Posts Tagged ‘ north carolina ’

Drag Sounds: May 13, 2017 Our Wicked Lady

July 9, 2017
By

I’ve been aching to get a Drag Sounds recording up here ever since I saw them play at Hopscotch back in 2014. Of the very, very rich North Carolina music scene that gets showcased at the festival every year, Drag Sounds are at the top of the pile. Finally, the guys did a brief East Coast tour in May and I was able to get out on a rainy night to catch them indoors at Our Wicked Lady (originally scheduled as a rooftop show, can’t wait to get back to the venue for one of those). I had some good intel from Triangle-area folks that Drag Sounds were currently at the top of their game, but I was still surprised at how vital these guys are sounding—more swing here than you can shake a stick at. You’ll find a couple of these tracks like “Out All Night (For Love)” and “Messy Life” in various forms on the Bandcamp page, on the two-disc Sudden Comfort and earlier II. Newer song “Blessed Style” sounds like the band’s answer to “Sister Ray” if you ask me, but anyway it’s a monster. Drag Sounds are up-and-comers for sure so here’s the ground floor for ya, get on.

I recorded this with the mics set up in DIN stereo configuration, high up on the bar, combined with a board feed courtesy of Our Wicked Lady engineer, Rich Crescenti. It leans towards the rough side but rocks really hard. Enjoy!

Download: [MP3/FLAC]

Drag Sounds
2017-05-13
Our Wicked Lady
Brooklyn, NY

Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com

Soundboard (engineer: Rich Crescenti) + AKG C480B/CK61 (DIN) > Zoom F8 > 2 x WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, mixdown, compression, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, tagging) > FLAC (24/48, level 8)

Tracks [33:27]
01. Out All Night (For Love)
02. Let It Me
03. Don’t to the Music
04. Messy Life
05. That Stuff’s Illegal
06. Blessed Style
07. Like Flies on the Board

• Buy Drag Sounds music via Bandcamp
• • Connect with the band via Facebook

Hiss Golden Messenger – November 15, 2016 Music Hall of Williamsburg

November 20, 2016
By

Hiss Golden Messenger

Hiss Golden Messenger’s new album, Heart Like a Levee, is one for dark times—and dark times we’ve got in abundance. Still, last week’s tour stop at the Music Hall of Williamsburg was nothing if not uplifting. “Red Rose Nantahala,” normally dedicated to North Carolina’s horrid (and hopefully former) governor, is here dedicated to “a whole bunch of people,” and I think the whole room here in Brooklyn more than ever felt the import of those lyrics, “Well let me be the one I want / Well let me love the one I want.” On the lighter side, it was the band’s cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Brown-Eyed Women” that stole the show. Their version appeared originally on the Day of the Dead compilation and this was apparently the first time it had been attempted live. The epic, thirteen-minute closer “Brother, Do You Know the Road?” (a personal favorite among HGM tunes), fittingly performed to end a set of songs about finding your way home, and on one of the last dates of their tour, will send you off feeling pretty good.

I recorded this set with the mics set up at the soundboard combined with a board feed from the band’s touring engineer, Luke. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Download: MP3/FLAC

Stream:

Hiss Golden Messenger
2016-11-15
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY

Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com

Soundboard [engineer: Luke] + AKG C480B/CK63 (DFC, PAS, at SBD) > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, compression, mixdown, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [2:07:11]
01. As the Crow Flies
02. Biloxi
03. Saturday’s Song
04. Mahogany Dread
05. Red Rose Nantahala
06. Day O Day (A Love So Free)
07. [banter]
08. Heart Like a Levee
09. Tell Her I’m Just Dancing
10. O Happy Day
11. Like a Mirror Loves a Hammer
12. Call Him Daylight
13. I’ve Got a Name For the Newborn Child
14. [banter]
15. I’m a Raven (Shake Children)
16. [banter]
17. O Little Light
18. Flags and Banners [Faces]
19. Say It Like You Mean It
20. Cracked Windshield
21. Lucia
22. Southern Grammar
23. [encore break]
24. Brown-Eyed Women [Grateful Dead]
25. Brother, Do You Know the Road?

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT by buying Hiss Golden Messenger’s records from Paradise of Bachelors and Merge Records, as well as HGM’s online store.

