[photo courtesy of John Ruscher and Eardrum NYC]
Harvey Milk has been described as metal, sludge, sludge-core, noise rock, and experimental noise. Labels aside, this is an unabashed rock band — one that plays at an extreme volumes, draws from countless influences, and plays without the slightest pretense. Last night was the closing of their three-show residency at Union Pool, and while the previous shows had featured complete album performances, Tuesday’s set was a representative mix of their material split evenly between the old and new. Harvey Milk reached all the way back to 1994 and the first album (“Merlin is Magic”), and performed four songs from 1997’s The Pleaser, including “Anthem” (streaming below). The newer material included several songs from Special Wishes (2006) and Life (2008), but skipped 2010’s Small Turn, which has been performed in full on the first night of the run. Lead guitarist Creston Spiers was armed with two huge dual guitar amps and his ax filled the small room easily — each song providing ear-splitting chunks of sonic goodness. As the set came to a close, the band dispensed with theatrics and played through the encore songs without leaving the stage. If any single act could encompass the power of this evening, it occurred before the final crush of guitar in the set’s closer (“Death”) when Spiers retreated to his amps and turned the volumes of all the dials up to the max in one fluid motion before returning to the microphone to finish the set. Turn it up, indeed.
We recorded this set from the elevated soundboard area. We attached the Neumann’s to the rail and pointed them at the stage amps and mixed in a slight board feed (75/25). The soundboard mix provides mostly vocals and drums to counteract the high volume of guitars in the room. The final product is a superb balanced mix of this amazing show. Enjoy!
Stream “Anthem”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/H1503HarveyMilk2222/13.%20Anthem.mp3]
Direct download of complete show in MP3 files [HERE]
Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].
Harvey Milk
2011-03-15
Union Pool
Brooklyn, NY USA
Digital Master Recording
Four Channel Soundboard + Audience Matrix
Soundboard + Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac
Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2011-03-16
Setlist:
[Total Time 1:17:21]
01 Crush Them All
02 War
03 I Dont Know How To Live My Life
04 Merlin Is Magic
05 Motown
06 A Maelstrom Of Bad Decisions
07 In The Ground
08 [banter]
09 D Block
10 Goodbye Blues
11 Lay My Head Down
12 What I Want
13 Anthem
14 [unknown – Goodness Gracious]
15 Shame
16 Death Goes To The Winner
If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Harvey Milk, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from Hydra Head Records [HERE] and from Chunklet [HERE].
My favorite, thanks!
Track 14 is “Smile”
Track 9 is “The Anvil Will Fall”
Wow, thanks a lot! Your blog is great!
thanks a lot! much appreciated!!
Hi,
The FLAC link is down….re-up?
Thanks :)
I won’t have access to the files until after New Year’s, sorry. Not sure what happened but I will fix it.
Active links are up on this recording now.