nyctaper Recordings

concert discussion and free flac downloads

Megafaun: March 30, 2011 Bowery Ballroom – Flac and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

April 6, 2011
By


[photo by Maryanne Ventrice – courtesy of Prefix Magazine]

Inexplicably, prior to their three straight nights opening for the Mountain Goats, I had not seen Megafaun live. I had seen Brad Cook on stage with Bon Iver and with Sharon Van Etten, but the true Megafaun experience had eluded me. These three shows confirmed what I had been told — this band is a heck of a lot of fun on stage. Their albums are enjoyably rich americana, but live the band takes on the gregarious personalities of the three members. The banter is hilarious, the songs compel audience participation and ad lib/improv bits add color the material. The final of the three nights was the band’s tightest and most enjoyable performance, but really we could have posted any or all three of their opening sets. Catch Megafaun again in NYC next week, Saturday April 16 at Music Hall of Williamsburg, opening for Sharon Van Etten.

I recorded this set with the Neumann’s pointed at the stacks from the balcony rail and mixed with an excellent soundboard feed. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Stream “Carolina Days”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/M3330Megafaun2110/03.%20Carolina%20Days.mp3]

This Recording is now available to Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

Megafaun
2011-03-30
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 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 2011-04-05

Setlist:
[Total Time 45:25]
01 [introduction]
02 Beloved Binge
03 Carolina Days
04 [banter]
05 Real Slow [new song]
06 Volunteers
07 Worried Mind
08 [banter2]
09 His Robe
10 [banter3]
11 The Longest Day
12 Lazy Suicide
13 The Process

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Megafaun, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from Hometapes Records [HERE].

Destroyer: April 3, 2011 Webster Hall – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Songs

April 6, 2011
By

destroyer
[Photo by acidjack]

At the end of a weekend where a certain other “band’s” “farewell” show sucked up a lot of the oxygen, this set by the multi-talented Dan Bejar, aka Destroyer, was the perfect coda. As brilliant and distinct as Bejar’s musical vision is – and his 2011 release, Kaputt, is already on the “album of the year” shortlist, if the Twitter-ing masses can be believed – Bejar’s music is almost radically foreign to what else is going on in American music today. Which is to say, Kaputt isn’t really dance music, nor can it be considered “rock” of most common varieties, and neither is it some fist-pumping, amped-up hybrid of the two. Bejar’s edges are soft, his choruses delivered on a silky train of trumpet and sax trills in a moderate, almost diffident tone. If the common mode for today’s bands is a marriage of post-punk and hard dance music, 2011’s Destroyer could be, well… indie rock and smooth jazz (which I in no way mean as an insult). In front of an audience that I am guessing included a lot of people coming down from the high (emotional or otherwise) of the previous night, I imagined that giving a memorable performance would be a challenge. But Bejar has wisely outfitted himself with an eight-person band that is more than up to the challenge of turning his proggish, cerebral songs into an outstanding live performance – one that had women throwing underwear at the stage and plenty of fans screaming. The fact is, at this point, Bejar’s fans appreciate his lush, intellectual songs, and that is to their credit. This is music that rewards patience and contemplation, not slam-dancing.

As a key part of the “supergroup” The New Pornographers, Bejar is of course a master of the pop song, even in this less-obvious context; “Painter In Your Pocket” and “Song For America” could (and probably did) inspire singalongs. My favorite numbers of the night came at the end: “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” and its beautiful intro, with a distortion squall leading into a patient flute passage before the song’s main dance beat kicked in, as well as the epic “Bay of Pigs,” which BrooklynVegan rightly identified not only as the source of the loudest singalong, but also the aforementioned underwear-tossing. Bejar seemed as relaxed throughout the set as his record’s sound implies, and why not? He has the right musicians to execute his vision, songs that are refreshingly out of place, and fans that want what he has to offer. I hope he won’t be saying “farewell” to this project any time soon.

Our new contributor hi and lo I recorded this set from the balcony immediately to the left of the soundboard with four Schoeps mics. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Special thanks to Merge Records and Dan Bejar for granting us permission to record.

Stream the complete set

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Follow acidjack on Twitter

Destroyer
2011-04-03
Webster Hall
New York, NY USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded by acidjack and hi and lo
Produced by acidjack

Equipment: Schoeps CMC6U/mk41>Sound Devices USBpre2+Schoeps mk4v>NBox>>Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod] (24/48)
Position: Balcony, immediate left of soundboard, on clamps pointing at stacks
Mastering: 2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity (mixdown, set fades, tracking, light EQ (less than -1dB cut at 160, 200, and 250Hz), amplify and balance)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:14:38]
01 Intro
02 Chinatown
03 Blue Eyes
04 It’s Gonna Take An Airplane
05 [banter]
06 Downtown
07 My Favorite Year
08 Kaputt
09 3000 Flowers
10 Painter In Your Pocket
11 Suicide Demo for Kara Walker
12 [banter]
13 Song for America
14 Bay of Pigs

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Destroyer, visit their MySpace page, and purchase Kaputt and their other fine releases directly from Merge Records [HERE].

