The Rooks: January 23, 2014 Piano’s – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

January 27, 2014
By

rooks7-1
[Photo from the prior week’s show courtesy of Shayne Hanley of Shutterhound Photography]

I guess I shouldn’t say I was shocked at the size and age of the crowd that was out for The Rooks‘ third of four Piano’s Thursday night residencies. If you watch the Grammys or read most music blogs, you could be forgiven for expecting fans to only be interested in bands defined more by their haircuts or who their “producer” credits go to than the music they are making. The Rooks are a complete breath of fresh air in that respect. Their value proposition is simple: Well-executed, well-crafted classic R&B and soul delivered with maximum enthusiasm and minimum attitude. Think the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, The Spinners.

Recent grads of Wesleyan University (a school famous for birthing less-conventional bands like MGMT and Das Racist), this young sextet has honed their craft to a tee, playing music that honors its history and lives up to its standards. That their cover songs, like the Fugees version of “Killing Me Softly” or Destiny’s Child’s “Bills, Bills, Bills” stand up as well as they do next to the band’s originals like their single “Twister” or the uptempo “Fall For You” is a testament to just how good they are at what they do. But the best compliment to them of all comes from the crowd they bring out — they bring bodies in the door, and once they’re there, get them moving. I had no doubt that this residency will launch this band to bigger stages — and it already has. The last night of the residency this Thursday, January 30 at Pianos, is sold out, but the band will be at the Gramercy Theatre on February 27. Tickets here.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed provided by house engineer Wilfred, combined with Schoeps MK4V microphones. I weighted the final mix more heavily toward the board than I would have liked, owing to the rowdiness of the crowd, who you can clearly hear having a good time on the tape. While you lose a little bit of “room” feel, the sound quality is nonetheless outstanding. Enjoy!

Stream “Fall For You”

Stream “Killing Me Softly” [The Fugees]

Download the complete show [MP3] | [FLAC]

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

IMG_6583
[Photo of this show by acidjack]

The Rooks
2014-01-23
Piano’s
New York, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Wilfred) + Schoeps MK4V>KC5>CMC6>Sound Devices USBPre2>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, adjust levels, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, stereo imaging)>Audacity 2.0.3 (tracking, fades, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 58:47]
01 Grounded
02 Fall For You
03 Twister
04 Talk To Me
05 Killing Me Softly [Fugees version]
06 You’re the One
07 Love You Down [Me’shell Ndegeocello version]
08 Doubt
09 Don’t Change My Mind
10 [banter]
11 Bills, Bills, Bills [Destiny’s Child]
12 Let Down
13 Lefty

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT The Rooks, like them on Facebook, and buy their music on their bandcamp page.

Wild Cub: October 18, 2013 Terminal 5 – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

January 24, 2014
By


IMG_5997
[photo by acidjack]

Some people can’t stand music that isn’t ironic, or witty, or whatever quality it is that keeps half of the 90s indie canon coming back for reunions these days. Odd, then, the pairing of Nashville up-and-comers Wild Cub with 90s stalwarts The Dismemberment Plan, playing the overlarge room at Terminal 5. If a clearer delineation between musical generations could be made in one lineup, I can’t think of one. The D-Plan are a great band — they’re ironic and often witty, sure, and they have some killer tunes. Listening to them makes you feel like an insider — like some people just don’t get it.

Wild Cub make straight up synth pop, relentlessly upbeat and big-tent inclusive. This show was during CMJ, where almost everyone is networking and ignoring the bands anyway, and worse yet, most of them are playing for free. But nobody seemed to have bummed out Wild Cub; they thanked us over and over for our generosity. Even a not-yet-full Terminal 5 couldn’t contain their enthusiasm. It made me feel like a jerk, to be so blown away that these guys were so nice, to wonder, really, what they had to be so effing happy about.

