nyctaper Recordings

concert discussion and free flac downloads

Grateful Dead: July 3, 2015 Chicago – Flac/MP3/Streaming

July 4, 2015
By

gd screenie 3
[screen capture from video stream]

If you follow my twitter or read my taperssection posts, you are abundantly aware that I have been brutally honest about these five “Fare Thee Well” shows. There are clear problems with this twenty-years-removed version of the “Grateful Dead” beyond the obvious absence of the band’s deceased emotional core — the tempo is way too slow, the aged players are making way too many simple mistakes, and there is no way on Earth that Phil Lesh should be permitted to sing lead vocals, particularly on Jerry Garcia’s songs. All that being said, the first two shows in Santa Clara did have some serious high points. Trey Anastasio’s lead guitar work has been thoroughly inspired and engaged and he seems completely committed to these performances. Additionally, the band’s setlist selections have been quite imaginative — perhaps the worst aspect of the late-era Garcia-led Grateful Dead was their predictable sets. These 2015 selections are both diverse and unpredictable. At the first night in Santa Clara, the threesome of primal Dead “Born Cross-Eyed”, “Cream Puff War” and “Viola Lee Blues” was my own personal highlight of last weekend and not coincidentally featured Trey on both lead vocals and extended lead guitar work.

But that was Santa Clara. These Chicago shows have a different feel from the outset. Early views of the crowd pre-show indicates a significantly more rowdy and celebratory air. As the show begins, there is definitely an East Coast/MidWest vibe and the band is pretty much into a groove from the beginning. The set begins with the song that ended the band’s last show ever, “Box of Rain”, in a nice bit of synchronicity which also shows that these guys are both aware and willing the celebrate the history. Trey is engaged throughout and actually takes the lead vocal on Bertha and is centerstage for all of Crazy Fingers. Its also nice to hear that the keyboards are right there in the mix and both Chimenti and Hornsby are playing well. The first set ends in typical fashion, but Bobby is also seemingly focused and the song is tight. A nice set, albeit with a fairly standard setlist.

The second set began with another one of those breakout numbers, the early 70’s unreleased and obscure track “Mason’s Children”. From there, it was another instance of Trey dominating the day, with a superb take on Garcia’s “Scarlet/Fire”. The early drums and space segment left much room for the “post-Drums” and the band did not disappoint. The primal “New Potato Caboose” was unfortunately a vocal lead for Lesh despite that Bob sang the song on the Anthem of the Sun album and all of the late-60’s live versions. Trey again shone during the “Help On The Way” and with his guitar throughout the entire Help/Slip/Frank suite. The band completed the night with a very sweet “Ripple” that featured a full crowd sing-along.

This show was recorded by friend of the site Bill who was in the taper’s section. He produced a 6-microphone mix that included a pair of Busman BSC2 mics, two AKG 480/CK61 mics and my Sennheiser cardioids that I sent to him especially for the occasion. The sound in the section is quite nice and this ambitious mix of microphones is indeed excellent. Enjoy!

Download the First Set [MP3] / [FLAC]

Download the Second Set [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Passenger”:

Grateful Dead
2015-07-03
Soldier Field
Chicago IL

Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Taper’s Section

Sennheiser MKH-8040s > Tascam DR-680 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Please support this legendary band:
http://www.dead.net

Recorded by Bill Walker
Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 1:11:01]
01 Box of Rain
02 Jack Straw
03 Bertha
04 Passenger
05 The Wheel
06 Crazy Fingers
07 The Music Never Stopped

Set 2
[Total Time 1:53:58]
01 Mason’s Children
02 Scarlet Begonias
03 Fire On The Mountain
04 Drums-Space
05 New Potato Caboose
06 Playing In The Band
07 Let It Grow
08 Help On The Way
09 Slipknot
10 Franklin’s Tower
11 [encore break / donor request]
12 Ripple

If you download this show from NYCTaper, please support the band and buy anything from the plethora of available music and merch at Dead.net.