Wise Blood: April 1, 2011 Glasslands – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

April 5, 2011
By

wiseblood glasslands
[Video still by Cannons]

I met Christopher Laufman, aka Wise Blood, just before he took the stage at Glasslands on Saturday. He seemed like a friendly, mild-mannered type of guy. In fact, dude was so unassuming, I would never have guessed he was a musician – and definitely not the kind of musician/performer that he is. He took the stage in a white sweatshirt and (as he pointed out) moccasins. He named his act after a Flannery O’Connor novel. Does this sound like some kind of badass MC to you?

Especially on April Fool’s, you should expect looks to be deceiving.

Minute one of the set, and the sweatshirted-and-moccasin-ed guy is telling us “I’m about to wreck this.” And then he does. On his bandcamp EP, “+” Laufman’s vocals have more layers of effects over them, giving his recorded output a much… milder sound than the live performance. On record, we hear Laufman as barely a high-pitched whisper underneath the monstrous beats, but live, his voice is the ragged, raging centerpiece. At Glasslands, songs like “B.I.G. E.G.O. ” took the tone of brash, angry manifestos, Laufman belting out the lyrics with the type of angry-white-boy attitude that Eminem had when he actually lived in a trailer. Whatever you think of his music (which can be quite catchy), Laufman is a hell of a performer to watch. In a first among the many shows I have seen at Glasslands, Wise Blood climbed up to the front of the balcony along with headliner Wu Lyf to perform “Solo (4 Claire)” for a few minutes, before jumping to the floor to finish the song. It was a raw, wild performance straight through to the end, when a shirtless Laufman careened through the song “Loud Mouths”, singing a lot of the song from the crowd. He may look unassuming, but onstage, Wise Blood is an animal.

I recorded this set from our usual spot in the venue with the DPA microphones and a stereo soundboard feed from Derek at Glasslands. The sound quality is outstanding. Also, please look for a forthcoming video of the performance courtesy of Dovecote Records and Cannons.

Please note that although we would have loved to record Wu Lyf, their management very respectfully asked that we not do so. Therefore, that set was not recorded.

Stream “Loud Mouths”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/W1400WiseBlood0211/wiseblood2011-04-01glasslands_acidjack-7.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Follow acidjack on Twitter

Wise Blood
2011-04-01
Glasslands
Brooklyn, NY USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: DPA 4021+stereo soundboard feed>Tascam DR-680 (24/48)
Position: Balcony, center, ORTF
Mastering: 2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity (mixdown, set fades, tracking, amplify and balance)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 STRT SRNS
02 Indian Song
03 interlude
04 B.I.G. E.G.O.
05 Solo (4 Claire) [including balcony climb/dive]
06 I’m Losing My Mind
07 Loud Mouths

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Wise Blood, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their EP, “+” from their bandcamp page.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: March 18, 2011 St. Paul’s Church – Flac and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

April 4, 2011
By


[photo by Greg Cristman]

The second night of Godspeed You! Black Emperor at The Church of St. Paul the Apostle was much like the first night — that is to say incredibly moving and powerful suites of music performed flawlessly to the backdrop of constantly changing film images. The difference with the second night was that after some noise complaints in the neighborhood, the volume of the concert was about half as loud as the previous evening. Fortunately, the church-pew-seated crowd was both attentive and not distracted — Godspeed mesmerized even at half the levels. All we needed to do was listen a little more closely. I’ll admit to reaching an emotional peak at the end of this concert during “Blaise Bailey Finnegan” that after two consecutive nights was a little overwhelming. I’m streaming the track below to confirm that I wasn’t imagining its depth.

This set was recorded in the same location and equipment at the first night at St. Paul’s. The sound quality is quite similar, although the lower levels somewhat reduced the dynamics of the church setting. Enjoy!

I want to thank the many readers of this blog who wrote friendly and complimentary emails about the reason for the delay of the post of this recording. It was acidjack who set me straight and told me that I really had to post this show and not punish the thousands of real fans of this band, and to ignore the rants of some mentally ill person in an inconsequential internet forum. So thanks to the real fans.

Thanks to Ronen and the Wordless Music Series for their generosity and support!

