Posts Tagged ‘ north carolina ’

Bardo Pond: March 26, 2016 Three Lobed Sweet Sixteen Spectacular, King’s (Raleigh, NC)

April 6, 2016
By

bardo-schwentker
[photo by David Schwentker]

Sixteen years ago, longtime rabid music fan and newly minted law student Cory Rayborn came up with an audacious, maybe even ridiculous idea: He would press a ten-inch containing some unreleased Bardo Pond material and sell it for money. Anyone who knows much about the economics of record labels, or the vagaries of vinyl production — especially in the vinyl-challenged year 2000 — knows that usually translates to “lose a bunch of money and piss off a bunch of customers in the process.” But a funny thing ended up happening: First there was that Bardo record, Slab, of which the 500-LP run would go on to sell out. Not but another couple releases in came Purposeful Availment, an 8-CD series that also featured Bardo Pond.  Then there was TLR-012, an LP of Bardo Pond playing with Tom Carter, followed in short order by the Cypher Documents CD. Then another CD series, Modern Containment, found Bardo back on Three Lobed, with their Adrop CD. There are more than ten others since, right up to 2014’s Shone Like A Ton and Refulgo releases and their contribution to the Parallelogram series last year. Out of Three Lobed Recordings‘ 117 total current releases, the Philadelphia-based band makes up not only the largest percentage of the label’s releases, but they’re the label’s original reason for being.

Since that first 10″, Three Lobed has grown, but its original mission hasn’t changed. The label has kept things willfully weird, releasing everything from Bardo Pond’s feedback-soaked psychedelia to the drone/free jazz sounds of Glacial (Lee Ranaldo, David Watson and Tony Buck), to the Parallelogram contribution from Alan Bishop, Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano, capped with its brain-damaged cover of Cream’s “Politican,” to the delicate guitar work of Danny Paul Grody, to his work with Hiss Golden Messenger and Steve Gunn. Both the Three Lobed name and its iconic logo suggest not just an expanded but an integrated, functioning mind, and at the root of all those seemingly disparate releases has been Rayborn’s, a font of curatorial taste. In his mind, all of these radically different sounds belong together, and in his presentation of them, he connects the dots.

So it meant a great deal, to Rayborn personally and to the followers of the Three Lobed experience, for Bardo Pond’s evening set to close out the marathon of music that was the “Sweet Sixteen Spectacular,” and for them to do with a sprawling, career-spanning set that represented their first return to North Carolina in thirteen years. “Kali Yuga Blues” began the night, with Isobel Sollenberger’s moan floating above the guitar haze. After another Peace on Venus number the setlist went twenty years back to 1996’s Amanita for “Be A Fish” before hurling into what may have been the first live performance of their Parallelogram contribution, “Screens for a Catch (Fur Bearing Eyes)”. Along with four new songs, the band threw in one of the very oldest — “Absence” from Bufo Alvarius — followed by another older number, “Straw Dog,” from Lapsed. Drug references by the band are as prolific as its catalog, and by this point in the evening, even the sober among this crowd had probably lost their sense of time. The set’s, and the night’s, spiritual peak came during the new song “Moment to Moment,” a twelve-minute deep dive into the band’s vision, with each of us led through the deep bed of guitar by Sollenberger’s flute, her voice howling ahead into the void.

There was no encore, but one wasn’t needed after the last song, “Tommy Gun Angel,” whose lyrics about rejoining the primordial ooze, melting away like the snow, gave a long-eyed perspective to the proceedings. Every little contribution makes up part of a larger one, a few more positive ions added to the charge of existence. You never know where a dorm room dream like putting out a ten inch record for one of your favorite bands might take you. It might end up something just for you and the smallest group of friends. Or it might be something great.