Lambchop: September 8, 2016 Hopscotch Music Festival (Raleigh, NC)

November 14, 2016
By

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By now, Lambchop fans have had a chance to hear the band’s daring new record, FLOTUS, a critically-acclaimed shot across the bow to anyone who would dare claim a classic artist can’t reinvent themselves. But back in September, at the Hopscotch Music Festival, fans were probably more ready for a show like the one we witnessed there in 2012, or any number of the band’s lauded full-band shows whose cast can stretch to over a dozen people.  So when Kurt Wagner sang the first Vocoder-enhanced lines of “NIV” — a song nobody there had heard before — a fan might have been forgiven for being freaked out. When the entire show, including pre-FLOTUS material, continued in that vein, you have to imagine more than a few WTFs were exchanged. But that would have been a serious mistake, as not only are these new songs compelling in their own right, but the very fact of their existence says something special, too. Artists in the third decade of their career don’t often make these kinds of stylistic moves, and when they do, they often ring hollow. Wagner had already experimented with an electronic sound with his side project HeCTA in 2015, but for that to migrate to his main act represents an additional leap.

Wagner, on the other hand, has made a stripped-down, gorgeous album whose songwriting, pacing and structure (bookended by two epic-length tracks) are as equally of note as the dedication to the vocoder. The new sound echoes something essential about our era, taking a style once so resolutely organic and making it largely electronic. You feel both excited by the new possibility, yet threatened by the loss of something more natural, more human.

Here, in Raleigh’s comfortable Fletcher Opera Theater, those electronic tones were warmed up by not only the band’s physical presence, but Wagner and his bandmates’ banter, which alone was worth the price of admission. If he gets tired of music, pianist Tony Crow might well have a career in front of him as a comic sideman, as he traded jokes with Wagner throughout the night. Though this was the first time that many of these songs saw the light of day, it turns out that these versions are faithful to the album versions. Equally interesting were the FLOTUS-fied versions of earlier material like the standout Mr. M track “If Not I’ll Just Die” and several of its fellow Mr. M tracks. Stripped of that album’s lush arrangements, we’re left with arctic tone of Wagner’s altered words. The effect was unsettling but lovely, adding focus to Wagner’s words.

If you haven’t heard FLOTUS yet, I’d encourage you to give it a shot. Whether you knew Lambchop before or not, the album, and the quality of its songs, stands on its own as an of-the-moment document by an artist who has followed his own muse for decades. Also, I’d like to thank our friends at Merge Records for letting us post this recording. As eager as we were to share it with the world, both Merge and we thought the best thing was to hold back this live show of a large chunk of the new album until fans have gotten to hear it for themselves. Now, you can compare the two side by side.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed and Schoeps MK4V microphones. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC/Apple Lossless]

Stream the complete show:

Lambchop
2016-09-08
Hopscotch Music Festival
Fletcher Opera Theater
Raleigh, NC USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard + Schoeps MK4V (ROC, at SBD)>KC5>CMC6>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 NIV
02 The Hustle
03 [banter]
04 Poor Bastard
05 Old Masters
06 If Not I’ll Just Die
07 [banter2]
08 Gone Tomorrow
09 In Care of 8675309
10 [banter3]
11 Nice Without Mercy
12 [banter4]
13 Directions To the Can
14 [encore break]
15 When You Were Mine

PLEASE SUPPORT Lambchop: Website | Merge Records

MAKE: September 9, 2016 Hopscotch Music Festival, Pour House (Raleigh, NC)

September 29, 2016
By

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MAKE represent another of my favorite recent finds from the Triangle in North Carolina. The three-piece, consisting of Scott Endres, Luke Herbst and Spencer Lee, make the kind of intense, loud-as-hell, but thoughtful metal that, with doom, black, and stoner elements, and a decent dose of flat-out classic rock, puts them in a category beyond a single niche scene. Like more than a few bands in the area, MAKE has been fighting hard against North Carolina’s bigoted HB2 law, including with their most on-the-nose contribution, the song “Human Garbage,” featuring Governor Pat McCrory’s face on the cover. That song made the rotation during this Hopscotch Music Festival show at the Pour House in Raleigh, which remains one of the best places in the area to see heavy music.

