Quicksilver Messenger Service - The Complete Fillmore June '68 Tape [A Prof Stoned Comp 2025]
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01. 'intro'
02. Smokestack Lightnin'
03. Codine
04. Light Your Windows
05. Mona
06. Maiden of the Cancer Moon
07. Mona {coda}
08. Pride Of Man
09. If You Live
10. Dino's Song
11. Back Door Man
12. Acapulco Gold & Silver
13. Who Do You Love
14. The Fool
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Total time: 1h29m15s
All tracks Stereo.
Recorded live from soundboard to stereo tape at Fillmore East, New York, NY, June 7, 1968
Demix Rebalancing/Mastering: Prof Stoned
v1.0: 26:07-2025
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Note:
Here's another one dear to my heart. A long treasured but never fully satisfactory sounding recording. Most fans -myself included- were introduced to the bulk of this material by the 1983 double LP 'Maiden of the Cancer Moon' on the British Psycho label (of which I borrowed the front cover). Finding that 2LP in the 90s was a happy occasion, after listening to 'Happy Trails' for years and longing for more quality recordings from this mystical QMS era. Only later, I learned from the internet that the album did in fact not use the best quality sources, had been partly mislabeled as being from a different concert and was not complete either (but did duplicate Mono/MOTCM). The concert was re-released two times; it appeared on an official release on Capitol in 1999 (The Unreleased Quicksilver Messenger Service: Lost Gold And Silver) which disappointingly was just a poorly re-tooled recording taken from the Cancer Moon LP and semi-officially on the 2013 Live At The Fillmore June 7,1968 on Purple Pyramid, which seemed like little more than a cash grab with its horrible mastering, shuffled track order and lame packaging. It also appears on the Wolfgang's Vault website, where they did actually use the best source in circulation but once again re-shuffled and partly mislabeled (no tape from June 8 exists).
The source material used here comes 3rd generation reel (not cassette), courtesy of Dave Tamarkin. That may seem like a big degradation but the fidelity is excellent. It is supposedly better than what John Cipollina and Gary Duncan had in their personal archives. This compilation consists of two sets, of which only the second is complete. 'Pride of Man' is the first song of set 2 and has some problems, which I tried to remedy as much as possible. The first song(s) of set 1 are unknown until the tape cuts in with "Smokestack Lightnin'". Everything appears here in correct order with all in-between song chatter, tuning and noise intact. I do remember reading that this recording was made by the band's sound engineer for personal use (that would have been Dan Healy, if I got my timeline correct). The original stereo image is wonky with drums and vocals on one channel; I'm guessing this was the mono house mix. The other channel has a bit of everything except vocals. This new mix sets to rectify the poor balancing where possible but also to create a much more satisfying stereo image, which vocals and drums in the center and guitars spread left and right. It proved to be a long arduous process to achieve that, requiring lots of manual work, but here it is.
'Happy Trails' remains the gold standard for QMS magical guitar psychedelica but this document is a worthy second choice. It offers a notably different version of "Who Do You Love" (more aggressive and faster) and nearly all songs from the first album, incl. an excellent "Gold and Silver" (albeit with clunky drum solo) and a majestic "The Fool". Close your eyes and transport yourself back to the Fillmore East ballroom in 1968 to some of the finest West Coast psychedelica ever heard. Enjoy!
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A note about mastering with demix technology:
You may have heard some of my recent offerings where I have used demix pro for spectral extraction. I believe it is the most revolutionary audio processing tool since ages. It enables us to break a mono signal down into 4 dedicated elements: vocals, drums/percussion, bass guitar and whatever remains after. These extractions are of such precision they allow for a realistic reconstruction of a mix.
Why is this useful? Well... the original mix may have flaws that affect the quality of the sound. By nature, the process of mastering is designed to improve upon such flaws by applying equalization and/or processing of dynamic range. But what if one element within a recording needs more treble, while another element is already bright enough? At that point, EQ is not sufficient anymore because your choices will affect both. Of course, mastering does not begin and end with just EQ; there are always other ways of emphasizing or hiding elements in a recording. But spectral extraction allows you to improve upon the sound of one element without 'harming' the sound of all the others and also to re-balance those elements if necessary.
I have used demix on nearly all the recordings with decent fidelity. Being able to correct balancing mistakes; having the flexibility to mesh the bass guitar and kick drum together nicely and putting the vocals precisely in the mix where they need to be is a great luxury. Especially when it doesn't have to be achieved with buss EQ and/or compression. I believe these new masters have a more dynamic, open sound than the source material. The goal has been to stay true to the original feel but with added clarity and depth.
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I have used the following digital studio gear and monitoring in the making of this:
- DeMix Pro 3.0.1 & Spectralayers Pro 10
- Cubase 13
- Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite Quad-Core (incl. various extra plugins I purchased over the years)
- Neumann KH150 & iLoud Micro monitors
- Adobe Audition
- Izotope RX9