I recorded this set with four soundboard channels from King’s engineer Brad Womack, together with Schoeps MK22 microphones onstage and MBHO microphones hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room. Save for a one-second glitch during the first song, the sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

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

Stream the complete show

Bardo Pond
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) + 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 Kali Yuga Blues
03 Taste
04 Be A Fish
05 Screens for A Catch (Fur Bearing Eyes)
06 Two Planes
07 [banter]
08 Crossover
09 Out of Reach
10 Absence
11 Straw Dogs
12 Pine Trees
13 Moment to Moment
14 [tuning]
15 Everyman
16 Tommy Gun Angel

SUPPORT Bardo Pond: Website | Three Lobed Recordings | Fire Records

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Chuck Johnson Band: March 26, 2016 Three Lobed Sweet Sixteen Spectacular, King’s (Raleigh, NC)

March 29, 2016
By

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Chuck Johnson has been on this site numerous times, most recently for his work supporting Blood Moon Boulder last year at Union Pool. With his newest album, Velvet Arc, Johnson decided to go with a full band, which is a departure from his recent solo guitar work, but not an overall catalog that stretches back to various NC-based bands (Shark Quest, Idyll Swords, etc.). What emerges on the record is a bottom-heavy, bluesier strain of tunes that makes you long to see them live.

This very special performance at King’s in Raleigh, North Carolina, one of ten separate sets in honor of the sixteenth anniversary of Three Lobed Recordings, was a rare, one-off appearance of Johnson performing these songs (plus “Florets,” from Johnson’s soundtrack work) with a full band. Rather than the West Coast-based band that recorded Velvet Arc, Johnson collaborated with longtime NC compatriots, including Mike Gangloff and Nathan Bowles (of Pelt and numerous other projects), Bob Wall, and Nathan Golub. Johnson describes the set as “loose” in his intro, but that may be a bit of modesty, as these longtime players gelled from the get-go on “Florets” before delving into Velvet Arc‘s leadoff track, “As I Stand Counting.” You may have heard Chuck Johnson before, but you’ve never heard him quite like this. With the full complement of musicians on fiddle and additional guitars, we were able to hear Velvet Arc’s various turns at American experimentalism as they were meant to be played.

Johnson noted, toward the end of the set, that Raleigh was where he was born, and the day and night’s entire slate of performances, culled from artists who have been all over the Three Lobed roster during the past 16 years, felt like a homecoming, with the out-of-towners joining and re-joining locals who have touched their lives over the decades. Three Lobed is responsible for some of Johnson’s finest releases, including Crows In the Basilica, plus earlier CDs of Idyll Swords, and this set (like many during the event) acted as both a bit of a thank-you as well as a taste of what’s yet to come on this small label whose influence has always outstripped its low-key style.

I recorded this set with the benefit of a full 8 tracks, including audience microphones, onstage microphones, and several feeds of onstage instruments, courtesy of King’s engineer Brad. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Chuck plays a very special solo set tonight in New York along with Lee Ranaldo (solo acoustic) and Ancient Oceans at Trans-Pecos. Get tickets here.

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

Stream and download the complete show on our bandcamp page:

Chuck Johnson Band
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) + 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 Florets
03 [tuning]
04 As I Stand Counting
05 Roadside Auspice
06 Middle Water
07 [banter]
08 Anamet
09 [banter2]
10 Velvet Arc

Band:
Chuck Johnson
Mike Gangloff
Nathan Bowles
Bob Wall
Nathan Golub

Support Chuck Johnson: Visit his website | Buy Velvet ArcBuy his Three Lobed releases.

Superchunk: December 3, 2015 Baby’s All Right

December 6, 2015
By

superchunk-qbertplaya1
[photo courtesy of Ellen Qbertplaya]

Superchunk spawned one of the most revered independent labels, revitalized the music scene of two entire towns, and continue to inspire men and women alike to pogo at the stage lip singing every word. Few bands can claim those achievements, but even fewer can claim to have not only kept, but expanded their fans’ loyalty since the early 1990s. Mac McCaughan may well be one of his generation’s few ageless indie stars, as unabashedly confessional, athletic and compelling onstage as he was when he was in his twenties. What separates his songs from those of lesser peers is that those lyrics aren’t just reflections of youthful naiveté — they just say what they need to in the most direct, compelling way. It hurts none that behind Mac is a crack band (sans, sadly, Laura Ballance these days) that has only gotten better over the years; if many drummers are hitting the kit better than Jon Wurster at any age, they ought to count themselves lucky. And that doesn’t even begin to touch the humor of Jim Wilbur (who’s a pretty darn good player, too).

