nyctaper

[These United States at Mercury Lounge last year.  Photo by Anna Tucker]
The romance of a hard-working band is undeniable.  These are bands that never flag, no matter how many stages in how many cities they’ve sweated on, who above all else evince a percolating creative urge.  That is precisely how to describe These United States.  [...]

[Photo by acidjack]
Motel Motel have been a popular act on this site since we first posted about them in April of last year.  Since then, we have avidly followed their shows, and for good reason - they are an outstanding live act.  When I caught their show at Union Pool back in January, the band [...]

[Photo by acidjack]
Charles Burst began his set with most of us imagining we were in for a beautiful evening of DIY rooftop music that benefited a good cause, specifically UNWRA and the Free Gaza Movement.  Indeed, Burst’s laid-back country and blues inspired songs provided a perfect backdrop to a breezy summer evening on the 210 [...]

[The Royal Chains.  All photos courtesy of Jonny Leather]
Jonny Leather’s excellent bill at Littlefield last month brought back a favorite band from one of his previous shows, the Brooklyn/Nashville duo The Royal Chains, as well as a band I had not seen, NYC’s The Sanctuaries.  As with their excellent performance that I recorded at one [...]

[Photos courtesy of Sarah Dinkz Lu]
Shark? closed out the Gaza Benefit Show this past Saturday on a strong note, the perfect prelude to another few hours of drinking.  If you had not been enjoying too many of “The Stoop” cocktails proffered at the bar, you would have noticed that despite the inevitable “lo-fi” tag earned [...]

[Photos courtesy of Sarah Dinkz Lu]
During what turned out to be a bit of crazy event thrown to benefit the people of Gaza and two charitable organizations working to assist them, Brooklyn’s Motel Motel saved the day (and night).  After the NYPD ejected the bands and concergoers from the 210 Cook St. rooftop where the [...]

[Photo by acidjack]
Some of the best nights in New York are the ones that seem to have gone completely off the rails that right themselves in the most inspiring of ways.  Organizer Blake Luley had the idea to put on a DIY show on a Bushwick rooftop to support the people of the Gaza Strip, [...]

[Photo by acidjack]
Although known for their epic sets, including the several we recorded last year, Built to Spill’s set at Irving Plaza (thankfully renamed back from its brief, lame, “Fillmore East’ incarnation) was relatively short (clocking in around 80 minutes) and tighter than we expected.  That said, the band tore it up for every second [...]

[Photos courtesy of Jonny Leather]
Our friend Jonny Leather has been putting on well-rounded and uniformly excellent showcase shows for awhile now, and we were pleased to have the chance to cover another of them last Friday night at Littlefield.  As Jonny’s shows often do, this show spotlighted some bands from outside New York; in this [...]

[Moon Duo performing at the Woodsist Fest in Big Sur.  Photos courtesy of Chris Juarez]
Moon Duo may be from San Francisco, but their sound most clearly references a famed New York City band, the 1970s art-punk duo Suicide.  Featuring Sanae Yamada and Erik “Ripley” Johnson, best known for his work as guitarist for the Wooden [...]