Yo La Tengo: May 11, 2011 Bell House – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Songs

May 15, 2011
By


[Photo from the 5/10 show courtesy of Chris Gerbeck at fucking nostalgic]

After an epic Tuesday night “Spin the Wheel” show that found Yo La Tengo playing a special “Name Game” first set, the second night kicked off with “I’d Like To Buy A Vowel,” a new wheel item that requires the band to play only songs of theirs that begin in vowels. In other words, the fans got some great music, but compared to having to, say, perform a classic sitcom, it was a fairly lucky and safe choice for the band. The safe moves ended after that, though, as they kicked off with the punked-up “Artificial Heart” that transitioned seamlessly into their more mellow classic, “Autumn Sweater.” From there the band played through the low-key trio of “If It’s True,” “I’m On My Way” and “Alyda” before kicking the tempo back up with the explosive (and rarely played) “86-Second Blowout” from 1992’s May I Sing With Me. After an inspired, noise-drenched “Outsmartener”, the band launched into an insane 14-minute version of “I Heard You Looking” that left it all on the stage. It was hard to imagine a band not finishing an entire show, let alone a set, after such a monster performance, but this being Yo La Tengo, they let us come down easy, wrapping up set one with the subdued Lou Reed cover, “It’s Alright (The Way That You Live).”

In general, I felt like the sequencing of this show was a slight improvement over the previous night, though we have seen so many Yo La Tengo shows in the past 12 months, it is hard to play favorites. Still, the second set of this show felt incredibly cohesive, kicking off with “Walking Away From You,” a 12-minute “More Stars Than There Are In Heaven” and “False Alarm” all presented as a virtually seamless composition. The noisy side of Yo La Tengo has always been my favorite, so this trifecta pushed all the right buttons for me. Set 2 ended with another awesome 23-minute three-song series, of a monster “Big Day Coming” that found Ira in top form on guitar, jamming straight into “Tom Courtenay” and ending with the band’s reimagined version of Beach Boys’ “Little Honda”.

Perhaps feeling sheepish that they hadn’t been forced to play anything ridiculously out-of-the-box during their two Brooklyn shows, for the encore, the band decided to play a mini-set of three songs in their alter ego cover band mode, Condo Fucks. As with the first set, the encore ended on a quiet note, with another May I Sing With Me number, “Detouring America With Horns.” Few bands get the chance to do truly do whatever the want night after night in front of sell-out crowds, and Yo La Tengo have done everything possible to earn it. No matter how many shows you see, there are always new dimensions, new twists, new laughs, and new songs to be impressed and surprised by, and these two nights exemplified that perfectly.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps microphones running into an ultraquiet digital preamp, combined with an excellent soundboard feed. The results are outstanding. Enjoy!

Stream “86-Second Blowout”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/Y6644YLT9879/08 86 Second Blowout.mp3]

Stream “It’s Alright (The Way That You Live) [Lou Reed]”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/Y6644YLT9879/11 It’s Alright (The Way That You Live).mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Yo La Tengo
2011-05-11
The Bell House
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Equipment: SBD+Schoeps Mk41>CMC6>Sound Devices USBpre2>Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod] (24/48)
Position: At soundboard, DFC, mics pointed at stacks
Mastering: 2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity (mixdown, set fades, tracking, smooth peaks, amplify and balance, downsample to 16bit/44.1kHz)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
Set I: I’d Like To Buy A Vowel
01 Game Show Intro
02 Artificial Heart>
03 Autumn Sweater
04 If It’s True
05 I’m On My Way
06 [banter]
07 Alyda
08 86 Second Blowout
09 Outsmartener
10 I Heard You Looking
11 It’s Alright (The Way That You Live) [Lou Reed]

Set II
12 Walking Away From You>
13 More Stars Than There Are In Heaven>
14 False Alarm
15 [banter]
16 The Weakest Part
17 [banter]
18 Mr. Tough
19 Satellite>Big Day Coming>
20 Tom Courtenay
21 Little Honda [Beach Boys]
22 [encore break]

Encore: (Mostly) Condo Fucks Set
23 Whatcha Gonna Do [Small Faces]
24 Come On Baby [Young Rascals]
25 Dog Meat [Flamin’ Groovies]
26 Detouring America With Horns

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Yo La Tengo, visit their website, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their official releases from the store at their website [HERE].

