[photos by Dean Keim]
Guerilla Toss has been my white whale for the last year or so. There have been multiple missed connections when for one reason or another I was not able to record a local set, the most frustrating of which was when a massive snow storm resulted in the cancellation of their January show at Market Hotel. But I persisted and when the excellent Out In The Streets Fest announced that Guerilla Toss would be slated to play on a Saturday afternoon with an otherwise packed bill, we were there.
The music of Guerilla Toss is an amalgamation of styles, the most resonant for me being the influence of Remain In Light-era Talking Heads. But what strikes most about the band live is that the musicians are phenomenally skilled at their craft — something quite apparent even before I learned that the band formed at the New England Conservatory of Music. While kinetic vocalist Kassie Carlson is the center of the focus on stage, the rhythm section of tribal drummer Peter Negroponte and Greg Albert’s meaty bass guitar are crucial to the sound and drive the live presentation. The music’s color is provided by the impressive varied keyboard work of Sam Lisabeth and the atmospheric guitar of Arian Shafiee. At Out In The Streets Fest on the border of Queens and Brooklyn on the grounds of the historic Onderdonk House, Guerilla Toss performed a nice cross section of their already extensive discography, two apparent new songs (“Can I Get the Real Stuff” and “Betty”), and a fairly obscure Tom Waits cover in a too-short thirty minute set that was both long on energy and compelling for all of the right reasons. I suspect that Guerilla Toss will be regulars on NYCTaper moving forward and we’re excited to track their progress — fate willing.
Guerilla Toss next play in NYC at the Summer’s End Festival at Aviv on September 3.
[edit] Just caught this: Guerilla Toss now have been added to the Oneida show at Secret Project Robot on July 30.
I recorded this set with the outdoor-friendly Neumann large diaphragm mics mixed with an excellent board feed provided by FOH Cliff. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!
This Complete Show is now available for Download in FLAC and MP3 and to Stream at Archive.org [HERE].
Stream the Complete Show:
Guerilla Toss
2016-07-16
Out in the Streets Fest
Onderdonk House
Queens NY
Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix
Soundboard [Engineer: Cliff Ribeiro] + Neumann TLM-102s > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)
Recorded by nyctaper and acidjack
Produced by nyctaper
Setlist:
[Total Time 31:39]
01 Polly’s Crystal
02 Can I Get the Real Stuff
03 Club Kids
04 367 Equalizer
05 Earth Died Screaming [Tom Waits]
06 Diamond Girls
07 TV Spell
08 Betty Dreams of Green Men
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