in touch with Tom Maxwell for a while and mentioned the plans to put this show on my site, helping keep the memory alive.  He agreed, it was better than having the show sit collecting dust!   I put Vicki and Tom in touch for the permission, and the rest is history.  I remember opening the mailer envelope at my office on a 100° Wednesday afternoon and just staring at the tape like: "holy fucking shit.... I did it.....Pro-shot Nothingface, it exists!"

HD Remastered 01 One Thing
http://youtu.be/iJXR6XwXcLY

HD Remastered 02 Goldtooth
http://youtu.be/1ejz6m7svAM

HD Remastered 03 Breathe Out
http://youtu.be/YaWffI-IvhU

HD Remastered 04  Villains
http://youtu.be/l1pBP-1YitY

HD Remastered 05  Pacifier 
http://youtu.be/sgcieR9ozVo

HD Remastered 06 Grinning 
http://youtu.be/NVFEU5BNNLY

HD Remastered 07 The Sick 
http://youtu.be/hmrl15Omlr4

HD Remastered 08 Perfect Person
http://youtu.be/-NvgOCShFCs

The audio mix has always been rough on this footage, and set me back from re-uploading it sooner, in a higher quality.  I wanted to improve it, but never really had the wherewithal to make any meaningful adjustments.    The original audio mix was lacking highs, toms guitar was buried, The volume level was soft, and the biggest issue being the kick drum was waaaay too loud!  Here is what I did during my amateur re-master:

For several months, I decided on an EQ, importing it to my Ipod over and over, listening to each re-level on the way to work.  The end result: not perfect, but spread the mix as best I could without smashing the spectrum down entirely.  You can hear Tom better, the vocals are clear and up-front, I added some 40-100hz bass and brought out Bill’s signature NF low end “thunder” you could really feel during the shows.  I did my best to shape the drums, and added mild compression in the end because of this:  The final mix was great on a stereo flat (no bass or treb turned up) and it was even better on the Ipod with the “Rock EQ” setting (and was NOT overloaded) but……..it was simply not loud enough.  The kick drum was louder than everything else, thus, holding the volume back , so , compressed it is…

 The levels are (naturally) all being adjusted and change dramatically during One Thing, so I fixed volume changes.  In the end, this is very well recorded audio, just in need of adjusting.  (as evident in mix’s from other recordings on this stage that have slipped out…like “Second Coming” also on Youtube)  The PCM (lossless) recording transfer was flawless, but the videos on Youtube have an occasional pop once and a while, not sure why, not on the master transfer at all. (happened during upload) 

In addition, I am fairly sure after playing with the EQ forever…..when the band is playing…..the board opens an mic that must be back near the soundboard to record the crowd….this causes some odd ambient noise  (listen right before the breakdown in Villains, you can clearly hear what sounds like feedback/tuning up on the second stage)  They close this channel  down in-between songs, it just sounds noisy while the band is playing sometimes.

Anyway guys, These uploads have been in the works a while now, hope it sounds better…one can never have enough live Nothingface!

Enjoy!

-Nick