nyctaper | New York's live music archivist

Bent Shapes: August 25, 2013 South Street Seaport – Flac/MP3/Streaming

August 27, 2013

[photo by Carrie Lynch]

They don’t come often, perfect days in NYC. I made my way downtown to the South Street Seaport on Sunday for a show. As soon as I stepped outside, it was obvious that this was one of those late Summer afternoons when the oppressive heat is over and the chill of Autumn has yet to arrive, and there is not a cloud in the sky and the air quality is as perfect it can be in this City. At the Seaport, Bill Pearis has been producing the Soundbites Concert Series for several years now, and its a sin that I had never seen a single episode, despite that Bill’s musical knowledge and ability to pick next-big-thing bands is second to none. This year I made it just in time, since this week was this year’s final in the series and featured Boston’s Bent Shapes. The band had spent its first three years of existence known as Girlfriends, releasing several 7 inch singles, and becoming a regular in the local DIY scene. But 2013 turned a new page for the trio. The band changed its name to Bent Shapes and this month released its first full length album. Sunday’s thirty-minute 12-song set was an excellent lesson in getting to the point. Bent Shapes play what could be described as punk-pop, indie rock, or power pop — but forget the labels. This is a trio of excellent musicians who play excellent songs and don’t mess around. In terms of the vitals, the set consisted of 7 of the 11 tracks from the new album Feels Weird (Father/Daughter Records), and couple of new songs. When I came downtown the only thing left to convert a beautiful day into a perfect one was some superb music. On Sunday, that was Bent Shapes.

I recorded this set by mounting the Sennheiser cards at the stage lip and mixing with a board feed. The mics picked up primarily the instruments on stage and the board was vocal heavy, but mixed together the sources created an ideal mix and an outstanding recording. Enjoy!

Stream “What We Do is Public”:

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.

Bent Shapes
2013-08-26
South Street Seaport
Soundbites Concert Series
New York, NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Sennheiser MKH-8040s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper 2013-08-26

Setlist:
[Total Time 29:58]
01 Big Machines
02 Bites and Scratches
03 Leave It Til You Need It
04 86d in 03
05 Panel of Experts
06 [banter]
07 Hex Maneuvers
08 It Seems Dumb
09 Leave Some Space
10 What Do You Get
11 What We Do is Public
12 [banter – thanks]
13 Norms Out
14 Behead Yrself Pt 2

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Bent Shapes, visit their bandcamp page and their tumblr page, and purchase Feels Weird from the band’s Bandcamp page or the Father/Daughter Records site [HERE].

Ski Lodge: August 20, 2013 Glasslands – Flac/MP3/Streaming

August 25, 2013

By nyctaper

[photo by Ian Perlman]

It was a little more than a year ago when acidjack predicted the success of Ski Lodge on these very pages. That 2012 Northside show was a precursor of what we see now in this band — strong 80s-influenced songcraft performed by a tight and talented quintet. Ski Lodge has now released their debut album Big Heart and Tuesday night at Glasslands was the CD release show. As lead singer Andrew Marr noted during the show, it was encouraging that on a late summer midweek night the band still managed to pack Glasslands with an animated crowd. The first few rows were consistently dancing throughout the set and the band obliged with perky indie-pop numbers that made moving easy. The setlist included 8 of the album’s 11 tracks and two songs from the band’s debut EP. We’re streaming the set finale, a scorching version of “Just To Be Like You” that closed the set in appropriate fashion and left the frenetic crowd wanting more.

I recorded this set in our usual manner in this venue and the sound is superb. Enjoy!

Stream “Just To Be Like You”:

Download the Complete show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Ski Lodge
2013-08-20
Glasslands Gallery
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Naiant X-R Cardioid > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, set fades, downsample) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and Tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper 2013-08-21

Setlist
[Total Time 39:24]
01 I Would Die To Be
02 I Always Thought
03 Does It Bring You Down
04 [banter – new record]
05 Dragging Me To Hell
06 Down On This Southern Tip
07 Big Heart
08 Anything To Hurt You
09 Looking For A Change
10 Boy
11 Just To Be Like You

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Ski Lodge, visit their website, and purchase Big Heart from the Shop at her website or at the Dovecote Records site [HERE].

Ume: July 23, 2013 Maxwell’s – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

August 22, 2013

By acidjack

[Photo courtesy of Oliver Lopena]

There are many reasons to like the Austin band Ume, who’ve been hailed as a Next Big Thing in guitar rock more than a few times by people in the know. They’ve built that reputation on a few solid pillars, the first being an excellent live show helmed by vocalist/guitarist Lauren Langner Larson. Larson is a riot of thrashing hair and gravelly vocals onstage, almost impossible not to watch. The band coasted into Maxwell’s for one of its final nights riding a wave of SXSW buzz and ready to warm up for a show or two in Manhattan in the next days. These shows would also give the band a chance to test out some of the songs for the follow-up to their 2011 album, Phantoms, a cohesive set of music best experienced at high volumes, even better, live in a room.

