Mechanical Rat — Michael's Cigar Bar, 3 May 2023

A live concert recording from the Internet Archive's Live Music Archive, which holds only bands that have given permission to be recorded and traded. That permission is the whole basis of the collection. The Grateful Dead formally set aside a taper section behind the soundboard in 1984, legitimising what their audience was already doing, and the bands that inherited that audience inherited the policy with it — so these recordings exist because the artists wanted them to, not in spite of them. Mechanical Rat at Michael's Cigar Bar, 3 May 2023. The archive holds 8 recordings of this band. The setlist, the taper and the recording chain are not in the file name, and for this kind of recording they are what listeners most want to know.