The band came into Baby’s All Right on this Thursday to follow up a performance the night before at Ground Control Touring’s 15th Anniversary, meaning they weren’t here to flog a new record or for any purpose other than to remind their fans exactly why they stick around. They rewarded us with a set that drew from all over their catalog, treating 2013’s I Hate Music and their 1990s canon with equal reverence. The sold out crowd gave as good as they got in terms of energy, as the people in the front didn’t stop moving, or singing, the entire time. The band may have joked before “The Popular Music” (from Indoor Living, 1997) about how they would sit around in front of a Britney Spears poster in their practice room and wonder if a new song they were writing would “make them popular” (Mac’s reply — it didn’t) but the reality is that, in the longer run, their efforts worked. Sometimes it’s quality, and not quantity of “popularity” that counts, and Superchunk has the former in abundance. For a certain group of people, Superchunk were a foundational band, in the same way other giants of the era like Pavement (or further toward the mainstream, Nirvana) inspired countless stints as independent radio DJs, memberships in variously-successful bands, and LP/CD collections that burden many of us to this day. In 2013, we called them “the best working band in America today,” and noted that they “don’t have a bad song in their catalog,” and those sentiments remain true to this day.

To be honest, I’m not really sure if they haven’t played the first encore, “The Breadman” single in more than 20 years as claimed, but I’m not going to be that guy who disputes the band on the Internet (according to said Internet, this was only the second time it’s ever been played). I will say that “Hyper Enough,” still rings true — rocking this night with an energy that belied its twenty years in the rotation, and a song whose central premise still rings true of Mac now as when he wrote it. And “Throwing Things,” which closed the first encore, well, it was as compelling as it was when it first appeared on No Pocky for Kitty in 1991. True to their nature, the band came out for a second encore, and closed with “Slack Motherfucker.” Balance wrote the song back in 1990 and, whoever it was addressed to at the time, Mac has proven to be anything but.

I recorded this set with Superchunk FOH Matthew Barnhart’s soundboard mix, together with Audio Technica 4051 microphones onstage. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show (minus banter tracks and encore breaks):

Superchunk
2015-12-03
Baby’s All Right
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Matthew Barnhart) + Audio Technica 4051 (onstage)>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, adjust width, fades, very light compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, image)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time: 1:24:15]
01 [intro]
02 Like A Fool
03 Cursed Mirror
04 Hello Hawk
05 Good Dreams
06 Me & You & Jackie Mittoo
07 Punch Me Harder
08 On the Mouth
09 [banter1]
10 Rosemarie
11 Kicked In
12 Iron On
13 The Popular Music
14 Low F
15 Crossed Wires
16 Detroit Has A Skyline
17 Driveway to Driveway
18 Digging for Something
19 [encore break]
20 The Breadman
21 Hyper Enough
22 Throwing Things
23 [encore break 2]
24 Slack Motherfucker

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Superchunk, visit their website, and purchase their albums directly from Merge Records [HERE].

chunklauren
[photo by Lauren Epstein]

Hiss Golden Messenger: November 19, 2015 Baby’s All Right

November 25, 2015
By

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Continuing with the “running out of things to say” theme, I think even the band is starting to wonder if I do much of anything besides attend Hiss Golden Messenger concerts. If you read about the band’s doings in Durham, NC earlier last week, you’d know they debuted Heart Like A Levee, an entire new album, before two successive nights of attendees at Duke University. That album should be appearing on Merge Records in due time.

