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The Hannan Tapes

The Story So Far

A behind-the-scenes history of the archive

This site is an ongoing labor of love — digitizing, cleaning up, and sharing the live recordings of Jerry Hannan, the Mad Hannans, and Sean Hannan. Here’s how it has come together so far.

Week one — getting it online (June 9–13, 2026)

The archive went live as a simple homepage and quickly grew a proper foundation.

Week two — more shows, more polish (June 14–20, 2026)

The site split into proper sections — Home, Archive, Shows, Updates, and Contact — and an Updates feed began tracking changes as they happen. New shows kept arriving:

I also added notes about audio levels and the purpose of the archive, and began marking which recordings came straight off the soundboard (SBD) versus from the audience (AUD).

Week three — listening, searching, restoring (June 21–26, 2026)

The biggest leap in how the archive feels to use:

Week four — a real audio pipeline (June 27–28, 2026)

The cleanup work grew up into a proper, repeatable process. Instead of treating each show by hand, there’s now an automated audio-engineering workflow that takes the original lossless masters and brings every track to one consistent, comfortable listening level across the whole archive — solo sets and full-band shows alike — all with a ceiling that prevents digital clipping.

Week five — repairing the damaged peaks (June 29–30, 2026)

Some older recordings have a flaw that volume adjustment alone can’t fix: bursts of applause so loud they overloaded the original tape and distorted. This week the focus turned to repairing that damage by hand before normalizing.

Week six — New George’s, more shows, and a technical clean-up (July 5–7, 2026)

Added the Mad Hannans at New George’s in San Rafael (Oct 13, 1999) as 14 individual tracks. The show survives as two audience DAT transfers, so I A/B’d them side by side and went with the one that sounded best. Each song was split out, the applause gently faded at the end for easier back-to-back listening, and the whole set brought to the archive’s −20 loudness standard. The set opens with a short soundcheck.

Also launched a new “Songs” section — a cross-referenced matrix of every song against every show. Because the same songs turn up again and again across Jerry, the Mad Hannans, and Sean, you can now pick a song and see every time it was played, each with a player and a link straight to that performance. Browse it as a filterable list or a songs-by-shows grid, sort by how often a song was played, filter by artist, and search for any song by name.

Added two more early Jerry solo shows at 19 Broadway in Fairfax — May 10, 1999 (21 songs) and July 19, 1999 (a long, 26-song set). Each was split into individual tracks by hand in Audacity, with the applause studio-faded at the end of every song and a little clipping cleaned up on the loudest peaks, then run through the pipeline to the archive’s −20 loudness standard. All 47 new tracks flow straight into the Songs matrix, which now also treats Jerry’s “My Dear” and “Ride On” as the same song.

Then a stretch of polish rather than new tapes. The Songs page got a real workover: the list is tighter and easier to scan, with each artist shown as a small colour-coded dot lined up in fixed columns — so you can run your eye down and see at a glance which songs Jerry, the Mad Hannans, or Sean played. The songs-by-shows grid now scrolls sideways properly, and its artist filter finally hides the other artists’ columns instead of just their rows. Two songs on the Sweetwater soundboard (Feb 17, 2000) were corrected as well: a track listed as “There She Was” is really “Butter,” and the copy here was missing its opening chords, so it was swapped for the complete take; and a stray “Da Da Da” was reunited with its full name, the medley “The Kiss – Da Da Da.” Each fix was pushed everywhere the audio lives at once — the streaming store, the cloud archive, and the working files.

Under the hood, the site grew up a little. Every page now carries structured data so search engines read these as live music recordings, performances, and songs rather than anonymous pages. There’s a proper dark mode that follows your device’s setting, an RSS feed of these updates so you can follow new additions, and a round of accessibility work — visible keyboard focus, a skip-to-content link, reduced-motion support, and stronger text contrast. Plumbing you never see, but the kind that keeps an archive healthy.

Week seven — a playlist generator (July 7–9, 2026)

A new way to listen to the archive: build your own set instead of working through one show at a time.

Also added the Mad Hannans at 4th Street Tavern in San Rafael (May 1, 1999) as 24 individual tracks — split, faded, and clip-repaired by hand before the usual pass to the archive’s −20 loudness standard. The set opens with a short soundcheck.

Added a Sean & Jerry Hannan show at 19 Broadway from December 1999 (exact date unknown) as 30 individual tracks, split from the audience DAT and run through the usual pass to the archive’s −20 loudness standard. The tape itself turned out to be recorded at 32 kHz throughout — despite one of its two source files being labelled “48KHz” — so a handful of tracks that had been exported at the wrong rate were corrected to match before processing.