Stream “Blaise Bailey Finnegan”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/G3015GYBE0121/07.%20Blaise%20Bailey%20Finnegan.mp3]

This Recording is now available for Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
2011-03-18
The Church of St. Paul The Apostle
New York, NY USA

Four-Track Digital Master Recording
Recorded Directly Front of Board Center

Neumann KM-150s + DPA 4021’s > 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
2011-04-02

Setlist:
[Total Time 2:06:15]
[Photo of band’s written setlist HERE]
01 Gorecki
02 Dead Metheny
03 Gathering Storm
04 12-28-99
05 World Police and Friendly Fire
06 The Cowboy
07 Blaise Bailey Finnegan

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Godspeed You! Black Emperor, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from Constellation Records [HERE].

The Blasters and the Hi-Risers: March 11, 2011 Maxwell’s – Flac and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Songs

April 3, 2011
By


[photo courtesy of Steve at Culture Schlock]

mrsaureus reports:
“Here’s a confession: I know almost nothing about Hoboken, in spite of being proud resident of NJ since I decamped from Manhattan in the early 90’s (though I try to keep up my dual citizenship). I know that it has pretensions about being the sixth borough, and geographically it’s sort of a counterweight to Brooklyn across the centrifuge spindle of Manhattan. It makes demographic sense that coolness could diffuse over that way, and with Brooklyn almost full to capacity with hip (I heard recently about some trucker hats and beards in Woodside, for goodness sake), Hoboken might reasonably aspire to graduate from counterweight to counterpart: Jersey Brooklyn. Brooklyn on the Hudson. Brooklyn Sinistro. Most of the people I saw there on my recent visit wouldn’t have looked out of place in Williamsburg, but there sure weren’t many of them. Ten o’clock on a Friday night and not much happening on Washington Street. The big question I had was, where the hell is everybody? Then I got it. Of course. It’s Friday night: everybody went to NYC (you know, the real NYC).

Maxwell’s is the smallest venue I have ever been in that features nationally known acts. You walk through the bar/restaurant with it’s nice tin ceiling to a back room that is maybe twenty by sixty feet with a small stage at one end and a bar over by the door. It’s smaller than the typical “great” room featured in all that doomed suburban real estate, those tract houses for the wealthy. There isn’t even any back stage. The bands actually walk through the audience, guitars in hand, and climb up on the stage from the front. It’s about as intimate a performance space as you could actually sell tickets for, and it’s not hard to see why people love it so much.

On stage right it’s Keith Wyatt, whom I didn’t even know was the Dave Alvin du jour, but I recognized him right away from a bunch of guitar instructional videos that I have. He still got his 80’s movie star Judge Reinhold good looks, but seemed a little tired and pale, washed out, like just being in The Blasters starts to pull your soul loose. From the time I first saw them in Streets of Fire, I’ve thought the Blasters operated in a sort of Mephistophelian haze, as if instead of selling their souls outright Robert Johnson style, they’ve been parcelling them out in small transactions over decades, JIT Fausts, shopping at Satan’s 7-11 for essentials only. Fame and fortune is a big ticket item, out of reach with this parsimonious approach, but for the soul in your left little toe you can probably get a mixed review in NME, leaning positive, and a really good chicken fried steak. Well, that’s one theory. Maybe he was just tired: the show didn’t start till almost midnight and went till almost 2 AM. That’s late by Manhattan standards. For all that it’s the city that never sleeps, shows tend to start and end early in borough number one: Beacon has a hard stop at 11 PM, and I haven’t been to hardly any shows that go past midnight. Score one for night life in borough number six, I guess.

And there in the center, with Fedora worn backwards in a sly wink, John Bazz stands facing the audience, eyes closed to slits throughout the entire song, beatific expression with a trace of wry smile, a slim, serene Buddha on bass guitar. He’s the calm, meditative eye of the Blasters storm. Behind him on the drum kit, is the storm, Bill Bateman, a cyclone with a greased pompadour and hands (and feet) he can’t keep to himself. The two lock in rock solid rhythm: the very anvil on which you can hammer out the blues.

Anchoring stage left, counterweight to both John and Keith, is a big man. These days health mania abounds, and whenever you see anyone who was famously fat (Meatloaf, say) you expect that they’ve slimmed down look good (Meatloaf, check). Well, not Phil Alvin. He’s still impressively rotund. And he doesn’t look good, at least not from the point of view of, say, a health care professional: with a flush creeping over a pasty pallor under shiny beads of sweat, his head looks like a big scoop of cherry vanilla ice cream just starting to melt. He’s Gluttony, that most American of the Deadly Sins, Blasters the well chosen house band in the Lido Circle of Hell on the Infernal Cruise. But I, for one, have about had it with our national obsession with good health. We’ve lost our admiration for big appetites, for the glory of carnal excess, and we’re the less for it, a smaller people in spirit as well as in girth. Phil would have done better in the age of the robber barons: a William Howard Taft of Rockabilly with a waistline to match his chops. Bright penetrating eyes darting over the audience, then closed as his face contracts into his famous skeletal rictus of a smile, he is rigor mortis animated, an atherosclerotic monument to an American life well lived. I consider a massive coronary to be an honorable and clean death for a man, the pathological equivalent of the firing squad, and if Phil takes one last exit stage left one of these days after a rousing final chorus of “Marie, Marie”, I’m going to take a guess and say it’s how he would have wanted it.