Wilco: June 26, 2015 Solid Sound Festival – Flac/MP3/Streaming

July 3, 2015
By

Wilco Solid Sound 15 Loerzel
[photo by Robert Loerzel from Underground Bee]

The Friday night Wilco show of the band’s semi-annual Solid Sound Festival has become the thing of surprises. Two years ago, the Friday performance became the now-legendary all-covers show that blew up the internet overnight and is by far the most popular recording in the history of this site. For this year’s Fest, the opening night set featured an all-acoustic performance with the band playing it in an old school centered microphone bluegrass style. While this configuration is not entirely new to Wilco — the encore segments of the 20th Anniversary the Fall tour featured a similar setup — the performance of an entire two-plus hour show certainly was a novelty. Additionally, in the long-form set the various band members got a chance to stretch their instrumentation wings — we heard some mandolin, accordion, banjo, slide guitar and stand-up piano. The show’s setlist was not particularly rare, but that wasn’t the point. It was the band’s ability to provide interesting new arrangements to Wilco classics that makes this show a special event. And, in celebration of the recent win for fairness, Jeff Tweedy saluted marriage equality by declaring in the middle of “Hesitating Beauty” that it was “so much nicer singing this song now that everyone can get married”. We’re streaming that track below.

Wilco will be on the Festival circuit for the most part this Summer, dates here. We’ll catch them again at the Gathering of the Vibes in Connecticut in August.

Our friend Pete recorded this show from the area directly in front of the soundboard with the hypercardioid Neumanns. As with all of Wilco FOH Stan’s work, this was is another excellent mix and the sound quality (other than the boisterous crowd) is quite excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Hesitating Beauty”:

Wilco
2015-06-26
Solid Sound Festival
North Adams MA

Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded inside Soundboard Cage

Neumann KM-185s > Sound Devices 702 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded by gr8fulpete
Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 2:10:26]
01 Misunderstood
02 War on War
03 I’m Always in Love
04 Company in My Back
05 Hummingbird
06 Bull Black Nova
07 Handshake Drugs
08 Hesitating Beauty
09 She’s a Jar
10 One Wing
11 Kamera
12 New Madrid
13 Forget the Flowers
14 It’s Just That Simple
15 Airline to Heaven
16 Dawned on Me
17 I Got You
18 Passenger Side
19 Outta Mind (Outta Site)
20 [happy birthday to Mikael Jorgensen]
21 Whole Love
22 Jesus Etc
23 Walken
24 The Thanks I Get
25 Theologians
26 Shot in the Arm

Please note that the files are incorrectly labeled 6/25 on the download.

If you download this recording from NYCTaper we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Wilco, visit their website, and purchase their 20th Anniversary Box Set Alpha Mike Foxtrot from their website [HERE].

Amy Rigby: May 28, 2015 HiFi Bar – Flac/MP3/Streaming

July 2, 2015
By

hifi
[photo from Amy]

neild reports:

Amy Rigby has been busy musically of late, recording three albums with her husband of seven years, Wreckless Eric, and touring semi-regularly as a duo from their home base in upstate New York. One thing she hasn’t done in a while, though, is play solo shows of her own — which is why when she announced a weekly residency at the HiFi Bar on Avenue A (the old Brownie’s space, still run by former Brownie’s booker Mike Stuto), I immediately canceled my Thursday plans for the month.

The shows did not disappoint in the slightest. HiFi is a cozy space, with a small stage, a pair of booths, and a handful of small tables wedged into what was the Brownie’s stage and standing room area — just about perfect for singer-songwritery performances. And as we were quickly reminded, Rigby is an unbeatable singer-songwriter. Whether on her own with acoustic guitar and organ (week one), accompanied by Wreckless Eric on bass and Jon Graboff on pedal steel (week two), or in full-on rock formation with Eric and drummer Jeremy Grites plus special guests Syd Straw and Lenny Kaye (week three, which I sadly missed), she was by turns poignant and hilarious, drawing on songs from her five solo albums (most famously her 1996 solo debut Diary of a Mod Housewife), rarities from her early days with ’80s bands Last Roundup and The Shams, and a handful of covers and new songs destined for her in-the-works solo album. (You can read her own recap of all four shows on her must-read Diary of Amy Rigby blog; be sure to scroll back to the ones guest-written by The Bag.)

Week four was possibly the most special of all, if only for the special guest: Amy’s daughter Hazel Rigby, who plays bass and sings in the Brooklyn-based indie rock group Outside World. With Hazel on bass and shared vocals, mother and daughter tackled the Last Roundup song “At The Well” (“I was about Hazel’s age when I wrote this”) plus an outstanding cover of the Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Wheels.” A few songs later, following a hilariously botched comedy bit involving a cell phone call from backstage, Wreckless Eric joined in for several songs, including “Genovese Bag,” Amy’s touching love letter to Hazel (“You were Mutt to my Jeff, I was Jack to your Jill”) that is possibly the greatest song ever about the joys and pains of parenting.