Well, this show at Baby’s All Right wasn’t that, but that’s not to take anything away from this sweaty, raucous show before a sell-out crowd. M.C. Taylor was joined on this jaunt by most of his regular band — the Cook brothers on keys and guitars, Matt McCaughan on drums — with Josh Kaufman taking up additional guitar duties. This show sounded like one by people who’ve fallen into a comfortable groove, and despite the extremely unpleasant temperature (how you make a club over 100 degrees indoors in the middle of November is a mystery to me) the band sweated through some strong versions of their tour favorites, plus less-heard numbers like “Mahogany Dread,” off of Lateness of DancersPoor Moon‘s “Super Blue (Two Days Clean)” and a newly-rocking version of “Brother, Do You Know the Road?” Perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation (the band were so hot their guitars were covered in sweat), we only got one encore, but it was a keeper — Waylon Jennings’ “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean.”

So, forgive the brevity of this writeup, but if you’re already on the train, you can read any of my reviews of recent shows to get a pretty good idea where things are headed. If you’re new to the band, well, this is a fine, fine way to take the plunge.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK5 cardiod microphones at the stage lip, together with Harrison Fore’s soundboard feed. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Hiss Golden Messenger
2015-11-19
Baby’s All Right
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Harrison Fore) + Schoeps MK5c (onstage, ORTF)>KCY>Z-PFA>Roland R-26 (2x24bit/48kHz WAV)>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (adjust stereo mix of onstage mics, compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects, EQ)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( Level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:19:17]
01 Saturday’s Song
02 Lucia
03 Call Him Daylight
04 Super Blue (Two Days Clean)
05 Mahogany Dread
06 I’ve Got A Name for the Newborn Child
07 Day O Day (A Love So Free)
08 Brother, Do You Know the Road?
09 I’m A Raven (Shake Children)
10 Blue Country Mystic
11 Southern Grammar
12 [encore break]
13 Lonesome, On’ry and Mean [Waylon Jennings]

Band:
MC Taylor
Phil Cook – Keyboards, Guitar
Brad Cook – Bass
Josh Kaufman – Guitar
Matt McCaughan – Drums

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.

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Obnox: September 12, 2015 CAM, Raleigh, NC (Hopscotch Music Festival)

October 26, 2015
By

Obnox
[Photos by Rumbleseat]

David Schwentker reports:

Lamont ‘Bim’ Thomas has kept time in plenty of great bands over the past 20-plus years (Bassholes, This Moment In Black History, Puffy Areolas, etc.), but in the past few years he’s hit a real stride as a guitarist and frontman, releasing a string of albums that continue to increase in both quality and quantity, under the name Obnox. Having played a headlining show on the festival’s Friday night last year, and set to play another one the night of this show as 1/3 of the supergroup Blaxxx, the festival saw fit to go ahead and book Obnox to play their official day party. The setting for this year’s party was the Contemporary Art Museum, a sterile, wide open space that can be an odd venue for a garage punk show, especially with 4:00 pm afternoon sunlight streaming in through the building’s expansive windows. While perhaps a little bemused by the setting and time of day, Thomas blazed through a tight nine song set, accompanied on drums by the “best bandmate he’s ever had,” the powerful Roseanna Safos. While Obnox has released three full length albums this year on the 12XU and Ever/Never labels, most of this set is drawn from the band’s earlier singles and first LP, including covers of Don Howland (Thomas’ bandmate in the Bassholes) and Andre Williams songs. A slight bummer if you were looking forward to hearing the newer songs in a live setting, but not a lasting one, as these songs are catchy and rockin’, and if you can’t have fun at an Obnox show, then I can’t help you. Plus, this recording makes a nice compliment to the Obnox show at the Cake Shop in NYC, posted on this site earlier this year, as the sets only share two common songs.

This recording was captured by area taper Rumbleset, with the same setup as the Moon Duo recording previously posted on this site: two sets of mics, Church Audio CA-11s on the ceiling and Shure SM-57s on stage, combined with a soundboard feed. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Obnox returns to NYC on November 6 for a show at Pianos. Tickets are available here.