Added a marathon Jerry Hannan solo show at 19 Broadway (March 29, 1999) as 34 individual tracks — the biggest single-show track count on the site so far, mixing Hannan originals with a run of John Prine covers, two Cat Stevens songs, and a closing stretch of Irish traditionals. It’s also a first for the archive’s audio work: broadband noise reduction was applied across the whole tape in Audacity before the songs were split out, taking the hiss floor down dramatically, and that step is now recorded in each show’s technical data as a “pre-edit” alongside the usual fades and clip repairs.

Added a Sean Hannan solo show at 19 Broadway from November 1999 as 21 individual tracks, split from the audience DAT and run through the usual pass to the archive’s −20 loudness standard. The set pairs Sean’s originals with a run of covers — Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Cat Stevens, John Prine, and the Beatles — alongside a couple of Irish traditionals.

The whole journey a tape makes — from DAT transfer through hand-editing to the published show page — is now documented step by step on The Process.

Week eight — a new coat of paint (July 10–11, 2026)

Mostly a design week: the site keeps the same bones, but reads and feels more like one place now instead of a homepage bolted onto everything else.

Added a Jerry Hannan solo show at 19 Broadway from February 1, 1999 as 21 individual tracks, split from an audience tape with some significant dropouts — a couple of tracks (Candle in the Wind, Angel of Montgomery) show the effect — and Sean Hannan sitting in for a few songs. Perfect Autumn Day turns up twice in the set, still a work in progress this early on. The whole tape got a pass of broadband noise reduction (6dB, sensitivity 5) in Audacity before the tracks were split, then the usual −20 LUFS normalization.

Added a Mad Hannans show at the Sweetwater in Mill Valley from May 18, 1999 as 22 individual tracks — almost all originals, plus covers of Gary Lee and the Showdown’s “The Rodeo Song,” Lefty Frizzell’s “Long Black Veil,” and a singalong “Rocky Road to Dublin.” This one's also a first: rather than noise reduction, the whole tape got an EQ pass in Audacity to brighten up a muddy room sound, so the archive’s pre-edit badge now distinguishes “noise-reduced” from a plain “pre-edited” tag for tapes treated some other way.

Week nine — the Cafe Java run, a subtle audio bug, and hand-picked playlists (July 12–15, 2026)

A run of Jerry’s 1999 Cafe Java residency in Larkspur arrived — and processing it surfaced the archive’s subtlest audio bug yet.

Added a Jerry Hannan solo show at Cafe Java in Larkspur from April 29, 1999 as 21 individual tracks — mostly originals, with covers of John Prine’s “Illegal Smile,” Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” Paddy Nash’s “Model Family Man,” and Mentor Williams’ “Drift Away,” plus a pair of Irish traditionals. The set closes out with the rarely-played “Leprechaun.” No noise reduction or EQ needed on this tape — just the usual hand-edits and −20 LUFS normalization.

Added another Jerry Hannan solo show at Cafe Java in Larkspur, this one from March 25, 1999, as 21 individual tracks — originals plus covers of John Prine (including a rare “Angel of Montgomery”) and Paddy Nash, a pair of Irish traditionals, and a guest turn from Kelly Peterson on “Daddy.” The tape also holds a second date (April 8, 1999) split out as its own show. This one got a pass of broadband noise reduction (8dB, sensitivity 5) in Audacity before the tracks were split, then the usual −20 LUFS normalization.

Added the other half of that tape: a Jerry Hannan solo show at Cafe Java from April 8, 1999, as 23 individual tracks — originals alongside covers of Cat Stevens, Bruce Springsteen, Lefty Frizzell, John Prine, and Van Morrison, closing with the Irish traditional “The Parting Glass.” Kelly Peterson again sits in on “Daddy,” and the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling” makes its first appearance in the archive. Straightforward hand-edits and −20 LUFS normalization, no NR or EQ needed.

Added one more Jerry Hannan solo show at Cafe Java in Larkspur, this one from May 27, 1999, as 20 individual tracks — mostly originals, with covers of John Prine’s “Illegal Smile” and “Please Don’t Bury Me,” and Paddy Nash’s “Model Family Man,” closing with the traditional “The Parting Glass.” Processed straight through the corrected pipeline from the start, no reprocess needed.