If the word “hilarious” comes up a lot in this writeup, it will become apparent why once you’ve heard “Keep It To Yourself,” one of the all-time great post-breakup songs. But this was largely a night for gentler emotions, as marked by the song Rigby chose for the closer (before being called back onstage for one final encore): “Don’t Ever Change,” an achingly sweet but never saccharine ode to the things worth cherishing in life, even if you may not always notice them at the time. Which is a pretty good summary of Amy Rigby’s own three-decade-long music career, for that matter — though on these four nights, she definitely got noticed.

This was recorded with Church Audio CA-14 cardioid mics, powered by Church’s Ugly battery box, to a Sony PCM-M10 recorder. There is a small fraction of a board feed mixed in for fortification of the vocals and also to lessen the enthusiastic crowd response. Thanks to Amy for permission to record, and to HiFi’s Mike Stuto and his soundman whose name I’ve forgotten for their attentive help and for great room sound. You can buy most of Amy Rigby’s records at amyrigby.com, and you will not be sorry if you do.

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Summer of My Wasted Youth”:

Amy Rigby
2015-05-28
HiFi Bar
New York, NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Upfront Audience

Soundboard + Church Audio CA-14 cardioid mics > Church Ugly battery box > Sony PCM-M10 > Soundforge (post-production) > CD Wave > TLH > Foobar (tagging and conversion)

Recorded by neild
Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:24:15]
01 Rode Hard
02 Playing Pittsburgh
03 Dark Angel
04 How When Where
05 Summer of My Wasted Youth
06 [Hazel Rigby intro]
07 At The Well
08 Wheels [Flying Burrito Brothers]
09 As Is
10 Keep It To Yourself
11 Down Side of Love
12 Needy Men
13 [phone call gag]
14 Til The Wheels Fall Off
15 Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again
16 [banter – Eric new album]
17 Property Shows
18 Slow Burner
19 Genovese Bag
20 We’re Stronger Than That
21 [encore break]
22 Do You Remember That
23 Don’t Ever Change
24 [second encore break]
25 Beer and Kisses

If you download this recording from NYCTaper PLEASE SUPPORT Amy Rigby, visit her website, and purchase her official releases from the Shop at her website [HERE].

Gov’t Mule: June 6, 2015 Mountain Jam (Hunter, NY) – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

July 1, 2015
By

IMG_2014

Pretty much everything to like about Mountain Jam flows from Warren Haynes and his band Gov’t Mule. As one of the original founders of the festival, Haynes and his fellow participants in Radio Woodstock built something that grew organically around the kind of music they wanted to make and to listen to. That means 60s and 70s-inspired music with improvisational leanings that usually returns to its classic rock core — a pretty apt description of Gov’t Mule. Since the festival was purchased by an app company, some of that magic has been lost in favor of the expected deluge of commercialization and lineup considerations that tend more toward packing in the day-trippers versus creating a cohesive vibe. So, as irritating as it might have been to realize that Mule would be followed by a derivative band with no business being there, it felt good to enjoy what they were doing, and be grateful that they were still giving it their all. In fact, this was Mule’s second outing at the festival, after their epic “Dark Side of the Mule” set from the night before, to go with their latest album. So, if this set was “only” two hours, Mule can more than be forgiven. Perhaps in a covering mood after the night of Floyd just before, Mule closed this one out with a slew of covers, including “Working Class Hero,” “She Said She Said,” “Tomorrow Never Comes,” and a version of the band’s own “Mule” that featured an extended jam into Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” No matter how things may change, you can’t say that Mule doesn’t respect the past.

hi and lo and I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4 microphones and a Sonosax high-end analog preamp. The sound quality is quite good. Enjoy!

Download the complete set: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete set:

Gov’t Mule
2015-06-06
Mountain Jam, East Stage
Hunter, NY USA

Hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK4>CMC6>Sonosax SX-M2>Roland R-26>16bit/44.1kHz WAV>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression)>Audacity 2.0.5 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Railroad Boy
02 Done Got Wise
03 Mr. High and Mighty
04 About To Rage >
05 Blind Man In The Dark
06 [banter]
07 Endless Parade>The Thrill Is Gone>Endless Parade
08 Million Miles From Yesterday*#
09 Jeep On 35 >
10 Foresaken Savior >
11 Working Class Hero [John Lennon]
12 Dreams
13 She Said She Said [The Beatles]>
14 Tomorrow Never Knows [The Beatles]
15 Mule>Superstition [Stevie Wonder]>Mule

* With Nachan Taylor On Vocals
# With Elaine Kazwell On Vocals

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Gov’t Mule, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from the Mule Store [HERE].