The band’s performance, kicking off the night in the venue, shook the rafters with Endres and Lee’s deep riffage, bringing the heaviest elements of the band’s sound to the fore. That’s in keeping with their latest album, Pilgrimage of Loathing, which (perhaps reflecting their view of the political situation) is a harder-edged and more rage-fueled affair than 2015’s The Golden Veil, which keeps company at many points with an entirely different group of bands (Sleep, Om, Arbouretum) than the references you might hear on Pilgrimage. The juxtaposition was thrilling live — experience the whip-turn from “The Somnabulist” and “Human Garbage” to “The Absurdist” and “The Architect” from The Golden Veil. It showed, in a relatively short set, how versatile, and how enjoyable, this band can be, and one would hope to see them around this part of the world (paging Saint Vitus) sooner rather than later.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V at the soundboard booth. The vocals are a bit quieter than I would like in the recording, but otherwise this is an excellent representation of this band. Check out Pilgrimage of Loathing on bandcamp, which is also streaming below, and the band’s other records. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Check out Pilgrimage of Loathing:

MAKE
2016-09-09
Hopscotch Music Festival
Pour House
Raleigh, NC USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK4V (LOC, at SBD)>KC5>CMC6>Zoom F8>24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (hard limiter)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 The Somnambulist
02 Human Garbage
03 The Absurdist
04 [banter]
05 Birthed Into A Grave They Made For You>
06 The Architect

PLEASE SUPPORT MAKE: Facebook | Bandcamp

mccrory

Al Riggs: September 9, 2016 Hopscotch Music Festival, Deep South (Raleigh, NC)

September 28, 2016
By

riggsscreenshot
[Screen capture from this video]


As happens more and more frequently these days in North Carolina, Al Riggs dedicated one of his songs — “Carolina Peacemaker” — to the state’s governor Pat McCrory, whose brazenly incompetent and offensive campaign against LGBTQ people has lost the state several major concerts, the NCAA tournament, a major PayPal facility, and the NBA All-Star Game, among other things. As he detailed in an interview this summer, Riggs, who is gay, didn’t set out to make his music political, at least not about that topic. But he, like many of his fellow citizens, has found that if you live under this regime, you no longer have a choice.

If you leave out the political stuff, the most notable detail about Riggs is the volume of his output, made mostly by himself, mostly using his iPhone or laptop. His work (he was heading up to record a new album the following week in New York) finds its moment when he decides, rather than the practicalities of a “release schedule” or studio time or the various other trappings of most musicians’ lives. As a result, he’s able and willing to share his ideas at a furious pace, about whatever topic suits him — from state politics to the (very) unfortunately (since re-)  named Durham restaurant “Hattie Mae Williams Called Me Captain.”

Being a festival-length set, this Hopscotch Music Festival performance at Deep South the Bar could hardly do justice to Riggs’ entire body of work, but it gave those of us who hadn’t seen him live a flavor of what he’s capable of. Riggs, with a sing-speak delivery that purposefully doesn’t obscure his words, lives in both the rock and folk worlds, able to deliver a forceful choogler like “Afraid of Heaven” with the same degree of skill he brings to more subtle tunes like “All The Cells” — a song, he said, “for every queer kid’s parents who are trying to figure out what to do next.” Even if this set was billed simply as “Al Riggs,” one has to give  credit to his band, the Inconveniences,” who appear on his most recent album (though it’s hard to keep up) Night Freedom. While Riggs has been successful at recording on his own, there’s no denying the additional power of the live act, and his music and this modest-but-accommodating venue were a natural fit. It’s not really worth leaving New York to see the bands that play here all the time (which is most of them). It’s the shows like this, by the local gems that you’d hate to miss, that make the trip.

I recorded this set with a relatively modest setup, Audio Technica AT 853 cardiod microphones mounted in the center of the room. While there are some occasional spots of crowd noise here and there, the sound quality of this recording is overall quite strong. Enjoy!

