In December 1981 Greg Mathieson, Jeff Porcaro, Steve Lukather, and Pops Popwell played a 3 night gig at the Baked Potato Jazz Club. I was at one of the shows and brought along my new Sony stereo recording Walkman. A few months later I bumped into a friend who said they used one of the songs in the movie Zapped. I had no idea until February 2021 that they made a recording of the show and released it in Japan called Baked Potato Super Live. I had seen Greg's group many times before at the BP and he was the only constant in the band. The drums rotated between Jeff Porcaro, and Ralph Humphrey, (and later John Ferraro and Carlos Vega). Bass was either Abe Laboriel or Pops Popwell. Guitar was originally Dan Sawyer or Jay Graydon, and then Larry Carlton came on board. Every Thursday the LA Times would have the ads for the jazz clubs for the weekend and following week, and I noticed that Steve Lukather was on the gig and I really wanted to see that. He was known as a studio player and band member in Toto, but I had also heard he was a wildman on the guitar, and it would be an interesting departure from Larry and Dan. No matter who was playing any particular night, the opening number for Greg's band was always All Blues.

Two weeks ago I was digging thru a box of old bootleg cassettes and found one that said Pages Live. Pages was a pop-fusion group that morphed into Mr. Mr. I saw them (and recorded them) opening for Hall & Oats at the Greek Theater. I put the pages Live tape into the player and I was shocked to find that it was actually the second half of the Greg Mathieson gig at the BP. I knew I had the first part, but thought my tape ran out and that was that. I googled Greg Mathieson and the first thing I saw was that they made a live recording of the 3 night gig. I had no idea. It has become the stuff of legend according to everything I read. I listened to it on YouTube and while the sound is mixed well, there is a bunch of "Jay Graydon-ing" to the sound with processors, Etc. That was his thing at the time. I knew I had the first part of the gig as I gave that tape to a friend who digitized it back in 2000. He used some noise reduction and normalizing that gives it a little punch, but also a bit of phasing. The second half is straight from the tape....the 40 year old cassette tape which has some typical issues with sound. My Sony recorder had an automatic volume control for recording so that was also a problem with distortion. I wish they would dig out the original tapes and release them without the processing. This version is sort of that...a "naked" version with the sound coming directly from the instruments and amplifiers. Jeff and Pops are in perfect lock-step...just amazing.

The Baked Potato is a small club and I was there mostly to see Jeff Porcaro play. I sat at the little eating counter to the right of the bandstand ( that no longer exists) where there was a clear view of Jeff. Unfortunately that was behind Greg, but in front of his Leslie speaker so he is the loudest thing on the tape. The sound system at the BP was pretty non-existent so the sound was coming thru the amps and that was it. Greg, Jeff, and Pops, who had a big bass amp, came through loud and clear, but Steve was across the bandstand from me and I was actually behind him and his amp, and whenever the whole band played the recorder picked him up the least. I know I missed a few tunes when I changed the tape in the recorder so here are 5 songs from the show I attended.

All Blues 0:00
Bomp Me 15:40
I'm Home 27:00
I Don't Know 37:30
Spud Shuffle 52:10