IMG_2019

Ty Segall: June 26, 2015 Mercury Lounge – Flac/MP3/Streaming

July 1, 2015
By

ty 1
[photos courtesy of Will and We All Want Someone To Shout For]

We have seen Ty Segall in quite a few different settings, from a tiny DIY club, to two huge punk shows at Webster Hall, to a semi-acoustic night on the Sleeper tour at Bowery Ballroom. All of these various experiences have all added up to the same result — a powerful evening of superb music and a satisfied crowd. When it was announced that Ty would play a series of solo acoustic shows in NYC, we were confident that the nights would be yet another different but equally compelling experience of live Ty Segall. On Friday, he appeared at Mercury Lounge for an early show which would be followed later in the evening with a midnight show at Rough Trade. While the Merc show had fairly early doors, the sold-out show filled up the room quickly when it was still daylight out. This show’s setlist was very different from the one at Baby’s All Right on Wednesday (recording coming soon), and definitely veered towards the more mellow side of this catalog, with Sleeper well-represented. There were also three goofy covers (Devo, Spinal Tap and The Cars), the last of which we are streaming below. The newsworthy part of this set was the fact that Ty played a bunch of new songs on this mini-tour including four on this night. Our initial favorite of the new songs is called “California Hills”, and is a pointed indictment of California suburban life. Ty was joined mid-set by Wand’s Cory Hanson and the two meshed effortlessly, before Ty ended the show solo again. It was a short but sweet set and the performers had a good time themselves, as they messed around a bit with the covers, some cover teases, and one silly mock-up of Ty’s well-known song “Girlfriend” to rank on the guy in the crowd who wouldn’t stop screaming out requests for it. Ty has a few more shows scheduled this Summer out on the West coast, dates here.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cardioids set up on a stand next to the soundboard booth and mixed with an excellent feed provided by house FOH David. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

We also recorded the Baby’s and Rough Trade shows and those are coming soon.

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “The Feels”:

Stream “My Best Friend’s Girl” (The Cars cover):

Ty Segall
2015-06-26
Mercury Lounge
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [engineer: David] + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > 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 and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 54:19]
01 [intro]
02 I Want Your Candy [new song]
03 You Make The Sun Fry
04 Crazy
05 The Faker
06 Baby Talkin Bitches [Devo]
07 [Cory intro]
08 Gimme Some Money [Spinal Tap]
09 [Spinal Tap teases]
10 Don’t You Want to Know
11 Orange Colored Lady [new song]
12 The Feels
13 Emotional Mugger [new song]
14 [Cory plays Girlfriend]
15 California Hills [new song]
16 [Cory exit]
17 The Keepers
18 My Best Friend’s Girl [The Cars]
19 [Candy-O tease]
20 Comfortable Home
21 Sleeper

If you download this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Ty Segall, visit his website, and purchase his official releases from the Drag City Records website [HERE].

Ryley Walker: June 26, 2015 Le Poisson Rouge

June 30, 2015
By

ryley-walker-3
[photos by P Squared Photography]

Ryley Walker has been a can’t-miss for me on every single tour that has taken him through New York this year, the latest being this date at Le Poisson Rouge with Jessica Pratt. What is so remarkable about the five performances we have covered since September of last year is that every single one has been different, including the cast of performers. While Ryley’s a redoubtable solo artist, where he truly shines is in his ensemble, consisting of Chicago-based jazz artists who’ve played with Ryley on and off for years. On this night, he not only had the full compliment of  his “regular” players, with Ryan Jewell on drums, Ben Boye on keys, Brian Sulpizio on electric guitar, and Anton Hatwich on bass, but also a horn section consisting of Levon Henry on sax and Jamie Branch on trumpet. The results were simply magical; over 41 minutes, Ryley and the players turned these three songs into long-form jazz meditations. If Ryley’s albums fall firmly enough into the “folk” camp, his live show is a completely different beast, something that lives as close musically to the Grateful Dead and free jazz as to Van Morrison or Bob Dylan.