Stream and download this show on our bandcamp page

Al Riggs
2016-09-09
Hopscotch Music Festival
Deep South
Raleigh, NC USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Audio Technica 853c (2’ split, DFC)>CA-UBB>Sony PCM-10>24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Don’t Smoke In Bed
02 [banter]
03 Young Hegelians
04 Afraid of Heaven
05 Reagan Slain By Hero Cop
06 All The Cells
07 [banter2]
08 Carolina Peacemaker
09 [banter3]
10 Tunnel of Gore
11 [banter4]
12 Hungry Months

PLEASE SUPPORT AL RIGGS: bandcamp | Facebook

Bachman-Toth Band: September 9, 2016 Three Lobed/WXDU Day Show, King’s, Raleigh, NC

September 15, 2016
By

bto-schwentker
[photo courtesy of David Schwentker]

If the Watery Love set was the volume plateau of the Three Lobed / WXDU Day Show at King’s during Hopscotch Music Festival, the joint appearance by longtime site faves James Toth aka Wooden Wand and Daniel Bachman was undoubtedly its whimsical peak. This day happened to not only be one of the consistent musical highlights of the year, but also it was Toth’s birthday, so he and Bachman were probably in a celebratory mood. Whatever the reason, reality was that this combination of players had never existed before — Bachman, Toth, Forrest Marquisee on guitar, and Ian McColm on drums — and they hadn’t even soundchecked. What would happen was a mystery to everyone, even to some degree the people on the stage.

However much the 20+-minute drone-ified version of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” that emerged was or wasn’t planned, the outcome felt like more than a mere lark. As with everything these players do, this was done with spirit, turning this into one of those off-the-cuff, daring improvisational moments that have come to define what is always the highlight of this music festival. There’s not much more to say about it than that — listen to it and you’ll understand.

I recorded this set with Brad Womack’s soundboard feed and Schoeps MK4V microphones onstage. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete set: [MP3/FLAC/ALAC] [Note: the files need to be re-tagged with the correct band name]

Stream the complete set:

Bachman-Toth Band 
2016-09-09
Three Lobed / WXDU Day Show
King’s
Raleigh, NC USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard (engineer: Brad Womack) + Schoeps MK4V (stage lip, DFC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>Zoom F8>3x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [intro]
02 War Pigs [Black Sabbath]

Support these artists: Daniel Bachman website / facebook | Wooden Wand website / bandcamp

Watery Love: September 9, 2016 Three Lobed / WXDU Day Show, Hopscotch Music Festival, King’s (Raleigh, NC)

September 13, 2016
By

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“We’ve arrived at the volume plateau of the day” Three Lobed‘s Cory Rayborn said as he introduced the Philly “supergroup” Watery Love, taking the stage at the annual Three Lobed / WXDU Day Show at King’s during Hopscotch Music Festival. Rayborn wasn’t lying–the band came out of the gate with the loud-as-fuck blast of “Ned’s Dreamcatcher” and didn’t let up from there. As we were streaming the show live on Duke University radio station WXDU, the team handling that end of the business had to work overtime to “bleep” vocalist Richie Charles’ (of Richie Records) dirty words back to PG-13. Indeed, this was dirty, cuss-spitting, fire-breathing, bad-ass scuzz rock and it was not to be stopped, by outdoor sunshine or otherwise. But while any group of yahoos can stand up and make noise, what sets Watery Love, and this particular performance, apart is that these guys hang together so well, playing well and turning all of that energy into something deceptively cohesive.

This was a perfect wake-up call on a day with a very wide palette of artists, and regulars Charles and Max Milgram (guitar) had arrived equipped with extra firepower in the form of Purling Hiss‘ Mike Polizze and Ben Leaphart, together with harplist/multi-instrumentalist Mary Lattimore (possibly the day’s MVP, or at least, the person who played with the most different bands) on bass, drums and keys, respectively. Watery Love has been a band since 2008, but their performances, especially outside of Philly, have been sporadic, and their recorded output is equally limited. Seeing them is a treat, and the energy they expect is equal to the moments they inhabit. There were many very, very fine performances on this day, but this might be the only one that had even the people in the back howling with glee like teenagers. Whatever it is these guys have, make sure you try to catch some of it.

I recorded this set with King’s engineer Brad Womack’s house mix, plus an additional soundboard channel, and Schoeps MK4V microphones onstage. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show: 

Watery Love
2016-09-09
Three Lobed / WXDU Day Show
King’s
Raleigh, NC USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard (engineer: Brad Womack) + Schoeps MK4V (stage lip, DFC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>>Zoom F8>3x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Ned’s Dreamcatcher
02 Sweat Powers
03 Die With Dignity
04 A Condom

PLEASE SUPPORT Watery Love: Facebook | Bandcamp

Sunburned Hand of the Man: March 26, 2016 Three Lobed Sweet Sixteen Spectacular, King’s (Raleigh, NC)

