It is maddeningly frustrating to the fans of the guitar genius Mike Bloomfield (and I am certainly a card carrying member of that fraternity) that there is so little recorded documentation of his brilliance on the market. However, a release like this is moreso maddening in its unevenness, even though his guitar playing crackles throughout.

Bloomfield always had a touch of stage fright, and seldom toured. Frequently, in the mid to late Seventies, he would join up with some friends and play a number of weekend sets at this San Francisco venue. Unfortunately for him, most of his friends couldn’t keep up with him.

Through the years, Bloomfield played with a number of extremely gifted musicians and singers, including pianist Mark Naftalin, singer Nick Gravenites and, of course, harmonica player Paul Butterfield and guitarist Elvin Bishop. On this release, though, his friends don’t come through, with the exception of the tracks on which Naftalin plays and Gravenites sings (Butterfield and Bishop are not on the record). Add to that a lazy recording style (this is supposedly live and fully half the tracks fade out, and one was not even recorded at this venue), boring liner notes and only 45 minutes of what was supposedly culled from six months of shows and this is not the kind of job that showcases Bloomfield.

His playing is inspired in places, but he seems to be marking time in others. There had to be a better way to show this, or else not release it at all.