Yo La Tengo: May 10, 2011 Bell House – Flac and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

May 13, 2011
By


[photo by Chris Gersbeck at Fxxking Nostalgic]

We’ve seen Yo La Tengo countless times over the last several years, but their two shows this week were new to us. The “Wheel Spin” shows have been performed outside the NYC area, but Tuesday’s show at Bell House was the first time that this set structure was played here. The band took the stage to the theme music from Wheel of Fortune, and Ira brought out the spinning wheel, called a fan up on stage, and the “Name Game” was the winner — i.e., the first set contained only songs with names in them. The quiet “Griselda” opened the set, but it was the weird “Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo” that foreshadowed the strangeness to come. The band pivoted from quiet to noisy songs on a dime, and the set ended with a trio of songs played with such ferocity that long-time fans were shaking their heads. The highlight of the set and perhaps the evening was “Pass The Hatchet” (streaming below) which featured fourteen solid minutes of Ira shredding through 3 guitars, writhing on the floor and throwing himself into his guitar amp. This version surpassed even the phenomenal one we saw in March at Maxwell’s. After a break, YLT returned for another set, this time an hour of their non-themed music. Again segueing effortlessly from mellow to metal, folk to punk, the set’s highlights included “Barnaby” with Antietam’s Tara Key, a sweet rendition of James’s “Stockholm Syndrome” and the raging “I Heard You Looking” finale. Yo La Tengo plays a festival in Ohio this weekend, before heading over seas for two weeks of shows in Ireland, Scotland and England.

We recorded this set with the Neumanns clamped to the front of the soundboard booth and raised to 10 feet, and mixed it with a feed from the soundboard. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Acidjack recorded the second night of YLT at Bell House (May 11) and it will be posted tomorrow.

Stream “Pass The Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/Y6644YLT9879/Pass%20The%20Hatchet%20I%20Think%20I’m%20Goodkind.mp3]

Direct download of complete show in MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Yo La Tengo
2011-05-10
The Bell House
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
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 by nyctaper, acidjack and hi and lo
Produced by nyctaper
2011-05-12

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 56:39]
01 [spin the wheel]
02 Griselda
03 Georgia vs Yo La Tengo
04 Song For Mahlia
05 Moby Octopad
06 Avalon or Someone Very Similar
07 Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House
08 Watch Out For Me, Ronnie
09 The Evil That Men Do
10 Pass The Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind

Set 2
[Total Time 1:09:12]
11 Our Way To Fall
12 Barnaby, Hardly Working
13 Demons
14 Stockholm Syndrome
15 The Crying of Lot G
16 [banter]
17 Double Dare
18 Nothing To Hide
19 Decora
20 I Heard You Looking
21 [encore break]
22 The Door Into Summer [Monkees]
23 Drug Test
24 For The Turnstiles [Neil Young]

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Yo La Tengo, visit their website, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their official releases from the store at their website [HERE].

Jukebox the Ghost: May 4, 2011 Rock Shop – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

May 12, 2011
By


[Photo courtesy of The Wild Honey Pie]

