I was knocked out with a nasty bug a couple of days ago. Unpleasant as it was, it gave me the opportunity to go through and master some live recordings from the old days with my band.

Recording was always a challenge – we didn’t have a lot of money to put into equipment, but we were lucky to have a buddy to help us out. As an improvisational act, recording our live shows gave us the chance to go back and hear if we came up with any ideas worth developing into songs. Every now and then we had some magical moments and we wrote a lot of our music that way.

This wasn’t one of those moments.

It’s the finished product and not a developing idea, but it’s the only recording we have of it and it’s from our farewell show at The Spot in Boulder, Colorado on April 26, 2008, so it’s near and dear to my heart. The recording is from our pre-show sound check and was done using a couple of room mics, and the levels fluctuate a bit as the stage and house sound systems kick-in. My mastering skills are fairly rudimentary – I’m brand new to using Audacity (yeah open-source!) – so go easy on me.

Anyway, without further ado, I present Wax Tax – it’s so nasty we have to tax your ears for listening (if the track every finishes buffering… or click here to listen if it doesn’t).

A little eye-candy to help set the mood, from one of our earlier shows at the Fox Theatre.