Kathy Stainbrook in "Shane," 1953

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Gear: Review of the TASCAM DP-01 Digital Recorder

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The TASCAM DP-01 is an inexpensive digital hard disk recorder; it was my first DAW. I used it to record dozens of songs, and the results I got were mostly excellent. I strongly recommend it to others as an entry-level multi-track recorder. If you’ve been wanting to get that demo recorded, this is just the ticket. It makes beautiful recordings, as long as you navigate around its low-budget challenges. The DP-01 comes in three flavors, 1) basic, 2) with FX, and 3) with a CD burner. The version I had was the basic no-frills unit, but it has everything you need to capture great recordings and none of the things you don’t need if you are handy with a computer. The TASCAM DP-01 is set up similar to a mixer, with a vertical column of knobs for each of the eight recording channels. The knobs control low and high EQ, effects send, and left-right pan. A big, smooth slider controls the levels for each channel, as well as the master output. The inputs are on the front of the unit, with two ¼ - in...
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Jackson Hole, New Years Eve, 1980

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My memories of Dirty Jack’s are all sunny and warm, since the theater ran only in the summer. But I spent a few winters in Jackson Hole, and the they can be brutal. It is 6,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains, after all, and it can get COLD. I sometimes click on the link to the Jackson Town Square Webcam over in the right-hand column on this page. It looks pretty damn cold lately. Gray and chilly. The sidewalks look slippery, too. I don’t miss that part of it. After the 1979 season at Dirty Jack’s, Prudy and I moved to Michigan for a year. She was a school social worker and I caught on selling hifi equipment in a shop across from the campus of MSU. Nine months of that was enough, and we moved back to Jackson Hole. I got a job as the manager of the Pink Garter Lounge in Jackson. They wanted to start featuring live bands and I had some experience in the music entertainment biz, so there we were. I hired all kinds of acts and the joint was eventually jumpin’. Anyway, this story is about WI...
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Any Which Way You Can

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I was clicking through the cable channels the other day and saw this: Dirty Jack’s Theater on the Big Screen! Do you remember the movie Any Which Way You Can ? Part of it was filmed in Jackson Hole in the fall of 1980. I like the picture above because I watched this scene being filmed. Prudy and I stood on the lawn across from Dirty Jack's. Eastwood was running past us in the shot. There are lots of cool views of Jackson in the movie. You gotta watch around the action in the film to catch it. The movie is hokey but really funny; a lot like the shows at Dirty Jack’s Theater. I also like this shot of the old Teton Motel, now long gone. This was the place Jon Stainbrook housed many of the actors and musicians who worked in the 1979 show. I lived there all summer; swam in the pool; annoyed the other guests with my loud car stereo playing Poco and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I remember knowing friends who hired on as extras for the movie, but as I scan the crowd scenes I don’t yet see any f...
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