How’d they play? They played great, they’re the Blasters. Very generous thirty song set, over two hours. Keith Wyatt really takes flight: considering his extensive GIT/instructional video background there’s an instant of worry about that whole “if you can’t do” thing but it’s immediately shredded into little pieces and blown out of the room with his first guitar solo. And song after song, he’s inventive, melodic and precise. And when’s the last time you saw a guitar player change his own string onstage while the lead singer stalls by reciting the Confession? I hadn’t realized how much charm guitar techs take out of live music till that moment.

The Hi-Risers drove down from Rochester to play a short opening set. They’re a fun band: bright and pleasant, eager to please, and it’s good to see the young’uns still have a taste for the rockabilly. Easy, breezy, and excellent in the novelty department, what with the kazoo, and the one note guitar solo, what they lack is any whiff of sulfur, nothing dark to be seen when you peer down the chute. Rockabilly always teeters on the edge of being the blues exorcised, and one reason the Blasters are the masters is that you don’t have to have much second sight to see the Devil trying to pull Phil Alvin into Hell right in front of your very eyes. If the Blasters drive a hard bargain, The Hi-Risers seem not to have made any deal with the devil whatsoever. Kids these days! I don’t know if it’s internet distribution or what it is, but when you cut the cord, sometimes the dog runs off.

Hmm. What else. OK, here’s something: it really struck me at this show how thoroughly, as a people, we’ve lost our ability to dance. Back in the first half of the 20th century most people could pair dance (that is do real dances with actual steps in the company of other dancers where you move all over the floor and don’t bump into each other) competently enough for this skill to be assumed and for entertainment to accommodate this assumption. Then sometimes in the Sixties I guess, we more or less made a conscious decision to abandon that skill and replace it with improvised but still more or less rhythmic singles dancing. Then disco came and fought a skirmish, a brief last spasm, and was repulsed as dancing flatlined. As we begin our long slog through the 21st century it was hard to identify any dance skills whatsoever in a group of maybe 200 people self-selected to go to a rock and roll show in Hoboken NJ on a recent Friday night. And this music has a very strong, simple rhythm: it was what we said we liked when we said we hated disco. Most people stood rock solid still and didn’t even tap their feet. A few did sort of “dance”, but it was mostly orgiastic spasming without much reference to the music or the immediate surroundings, to be read semiotically as “Having drunk alcohol, I must now have fun.” Actually, there was exactly one couple who could properly dance, and it was the shadow that they cast that got me to thinking about it. And in case you’re wondering, no, I’m no Fred Astaire myself, but I’m thinking about taking some lessons.”

Recorded and minimally produced by mrsaureus, standing center floor ten feet back from the stage, Core-Sound High End Binaurals to Sony PCM-M10 (48 kHZ, 24 bit), WavePad Sound Editor to chop and FLAC only.

Stream “Long White Cadillac” (The Blasters):
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/B1103Blasters1112/02-Long%20White%20Cadillac.mp3]

Stream “That Rock & Roll Beat” (The Hi-Risers):
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/B1103Blasters1112/12-That%20Rock%20and%20Roll%20Beat.mp3]

Direct download of complete show in MP3 files
The Blasters (HERE)
The Hi-Risers (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC
The Blasters [HERE]
The Hi-Risers [HERE]

The Blasters and The Hi-Risers
Maxwell’s
Hoboken, NJ
03-11-2011

The Blasters
01-Daddy Rollin’ Stone
02-Long White Cadillac
03-Well, Oh Well
04-Sugar Momma
05-Lonely Over You
06-All Your Fault
07-Arkansas Traveler – Technical Difficulties
08-Red Rose
09-Bipolar Blues
10-Please, Please, Please
11-I Love You So
12-4-11-44
13-Band Intros – Rockabilly Man
14-American Music
15-Love is My Business
16-I’m Shakin’
17-Window Up Above
18-Everything’s All Right
19-Boneyard
20-No Nights By Myself
21-One Bad Stud
22-Cryin’ For My Baby (Give Me a Big F Chord)
23-New Orleans $2 Whore
24-Man Trouble Blues
25-So Long Baby Goodbye
26-Trouble Bound
27-Help You Dream
28-Dark Night
29-Blue Shadows
30-Marie, Marie
31-Rock Boppin’ Baby
32-High School Confidential

The Hi-Risers
01-Soundcheck
02-She’ll Be My Ruin
03-I Like the Way She’s Mine
04-Johnny, Jim and Jack
05-Rockin’ Spree
06-Tamales
07-Sparkplug
08-Wild Romance
09-Top Shelf
10-One Note Joe
11-Gear Bustin’ Sort of a Feller
12-That Rock & Roll Beat

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Blasters, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from the Evangeline Records website [HERE].

