The Mountain Goats: March 27, 2009 Ethical Culture Hall - Flac and MP3 Downloads
Posted by nyctaper - 01/04/09 at 09:04 am
[photo courtesy of dollabill and Thom - more here]
The Mountain Goats show on Friday night was a fan’s dream but a taper’s nightmare. John Darnielle entertained the crowd with much banter, off-microphone songs, and accepted a series of obscure requests from the diehards. While the highlight of the show for many of those in attendance was the infrequently played “Ontario”, we were particularly moved by the story lead-in and the version of the beautiful “From TG&Y”, and John’s proclaimed first public piano performance (”1 John 4:16″) since childhood.
The Concert Hall at The Society for Ethical Culture is a beautiful and classic old theatre, but it sits in a residential neighborhood and the volume of the show is purposefully limited. Additionally, the high ceilings create reverberations that are particularly noticeable in an acoustic performance. The difficulties of the venue were magnified by a series of technical problems and John’s penchant to play several songs completely unamplified.
This was the maiden voyage of our new Edirol R-44, a high resolution four-track recorder (professionally upgraded for concert recording). We used our four best microphones in a configuration that decreased the echo in the venue. Due to the many issues in the capture of this show, the post-production for this recording was a major undertaking. We believe that we have maximized the sound quality of this difficult recording to create a fine listening experience for our readers. Enjoy!
The John Vanderslice [JV] recording was also recorded and will be posted in the next few days.
Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)
Email nyctaper with a request for the download location of the FLAC files.
Firefox users can Down Them All! at once (here).
The Mountain Goats
2009-03-27
The Music Hall at The Society for Ethical Culture
New York, NY USA
Four-Track Digital Master Recording
Recorded from Balcony Rail Center
Neumann KM-150s + DPA 4021’s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) >
2x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (massive level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac
Premiere Download offered at
http://www.nyctaper.com
nyctaper@nyctaper.com
Recorded and Produced by
nyctaper
2008-03-31
Setlist:
[Total Time 1:25:02]
01 [introduction]
02 1 John 4:16
03 Woke Up New
04 [technical problems]
05 Song For Tura Satana
06 Cobscook Bay
07 Going to Lebanon
08 Un Rêve Plus Long Que la Nuit
09 Going To Kansas
10 The Last Limit of Bhakti
11 You or Your Memory
12 Going to Queens
13 [banter]
14 From TG&Y
15 Dance Music
16 [banter]
17 The Day The Aliens Came (or: Hawaiian Feeling)
18 Ontario
19 So Desperate
20 Color in Your Cheeks
21 Sign of the Crow 2
22 Steps Columns Pillars [JV]
23 [banter]
24 Surrounded [JV]
25 See America Right [JV]
26 No Children
27 [encore break]
28 The Sign (Ace of Base)
If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Mountain Goats, visit their website, visit their MySpace page, and purchase Mountain Goats official releases from their website.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Man, I feel your pain. I’m going through the exact same thing trying to edit down and fine-tune the Somerville recording. Major tediousness, and is definitely upping the “labor” portion of my “labor of love” effort.
Thanks, as always, for sharing.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
wonderful–going to tape them tomorrow.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Thanks very much for all the work you put into this. I cherish your previous MG recordings and am looking forward to hearing this one.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Thank you so much for taking the trouble - this is magical.
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:38 am
Lots of time and effort. Thanks.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Many many many thanks for recording one of my best nights in nyc.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I love you more than life
April 17th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
did you ask john if you could record? he might have let you if you asked but he has been touchy about recordings in the past.
April 18th, 2009 at 5:19 am
This recording was approved in advance by all parties. Not sure what gave you any other impression.
April 18th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Also, in my experience, John has been anything but “touchy” about recordings — he’s always been accomodating and understanding from what I have seen. Mountain Goats is on archive.org afterall.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 am
IMO, the only thing John’s (somewhat) touchy about is when someone pronounces his name “Dar-nell.”
He was almost enthusiastic when I pitched the idea to him about recording his show 12 years ago.