We’ll admit to being a little worried about the Meat Puppets when we last saw them — an energetic but sloppy performance at Terminal 5 in September. We feared that the sharp and inspired comeback of a band that had been given up for dead a decade earlier had the potential to become derailed again. Thankfully, our fears were not realized. Shortly after their Fall dates, the Meat Puppets returned to the studio and delivered Sewn Together, their most inspired album in fifteen years. They are currently on tour and reviews of the shows have been universally positive.

At Mercury Lounge on Thursday night, the Meat Puppets delivered an outstanding ninety-minute set of old and new material. The highlights included again an extended “Up On the Sun”, a well-played “Rotten Shame” from the new CD, and the raging three-song finale of “Lake of Fire”, “Lost” and “Backwater”.

Acidjack recorded this show from upfront at the Merc with a fine set of cardioid microphones and the sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the MP3 and FLAC files and stream the entire show on the Live Music Archive [HERE]

Meat Puppets
2009-06-11
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY USA

FOB Digital Master Recording

SP-CMC-8 (AT U-853 Cardiods w/ low sensitivity mod and adapter) > SPSB-8 > Edirol R-09-HR > 24bit 48kHz wav > Audacity (set fades, level boost, downsample) > CD Wave (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by Acidjack
Some post work by nyctaper
2009-06-15

Setlist
[Total Time 1:28:06]
01 Sewn Together
02 Touchdown King
03 Blanket of Weeds
04 The Monkey And The Snake
05 Comin’ Down
06 Oh, Me
07 Plateau
08 I’m A Mindless Idiot
09 Up On The Sun
10 Rotten Shame
11 Station
12 I’m Not You
13 Look At The Rain
14 Smoke
15 Lake of Fire
16 Lost
17 Backwater
18 [feedback/crowd]

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Meat Puppets, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their new release Sewn Together directly from their page [HERE].

[photo courtesy of Tinnitus Photography]

Radio City Music Hall was the perfect venue for the Decemberists to present The Hazards of Love in its entirety. On Wednesday night, the band took to the big stage with an impressive backdrop and excellent mood lighting. The Hazards of Love narrates a fantasy story of forest-dwellers that seemed appropriate for the venue’s proximity to Broadway. As the Decemberists performed the album straight through as a suite, the strength of the music and the performance were as breathtaking as the setting. The guest performers Shara Worden and Becky Stark, outstanding artists in their own right, were strong complimentary figures who did not outshine the star of the evening — singer, guitarist and composer Colin Meloy.

We recorded from an outstanding location in this venue with our best mobile rig. We sat three rows directly in front of the soundboard in the dead center of the room. The sound for this cavernous venue was quite excellent, but we were unluckily seated next to three guys who felt compelled to scream like little girls on a regular basis. While they do not ruin the recording, their persistent idiocy is nevertheless apparent on many occasions during the recording. With that caveat, enjoy what is an excellent capture of a superb concert!

This Recording is now available for Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

The Decemberists
2009-06-10
Radio City Music Hall
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Recorded from 3 Rows in Front of Soundboard
Dead Center Row E

DPA 4021’s > Marantz PMD-660 (Oade BCM) > 16bit 44.1 wav > Soundforge (set fades, level boost, slight eq) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by
nyctaper
2009-06-13

Setlist:
Set 1: The Hazards of Love
[Total Time 56:42]
01 Prelude
02 The Hazards of Love 1
03 A Bower Scene
04 Won’t Want for Love
05 The Hazards of Love 2
06 Isn’t It a Lovely Night?
07 The Wanting Comes in Waves
08 An Interlude
09 The Rake’s Song
10 The Abduction of Margaret
11 The Queen’s Rebuke
12 The Crossing
13 Annan Water
14 Margaret in Captivity
15 The Hazards of Love 3
16 The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)
17 The Hazards of Love 4

Set 2
[Total Time 53:35]
01 //The Crane Wife 3
02 July, July!
03 Billy Liar
04 Sleepless
05 The Bachelor and the Bride
06 Dracula’s Daughter
07 O Valencia!
08 The Chimbley Sweep
09 Crazy on You (Heart)
10 [encore break]
11 Begin the Begin (REM)
12 Sons and Daughters

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Decemberists, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from the Decemberists Shop at their website [here].

[photo courtesy of Self-Titled Magazine – more here]

Its been almost a year since we last saw Fiery Furnaces live, at East River Park last July. In that time, the band has produced a new CD I’m Going Away, due to be released on July 1. At Le Poisson Rouge last night, the Furnaces performed “in the round”, or the center stage at LPR that permits the crowd to surround the performance area while the band can project in any direction — a set-up appropriate for this band.

The band consisted of the core touring band for the Furnaces, with Bob D’Amico on drums and Jason Loewenstein on bass, with Eleanor limited to vocals and Matt exclusively on guitar. It was strange to see the Furnaces without any keyboards on stage whatsoever (it was just 14 months ago at Southpaw when they were a two keyboard band!). As a guitar band, the quartet offered a straightforward rock version of the new I’m Going Away in its entirety, along with stripped down versions of nine other classics.

We recorded this set as a digital XLR plug-in to the state of the art multitrack digital soundboard at Le Poisson Rouge. We captured with the R-44 and the sound quality is superb, if a bit heavy on the vocals. Enjoy!

Exclusive: The next Fiery Furnaces concert in NYC will be the Williamsburg Waterfront Concerts on August 9.

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Fiery Furnaces
2009-06-11
Le Poisson Rouge
New York, NY USA

Multitrack Digital Stereo Soundboard
Master Recording

Multitrack Digital Soundboard > XLR Monster Cables > Edirol R-44 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, set fades, downsample) > CD Wave (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper
2009-06-12

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:28:48]
01 Here Comes the Summer
02 Leaky Tunnel
03 Chris Michaels
04 I’m Going Away
05 The End Is Near
06 Charmaine Champagne
07 Cut the Cake
08 Ray Bouvier
09 Staring at the Steeple
10 Even in the Rain
11 Keep Me in the Dark
12 Lost at Sea
13 Cups and Punches (Charmaine Champagne – alternate version)
14 Take Me Round Again
15 Drive To Dallas
16 Duplexes of the Dead
17 Automatic Husband
18 Ex-Guru
19 Worry Worry
20 Wolf Notes
21 [encore break]
22 Single Again

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Fiery Furnaces, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from the Thrill Jockey Records site.