Ume came out strong on this night with “The Conductor”, one of the highlights from Phantoms, followed by a song they’re calling “Bass Face” for now. They were sharp, intense, rabid — real guitar rock, and proud of it. Then, in the middle of yet another semi-titled song, “Curish”, the band’s momentum took a devastating hit when some house gear blew, causing them to lose guitars. “Curish” stopped.

These are the moments that solidify or break young bands. They either pull through, or they don’t. Ume took a few minutes to re-group, re-write their setlist, switch out gear. Then they pummeled us with another new one, called “On the One” right now. Three more songs after that, whose intensity made up for lost time and momentum. For the band, the night went less-than-ideal. For people like me, who’d never seen them before, it gave a lot of reasons to see them again.

So, in deference to the band, please listen to the concert captured here with this caveat: I can’t claim it’s this band at their best, because they don’t. We felt, and the band agreed, that as this would be their only show at the now-closed legendary club, it was worth having out there as a document for history. And really — if this isn’t this band at their absolute best, how good must that be? I’d urge you to find out by streaming and buying their tracks on bandcamp, and more importantly, seeing them on tour.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK5 microphones and a soundboard feed from Mitch, a Maxwell’s engineer. The sound quality of the capture it excellent despite the equipment issues on stage.

Stream “The Conductor”

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

[Photo courtesy of Chris Casciano and available for sale on his site]

Ume
2013-07-23
Maxwell’s
Hoboken, NJ USA

Hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard (engineer: Mitch) + Schoeps MK5 (PAS)>KCY>Z-PFA>>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, tape exciter)>Audacity 2.03 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 The Conductor
02 Bass Face $
03 Curish *
04 On The One $
05 Chase It Down
06 Xie Xie
07 Black Stone

$ working title
* working title/gear issues and cuts out

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Ume, visit their website, visit their bandcamp page, and purchase their music there and from their online store.

Hiss Golden Messenger: August 17, 2013 Glasslands – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

August 20, 2013

By acidjack

[Photos courtesy of P Squared Photography]

A man can make complicated music these days in a room alone with a machine. Create a symphony out of bits and bytes, a hit single out of a 4/4 beat and an idea. If you look at what’s celebrated most often in music these days it’s one person transcending the limits of money and time and space and the need for bandmates, usually because of his or her skill with a machine. In case you forgot, men alone have been doing that for decades, centuries, eons. Just the machines were simpler.

Hiss Golden Messenger has more words in its name than regular band members. In the studio the band is MC Taylor, former lead singer of beloved San Francisco band The Court & Spark, and longtime collaborator Scott Hirsch, plus the cream of available guest players. On the road, it’s often Taylor alone.

What started it all — a rough-hewn bit of work called Bad Debt — was nothing more than Taylor banging out songs with a guitar and a tape deck in his kitchen, while his baby slept. If it sounds old-fashioned, way more old-fashioned than some wide-eyed impresario making beats with a MacBook Pro and Ableton, well, that’s because it is. Sometimes the best things are the simplest things, the ones made how we used to before everything got too easy. But to hear the deep feeling and rich meaning that Taylor can put into a song with the tools he has, well, the old way starts to look economical. Take the Bad Debt spirit, add a band and unforced, high-quality production, and you’ve got masterpieces like his two primary releases on North Carolina imprint Paradise of Bachelors — Poor Moon and this year’s Haw, which are probably my two favorite records of the past two years.

This night’s show at Glasslands — Taylor’s first New York show in four years — brought us back to the Bad Debt days, with Taylor alone at a guitar in front of a room that, with no disrespect to the night’s headliner Daughn Gibson, seemed to include a lot of folks, myself included, who’d come to see him. We were rewarded again and again. Taylor’s typical set-starting song, “Father Sky” found itself replaced with his version of a traditional song, most recently popularized as “When I Was A Young Girl” by Nina Simone. Two new numbers, possibly to appear on an upcoming EP, showed up for the first time I’ve heard them. “Southern Grammar”, streaming below, was particularly breathtaking, continuing Mike’s ongoing lyrical struggles with faith. On stage sitting down in old jeans, a white tank top and a Caterpillar hat, Mike looked like an anachronism, especially on a Saturday night. He didn’t have much for us to look at, gimmicks to parlay into Twitter excitement or iPhone photos. Hiss Golden Messenger had nothing but music, and words. He sang, and the world went still.

This recording is primarily the soundboard feed of engineer Josh Thiel’s house mix, plus a small amount of the house mics for ambiance. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Stream “Southern Grammar”

Stream “The Serpent Is Kind (Compared to Man)”

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

Hiss Golden Messenger
2013-08-17
Glasslands
Brooklyn, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard (engineer: Josh Thiel) + Naiant XR>Sound Devices USBPre2>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (light reverb to SBD)>Izotope Ozone 5 (tape effect)>Audacity (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 38:28]
01 When I Was A Young (Boy) [Nina Simone]
02 [banter1]
03 Blue Country Mystic
04 Call Him Daylight
05 [banter2]
06 O Little Light
07 He Wrote the Book
08 Southern Grammar
09 [banter3]
10 Chapter & Verse
11 The Serpent Is Kind (Compared To Man)
12 [banter4]
13 I’ve Got A Name For The Newborn Child

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Hiss Golden Messenger, like him on Facebook, and purchase Haw and his other releases on digital or vinyl from Paradise of Bachelors [HERE], or all of his releases on vinyl [HERE].