The brand-new song “Sullen Mind,” lyrically, is a hangover tune, a drunk’s lament, and Ryley summons the narrator’s loneliness and pain with relatively few lyrics, delivered at times with a slur that leaps to a howl. The ensemble follows with urgency, their collective sound growing insistent and dark, almost an analog for the troubled mind of the story. Seated just a few feet from Ryley, it was chill-inducing to watch and hear the song unfold, as the players barely needed a nod from their leader to storm forward from the last chorus into a climactic outro. The brass didn’t show up until the new track “Funny Thing She Said,” but that song made an immediate impact on a song that made a perfect bookend to “Sullen Mind,” both of them chill-inducing laments. And lest the lone album track played — “Primrose Green” — get short shrift, it, too, soared on the one-two punch of Brian Sulpizio and Walker on guitars, a poppy-field tripper of a track that makes you want to find some of the substance name-dropped in the title. As Ryley and his band headed off to Solid Sound Festival, more touring upstate and elsewhere, and finally back home to Chicago for the Pitchfork Music Festival, they are firing on all cylinders, a live unit at or near the peak of their powers. At this point, in festival-land, they’re still playing early — don’t miss them.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed from the Le Poisson Rouge team, combined with Schoeps MK41V supercardiod microphones clamped to the soundboard booth and a split pair of DPA 4061 omnidirectional microphones on the stage. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete set from the Live Music Archive: [FLAC] | [MP3] + [Apple Lossless] 


Ryley Walker
2015-06-26
Le Poisson Rouge
New York, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard + Schoeps MK41V (at SBD, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>> Roland R-26 + DPA 4061 (onstage, split 2ft)>CA-UBB>Sony PCM-M10>>3x24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (limiter, EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 41:43]
01 Sullen Mind
02 Primrose Green
03 [banter]
04 Funny Thing She Said

Band:
Ryley Walker – Vocals, guitar
Ryan Jewell – Drums
Ben Boye – Keys
Brian Sulpizio – Electric guitar
Anton Hatwich – Bass
Levon Henry – Sax
Jamie Branch – Trumpet

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Ryley Walker, like him on Facebook, and buy Primrose Green from Dead Oceans.

ryley-walker-2

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: June 19, 2015 Bowery Ballroom – Flac/MP3/Streaming

June 29, 2015
By

king gizzard 2
[photos courtesy of Will and We All Want Someone To Shout For]

In the year since we were first introduced to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, they’ve grown from being fairly obscure Australian psych-rock ravers to the group that released one of our favorite albums of the last year, signed with Castle Face Records in the US, and this past week sold out Bowery Ballroom. Last Fall they played two of our favorite shows of the past year, a eye-opener as support for White Fence at Baby’s All Right, and a completely insane set at a loft show on Halloween. In between the band released I’m In Your Mind Fuzz to universally positive reviews and gained enough of a foothold in the US to return six months later from halfway across the world and fill a room that it takes others years to achieve. That says a lot for the musicianship and songwriting of The Gizz, but for their live shows its mostly about the unbridled energy they bring to each performance. At Bowery, the band started with the four-song medley that opens Mind and the crowd was with them from note one — this was one of those shows where it was hard to ever even catch your breath. The set also featured a handful of new songs, each of which fit right into the flow and maintained the energy inside the venue. This bodes well for the quality of the band’s future releases. I later learned from speaking with the band that there will be likely two upcoming releases, details to follow.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards and a fine board feed from our usual location at the Bowery and the sound quality is quite excellent. Enjoy!

We also captured the Baby’s All Right sets from later in the week and will post those in the coming days.

Download the Complete show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Muckraker”:

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
2015-06-19
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > 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 and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:12:45]
01 I’m In Your Mind
02 I’m Not In Your Mind
03 Cellophane
04 I’m In Your Mind Fuzz
05 Gamma Knife
06 Hot Water
07 Hot Wax
08 Robot Stop
09 The River
10 Muckraker
11 Evil Devil
12 Danger Money
13 Am I In Heaven
14 Pill

If you download this recording from NYCTaper PLEASE SUPPORT King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, visit their website, and purchase I’m In Your Mind Fuzz from the Heavenly Records website [HERE] or in the US through Castle Face Records , buy it [HERE].