Added the biggest set of the residency yet: a Jerry Hannan solo show at Cafe Java in Larkspur from June 17, 1999, as 27 individual tracks — mostly originals, with covers of John Prine (“Illegal Smile,” “Angel from Montgomery”), Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” Paddy Nash’s “Model Family Man,” the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Tougher Than the Rest,” and Peter Jones’ “Kilkelly Ireland,” plus a pair of Irish traditionals. This tape ran hot: the first diagnose pass came back with more than half the tracks flagged for audible clipping, so the fades were touched up and the clipping tamed by hand in Audacity before a clean second pass and the usual −20 LUFS normalization.

Added a Jerry Hannan solo show at 19 Broadway in Fairfax from November 15, 1999, as 14 individual tracks — a shorter set of mostly originals, including an early version of “Burning Man” (long before the song found its familiar shape) and a short alternate-verse take of “Hollywood” right after the full version, alongside covers of Bruce Springsteen and Steve Poltz. Split, faded, and clip-repaired by hand, then normalized to the archive’s −20 LUFS standard.

Added a much longer Jerry Hannan solo show at 19 Broadway from October 25, 1999, as 26 individual tracks — mostly originals, including an alternate take of “ABC” and an early version of “Hollywood,” alongside covers of Bruce Springsteen, Steve Poltz, John Prine, the Eagles, Paddy Nash, Marty Robbins, and Merle Haggard, plus a couple of Irish traditionals. Kelly Peterson joins as a guest vocalist on two of the covers. The whole tape got a pass of broadband noise reduction (6dB, sensitivity 5) in Audacity before the tracks were split, then the usual −20 LUFS normalization.

Added a Jerry Hannan solo show at 19 Broadway from June 7, 1999, as 29 individual tracks — mostly originals, with repeat outings for “Luxury of Murder” and “Everything Reminds Me of You,” alongside covers of John Prine, Steve Poltz, Peter Jones’ “Kilkelly Ireland,” Lefty Frizzell’s “Long Black Veil,” and Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee,” plus three Irish traditionals — including “A Bunch of Thyme” — and a birthday singalong for an audience member named Marco. The tape got a pass of broadband noise reduction in Audacity before the tracks were split (10dB on the opening three tracks, 6dB the rest of the way, sensitivity 5 throughout), then the usual −20 LUFS normalization.

Added a Jerry Hannan solo show at 19 Broadway from August 23, 1999, as 14 individual tracks. The two source reels for this show are mislabeled, so this main set comes from the cleaner of the two. Mostly originals, including an early version of “Rugburns” before it found its familiar shape, alongside covers of Steve Poltz’s “Single Life,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Highway Patrolman,” Lefty Frizzell’s “Long Black Veil,” and Paddy Nash’s “Model Family Man.” Straightforward hand-edits and the usual −20 LUFS normalization, no NR or EQ needed.

Recovered 7 more songs from the rougher of those two August 23 reels and added them to the same show page as a separate “Part 1 (Distorted)” batch below the main set — rough listening in places, but archived rather than lost. It includes an alternate take of “ABC,” another early version of “Rugburns,” and three songs new to the archive: “Troy,” “The Kiss,” and “Da Da Da (Slave to an Angel).” Show pages can now carry more than one batch of tracks from different source tapes, each labeled separately in the track list.

Added the earliest Mad Hannans show in the archive: Marin Brewing Co. in Larkspur, from April 1, 1998, as 17 individual tracks — Troy on bass, and “Da Da Da (Slave to an Angel)” still without the “The Kiss” intro it later grew. It’s a rough audience tape, left without EQ or noise reduction so the room sound stays honest to the source — just the usual hand-edits and −20 LUFS normalization. The set includes an early outing for Steve Miller’s “Space Cowboy,” a cover that stayed a Mad Hannans staple for years afterward.

A year later to the day, the band came back to the same room: added the Mad Hannans at Marin Brewing Co. from April 1, 1999 — the venue’s 10th anniversary — as 15 individual tracks. This time “Da Da Da (Slave to an Angel)” opens with its full “The Kiss” intro, missing from the 1998 show. Two audience transfers of the tape survive; the tracks were split from the cleaner one, with the other kept as an alternate full-show download. Usual hand-edits and −20 LUFS normalization.

Week ten — a more trustworthy audio engine (July 16–17, 2026)

Less new tape this week, more making sure the engine behind every track can be trusted down to the last decimal.

Week eleven — tightening up the site (July 18, 2026)

A round of housekeeping on the site itself rather than the tapes: every interior page now reads as one place with the homepage instead of a collection of separately-styled pages, and a handful of small copy and UI details caught up to where the archive actually stands.

Week twelve — another pass through the engine (July 22–23, 2026)

Single-show tune-ups rather than a broad push.

The work continues — more shows, better audio, and small fixes are always in progress.