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Hi-Risers, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from The Store at their website.

The Mountain Goats: March 29, 2011 Bowery Ballroom – Flac and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

April 2, 2011
By


[photo by Maryanne Ventrice – courtesy of Prefix Magazine]

Tuesday night’s Bowery show was the second of three consecutive dates at the NYC venue, but it also happened to be the very day that the new the Mountain Goats album All Eternals Deck (Merge) was released. John Darneille spoke about his positive mental health on this particular release day — as well he should. All Eternals Deck is a superb album, and several of those songs featured at this show were already set highlights. We are streaming “Birth of Serpents” below, but we could well have featured the show opener “Liza Forever Minnelli”, “Damn These Vampires”, or a song which earned an encore slot on this night “Estate Sale Sign”. Despite the focus on the strong new material, John did not however forsake the vintage material and performed some outstanding older and more obscure songs, including “Home Again Garden Grove”, “Sinaloan Milk Snake Song”, and “Jeff Davis County Blues”, and even an unreleased song “Shower”. This night did not feature any special guests, but at nearly two hours, it was the longest show of the run.

I recorded this set in the same manner as the previous night and the sound quality is again superb. This are two bursts of static during “Seeing Daylight” that were caused when my recording machine was jostled during the cleanup of a full beer spilled on my stuff. Otherwise enjoy this excellent recording!

Stream “Birth of Serpents”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/M1616MountainGoats8080/21.%20Birth%20of%20Serpents.mp3]

This Recording is now available for Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

The Mountain Goats
2011-03-29
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 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
2011-04-01

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:47:25]
01 [introduction]
02 Liza Forever Minnelli
03 Psalm 40 2
04 [banter01]
05 Damn These Vampires
06 [banter02]
07 Home Again Garden Grove
08 [banter03]
09 For Charles Bronson
10 [banter04]
11 Southwood Plantation Road
12 Seeing Daylight
13 Song for Dana Plato
14 Sinaloan Milk Snake Song
15 You Were Cool
16 Shower
17 Age of Kings
18 [banter05]
19 Jeff Davis County Blues
20 [banter06]
21 Birth of Serpents
22 [banter07]
23 Broom People
24 [banter08]
25 Dinu Lipatti’s Bones
26 [banter09]
27 Never Quite Free
28 [banter10]
29 This Year
30 [encore break]
31 Outer Scorpion Squadron
32 Estate Sale Sign
33 Palmcorder Yajna
34 [second encore break]
35 Plain [Silkworm]
36 Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Mountain Goats, visit their website, purchase All Eternals Deck from the Merge Records website [HERE], and purchase other Mountain Goats official releases from their website.

The Mountain Goats: March 28, 2011 Bowery Ballroom – Flac and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

March 31, 2011
By


[photo by Maryanne Ventrice – courtesy of Prefix Magazine]

The Mountain Goats returned to NYC for the first time since late 2009 for a sold-out run of three shows at Bowery Ballroom. The band is on tour in support of the new album All Eternals Deck (Merge), which was released on Tuesday. Although the Monday show was a celebratory affair and the longest of the three shows, it was also the first night to sell out, so that the crowd contained a large majority of diehards who felt the need to scream out requests for the most obscure songs. But John was in very good spirits and was not rattled by the persistent requests in his banter with the crowd. The setlist was nice mix of older and new material as only five of the thirteen All Eternals Deck songs were played on this night. John played a special request for a friend (“Going to Port Washington”) and acceded to one of the crowd’s obscure calls (“Baboon”), but mostly kept to the written list. The surprise of the evening was the appearance of The Hold Steady lead singer Craig Finn, who shared vocal duties on “This Year” (streaming below).

I recorded this set with the Neumanns at the balcony rail pointed at the stacks and mixed with an excellent soundboard feed. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

All three shows were recorded and will be posted over the next few days.

Stream “This Year” (with Craig Finn):
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/M1616MountainGoats8080/27.%20This%20Year.mp3]

This Recording is now available to Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

The Mountain Goats
2011-03-28
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 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
2011-3-29

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:44:39]
01 [introduction]
02 Liza Forever Minnelli
03 Southwood Plantation Road
04 [banter]
05 Broom People
06 Birth of Serpents
07 [banter2]
08 Estate Sale Sign
09 [banter3]
10 Seeing Daylight
11 [banter4]
12 Going To Port Washington
13 [banter5]
14 High Hawk Season
15 Dilaudid
16 You Were Cool
17 [banter6]
18 Outer Scorpion Squadron
19 [banter7]
20 Jeff Davis County Blues
21 Prowl Great Cain
22 Minnesota
23 [banter8]
24 Family Happiness
25 Damn These Vampires
26 Elijah
27 This Year
28 [encore break]
29 Baboon
30 Going to Georgia
31 [banter8]
32 Ontario
33 [banter9]
34 No Children
35 [second encore break]
36 Plain [Silkworm]
37 Palmcorder Yajna

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Mountain Goats, visit their website, purchase All Eternals Deck from the Merge Records website [HERE], and purchase other Mountain Goats official releases from their website.

