The Loom have graciously agreed to perform at the nyctaper Anniversary Concert! The Loom are a Brooklyn based quintet that present a uniquely urban approach to americana music while transcending an “alt-country” label. Sample some tracks at their MySpace page.
[image by songbirdnest]
nyctaper was born one year ago from a simple idea — that I could create a live music community that would bring together artists and fans through the free share of my live recordings. The site has had its share of growing pains, but in many respects it has succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. The people I have met, the music I have experienced, and the relationships that have been established have made this year absolutely unforgettable.
To celebrate the one year anniversary of nyctaper, I will host a concert with live performances by four bands that have been featured on this site. We are extremely excited to offer a lineup of musicians of such quality and variety, and indeed we are humbled that these bands have all agreed to perform at our concert.
Here are the Details
What:
NYCTAPER ANNIVERSARY CONCERT
Where:
PIANO’S
158 Ludlow Street
New York NY
[MAP]
Date and Time:
SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2008
4:00 pm to 8:00 pm (doors at 3:30 pm)
TICKETS:
100 Will-Call Tickets will be made available exclusively through this site at the price of $10.
The cost of entry at the door on the day of the show is $12.
Purchase tickets by clicking the paypal button below:
THE BANDS:
Bridges and Powerlines
Last week Bridges and Powerlines released an album that we expect will expose this excellent band to wider audiences. Ghost Types (Citybird Records) was the result of two years of writing and recording that has produced 11 songs with hooks and harmonies to spare. The addition of Bridges and Powerlines to the nyctaper concert roster will give us an opportunity to experience the energy this band offers live audiences.
The Antlers
The Antlers Peter Silberman writes songs of depth and maturity that evoke such luminaries as Sigur Ros and My Bloody Valentine. The 2007 release In The Attic Of The Universe (Fall Records) was a mainstay on best-of-year lists, and the anticipated 2008 release Hospice offers the promise of a performer reaching his songwriting prime. nyctaper captured the live Antlers in February, and experienced a live band of talented musicians that breathed new life and energy into the sublime recorded material.
Spanish Prisoners
[photo credit]
Spanish Prisoners were the d.i.y. and grassroots web success story of 2007, as their self-released album Songs to Forget received universal praise. The offbeat lyrics and quirky hooks recall acts as diverse as the Kinks and Donovan, but the result is less derivative than a completely unique mix of talents. 2008 has seen the official release of the CD, and nyctaper was lucky to experience the live Spanish Prisoners at their CD release party in early April.
The Loom
The Loom are a Brooklyn based quintet that present a uniquely urban approach to americana music while transcending an alt-country label. Sample some tracks at their MySpace page.
This will be our first opportunity to experience The Loom live!
Brooklyn’s alt-synth-pop masters Bridges and Powerlines released their first full length album on Tuesday April 22, 2008. The much-anticipated follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2006 debut self-titled EP, Ghost Types contains 11 songs of infectious alternative-flavored synth and guitar oriented pop. Within the catchy melodies and sweet harmonies are complex lyrics of angst and desperation which offer the listener an interesting juxtaposition and demand repeated returns to the play button.
Sample 3 Tracks at the Bridges and Powerlines MySpace Page.
Ghost Types is now available in multiple formats:
Purchase from Citybird Records (HERE)
Purchase from iTunes (HERE)
Purchase from InSound (HERE)
Bridges and Powerlines will be performing live at an as-yet-undisclosed gig. Exclusive details on this performance will be available at nyctaper in the next couple of days. Check back for details!
So its early 1989, and I’m wearing through the vinyl copies of the first two Big Dipper albums Heavens and Craps, and putting “She’s Fetching” and “Ron Klaus” on all my mixtapes. I talked my friend Mary into seeing their gig at CBGB’s because she worked at A&R at A&M Records. To my surprise, she and the rest of the industry insiders were already following Big Dipper and the CB’s gig ended up being an event where half the crowd worked for a record company.
