[Photo by Johnny]
Having become a fan of Heartless Bastards only in the past few years, I’ve been treated better by them in that short time than any devotee could ask for. After catching several of their brilliant concerts, including the MHoW and Bowery gigs last year, we were graced by a pair of acoustic performances at the intimate Mercury Lounge this time around. Sans a drummer, Erika, Jesse and Mark gave us captivating, pared down renditions of their work including several new songs, a Bob Dylan cover (one of my personal favorites of his) and brought out singer Heidi Johnson for the majority of the set to harmonize on the vocals. And once again, when the night ended, I found myself already expectant for their next set of shows. If the new material is an indication of what’s to come on the next Heartless Bastards album, I’m sure to find myself even more impatient in the interim.
As a compliment to our microphones, the most excellent and gracious house engineer, Kevin, gave us a patch out of the soundboard. Combined with the dead-center location of our mics, the result is a superb recording and indicative of the outstanding sound in this venue. Enjoy!
Night two was also recorded and will be posted soon.
Stream “Sway”:
[audio:http://www.nyctaper.com/H6602HB9922/Heartless Bastards – Sway.mp3]
Stream “Could Be So Happy“:
[audio:http://www.nyctaper.com/H6602HB9922/Heartless Bastards – Could Be So Happy.mp3]
Direct download of the complete show in MP3 [HERE]
Direct download of the complete show in FLAC [HERE]
If either of the links are no longer working, email nyctaper with a request for the download location of the files.
Heartless Bastards
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY, USA
Source: SBD + AKG C 414 B-XLS’s > Edirol R-44 (WAV @ 24-bit/48kHz)
Lineage: R-44 > USB > PC > Adobe Audition (mixdown, adjust levels, downsample, dither, tracking) > WAV (16-bit/44.1kHz) > Trader’s Little Helper (check/fix SBE’s, FLAC) > FLAC ( level 8 )
Mercury Lounge house engineer: Kevin
Recorded and produced by: Johnny Fried Chicken Boy
SETLIST:
[Total time: 1:11:10]
01. Marathon [new song]
02. Sway
03. Hold Your Head High
04. The Will Song
05. Skin and Bone [new song]
06. The Arrow Killed the Beast [new song]
07. Searching for the Ghost
08. [new song]
09. You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere [Bob Dylan]
10. Runnin
11. Could Be So Happy
12. [encore break]
13. The Mountain
If you download this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Heartless Bastards, visit their website, visit their MySpace and Facebook pages, and purchase their official releases and merchandise [HERE].
Excellent recording! Thank you for taping and sharing this. Really happy to see these acoustic shows captured so well. Cheers!