Mission of Burma: June 26, 2015 The Bell House – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

June 28, 2015
By

Mission of Burma

It’s hard to believe that after a twenty-year hiatus, Mission of Burma have been back for thirteen years. Ever late to the party(y), I didn’t see the band live until 2009 at one of Jelly’s Pool Parties at the Williamsburg Waterfront. (Remember those!) Early the next year, I did my second Burma show right, traveling up to Boston to see them on their home turf at the Paradise. And I swear there’s an extra special energy in the air when they play that venue. Now, five years later I’ve just seen my sixth Burma show, though honestly it feels like my sixteenth. What keeps me coming back—besides always being a damn good time—is the setlists. Each time you get a slightly different picture of the band depending on song choices which appear to change nightly. Their most recent show from The Bell House covers nearly their entire career and looks forward as well with two new songs that have premiered within the last year: “Panic is No Option” and “Buzz My Soul.” The band also plays nearly all of Signals, Calls, and Marches, balanced with a few off their first full-length Vs., one each off of The Obliterati and The Sound, The Speed, The Light, and a few from last year’s Unsound. Add a couple of the post-Vs. 80’s songs (“He Is/She Is” and “Nu Disco”), plus the crowd favorite anthem, “Academy Fight Song,” and you’ve got a Burma gig for the ages.

I recorded this set with the AKGs clamped to the soundboard railing. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Special thanks to The Bell House team for being instrumental in making this recording happen.

Download the complete show at the Live Music Archive.

Stream the complete show:

Mission of Burma
2015-06-26
The Bell House
Brooklyn, NY

Recorded and produced by dynamicalories

AKG C480B/CK63 (FOB, ROC, PAS) > Roland R-26 > WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (balance) > Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (amplify, fades, downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [01:12:14]
01. Secrets
02. 2wice
03. Let Yourself Go
04. Panic is No Option
05. Buzz My Soul
06. Nu Disco
07. Mica
08. Outlaw
09. This is Hi-fi
10. Sectionals in Mourning
11. Feed
12. He Is/She Is
13. 7’s
14. This is Not a Photograph
15. Red
16. That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate
17. [Encore Break/Tape Loops]
18. The Ballad of Johnny Burma
19. Academy Fight Song
20. All World Cowboy Romance

Support Mission of Burma: Website | Facebook | Buy records and merch through their online store

Lake Street Dive: June 7, 2015 Mountain Jam (Hunter, NY) – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

June 25, 2015
By

20150607_MountainJam_LakeStreetDive_Performance_Timmermans_0395 - Copy
[Photo by Joshua Timmermans from the Mountain Jam website]

Much has changed since we saw Lake Street Dive open for the Infamous Stringdusters three years ago. Mainly, they’re a much, much more popular band. You won’t see this band, whose 2014 album Bad Self Portraits has proven to be their breakout, opening for acts at 500-capacity venues anymore, or playing “I Want You Back” to street corner passersby, as they did way back in the beginning. As is refreshingly the case from time to time, the band’s success seems to be rooted in talent — even at that show in 2012, the unit’s professionalism was clear. Though at the time I compared them to Alabama Shakes, Lake Street Dive’s south-meets-Motown style leans to the shinier, more theatrical side of things, mostly free of grit. “Theatrical” is the word that comes to mind most often with this band, who perform with both a Broadway-like precision and take advantage of Rachael Price’s similarly trained-sounding voice. Unsurprising detail: the band met at the New England Conservatory. This is what happens when a bunch of serious players and students of jazz decide to take on pop music: It’s a bit like an NFL quarterback deciding to go throw some passes with his old high school team.

That made it almost funny to hear Lake Street Dive playing to a muddy Mountain Jam field in the Catskills, delivering effortless vocal harmonies such as on “Look At What Mistake.” If the traditional “jam band” festivals revel to a degree in unpredictability, well, that’s one of many reasons this “Jam” isn’t really a jam-band festival anymore. This was Lake Street Dive’s last show of the tour, as they told us, but you’d have been hard pressed to hear a hint of weariness anywhere from the band. Price did, of course, point out that they try to “eat their vegetables” and treat themselves right on tour, and that I’d believe. She followed that statement, ironically, with the song “I Deserve To Do Something Wrong,” with its distinct Jackson 5 vibe. That was a new song written by the band’s bass player, Bridget Kearney, and it was followed by another new one, “I Don’t Care About You,” from drummer Michael Calabrese. Another plus for this band — they’re as collaborative and consistent in songwriting duties as they are in musical ones.