Soulive: March 12, 2011: Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Songs

March 26, 2011
By


[photo by Jill from For The Love of Brooklyn]

For the past two years now, the funk/jazz trio Soulive have been commandeering the cavernous adult playland Brooklyn Bowl for a series of concerts they dub “Bowlive”. These special shows in their home state of New York (they are originally based in Woodstock) feature memorable performances by the band as well as hordes of special guests; if anything, this year’s “Bowlive II” was even more epic than last year’s outing. This final night of their 10-day run promised to be a special one, and despite the last-minute illness-induced withdrawal of special guest Matisyahu, the band and their guests didn’t let that slow them down as they brought the funk for more than two hours. The tighter first set focused mostly on Soulive’s own material, including a heady rendition of “Doing the 2” jamming into “Too Much”, with the night’s opening act, Nigel Hall, on vocals together with Alicia Chakour. The first set closed with the night’s first surprise, when during their cover of the Meters’ “Just Kissed My Baby”, American Idol winner Taylor Hicks (remember him?) bounded to the stage. Adding backing vocals and harmonica to Hall and Chakour’s vocals, Hicks proved that although he may not be the most commercially successful Idol graduate, he lacks nothing in the talent department.

Set two saw more musical exploration, including a special showcase for the talents of guitarist Eric Krasno on a cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan‘s “Lenny”. Not to be outdone, drummer Alan Evans brought the full force of his kit skills to bear during the night’s most epic number, “One in Seven,” featuring an extended solo in the middle. The set wrapped up with three covers: “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears (turned into straight-up soul number), Aretha Franklin‘s “Rock Steady,” and finally (and appropriately), the encore, “Makin’ My Way Back Home” by Lettuce (only half a cover, given the overlapping players in both acts). Bowling and funk may be natural bedfellows, or they may not be, but either way, we hope there is a Bowlive III in the future.

We recorded this set with a combination of the DPA microphones at close range to capture the PA output, plus AKG large-diaphragm microphones onstage to capture the instrumental detail and broad, spacious stage sound. The results are truly outstanding. Enjoy!

Special thanks to Soulive and Morgan Young for approving this recording, and to Peter Costello and the Brooklyn Bowl team for their hospitality and hard work.

Stream “Just Kissed My Baby”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/S1302Soulive1021/soulive2011-03-12bbowl_acidjack-11.mp3]

Stream “Lenny”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/S1302Soulive1021/soulive2011-03-12bbowl_acidjack-17.mp3]

Download the FLAC/MP3 files and stream this entire show on the Live Music Archive [HERE]

Follow acidjack on Twitter

Soulive
2011-03-12
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY USA

Recorded and produced by Johnny Fried Chicken Boy and acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: DPA 4021>Sound Devices USBpre2+AKG C 414 B-XLS (Wide Cardiod Mode)>Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod]
Position: AKGs onstage, DPAs on stand, 10ft from right stack, 12ft up, X/Y
Mastering: 2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity (EQ DPA source, mixdown, downsample, tracking, set fades, level adjustments, fix SBEs, tag files, smooth peaks, amplify and balance)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks:
Set 1:
01. intro
02. Bubble
03. banter
04. Uncle Junior
05. banter
06. Flurries
07. banter
08. The Swamp
09. banter
10. Doing the 2 > Too Much
11. Just Kissed My Baby [The Meters]

Set 2:
12. 2nd set intro
13. El Ron
14. banter
15. Up Right
16. banter
17. Lenny [Stevie Ray Vaughan]
18. banter
19. One in Seven >
20. drums > One in Seven
21. Everybody Wants to Rule the World [Tears for Fears]
22. banter
23. Rock Steady [Aretha Franklin]
24. encore break
25. Makin’ My Way Back Home [Lettuce]

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Soulive, visit their website, and purchase their official releases and merchandise directly from the band’s online store [HERE]

Yo La Tengo: March 23, 2011 Maxwell’s – Flac and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

March 26, 2011
By

yolatengobyrnejapan
[photo by Jesse Jarnow]