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Obnox
2015-09-12
Hopscotch Music Festival Day Party
CAM
Raleigh, NC USA

Three separate audio sources were used to create this recording:
1) Church Audio CA-11 (cardioid) stereo microphones mounted on the ceiling > Naiant Studio PFA phantom power adapter.
2) Direct line-level stereo board feed. (Technician was Roger Dennis, RMB Audio)
3) Stereo pair of Shure SM-57 microphones at 90 degrees, diaphragms about 10 inches apart, on a stand at the front of the stage.

These three sources were captured with a Tascam DR-680 MKII recorder as 48 kHz, 24 bit wave files.
The files were mixed and processed with Audacity and Magix Audio Cleaning Lab

Taped and mixed by Rumbleseat

Tracks [30:52]
01. Rock N Roll Babylon
02. Bitch! Get Money!
03. [banter]
04. Jack N Jill [Don Howland]
05. Without Aa Soul
06. Dr. Dank Vs. Dr. Middie
07. [banter]
08. The Get It Inn
09. I’m Bleeding Now
10. Only Black Man in South Dakota

Support Obnox: Facebook | Buy Wiglet, Know America, and other Obnox records from 12XU

The Dead Tongues: September 23, 2015 Rough Trade NYC

October 22, 2015
By

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There’s plenty of heat coming out of Triangle music scene in North Carolina these days, as seems to be the case every half-decade or so. The reasons are several — the region’s overall economic and social diversification and success; the rise, congruent with that, of Durham as the region’s cultural third pillar as it already was a research, medical and education anchor with Raleigh and Chapel Hill; a stellar music festival to highlight the region’s best acts. But with the rise of an insular scene — fueled by a relatively condensed list of publications, social networks, venues and bands, where shows are a place where everybody knows your name, there’s a danger, too. Sometimes it’s hard for friends to be honest about the quality of their friends’ work; there’s a tendency [DUCKS] to promote at least some material that may not reach the heights promised by the homegrown hype.

Which is a long way of saying how refreshing it was to come across Ryan Gustafson, who plays both solo and as a band as The Dead Tongues. Because, even in a crowded field, Gustafson shines as a songwriter of exceptional merit. I first saw his band at Hopscotch, one of many that had been recommended to me as “really good” by various folks I know in the area (sadly, that recording is lost). I’ll beg Ryan’s forgiveness for taking that recommendation with a grain of salt, one which washed away quickly as I watched he and his full band perform.

On the road with Phil Cook as part of his “Guitarheels” band, Ryan opened that show at Rough Trade NYC with his own solo set consisting of entirely unreleased material, played by Ryan on banjo, guitar and harmonica. It’s almost unfair to compare him to the people who come to mind, so I won’t drop names, but suffice it to say Gustafson’s maturity and storytelling ability approach that of big names you’ve heard of. I’m especially partial to “The Broken Side of People,” “A Pair of Stained Glass Eyes” and “Wildflower Perfume,” but it’s hard to play favorites with Gustafson’s work. What’s for sure is that his forthcoming album (details TBD) is something that I’ll await, eagerly.

I recorded this set primarily with Rough Trade engineer Danielle DePalma’s soundboard mix, together with Schoeps MK4V microphones. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show: 

The Dead Tongues
2015-06-26
Rough Trade NYC
Brooklyn, NY

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

Soundboard (engineer: Danielle DePalma) + Schoeps MK4V (FOB, DFC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>Edirol R-44>24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (mix down, fades, compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, dither, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Lost in Baton Rouge
02 [banter]
03 Graveyard Fields
04 My Companion
05 The Gold is Deep
06 The Broken Side of People Everywhere
07 A Pair Of Stained Glass Eyes
08 Embers of Midnight
09 Wildflower Perfume
10 Black Flower Blooming
11 Empire Builder

Musicians:
Ryan Gustafson (solo)

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT The Dead Tongues by buying their music at their bandcamp page.