It wouldn’t be a Mountain Jam set without some choice covers, and Lake Street Dive chose wisely, serving up a version of Annie Lennox’s “Walking On Broken Glass” that Price knocked out of the park, as well as jamming into Van Halen’s “Jump” out of the Bad Self Portraits favorite “Bobby Tanqueray,” which itself is one of the band’s harder-rocking numbers. The band closed the set with “You Go Down Smooth,” and those words are as true of the band itself as of the lover described in the song. This is a positive, grateful group of pros who know where they came from. It’s not hard to guess where they’re headed.

hi and lo and I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones and a high-end EAA PSP-2 analog preamp. Given the outdoor setting  and distance from the PA, the sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Lake Street Dive
2015-06-07
Mountain Jam, East Stage
Hunter, NY USA

Hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded by hi and lo and acidjack
Produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK4V (PAS)>custom cables>PFA>EAA PSP-2>Roland R-26>24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (fades, limit peaks)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Bad Self Portraits
02 Stop Your Crying
03 Clear a Space
04 Look At What Mistake
05 I Deserve To Do Something Wrong
06 I Don’t Care About You
07 Use Me Up
08 Spectacular Failure
09 Elijah
10 What I’m Doing Here
11 Wedding Band
12 Walking on Broken Glass [Annie Lennox]
13 Bobby Tanqueray / Jump [Van Halen]
14 Close To Me
15 Seventeen
16 Hello? Goodbye!
17 Rabid Animal
18 You Go Down Smooth

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Lake Street Dive, visit their website, and buy Bad Self Portraits here.

The Space Merchants: June 8, 2015 Rough Trade – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

June 25, 2015
By

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Brooklyn’s The Space Merchants gathered us together a couple Mondays ago at Rough Trade to celebrate the release of their stellar self-titled debut album on the tiny imprint Aqualamb Records. The band’s sound boasts a cohesive but diverse set of rock influences, from the Velvet Underground to Black Sabbath to Bobbie Gentry (per a recent profile), and you feel the weight of those influences equally in a number of songs (take, for example, the stellar “One Cut Like the Moon”). Onstage, the Merchants are a cohesive unit both when they’re playing and not — I laughed at guitarist/singer Michael Guggino and keyboardist/singer Ani Monteleone bantering about who, exactly, the band’s rather novel release format (a 100-page book of custom images, with a download code at the back) was intended for. Guggino comes to the Merchants from beloved Brooklyn “stoner punk boogie metal” band Mount Olympus, which didn’t take itself very seriously (songs like “Get Yer Ass to Mars”), but musically was no joke, and we recently caught drummer Carter Logan playing with his other band, Jim Jarmusch and Jozef Van Wissim’s SQÜRL, at this very venue. Keyboardist/vocalist Monteleone and bassist Aileen Brophy have popped up in a variety of local bands and music-related ventures as well, making it a bit less surprising that The Space Merchants would be so dialed-in at a relatively early point in their cycle (not that they haven’t already opened for Acid Mothers Temple, among others).

Though they lead off the night, the Merchants played a tight set to a full floor, launching straight away into the stoner-metal crunch of “Kiss The Sky,” which gave Guggino a chance at some guitar pyrotechnics that would’ve made Mount Olympus proud. After the almost comically upbeat “Beatniks” the band took us back to earth with the sludgy “1000 Years of Boredom.” Then we got a non-album track, “Transcendental Superconscious State,” which with any luck will end up on official release somewhere. For my money, the deep groove of “One Cut Like the Moon” makes it my favorite of the band’s songs, but it’s hard to argue with “Evil Itch,” the song that they chose to close with, and the album’s lead single. Monteleone’s lead vocal, the mid-song tempo downshift, and the surge that follows sound exactly like Magnet described it — “the emerging days of California’s acid-rock scene and the final days of Woodstock.” With many positive mentions coming in for the record, and with a live show like this, The Space Merchants should be a don’t-miss on your Brooklyn concert schedule.

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

The Space Merchants
2015-06-08
Rough Trade NYC
Brooklyn, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK4V (PAS)>KCY>Z-PFA + Soundboard (engineer: Nic Cameron)>>Roland R-26>24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (mix down, fades, limit peaks)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 34:07]
01 Kiss the Sky
02 Beatniks
03 1000 Years of Boredom
04 Transcendental Superconscious State
05 One Cut Like the Moon
06 Mainline the Sun
07 Evil Itch

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT The Space Merchants, visit their facebook page, and buy their album from Aqualamb Records.

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