Things seem to be going well for Philly’s Jukebox the Ghost – not long after they booked this show at the intimate Rock Shop as the support act for tourmates Wakey Wakey!, they found themselves at the top of the bill at Bowery Ballroom the following night. It isn’t terribly surprising: Since their founding in their present incarnation in 2005, the band has toured extensively behind big name, accessible pop-rock acts like Ben Folds and Barenaked Ladies and released two strong albums, their 2008 debut, Let Live and Let Ghosts, and its 2010 followup, Everything Under the Sun, and in that time, they have made a name for themselves as a bouncy, fun and consistent pop act.  Much like Ben Folds Five, their music revolves around classically-trained keyboardist/vocalist Ben Thornewill’s upbeat piano melodies and the sugar-sweet vocal harmony of lead vocalists Tommy Siegel and Thornewill.  Songs like “Empire” are reminders of the power of a perfect pop song; JTG are neither angst-ridden nor ironic, nor even particularly earnest – their pop is served without pretension or anxiety. I heard several people in the crowd, who didn’t know the band at all, talking about how much they enjoyed the show – and how could you not? Jukebox the Ghost are pros, ladies and gentlemen, and they have the power to deliver a nice injection of optimism into a jaded city crowd. All that said, it’s hard to deny the highlight of the show – an only-somewhat-ironic cover, a mean version of Huey Lewis & the News’ “Power of Love”, the theme song from Back to the Future (with a little jam of the theme from Ghostbusters in there – it was an 80s kind of night, I guess).

I recorded this set in the same manner as the Wakey Wakey! recording, and the sound quality is once again outstanding. Enjoy!

Stream “Empire”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/J4005JukeboxGhost2011/06 Empire.mp3]

Stream “The Power of Love [Huey Lewis and the News]”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/J4005JukeboxGhost2011/15 The Power of Love.mp3]

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

Follow acidjack on Twitter

Jukebox the Ghost
2011-05-04
Rock Shop
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Equipment: DPA 4021>Sound Devices USBpre2+Soundboard>>Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod] (24/44.1)
Position: LOC, mics at 7.5ft, pointed at stacks
Mastering: 2x24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (balance, EQ right channel, mixdown, set fades, tracking, amplify and balance)>FLAC ( level 8 )

01 Mistletoe
02 Half Crazy
03 Hold It In
04 [banter]
05 The Stars
06 Empire
07 Summer Sun
08 [banter]
09 Don’t Let Me Fall Behind [new]
10 Nobody
11 Say When
12 Good Day
13 Static to the Heart
14 [banter]
15 The Power of Love [Huey Lewis & the News]
16 Schizophrenia

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Jukebox the Ghost, visit their website, and purchase Everything Under the Sun and their other official releases from the Yep Roc Records store [HERE]

NYCTaper is Four Years Old Today

May 11, 2011
By

Four years ago today, I opened this website with some ideas and some goals. I had hoped to be able to keep it going for two years and to be able to have my own platform to distribute my recordings and do some good for the bands. Four years later, the site has developed beyond any reasonable expectations I had in 2007. Now I’m a part of a team of tapers, and the site has become ingrained in the consciousness of music people all over the web. I recall being happy to have 4000 hits one day in 2007 — now we get 40,000 daily. I was happy to have one recorded show per week. Now we’ve come to expect 4 to 5 per week.
In these four years I’ve had the distinct pleasure of witnessing some amazing music, becoming friends with many musicians, bloggers, photographers, and music people of all shapes and sizes. Its truly been my pleasure the entire time.
So thanks to the readers of this site, and let’s hope for four more years!

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: May 6, 2011 Webster Hall – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Song

May 10, 2011
By

Pains
[Photo by acidjack]

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are one of the latter half of the last decade’s local success stories. They’re a band that has a hard-won and devoted following that hangs on every word, and rightly so. Their well-crafted and well-written songs of love, yearning and loss may stylistically reference an earlier era, but they make a timeless point. Lyrically, of course, these subjects never grow old, but musically, a tightly written, approachable indiepop song never does, either. Pains are the kind of band you root for – obviously nice people, talented, enthusiastic musicians, and a band that still has more to say. Following up on their eponymous debut, their new record, Belong, continues to display their abilities at songcraft, from the title track to other strong numbers like “Heart In Your Heartbreak” and “Strange”. While a lot of bands fail to make the transition from the smaller clubs – or even the mid-size venues like Bowery Ballroom – to the larger spaces like Webster Hall, Pains easily dominated the room with a dense sound and an enthusiastic, energized performance that balanced their new and old material equally. The band closed with their eponymous anthem, “The Pains of Being Pure At Heart”. The power of that signature chorus ringing out out through the cavernous old theater – “We will never die, no, no, we will never die” – was so powerful, it almost made you believe it. They couldn’t have asked for a better end to another national tour.