Many of their songs are good, too, full of big hooks and exuding big-hearted earnestness like middle period U2. Just listen to “Thunder Clatter” or the new “Blacktide” — you’ll get the picture. You might even smile, or at least, feel a feeling other than self-indulgent disdain for your fellow man. The band just re-released their debut album, Youth, to the world with two new tracks, and it’s a well-crafted dose of sunshine and songcraft that, in the manner popular these days, drags the guitars onto the dance floor. Up front, they even got some of these D-Plan veterans moving.

Wild Cub aren’t a band for cynics, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe your music ought to be happy, no matter how much the real world sucks. Isn’t that what inspires the future to happen, after all?

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK41 microphones and a Sound Devices preamp. The sound quality is limited by being at the back of the floor of Terminal 5, with there being additional echo as the room filled up during the set. Nonetheless, it is a quality capture. Enjoy!

Thanks to Wild Cub’s team for inviting us to record their set.

Stream “Thunder Clatter”

Download the complete show [MP3] | [FLAC]

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

Wild Cub
2013-10-18
Terminal 5
New York, NY USA

Hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK41 (BOB, DFC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>Sound Devices USBPre2>Sony PCM-D50>24bit/48kHz WAV>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Shapeless
02 Colour
03 Jonti
04 Wild Light
05 Hidden In the Night
06 Blacktide
07 Wishing Well
08 Thunder Clatter
09 Summer Fires / Hidden Spells

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Wild Cub, visit their website, and buy signed LPs and digital versions of Youth there.

Kevin Morby: January 16, 2014 Mercury Lounge – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

January 23, 2014
By

IMG_5847-3
[Photos courtesy of Bleary Eyed Brooklyn]

Kevin Morby has been part of a couple of bands we love, The Babies and, in particular, Woods, so we are excited to be a part of his next musical phase. Kevin left New York for the sunnier climes of LA this past year, and his record Harlem River is a bit of a wistful sayonara to his time here. Compared to his other bands, the record moves at a more sedate pace than the Babies, and doesn’t rely on the guitar freakouts that underline the best songs in the Woods catalog. The new material makes the case for Morby as a songwriter, without having to play loud and fast to make a point. The songs are reflective, mature and most importantly, memorable. Harlem River was easily one of the year’s most underrated records.

Morby opened a packed Mercury Lounge on this Thursday night that was already full for his set. Cate Le Bon is featured on one of the Harlem River tracks, “Slow Train”, so it makes sense that they’d share some of the same crowd. He hadn’t been to New York in a while, he said, and his first offerings to get us in his good graces were two new songs, “The Jester, The Tramp and the Acrobat” and the faster “The Ballad of Arlo Jones”, which is streaming below. From there, he hit the highlights of Harlem River’s eight songs, including a rendition of the title track that offered some extended guitar work, and the album’s logical single, “Miles, Miles, Miles”. For a closer, Morby went back to the well of new material, delivering the excellent “All My Life”, a song that shows that his new journey is only in its beginning stages. Expect to see the new songs on a forthcoming LP (timing TBD). You can follow Kevin on Twitter to keep up with his latest.

I recorded this set in the same manner as the Cate Le Bon recording, and the sound quality is similarly outstanding. Enjoy!

Thanks to Kevin Morby and Woodsist for their assistance.

Stream “The Ballad of Arlo Jones”

Stream “Harlem River”

Download the complete show [MP3] | [FLAC]

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

IMG_5850-2

Kevin Morby
2014-01-16
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY USA

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

Schoeps MK41 (PAS)>KCY>Z-PFA + Soundboard (engineers: Kevin Mazzarelli and [ ])>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects, light EQ)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 38:15]
01 The Jester, the Tramp and the Acrobat
02 The Ballad of Arlo Jones
03 Sucker In the Void
04 Harlem River
05 Wild Side (Oh the Places You’ll Go)
06 Slow Train
07 Miles, Miles, Miles
08 All of My Life

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Kevin Morby, visit his website, and buy Harlem River from Woodsist.