Big Dipper eventually signed with Epic and released an entirely forgettable album, and broke up without recording again. Mary moved to Nashville and opened a music store. My copies of Heavens, Craps, along with the ultra-rare single cover of McCartney’s “Jet” (pictured above) gathered dust along with the rest of my vinyl collection.
Now its nearly 20 years later and those memories came flooding back when I saw this post on brooklynvegan. Merge Records resurrected one of the great forgotten bands of the 1980s, compiled all their Homestead releases (minus “Jet”), and released a 48 track 3-CD set Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology in March.
In support of Supercluster, Big Dipper will do three very special live performances — their first together as a band in over 18 years. Here are the dates:
04/24 Maxwell’s (Hoboken, NJ)
04/25 Southpaw (Brooklyn, NY)
04/26 Middle East (Cambridge, MA)
And the bonus…thanks to the wonderful people at Merge Records, in agreement with the band, nyctaper will be recording the Southpaw concert! Its not CB’s and Mary won’t be there (I think), but the buzz will be the same. Big Dipper is back!
Sample the music:
Big Dipper: She’s Fetching MP3
Purchase the Anthology from Merge (here).
See you at the concerts.
Readers often compliment nyctaper in email and comments on the site, and sometimes note that there should be more sites like this one. Well, there are! Here is a list of a our “brethren” — the best taper’s blogs from the web.
Southern Shelter: Atlanta GA
Besides being a super nice guy, Sloan from Southern Shelter also captures excellent recordings. Like nyctaper, Sloan uses Neumann microphones and records a terrific array of bands from a variety of genres. Sloan has been a tremendous help to us in securing permission from bands he has taped in the past, including Pylon and Mission of Burma.
Baltimore Taper: Baltimore MD
Jeff is an indefatigable free promoter of the Baltimore music scene, often recording multiple acts on multiple nights in a week. His site is such an amazingly comprehensive collection of Baltimore music, that he has been featured as a lead story in the local arts newspaper, City Paper.
Bradley’s Almanac: Boston MA
Brad publishes one of the top music blogs on the entire web, and has been recognized as such web-wide, and in a feature in the Boston Globe last year. While Brad is primarily a top flight music blogger, he also records quite a few shows and features them on his site in his archive.
Waves and Wires: San Francisco CA
Dave makes terrific recordings of Bay Area performances by top alternative acts. His recording of Bjork from Shoreline last year is one of the best I heard all tour. After a recent brief hiatus, he returned to form with an excellent British Sea Power recording.
Iamserious: Seattle WA
I believe Brian’s site may be the first actual “taper’s blog”, as it appeared in 2005. While he makes terrific recordings of Pacific Northwest shows, and also authors DVDs (available through bit torrent), the site was fairly inactive for a while last year. Brian seems to be back and recording again, which is great news for his readers.
Sometimes I Tape Stuff: Portland OR
I don’t really know much about this site, nor do I know the owner’s name, but she has recorded some excellent stuff recently including a rare post-tour-cancellation Decemberists show in January and the Shins in December.
BrooklynVibes: Brooklyn NY
This is the coming-soon taper blog of our friend Matt. His site will make NYC the first town with multiple taper blogs and will afford New Yorkers double coverage of the live music scene. Matt and I plan to avoid overlapping our recordings. Like nyctaper, Matt uses top flight equipment, but also offers the added dimension of being an outstanding photographer. We are really looking forward to his offerings.
Did I miss anyone?
My lossless friends will undoubtedly call me a sell-out, but there are quite a few good reasons to also offer MP3 files of the recordings for readers to download. The mp3 files would be offered as direct downloads on this site in zip files. This would permit the return of limited direct downloads from the main site without stretching the limits of the server. Flac files would still require an email to nyctaper.
The offering of MP3 zip files would also be advantageous for the bands. There are several tracking sites that provide access to blogs that offer mp3s which would give further exposure to the bands. The file format would also permit the less technologically advanced readers to hear the excellent bands we offer. As of this point, the i-pod still does not support flac as Apple stubbornly refuses to permit competition to its own lossless format.