Because my usual spot in the venue was not available, I recorded this set from the right balcony close to the right speaker stack, giving more of an “upfront” sound than many recordings from this site, which offers excellent clarity but little sense of the room. Enjoy!

Thanks to Slumberland Records for allowing us to record this performance. Please support Slumberland and the band by purchasing Belong from the links below.

Stream “Heart In Your Heartbreak”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/P1411Pains2292/05 Heart In Your Heartbreak.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Follow acidjack on Twitter

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
2011-05-06
Webster Hall
New York, NY USA

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

Equipment: DPA 4021>Oade M248>Sony PCM-M10 (24/44.1)
Position: Right balcony, about 20 ft from right stack
Mastering: 24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (set fades, tracking, EQ, downsample to 16bit)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 56:29]
01 Belong
02 This Love is Fucking Right
03 A Teenager in Love
04 [banter]
05 Heart In Your Heartbreak
06 The Body
07 Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now
08 Stay Alive
09 My Terrible Friend
10 [banter]
11 Come Saturday
12 Young Adult Friction
13 [banter]
14 Strange
15 [encore break]>Contender
16 Everything With You
17 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, visit their website, and purchase Belong directly from Slumberland Records [HERE].

Wakey Wakey!: May 4, 2011 Rock Shop – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Songs

May 9, 2011
By


[Wakey Wakey! at SXSW 2011. Photos courtesy of James Buchan – check out his Flickr stream [HERE]]

A lot can be learned about Brooklyn’s Wakey Wakey! by considering the following anecdote from last Wednesday’s show at Rock Shop. It was the third song in their headlining set, following an outstanding set from tourmates Jukebox the Ghost. Keyboardist/vocalist/frontman Mike Grubbs dismisses the band from the stage and launches into a quiet solo number. As he sings the first line, peals of laughter erupt – he is covering Madonna’s Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” But what is more surprising and refreshing about this tour staple is the fact that Mike completely transforms the song, finding a sad, wistful undercurrent to what has to be one of the most bouncy, ridiculous songs of the 1980s. Plus, he just sings the hell out of it. With folk/pop music like this that can at times veer into melancholy territory, that very lack of self-seriousness, and the willingness to have fun, are essential ingredients. This set – a homecoming for the band after a long tour – was strong throughout, with Grubbs and his bandmates on-point musically and loose with the crowd, having fun with this intimate group before their big night at Bowery Ballroom the following evening. This show was so intimate, in fact, that one couple got a chance to talk to Mike about how they got engaged just before the show!

I recorded this set from our usual location in the venue with the DPA microphones and an outstanding soundboard feed from the house engineer, Shane. The quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Stream “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun [Cyndi Lauper]”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/W0504WakeyWakey2011/06 Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.mp3]

Stream “War Sweater”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/W0504WakeyWakey2011/03 War Sweater.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Direct download of FLAC files [HERE].

Follow acidjack on Twitter

Wakey Wakey!
2011-05-04
Rock Shop
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Equipment: DPA 4021>Sound Devices USBpre2+Soundboard>>Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod] (24/44.1)
Position: LOC, mics at 7.5ft, pointed at stacks
Mastering: 2x24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (balance, mixdown, set fades, tracking, downsample)

Tracks [Total Time 51:58]
01 [intro]
02 Square Peg, Round Hole
03 War Sweater
04 Light Outside
05 [banter]
06 Girls Just Wanna Have Fun [Madonna] [Cyndi Lauper]
07 [banter]
08 Got It All Wrong
09 [banter]
10 Dance So Good
11 1876
12 Feral Love
13 Take It Like A Man
14 [banter]
15 Brooklyn
16 [banter]
17 Almost Everything
18 [banter]
19 Car Crash

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Wakey Wakey!, visit their website, and buy their latest releases from Family Records [HERE]

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