May 3, 2016
By

sunburned-schwentker
[photo courtesy of David Schwentker]

This was our second North Carolina journey with Sunburned Hand of the Man, having witnessed the awesome spectacle that was their 2014 Three Lobed Recordings / WXDU day show at Hopscotch. Like the recent show in New York City that we caught at Union Pool, this night at the Three Lobed Recordings Sweet Sixteen Spectacular found the out/noise collective taking more of a song-based approach. Which isn’t to say, in any way, that this was somehow a “traditional” performance; like anything Sunburned and many things Three Lobed, this performance celebrated the experimental and the expeditionary, with those American flags in the backdrop an ironic comment on the freak flags that these artists so willfully fly. Once again, we got to witness a furious version of “The Jaybird,” but other than that and “Double Purity,” this was an entirely different performance than at Union Pool. It meant something for a band of Sunburned’s underground stature to be here alongside such a diverse array of Three Lobed veterans, from Nathan Bowles’ forward-looking Appalachian banjo performance to Steve Gunn’s solo guitar set to Mary Lattimore and Elysse Thebner’s ambient harp and keyboard set. Among all that great music, perhaps nobody more than Sunburned (and OK, Bardo Pond) stood for all the heads in the audience, the unique gathering of the like-minded that this label has brought together. Once again, it was a divine thing.

I recorded this set in the same manner as the other performances of the day, with 8 channels of combined soundboard feed from engineer Brad Womack, onstage microphones, and audience microphones. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [FLAC/ALAC/MP3]

Stream the complete show:

Sunburned Hand of the Man
2016-03-26
Three Lobed Sweet Sixteen Spectacular
King’s
Raleigh, NC USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

4x Soundboard channels (engineer: Brad Womack) + Schoeps MK22 (onstage, ORTF, DFC)>KC5>CMC6>Aeta PSP3 + MBHO 603a/KA200N (FOB, DFC, PAS)>> Zoom F8>8x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [intro]
02 Pail Thief
03 Double Purity
04 The Jaybird
05 Mistrial
06 Extraordinarily Heavy Heart

Support Sunburned Hand of the Man: Website | Buy Sunburned releases via Bandcamp

Gunn-Truscinski Duo: March 26, 2016 Three Lobed Sweet Sixteen Spectacular, King’s (Raleigh, NC)

April 20, 2016
By

gunn-truscinski-schwentker
[photo courtesy of David Schwentker]

Though his solo career has been the (very successful) focus of late, many of us were first exposed to the virtuosic guitar playing of Steve Gunn via his perfect pairing with the drummer John Truscinski. The duo produced a pair of outstanding albums on Three Lobed Recordings, Sand City and the masterstroke Ocean Parkway, each with an indelible connection to desert blues, Indian ragas, American folk, and psychedelia. By our count, though, their last live shows doing this music were in 2012, including the Hopscotch Music Festival and 285 Kent shows that appeared on this site.

That made it especially exciting to experience the group’s return to a stage where we’ve seen them before — at King’s in Raleigh, NC. This time, we were celebrating the sixteenth anniversary of Three Lobed Recordings, and in a sense, the reissue of both of the duo’s albums by the label this year. Building on Gunn’s dynamic afternoon solo set, the pair gifted us three songs filled with precise interplay and hypnotic guitar work. Gunn dug deep on the guitar work during “Ocean Parkway” and “Banh Mi Ringtones,” the latter’s signature melody leading the pair into an explosive, noisy jam that iced the cake for those of us who love seeing these two play together about equally to our love for Gunn’s solo outings. After “Banh Mi” wound back to its subtler beginnings, the pair closed with “Wythe Raag” from Sand City, which managed to evoke both the namesake Brooklyn street and legendary musical style for which it’s named. That number likewise came in the three parts, building to another sprawling noise climax before its mystical, melodic closing. As Gunn prepares to tour his new record, we hope these two will find time to continue to work together — it’s something not to be missed.