 

Blaxxx: September 11, 2015 Slim’s, Raleigh, NC (Hopscotch Music Festival)

October 21, 2015
By

Blaxxx

David Schwentker tapes and reports:

Because Lamont ‘Bim’ Thomas is not prolific enough with his main project, Obnox, last year during SXSW he decided to hit the studio with half of the OBN IIIs (Orville Neely and Tom Triplett) to bash out some Ohio-meets-Texas blues punk. Lucky for us, 12XU Records released the recordings of this garage super-group on a 12″ earlier this year, under the name Blaxxx. As an added bonus, the trio is still getting together to play shows here and there, and for a good selection of Hopscotch Music Festival fans, their headlining slot at Slim’s on the festival’s middle night was a set circled in permanent ink.

Thomas is no stranger to the festival, as Obnox played the exact same 12:00 slot at Slim’s on the festival’s Friday night last year. By midnight on Friday, Neely and Thomas were festival vets too, having headlined a different club on Thursday night with the OBN IIIs. In fact, both Obnox and OBN IIIs played day party shows on Friday this year as well, and if you ran across town like me, you were able to catch almost all of both of those sets.

Thanks to a blistering, sub-twenty minute set from Raleigh punks No Love, Blaxxx had plenty of time to set up their gear. Hopscotch Music Festival runs remarkably on time at every venue every year, but this was the first time I’d seen the fourth band of the night ready to play 15 minutes before their specified time. With their mics not going live until midnight, the band could have elected to go spend their time hanging out. Instead, they just started playing anyway, treating the fans that were already assembled to an impromptu 11 minute instrumental jam. When the mics came on at midnight, Thomas told a story of encountering Iron Maiden one day in 1988, while working at Cedar Point Amusement Park and having them sign the only piece of paper he could find, his Social Security card. From there, the band was off, playing extended versions of 3 tracks from their “For No Apparent Reason” 12″.

Hopefully we’ll see more tunes from this band in the future, but until then, this recording is a great companion to the debut vinyl release. Slim’s is a small club where not all of the instruments are even mic’d, so this recording was captured by a pair of Church Audio omni directional mics mounted in the ceiling above the crowd. While this recording may be a little less polished than much of what is offered on this site, it’s a great representation of what it was like to be standing at the lip of the tiny stage, right in front of the band.

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Blaxxx
2015-09-11
Hopscotch Music Festival
Slim’s
Raleigh, NC USA

Recorded and produced by David Schwentker

Church Audio CA-1 (omni) > Olympus LS-10 > WAV > Audacity (track, mixing) > Trader’s Little Helper (conversions) > FLAC (level 8) > foobar2000 (tagging)

Tracks:
01 [intro]
02 [pre-set jam]
03 [banter]
04 Cut Em Down
05 Let Me Hold Your Hand
06 Get A Hold Of Your Life

Support Blaxxx: Buy the For No Apparent Reason EP from 12XU

Wizard Rifle: September 11, 2015 Pour House, Raleigh, NC (Hopscotch Music Festival)

October 16, 2015
By

Wizard Rifle
[Photo by Karen A. Mann]

Though Wizard Rifle has been on my radar for a little while now, it took a trip down to Raleigh for me to finally catch this Brooklyn-by-way-of-Portland duo. Their sound is hard to pin down, but fits in somewhere between progressive metal and Sabbath-y sludge. This set from Hopscotch drew a packed crowd to the Pour House for a heavy bill that also featured Tombs and Old Man Gloom—which is to say that Wizard Rifle were in good company. Three out of four of these songs—”Megatherium,” “Tears Won’t Soften Steel,” and “Leathery Gentlemen”—are off the first Wizard Rifle record, Speak Loud Say Nothing. The fourth, “Psychodynamo,” is off of last year’s Here in the Deadlights. If you haven’t heard either record, I encourage you to do so immediately because both are killer. Seeing them live finally only proves their chops are for real and I’m anticipating catching them again soon on their—and my—home turf. Dig in!