The show was announced on Monday, tickets went on sale on Tuesday, and on Wednesday night Yo La Tengo was back at Maxwell’s — three months removed from their amazing Hannukah run. And this night definitely felt like Hannukah redux, with brutal weather and special guests in the building. Jesse Jarnow, who is writing a comprehensive biography of Yo La Tengo, wrote an excellent piece about this concert in the Village Voice. Here is his rundown of the appearance of one of those special guests:

[David] Byrne, last seen with the Tengos at Maxwell’s during Hanukkah 2002, came up at the end of the first set to add harmony to “Tears Are In Your Eyes.” The once head-Head introduced a new song, an addendum to his disco-pop opera Here Lies Love. Speaking of “the People Power Revolution” in the Philippines and declaring he intended to write an anthem, Byrne looked and sounded–in his overalls–as if he’d stepped straight from some neo-futurist pro-union propaganda wallpaper as he recalled, for a moment, the Velvet (Czechslovakian), Orange (Ukranian), and Jasmine (Tunisian) Revolutions. The song itself was more typically Byrne, a ballad in Caetano Veloso mode, lush chords and a melody cleverly knotted to accommodate tons of words — and, one night only, Georgia Hubley adding an empathetic sweetness to the chorus. But the winner of Byrne’s mini-set was a mournful, Tengoized “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel,” Georgia translating the song’s galloping tom fills into lonesome mallet thumps.

Perhaps energized by the excitement of the Byrne appearance, YLT came out smoking for the second set and treated the crowd to a phenomenal 15-minute “Pass The Hatchet” among other treats. The appearance late in the second set by The Feelies’ Glenn Mercer rounded out of the evening in perfect fashion, and the rousing closing Velvet Underground cover is provided as a stream below.

I recorded this set from our standard location in this venue. On this night, YLT was without Mark their longtime soundman. Carson, the house engineer at Maxwell’s filled in quite admirably and the sound quality in the venue all night was superb. This high quality of this recording is a testament to Carson’s talents. Enjoy!

Stream “Run Run Run”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/Y6644YLT9879/31.%20Run%20Run%20Run%20%5bVelvets%5d.mp3]

This concert took place to raise money for Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami relief through the charitable organization Peace Winds Japan. A donation to that charity will be required in order to download this recording.

If you wish to download this recording Email nyctaper with a copy of your charitable donation receipt from Peace Winds Japan and specify if you would like to download the concert in FLAC or MP3.

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST OR PASS ALONG THE DOWNLOAD LOCATION. Support the cause.

Yo La Tengo
2011-03-23
Maxwell’s
Hoboken, NJ USA

Benefit For Peace Winds Japan
http://peace-winds.org/en/

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
2011-03-24

Setlist:
Set 1:
[Total Time 1:08:06]
01 Introduction
02 I Am Just A Mops [The Mops]
03 Sudden Organ
04 Moby Octopad
05 Little Eyes
06 [banter]
07 Dave [Will Rigby]
08 [banter – merch]
09 Periodically Double or Triple
10 A Plea For Dump
11 [banter2]
12 Black Flowers
13 [Byrne intro]
14 Tears Are In Your Eyes
15 [God intro]
16 God Draws Straight [David Byrne]
17 Give Me Flowers While I’m Living [Flatt/Scruggs]
18 Thank You For Sending Me An Angel [Talking Heads]

Set2:
[Total Time 1:07:57]
19 Come See Me [The Pretty Things]
20 Pass The Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind
21 Decora
22 Sugarcube
23 [banter – Amy]
24 The Words Get Stuck In My Throat
25 Season Of The Shark
26 Mr. Tough
27 Cherry Chapstick
28 It’s Only Life [Feelies]
29 On The Roof [Feelies]
30 From A Motel 6
31 Run, Run, Run [Velvets]

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, that means you’ve already donated to Peace Winds Japan. Thank you for your donation to support Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami Relief.

Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour: March 21, 2011 Knitting Factory – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Songs

March 25, 2011
By


[Photo courtesy of EardrumNYC]

The Elephant 6 Collective is a unique force in modern American music, a merry band of collaborators whose psychedelic, Beatles-inspired songs continue to resonate with indie aficionados across the globe. If you aren’t up for seeing more than 10 bands in one place at one time, you should skip the E6 Holiday Surprise extravaganzas, because over their usual three sets in a given night, they will illuminate and educate you, as well as wear down the unready. This gig at the Knitting Factory was night one of three here in New York, and it gave immediate notice to the untutored that life in Elephant 6 land can be a little loopy. This loose-knit group of Athens, GA-based musicians has formed and splintered off into numerous bands, and the sets find the players rotating on and off stage, constituting a different band at each song. This show was a veritable psych-rock circus, with a giant self-playing organ, a trippy cartoon video interlude, a “coming of spring” game that consisted of various audience members trying to pierce a paper target with a tossed fake snowball, a giant snowman, and intense, unusual sounds. The various E6 bands – some of the better-known being Olivia Tremor Control, Circulatory System, and Elf Power, to name a few (oh, and of course, Neutral Milk Hotel whose reclusive frontman could be seen in the audience, but not onstage) – vary in their degree of pop sensibility versus psychedelic experimentation, but even the tamer E6 bands play with sound collages, obscure instruments like the theremin, and a playful, childlike sense of wonder.