I recorded this set as with the other sets from the day, with a combination of multiple soundboard channels from engineer Brad  Womack’s feed, together with onstage Schoeps MK22 mics and mounted MBHO mics in the center of the room. The sound quality is simply phenomenal. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Gunn-Truscinski Duo
2016-03-26
Three Lobed Sweet Sixteen Spectacular
Kingís
Raleigh, NC USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

4x Soundboard channels (engineer: Brad Womack) + MBHO 603a/KA200N (FOB, DFC, PAS) + Schoeps MK22 (onstage, ORTF, DFC)>KC5>CMC6>Aeta PSP3 >> Zoom F8>8x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [intro]
02 Ocean Parkway
03 [tuning]
04 Banh Mi Ringtones
05 Wythe Raag

PLEASE SUPPORT Gunn-Truscinski Duo, visit Steve Gunn’s website, and purchase the new Ocean Parkway/Sanc City re-release and their other releases directly from Three Lobed [HERE]

The Mountain Goats: April 17, 2016 City Winery

April 18, 2016
By

tmg2016-04-17
[photo courtesy of music_defined‘s instagram page]

As noted in our review of the New Haven show, the concept of this Mountain Goats tour grew up around the band’s City Winery gigs of last year, of which we recorded both. That the band found inspiration in this particular room isn’t surprising; while some younger fans may not be used to seeing bands in more sedate environments, this venue must be an absolute dream for any performer who plays a wide dynamic range of music and whose fans hang on every word. The Mountain Goats took the stage at one of last year’s shows not with the type of upbeat number you’d need to launch a typical club gig, but with the gorgeous “Get Lonely,” which set the tone for an evening of wide-ranging sounds and deep catalog dives. Yes, the pro-wrestling-themed Beat the Champ made a few appearances, including a stripped-down take on “Foreign Object” and an inspired “Werewolf Gimmick,” and an encore of “Southwestern Territory,” but the deep dives were the real meat of the evening. John Darnielle reached all the way back to 1993 for “Water Song II,” followed by “Horseradish Road,” from 2000’s Coroner’s Gambit, played so rarely of late that Darnielle skipped a verse. Not that a rough spot here or there matters; only the hardest heart wouldn’t have wept at the night’s fragile, emotional peak, from “Steal Smoked Fish,” followed by “Black Pear Tree,” to “Lakeside View Apartments Suite” to “Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace,” the night’s most musically dense number, and a note of hope.

Among many gifts, Darnielle’s ability to swing from spinning metaphors about wrestling to such deep emotional fare, and back to lighter-hearted territory like “Damn These Vampires.” Despite the seriousness of the material, Darnielle’s freewheeling, conversational style with his audience makes the show itself intimate and light; especially in this seated, dinner situation, it feels like being part of a very large living room show. And, as we’ve noted before, Jon Wurster’s drums, Peter Hughes’ bass and multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas give Darnielle a backdrop that adds discipline and welcome twists to both new and old songs.

Darnielle closed with one of the band’s most poignant recent numbers, “Spent Gladiator 2.” As with “No Children,” the closer of the 4/12/15 City Winery show, Darnielle performed most of the song in the audience,  circling through the crowd, singing the lyrics without amplification. That refrain, to stay alive, just stay alive, felt like both the universal plea that it is and a personal one to each of us. If you were lucky enough to be sitting there, having taken in this exceptional hour and a half, you knew life was worth living.

I recorded this set with a feed of engineer Brandon Eggleston’s live mix, together with Schoeps MK41V microphones mounted on a post forward of the board. The sound quality, as with all of our City Winery recordings of this band, is exceptional. Enjoy!

Download the complete show from its page on the Live Music Archive: [MP3] | [FLAC]

The Mountain Goats
2016-04-17
City Winery
New York, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard (engineer: Brandon Eggleston) + Schoeps MK41V (FOB, ROC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix
down, adjust levels, light compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, image)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC (
level 8 )

Tracks [Total TIme: 1:32:53]
01 Woke Up New
02 Until I Am Whole
03 Maize Stalk Drinking Blood
04 [banter1]
05 Werewolf Gimmick
06 Get Lonely
07 [banter2]
08 Foreign Object
09 [banter3]
10 Water Song II
11 Horseradish Road
12 Steal Smoked Fish
13 Black Pear Tree
14 Lakeside View Apartments Suite
15 Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace
16 Wild Sage
17 Damn These Vampires
18 Game Shows Touch Our Lives
19 See America Right
20 The Young Thousands
21 Liza Forever Minnelli
22 [encore break]
23 Southwestern Territory
24 Up the Wolves
25 [banter4]
26 No Children
27 [banter5]
28 Spent Gladiator 2

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