Deafheaven: January 18, 2014 285 Kent – Flac/MP3/Streaming

January 22, 2014
By

deafheaven-22
[photos by PSquared Photography]

Good things come to those who wait. I arrived at 285 Kent at about 7:30pm on Saturday night prepared for a seven-band marathon show, but not quite expecting that the headliner would not take the stage until 2:45am the following morning. But Deafheaven at any ungodly hour is still an intense and entirely worthwhile experience. While quite a few of the overflowing sold-out crowd didn’t make it to the end, the space gave the diehards the option to get right upfront and experience the manic energy of George Clarke face to face. And George didn’t disappoint, getting right into the first few rows for most of the show. I’ll admit having a hard time keeping up the energy as their hour-long set pushed until nearly four a.m., but the band had no such problem. We’ve seen Deafheaven twice before and each time we were breathless even from the back of the room at Saint Vitus. But upfront and personal, the experience is that much more fervent. For the set, the band worked through virtually all of Sunbather (sans one instrumental track) — the album that saw them at or near the top of virtually every single published Best-of list for 2013. Deafheaven begins a two-month cross-country tour of the US in a few weeks, and their next appearance in NYC will be at Governor’s Ball. Like 285 Kent, the days of seeing Deafheaven from a few feet away in a DIY venue have pretty much ended, but having had this last experience, I’m ok with that.

I recorded this set in my usual manner in this venue, with the Sennheiser cards mounted on the beam near the stage and mixed with a board feed. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Stream “Vertigo”:

Download the Complete show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

deafheaven-4

Deafheaven
2014-01-18
285 Kent
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Sennheiser MKH-8040s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, set fades, downsample) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and Tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 50:31]
01 Dream House
02 Sunbather
03 Please Remember
04 Vertigo
05 Windows
06 The Pecan Tree

unartigNYC has posted a video of this entire set.

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Deafheaven, visit their website, and purchase their official releases including Sunbather from Deathwish Inc. [HERE].

deafheaven-25

Cate Le Bon: January 16, 2014 Mercury Lounge – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

January 21, 2014
By

IMG_5895_THIS
[Photos courtesy of Bleary Eyed Brooklyn]

Cate Le Bon‘s 2013 album Mug Museum (and her 2012 effort Cyrk) reminded me of many of the things that I loved about indie rock in the first place: simple, slightly hazy production; direct, memorable hooks; lyrics that meant something; and an unforced vibe that didn’t sound it was trying too hard. The Achilles heel of that last quality has tended to be that it comes off live as boredom or slacking. With Cate Le Bon, I’m pleased to report that’s not the case.

Together with Kevin Morby (that recording coming soon), Le Bon easily sold out the Mercury Lounge for this night. So much so, in fact, that there must have been some regret about not going with a bigger venue. When you can get a line down the street pre-doors for a Thursday night early show in January, you’ve probably got enough buzz to play to more than 200 people. That said, it’s hard to replicate the feeling of seeing a great act in a club that’s both that intimate and that good sounding, and whatever this crowd lacked in sheer numbers it more than made up for in enthusiasm.

Resplendent in a shimmering aquamarine dress with sheer side vents, Le Bon played us most of Mug Museum along with select tracks from Cyrk, the Cyrk II companion EP and her debut album, Me Oh My. Le Bon earns comparisons to Nico from time to time, and there are flashes of her singing style at play, but the Welsh singer’s range is broader, and she seems a bit more approachable to spend an evening with. Live, Cate’s songs gained a heady dose of immediacy compared to their recorded counterparts. While “Sisters” doubled as the energetic peak at this show and on the record, “Duke” felt transformed into a heavier, less distant number when played live in that small room. Le Bon’s vocals were strong throughout the night, as was her band, who followed her whims on this night rather than the pre-planned setlist. These sixty-one minutes of pleasure were a sell-out well earned, and we expect Le Bon and the band will keep that streak up as the head west.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed arranged by the band’s traveling engineer (if you have his name, please pass it along so I can credit accordingly) and the head Mercury engineer Kevin Mazzarelli, along with Schoeps MK41 microphones. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Le Bon will be on tour in the U.S. until the end of this month before hitting the UK and then Europe in February and early March. You can find the dates here.

