Magic Tuber String Band: August 10, 2024 Deep In The Valley

August 15, 2024
By

Photo by Christopher Bruno

Welcome to the NYCTaper coverage of the 2024 Deep In The Valley festival! The event was once again held at From the Ground Brewery and organized, labored over and presented by our friends at the always excellent Raven Sings The Blues! Another incredible year of mellow vibes, good friend and incredible tunes! We begin this year with Magic Tuber String Band!

At face value, a string band playing an early afternoon set in a field on a rural farm seems like a slam dunk, and it was a perfect early-day set. However, underneath, this project is much more than traditional folk music. It has secrets inside itself.  It presents the sounds of summer sunshine and picnics, but just beneath the surface hides the sounds of Autumn’s deep, dark woods. It’s never one thing.  Make these instruments electric, and you would, most likely, be battered by a wall of noise and drones. This possibility can be seen in their playing for “Ghost Pipe” off 2023’s Tarantism.  

The North Carolina-based group has had a productive couple of years, culminating with the release of their new album, “Needlefall,” on Thrill Jockey Records. Our NYC folks can catch them tonight (8/15) at Public Records, but at the very least, go to their Bandcamp and buy some music to take into the change of seasons. This was a thoroughly engaging set of music, and there is a reason I raced to get this one out first.

This set was recorded with my MBHO’s at stage lip and an excellent board mix from FOH engineer Daniel Stout.  I’m very happy with the results. Enjoy!

Download and stream for the Live Music Archive!

Magic Tuber String Band
2024-08-10
Deep in The Valley Festival
From The Ground Brewery
Red Hook, NY

Source: MBHO 440 + SDB > MixPre 3 > SD (24/48) > Adobe Audition/Izotope 9 > Audacity Flac (lvl8) > Mp3Tag

Recorded and produced by kliked for nyctaper.com

Thanks to FOH engineer Daniel Stout for the board patch!

  1. Orb Weaver
  2. A Dance on Sunday Night
  3. Blooms in the Rapids
  4. Ghost Pipe
  5. Horn of Plenty
  6. Days of Longing
  7. Needlefall

Please support this excellent artist!
https://magictuberstringband.bandcamp.com/album/needlefall

Please support Raven Sings The Blues!
https://www.ravensingstheblues.com/

Photo by Christopher Bruno:
https://christopherbrunophotography.pixieset.com

Rich Ruth: June 27, 2024 Colony

July 5, 2024
By

Ruth’s recent album on Third Man, “Water Still Flows” is barely two weeks from release but already feels like an old favorite. The vast and atmospheric space jazz tinges found on “I Survived, It’s Over” are still there; but a harder edge has been added. Heavy guitars and fuzz, a touch of sludge and darkness. That’s not to say this is a dark album. These additions are well-balanced. Part of that balancing act is harpist (and local favorite) Mikaela Davis’s contributions to the record.

Ruth and his band came through Woodstock on the last night of a run supporting Davis and her band, Southern Star. There was a moment during the last few minutes of “Action at a Distance” where I could notice Ruth and company win over the crowd. After a few minutes of atmospheric sax work by Sam Que, the rhythm section starts to boil. You can feel the energy begin to mass and then explode as Ruth lays into his guitar. People that had previously been talking to friends started looking to the stage.

Davis joined on the last two songs of the set. This was a special treat I don’t expect to see again any time soon. The first track she plays on “No Muscle, No Memory” offers a great microcosm of what this project is. At its beginning, it sounds like the period just before the sun comes up; the time when the new day could be anything and possibilities exist. But by its end it had obvious definition, and you know what the sunrise had brought.

The Colony is a challenging room to tape in. On this night, I was set up on the balcony, slightly left of center. While the mix in the room was good, this location leaves me in the middle of people looking for a quieter place to chat. As such, crowd chatter is noticeable during quieter passages. Overall, the quality is very good, but this is most certainly an “AUD”. Enjoy!

Download and stream from the live music archive!

Rich Ruth
2024-06-27
Colony
Woodstock, NY

Source: MBHO 440 > MixPre3 (clamped to railing on balcony, slightly left of center) > SD (24/48) > Adobe Audition/Izotope 9 > Audacity Flac (lvl8) > Mp3Tag

Recorded and produced by kliked for nyctaper.com

  1. Heavy & Earthbound
  2. Action at a Distance
  3. Taken Back
  4. Marina
  5. No Muscle, No Memory*
  6. Crying In The Trees*

Mike Ruth – Guitar, Keys
Taro Yamasaki – Bass
Taylor Floreth – Drums
Sam Que – Sax
*Mikaela Davis – Harp

Support this excellent artist!
https://richruth.bandcamp.com/album/water-still-flows

Support the venues bringing you interesting music!
https://www.colonywoodstock.com/upcoming_events

Water Damage: June 12, 2024 Tubby’s

June 13, 2024
By

Do you like volume, drone and repetition? Do you like feeling completely tranced out in a psychedelic, dissociated way? Does the idea of being suspended in a state of transcendental heavy post rock seem appealing? If yes, I have just the thing for you!