The downside of course is that we expend an enormous amount of energy to capture these performances in the best possible quality. We use top of the line equipment and often master in 24-bit format to increase the sound quality. Offering MP3s, which compress much of the quality of the recording and sound “tinny” and flat compared to the flacs is in a way also a compromise that is not necessarily advantageous to the artists.
I would like to hear feedback from readers on this issue, either in email or by posting here.
It did not take long for the fine pairing of Marco Benevento and Sullivan Hall to hook up again. After his outstanding 5-show residency in January at Sullivan, Marco Benevento returns to the scene of his triumph for two nights this weekend. This time around, his band features the outstanding downtown stalwart, drummer Bobby Previte, Eric Krasno from Soulive, Briggan Krauss from Sex Mob, and Curtis Fowlkes from Jazz Passengers.
If the magic from January returns, the all-star collaboration between Marco and the roster of talent at this weekend’s shows promises to be an extraordinary exhibit of musical imagination and talent. nyctaper will be there both nights to capture the improvisational genuises on display.
The Antlers begin their residency at Rehab tonight. The former Club Midway underwent a name change a couple of weeks ago, but the schedule remains the same, Avenue B between 2nd and 3rd Streets, Antlers at 10 p.m.
For those of you who have not heard this excellent artist, visit their myspace page or download tracks from the official website. Peter is currently recording a new album, so expect some new material at some of these Rehab shows.
nyctaper Featured on Jambands.com
This month nyctaper is featured as the website of the month at Jambands.com. As jambands.com is one of the earliest and most well-established music sites on the web, it is a particular honor to be recognized by this site. While nyctaper does not focus primarily on music that would be labeled “jamband”, taping has been a large part of that music culture, and our recent recordings of Gov’t Mule (here), moe. (here and here) and Marco Benevento (here) have put us on the jamband radar. Thanks jambands.com!
Schedule Update: John Vanderslice
[photo credit]
Due to a family event on Saturday night, we will not be attending the U-Melt show at Sullivan Hall. However, we have added an event on Sunday night March 30th — the outstanding artist John Vanderslice at Mercury Lounge.
John Vanderslice released one of the top albums of 2007, Emerald City on Barsuk records. We communicated with John our request to record, and not only received a friendly invitation to capture the Mercury Lounge concert, but we were also invited to the soundcheck. This should be a tremendous experience, to witness an artist of this caliber in such an intimate setting, and we hope to capture a recording of the quality that this concert demands.
Update: We have also received permission from John of Deer Tick to record their opening set on Sunday night.
One of the fringe benefits of operating a music blog is the vast amount of promotional music we receive on a daily basis. Interestingly, much of the material is quite good, while a very small percentage is simply awful. And then there are a handful of bands who absolutely jump off the computer screen and grab us by the ears and demand more attention. Of those few bands, The Diggs may be the new album that jumped the highest.
The Diggs are trio from Brooklyn and Long Island who make intelligent and powerful guitar-driven alt-pop. The songs from their new album ctrl-alt-del (released March 11, 2008 on Sugarspun Records) are crunchy and melodic with addictive earworm hooks that continuously bring me back for more listening sessions. Readers can sample two outstanding songs from this album below:
The Diggs
From ctrl-alt-del
As a live music blog, when we hear music of such quality our first task is to determine if the band is playing live in NYC in the near future, and then whether the artist permits recording of their live shows. Fortunately with The Diggs, we hit the jackpot.
The Diggs are performing at Union Hall on March 28, 2008. This is a record release party. When we contacted management, we were informed that they were fans of nyctaper, and of course we would be permitted to record the concert and post on the site.
Who: The Diggs
Where: Union Hall, Brooklyn [map]
When: Friday, March 28, 2008 8 p.m.
PLEASE SUPPORT The Diggs, visit their website, and purchase ctrl-alt-del directly from their website or from the Sugarspun Records website.
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