[photo courtesy of Music Snobbery]
We were first introduced to the music of Motel Motel when they headlined one of Jonny Leather’s excellent charity concerts. We heard the mp3s, but could not attend the show and filed the band under the “need to see live” category. Sunday night’s Music Snobbery Anniversary show presented that opportunity and what a revelation this band provided. Motel Motel has roots in South Carolina, but currently reside in Brooklyn. Their music has elements of Americana, country, indie rock and folk — but the complex multi-layered songs have melody and time changes reminiscent of early 70s prog. At Maxwell’s, the band played a 45 minute set with six songs, each of which was an impressive display of songwriting and musicianship. Its natural to focus on lead singer Eric Engel, but the proficient play of each of the members of the band are equally impressive. Expect to see more of Motel Motel on nyctaper in the future.
We recorded this set with the same equipment and location at the Crystal Stilts set. However, as this was the first set of the night, we set the digital gain of the soundboard feed too high and their was substantial brickwalling in the soundboard channels. We did not use the line feed in the final mix, and relied solely on the two channels from the room mix. Fortunately, the Neumann’s captured an exceptionally nice recording and this is quite an excellent listen nonetheless. Enjoy!
Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)
Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].
Motel Motel
2009-04-26
Maxwell’s
Hoboken, NJ USA
Digital Master Audience Recording
Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, downsample, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac
Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2009-04-30
Setlist:
[Total Time 42:23]
01 [introduction]
02 Courage
03 Panda
04 River
05 Forest
06 Coffee
07 Cowboy
If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Motel Motel, visit their website, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their new CD New Denver from the links at their MySpace page [HERE].
Dan-Thanks for this! So wanted to be at the show, but I continue to be out of town whenever the play the shows I hear about. Looking forward to listening tomorrow.
Great job recording this. I couldn’t make this show, which is crazy, because i never miss Motel Motel. Thanks to you, I finally have a recorded copy of Forest and Courage, which are 2 of the best songs i’ve heard in a really really long time.