Water Damage is an Austin based band/collective of people wholly committed to forcing the listener into a state of disorientation. Has the same bar been repeated for the last thirty minutes? Will my hearing be intact when this is over? The answer, honestly, is irrelevant. What’s important is this will probably be the best set of music you see this month, possibly this year. It is intense and all encompassing and completely unavoidable. You can try and ignore it, but eventually its enormous force will swallow you. Imagine being crushed by a glacier. That’s kind of what it felt like watching them destroy the room. As they say, “MAXIMAL REPETITION, MINIMAL DEVIATION.”

NY heads have a chance to catch them tonight (6/13/24) on an incredible bill at Union Pool with site favorites Weak Signal and Gift Horse. Do not miss this. Bring ear plugs.

I recorded this from the usual spot at the soundboard, and I’m very happy with how it turned out. On play back, listeners should set a volume that, as Marc Ribot says, makes you wonder if one is “really placing their amps at risk.”

Download and stream from the live music archive.

Water Damage
2024-06-12
Tubby’s
Kingston, NY

Source: MBHO 440 > MixPre 3 > SD (24/48) > Adobe Audition/Izotope 9 > Audacity Flac (lvl8)
Recorded and Produced by kliked

  1. Live at Tubbys 2024-06-12

Support this excellent artist!
https://waterdamage12xu.bandcamp.com/album/repeater
https://waterdamageatx.bandcamp.com/

Support the venues bringing you interesting music!
https://www.tubbyskingston.com/music-calendar

Idle Ray: September 29, 2023 Tubby’s Fifth Anniversary

June 10, 2024
By

The NYCTaper coverage of Tubby’s Fifth Anniversary returns with Idle Ray!

Idle Ray’s set in the arc of the Tubby’s anniversary party was crucial. The day had started pretty bleak. Massive storms had essentially made travel out of New York City impossible, and several bands, and fans, had to cancel travel arrangements. I had been at the venue the previous night setting up gear and staff morale was super high. When I got back that afternoon I arrived to less than peak vibes, but things started turning around quickly. A couple drinks, the first band hitting the stage, a surprise fill in from Wild Pink and suddenly things were looking good. By the time Idle Ray hit, no one was talking about the storm. It was party time.

Idle Ray’s inclusion on the bill made perfect sense. Fred Thomas, Idle Ray’s primary songwriter, is a long time veteran of Detroit’s vibrant music scene with credits on far too many records to list. He has performed several times at Tubby’s as part of the excellent Detroit based DIY/Punk band Tyvek and is also in Winged Wheel with one of Tubby’s owners. Recorded mainly during Covid, the Idle Ray project was created as an attempt at “going back to basics of recording on cassette four-track and having it be more about interesting sounds and feel than perfect performances or getting an industry-standard snare sound.”

The studio recordings are all Fred. For this show, Fred handled guitar and lead vocals with Devon Clausen on bass and Frances Ma on guitar and lead vocals, with backing drum machine tracks. I was unfamiliar with the material before this, but the hooks are there. It took all of half of the set opener “Overlook” to be glad I had hit record. The trio brought all the fuzzy power pop glory anyone could want to the evening. Great songs, well played and a nice bonus of some great stage banter. Fred mentioned one of the songs was about the time his ex ran for Mayor of his town. His summation of the experience; “SSUUUCCCKKKEEEDDDD”. It never occurred to me that the only way the endless forced misery of political campaign advertisements could be more hellish is if your ex was featured in them.

You can catch Fred back in town playing with Winged Wheel at Bearsville theater (with Guided By Voices!) on 8/10. You can also catch Tyvek, sans Fred, at Tubby’s on 7/27.

Recording for this set differed pretty significantly from the normal Tubby’s set up. Since they had two “stages” with two different sets of speakers, I had to set up two different sets of mics and recorders and start and stop each between bands. Thankfully, I was able to get a board feed from the main console in the back for each “stage”. I combined the front room mics with the board feed for the recording you have here. It sounds excellent; full of life and screaming guitars. Crank it!

Download and stream from the live music archive!