Stream “Sisters”

Download the complete show [MP3] | [FLAC]

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

IMG_5889-2

Cate Le Bon
2014-01-16
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY USA

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

Schoeps MK41 (PAS)>KCY>Z-PFA + Soundboard (engineers: Kevin Mazzarelli and [ ])>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects, light EQ)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time: 61 minutes]
01 No God
02 Are You With Me Now?
03 I Can’t Help You
04 Duke
05 Eyes So Bright
06 Mirror Me
07 Sisters
08 Falcon Eyed
09 What Is Worse
10 The Man I Wanted
11 Wild
12 [encore break]
13 Solitude
14 Fold the Cloth

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Cate Le Bon, visit her website, and buy her records in her online store.

Lee Ranaldo and The Dust: January 11, 2014 Bell House – Flac/MP3/Streaming

January 16, 2014
By

Lee at Bell House
[photo by Kevin Bannon]

The last time we checked in with Lee Ranaldo, he played the penultimate show in the history of Maxwell’s. At that point, Lee had a series of new songs that would eventually appear on his second post-Sonic Youth album Last Night on Earth which was ultimately released in October. Like its predecessor 2102’s Between the Times and the Tides, Last Night is a mature, honest and straightforward rock album. For the new album and the tours of 2013, Lee has credited his band “The Dust” which currently consists of downtown guitar wiz Alan Licht, bassist Tim Lüntzel and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley. At the Bell House on Saturday night, Lee and the band played a lengthy set to a energetic crowd. All nine tracks of the new album were performed in the set along with selected older tracks and three interesting covers. It was the last night of the tour and Lee referenced the difficulties of a broken amp and a series of broken strings. But the band persevered and produced 100 minutes of outstanding music that was both tight and also offered a chance for the band to stretch out and jam. Lee Ranaldo and The Dust will appear again in NYC at the Union Pool on February 13.

I recorded this set with the Sennheiser cards mounted in the raised VIP area and mixed with an excellent board engineered by Lee’s tour FOH Jay Eigenmann. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Stream “Lecce Leaving”:

Stream “Everybody’s Been Burned” (Byrds cover):

Download the Complete show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

Lee Ranaldo and The Dust
2014-01-11
Bell House
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard (engineer Jay) + Sennheiser MKH-8040s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, set fades, downsample) > CDWave 1.95 > (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and Tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:37:49]
01 KeyHole
02 Last Night On Earth
03 Lecce Leaving
04 By the Window
05 Ambulancer
06 Home Chds
07 [The Rising Tide intro]
08 The Rising Tide
09 Off The Wall
10 Angles
11 Late Descent
12 Everybody’s Been Burned [Byrds]
13 [banter – thanks]
14 Xtina as I Knew Her
15 [encore break]
16 Fragile [Wire]
17 Mannequin [Wire]
18 Blackt Out

If you download this recording from NYCTaper we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Lee Ranaldo, visit his page at the Sonic Youth website, and purchase Last Night On Earth directly from the Matador Records website [HERE].

SUPPORT NYCTaper




Email

Email nyctaper

DISCLAIMER and LEGAL NOTICE

nyctaper.com is a live music blog that offers a new paradigm of music distribution on the web. The recordings are offered for free on this site as are the music posts, reviews and links to artist sites. All recordings are posted with artist permission or artists with an existing pro-taping policy.

All recordings and original content posted on this site are @nyctaper.com as live recordings pursuant to 17 U.S.C. Section 106, et. seq. Redistribution of nyctaper recordings without consent of nyctaper.com is strictly prohibited.

nyctaper.com hereby waives all copyright claims to any and all recordings posted on this site to THE PERFORMERS ONLY. If any artist posted on this site requests that recordings be removed, those recordings will be removed forthwith.