I recorded this set with the mics mounted near the soundboard plus a feed from the Pour House’s FOH Jack. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Wizard Rifle
2015-09-11
Hopscotch Music Festival
Pour House
Raleigh, NC

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by Eric PH

Soundboard (engineer: Jack) + AKG CK61 > actives > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, balance, mixdown, normalize, fades) > Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [40:50]
01. Megatherium
02. [banter]
03. Tears Won’t Soften Steel
04. Psychodynamo
05. [banter]
06. Leathery Gentlemen

Support Wizard Rifle: Bandcamp | Facebook | Buy Here in the Deadlights via Seventh Rule.

Greg Fox + Jefre Cantu-Ledesma: September 11, 2015 WXDU/WKNC/WXYC Hopscotch Day Show

October 15, 2015
By

Greg Fox + Jefre Cantu-Ledesma

While of course we missed Three Lobed’s annual Hopscotch day show at Kings, those big shoes were filled by an epic day show team-up of three local university radio stations: Duke’s WXDU, NC State Raleigh’s WKNC, and UNC Chapel Hill’s WXYC. The show spanned two clubs, Kings upstairs and Neptunes down. And while a noon start in Neptunes’ darkness with a lineup of four noise acts could be brutal for a hungover crowd, the event wall well-attendended among the Hopscotch faithful. Today’s recording brings together Greg Fox (GDFX, Guardian Alien, Liturgy) on drums and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (founder of seminal noise label Root Strata) on electronics. Fox pummels the drums like only he can while Cantu-Ledesma works the noise blasts on equipment that I won’t even pretend to grasp. It’s a short twenty-minute performance, one you’ll no doubt have on repeat for a while.

I recorded this set with the room mics clamped to the ceiling combined with a board feed. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Greg Fox + Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
2015-09-11
WXDU/WKNC/WXYC Hopscotch Day Show
Hopscotch Music Festival
Neptunes
Raleigh, NC

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by Eric PH

Soundboard + AKG CK61 > actives > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, balance, mixdown, normalize, fades) > Audacity 2.0.5 (downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [19:26]
01. Improvisation

Support Greg Fox: Website

Support Jefre Cantu-Ledesma: Website

Away Msg: September 11, 2015 WXDU/WXYC/WKNC Day Show, Neptune’s (Raleigh, NC) – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

October 9, 2015
By

awaymsg2

In lieu of its usual tag-team day show with Three Lobed Recordings at King’s during Hopscotch Festival, this year Durham’s WXDU teamed with fellow college radio stations WXYC and WKNC to create a two-level show that offered the broadest possible spectrum of sounds. Opening things up at Neptune’s, Kings’ downstairs venue and an electronic music hotbed throughout the festival, was the young artist Away Msg, aka Kat Liang, who produces thoughtful ambient dance music that incorporates natural sounds into the usual slow-rolling flow of textures and beats. The Raleigh artist’s repertoire consists solely of some Soundcloud tracks thus far, but she deserves a wider audience that we’re sure she’ll get. During her time making music, Away Msg has evolved away from 8-bit style sounds toward a more cerebral glitch/ambient style exemplified by songs like “after work (the good times are too short),” which began this set. Away Msg’s songs are complex without being precious (even with the long song titles), and listening to them in the comforting twilight of Neptune’s at one in the afternoon set a perfect musical tone for the rest of the day, at a creative day show that has historically always been more of a true music fan’s event that the “parties” that go on elsewhere. We don’t get nearly as many opportunities to feature electronic music on this site as we’d like, so this is a special treat. Keep an eye on this artist – we hope to hear more from her in the future!

Eric PH recorded this set with a soundboard feed and AKG CK91 microphones to provide ambiance. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Away Msg
WXDU/WKNC/WXYC Day Party
Neptune’s
Raleigh, NC USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded by Eric PH
Produced by acidjack

Soundboard + AKG CK61>Naiant actives>PFA>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, fades, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [intro]
02 After work (the good times are too short)
03 At the park (burning my memories of you)
04 Reflection (smoking a cigarette by the ocean)
05 Breath of fresh air (it is a good day to die)

If you enjoyed this recording, please support Away Msg by checking out her Soundcloud page

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