For three full sets lasting almost three hours, the players treated us with some of the collective’s best-known songs: Olivia Tremor Control’s “Define A Transparent Dream,” Circulatory System’s “Yesterday’s World,” and Elf Power’s “The Well.” But there were more obscure numbers from lesser-known bands like the Gerbils and the late b.p. helium, as well as some new songs as well. It was an evening of the unexpected, a huge range of songs that is difficult to summarize. What was clear was that this collective whole is greater than any individual part. As they closed with a mammoth thirteen-minute version of Sun Ra Arkestra’s “Enlightenment” (most of which was played in the crowd directly under my mics), I couldn’t help but notice that these guys had put on a three-hour set and still seemed to be be having so much fun – and probably had another three hours left in them. As I said, Elephant 6 land is a loopy place.

I recorded this set with a four-microphone rig from our usual spot in the venue. Although the band’s engineer was a bit dissatisfied with the house mix, I think he was being a little hard on himself. With some of the room’s natural characteristics removed, the recording is excellent. Enjoy!

Special thanks to the Knitting Factory for their hospitality. Also, thanks to Southern Shelter (who recorded the Atlanta show) for their assistance with the setlist.

Stream “The Well”:
[audio:http://www.acidjack.com/E6Holiday/03 The Well.mp3]

Stream “Sail Beyond the Sunset”:
[audio:http://www.acidjack.com/E6Holiday/17 Sail Beyond the Sunset.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour
2011-03-21
Knitting Factory
Brooklyn, NY USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: DPA 4021+Schoeps CMC6/mk41>Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod] (24/48)
Position: Slightly ROC, at soundboard, DPAs ORTF, Schoeps 1ft split, pointed at stacks, approx 7.5ft
Mastering: 2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity (EQ both sources, mixdown, set fades, tracking, smooth peaks, amplify and balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks

Set I [1:07:37]
01 When Father Was Away on Business [Major Organ and the Adding Machine]
02 Nothing’s Gonna Happen [Elf Power]
03 The Well [Elf Power]
04 Yesterday’s World [Circulatory System]
05 Karaoke Free [Elephant 6 Orchestra]
06 [banter]
07 Life Form (Transmission Received) [Major Organ and the Adding Machine]
08 Hideaway [Olivia Tremor Control]
09 Spiral Stairs [Elf Power]
10 [banter]
11 As Time Passed [The Gerbils]
12 [banter]
13 Lucky Girl [The Gerbils]
14 [banter]
15 Define A Transparent Dream [Olivia Tremor Control]
16 Hide In the Light> [Elephant 6 Orchestra]
17 Sail Beyond the Sunset [Elephant 6 Orchestra]
18 [banter]
19 organ instrumental
20 [banter]
21 [unknown – Music Tapes]
22 [banter]
23 Party With Me Punker [The Minutemen]
24 Temporary Arm [Elf Power]
25 The Opera House [Olivia Tremor Control]

Set II [1:04:42]
26 They Broke the Speed of Light [The Late B.P. Helium]
27 The Rabbit’s Ear [The Late B.P. Helium]
28 Out of the Water [M Coast]
29 Can You Come Down With Us? [Olivia Tremor Control]
30 [banter]
31 To All Who Say Goodnight [Elephant 6 Orchestra]
32 [banter]
33 Days Remain [Elephant 6 Orchestra]
34 The Lovely Universe [Circulatory System]
35 An Old Familiar Scene [Elf Power]
36 [banter]
37 Nothing For Sunday [Elephant 6 Orchestra]
38 instrumental
39 Majesty [The Music Tapes]
40 Glue [The Gerbils]
41 A White Sky [The Gerbils]
42 [set break]

Set III [44:00:00]
43 I Have Been Floated [Olivia Tremor Control]
44 Round [Olivia Tremor Control]
45 This Morning (We Remembered Everything) [Circulatory System]
46 [banter]
47 Two Skies [The Gerbils]
48 [banter]
49 Alcohol [The Kinks]
50 [banter]
51 Candy For Everyone [The Late B.P. Helium]
52 [banter]
53 Green Typewriters [Olivia Tremor Control]
54 [banter]
55 Enlightenment [Sun Ra Arkestra]

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Elephant 6 Records, visit their website, and support the many fine acts on their label by purchasing official releases (including at the Elephant 6 Store, coming soon).

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