Idle Ray
2023-09-29
Tubby’s
Kingston, NY

Source 1: SP-CMC-4U (AT853 cards, low sens mod) > SPSb-11 > R-07
Source 2: SDB > Zoom F8
Source 1 + Source 2 > Adobe CC (time align, EQ, compression) > Audacity (tracking, fades) > FLAC (lvl 8)
Recorded and produced by kliked for nyctaper.com

Thanks to Tubbys FOH engineers Wil for the patch and Kyle for the mix!
This was part of the Tubby’s 5 Year anniversary celebration

  1. Overlook
  2. Backwards
  3. Emphasis Locator
  4. Corridors of Summer
  5. Luck Be Damned
  6. New Weird Thing
  7. Localism Hours
  8. Quiet Cab
  9. Ruiner

Idle Ray:
Frances Ma: Guitar and Lead Vocals
Devon Clausen: Bass
Fred Thomas: Guitar, Tapes, Lead Vocals

Support this excellent band:
https://idleray.bandcamp.com/

Support the venues bringing you interesting music:
https://www.tubbyskingston.com/music-calendar

Writhing Squares: April 27, 2024 Tubby’s

June 4, 2024
By

Writhing Squares has long been the duo of Kevin Nickles and Daniel Provenzano accompanied by a drum machine, both in the studio and live. But for their most recent album, Mythology, they changed things up a bit with a live drummer by bringing on board John Schoemaker. Embarking on a short tour for the album, the band brought along David Joachim to drum live. After a release show in their hometown of Philadelphia (which you can watch on YouTube) the trio hit Tubby’s at full volume. Most of their set hails from the aforementioned Mythology, plus “NFU” from Chart For the Solution and “Steely Eyed Missile Man” from Out of the Ether. There’s something ineffable about the Writhing Squares sound, especially in their pummeling live show. While Chart For the Solution conjures The Running Man with its dystopian Krautrock, Mythology is harder to pin down. It wasn’t until their final song, a cover, that I realized what they were channeling: the band leans in hard to their prog roots with a heavy, vigorous take on King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man.” There aren’t many bands that could pull off such a feat—all hail Writhing Squares!

I recorded this from our usual location at Tubby’s with a board feed from FOH, Will. As usually Tubby’s sounds great under Will’s boardwork and this recording reflects that. Enjoy!

Stream and download at the Live Music Archive

Writhing Squares
2024-04-27
Tubby's
Kingston, NY

Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com

Soundboard (engineer: Will) + MBHO KA200N/603A > Naiant PFA >> Sound Devices MixPre-6 > WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC + Izotope Ozone 5 > Audacity 2.4.2 > FLAC

Tracks [44:59]
01. Eternity
02. Barbarians
03. Acid Rain
04. Steely Eyed Missile Man
05. NFU
06. [tuning]
07. LEM
08. The Damned Thing
09. 21st Century Schizoid Man [King Crimson]

Rosali: April 12, 2024 Knitting Factory

May 13, 2024
By

The Rosali/Mowed Sound tour supporting their new album, Bite Down, was one for the ages—think Neil and Crazy Horse in 1976. At each stop I heard from folks who were blown away by the songs and the energy. You can hear for yourself the band rock Tubby’s a few days before this gig at the new NYC Knitting Factory. While I didn’t quite capture same clarity as that recording, this stack tape complements the Tubby’s one nicely, giving you an upfront ear on crunchy guitar work from Rosali and James Schroeder. Kevin Donahue is the maybe the band’s unsung hero on drums—and of course David Nance’s bass-playing couldn’t be replicated by any other. I love seeing Rosali and him collaborating and can only hope one day we’ll get a duo record from the pair. Anyhow, I hear Nance and Mowed Sound will be back around later this year to tour their own self-titled record, which has been burning its own hole in my ears.

But while we’re waiting to hear about the Mowed Sound tour, Rosali’s Summer tour dates can be found on her website. New Yorkers will get the chance to see her again at this year’s Woodsist Festival. If you haven’t been, it’s the best multi-day fest in the area and the lineup this year is spectacular.

I recorded this from up front near the right stack at the Knitting Factory’s new Baker Falls location, in the former home of of the Pyramid Club. The venue sounds great and I can’t wait to get back there. Enjoy!

Stream and download at Archive.org

Rosali
2024-04-12
Knitting Factory New York at Baker Falls
New York, NY

Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com

MBHO KA200N/603A > Naiant PFA >> Sound Devices MixPre-6 > WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC + Izotope Ozone 5 > Audacity 3.0.2 > FLAC

Tracks [1:16:257]
01. On Tonight
02. Hopeless
03. Change Is in the Form
04. Waited All Day
05. Hills on Fire
06. Mouth
07. Rewind
08. Slow Pain
09. My Kind
10. Bite Down
11. Tender Heart
12. Bones
----
13. All This Lightning
14. Whatever Love

Rosali Middleman – Guitar, Vocals
David Nance – Bass, Vocals
Kevin Donahue – Drums, Vocals
James Schroeder – Guitar, Vocals

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