Alex Bleeker & The Freaks: July 27, 2013 Bowery Ballroom – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

August 16, 2013

By acidjack

[photo by acidjack]

I know I’ve thrown around the term “indie rock jam-band” before. But it’s hard to find a more appropriate label for Alex Bleeker & The Freaks, who used their three quarters of an hour opening for fellow Brooklynites Woods at Bowery Ballroom to play more than a few songs that hearkened to an earlier era in tone and in their ability to flow seamlessly from one to the other. Bleeker, who also serves as bassist in Real Estate, had a birthday on this night, and he treated himself by playing songs that I suspect reminded him of home. You knew this set was going to be right when the band led off with the Grateful Dead’s “Let the Good Times Roll” and went from there into a mix of songs from the band’s latest record and fun-loving covers that did exactly what the first one promised.

If you listen to their new record, How Far Away, you’d be forgiven for the cheap comparison that Bleeker & the Freaks sound almost like a hybrid of Woods and Real Estate at points, with some of the former band’s lo-fi style blending with Real Estate’s easygoing sound. That’s no more in evidence than on “Home I Love”, which made for one of this show’s most compact bursts of good feeling. That led into a superjam of sorts, with three more numbers from the album, with “See You On Sunday” jamming into “Steve’s Theme” and then “Rhythm Shakers” before the band switched gears into Katrina and the Waves’ all-time classic “Walking On Sunshine”. After “Step Right Up (Pour Yourself Some Wine)”, Bleeker toasted his birthday in grand style with their song “Epilogue” teasing Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” into the set closer, Brewer & Shipley’s “One Toke Over the Line”. A happy birthday, indeed.

I recorded this set in the same manner as the Woods recording with Schoeps MK5 microphones and a soundboard feed from longtime Bowery engineer Kenny. The sound is outstanding. Enjoy!

Stream “Home I Love”

Stream “Epilogue>One Toke Over the Line”

Download the complete show in [MP3] or [FLAC]

Alex Bleeker & the Freaks
2013-07-27
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY USA

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

Schoeps MK5 (DINa, DFC)>KCY>Z-PFA>Sound Devices USBPre2 + Soundboard (engineer: Kenny)>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.03 (fades, tracking, amplify, light parallel compression, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [intro banter]
02 Let the Good Times Roll [Grateful Dead]
03 Don’t Look Down
04 Home I Love
05 [banter]
06 See You On Sunday>Steve’s Theme>Rhythm Shakers
07 Walking On Sunshine [Katrina and the Waves]
08 Step Right Up (Pour Yourself Some Wine)
09 Epilogue>One Toke Over the Line [Brewer and Shipley]

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Alex Bleeker & The Freaks, visit their website, and buy their latest, How Far Away, from Woodsist Records.

NYCTaper Upcoming Schedule: Fall 2013

August 14, 2013

By nyctaper

Its been an interesting Summer here at NYCTaper. We’ve had some great experiences both locally and on the road, but also the bittersweet experience of the last excellent month of Maxwell’s followed by its untimely closing. The Wilco all-covers set was certainly a benchmark for the site, as we received links web-wide and something like 20,000 downloads. This Fall we’ll continue on with a strong schedule of shows with both new bands to the site and some old favorites.

[Caveat: Below is the updated schedule. We expect to attend and record these events. However, circumstances will prevent some of these from being done, and others will be added in the meantime.]

If you want nyctaper to record your band, a band you represent, a show you’re promoting, or even your favorite band in the world, get us in the door and make sure everyone who needs to approve of the recording gives permission. Also, remember each person on the nyctaper crew does this all for free, the recordings, the post-production, the reviews, the links, etc., so treat us fairly.

Schedule:

Pop 1280:
August 16, 2013 Mercury Lounge NYC

Daughn Gibson / Hiss Golden Messenger:
August 17, 2013 Glasslands Gallery Brooklyn

Ski Lodge:
August 20, 2013 Glasslands Gallery Brooklyn (permission pending)

Mac DeMarco:
August 28, 2013 East River Park NYC

Ty Segall:
August 29, 2013 Music Hall of Williamsburg

She Keeps Bees:
August 29, 2013 Glasslands Gallery Brooklyn

Ty Segall:
August 30, 2013 Bowery Ballroom NYC

Captured Tracks Festival:
August 31 and September 1, 2013 The Well Brooklyn

Swearin:
September 4, 2013 285 Kent Brooklyn

Hopscotch Festival:
September 5-7, 2013 Various Venues Raleigh NC

North Mississippi Allstars:
September 11, 2013 Irving Plaza NYC