First time around

The Patti Spadaro Band made its debut Friday at P.D.'s pub in Squirrel Hill, a pretty good venue with an area off to the side where an audience can gather to enjoy a performance a little bit out of the way of the rest of the patrons.

Patti previously had a band when she was in Los Angeles, simply called Spadaro, which released an album, "Short Stay," featuring her original compositions.

One song that isn't on the album is one I particularly enjoy her play. In fact, we filmed her playing "Tonight" last summer on lower-grade equipment, and I was hoping to capture a better version with her new band.



The debut started with the Grateful Dead's "Franklin's Tower," during which I was trying to get a decent audio feed using one microphone pointed at the stage and a patch from the soundboard. The soundboard connection wasn't working, though, so I had to make some adjustments. By that time, the band was firing up "Tonight."

The raw tape revealed some "clicks" and minor distortion on one of the channels, but I was able to repair that for the most part. For some reason, the tape cut off in the middle of Patti's guitar solo, but the finished product is six-and-a-half minutes of a cooking jam.

Click here to check it out.