[Photo courtesy of Sam?]

Gothenburg, Sweden’s The Embassy arrived in NYC off of a long overnight flight, and had to prepare in short order to close out the NYC Popfest 2010 with the last set of the night at Littlefield.  The organizers were particularly proud of the coup of bringing the band over for this show, and the band returned the favor.  Despite a vocal mix that was a bit high at times, The Embassy delivered a fun, upbeat set of pop-driven electronica, joking with the audience and keeping the energy up.  Although they are long overdue for a new record (Tacking was released in 2006) they played material from all over their catalog, including the 2008 single “State08? and the 2009 single, “You Tend to Forget”.

I recorded this set from the same location as the other NYC Popfest recordings, with a stereo soundboard feed and the DPA microphones.  As the vocals were a bit higher in the mix on this feed, I have emphasized a bit more of the audience recording to make a more balanced mix.  You can now stream this entire show direct from nyctaper.com, so we hope you will take advantage of this fun new option.  Enjoy!

Stream the entire show:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/E2305Embassy0210/embassy2010-05-23littlefield_acidjack.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

The Embassy
2010-05-23
NYC Popfest 2010
Littlefield
Brooklyn, NY  USA

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

Equipment: Stereo soundboard feed + DPA 4021>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: ROC, left wall of SBD cage, mics at 8?
Mastering: 2×24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (set fades, mixdown, EQ, tracking, amplify channels)>FLAC Level 8

Tracks [Total time 32:55]
01 The Pointer
02 It Pays To Belong
03 Stage Persona
04 State08
05 [unknown]
06 Lurking
07 You Tend to Forget
08 Some Indulgence

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Embassy, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their records from your favorite online retailers (unfortunately, they are not that easy to come by, but there are some links on Amazon here).

[Bunnygrunt live on tour.  Photo courtesy of Rob Severson]

Hailing from St. Louis, MO, Bunnygrunt may not be a household name to most on the East Coast, but core band members Matt Harnish and Karen Ried have been making fan-beloved, often humorous pop music under this moniker since 1993.  The band’s style is all about uncomplicated lo-fi pop, with few songs clocking in above the two-minute mark.  Despite a Sunday daytime slot at the NYC Popfest 2010 at Littlefield, the band brought one of the biggest crowds of any of the day’s acts, and deservedly so, as they gave the Brooklyn crowd a rapid-fire dose of 13 songs (in 32 minutes!) of pure Midwestern power pop.  The set closed out with “Southtown Famous” and it’s simple mantra – “Gonna get drunk tonight, tonight / gonna get drunk tonight!”  On a hungover Sunday afternoon, sometimes light, economical pop is the perfect antidote (even if the song is about drinking more).

I recorded this set in the same manner as the other NYC Popfest sets, with the DPA microphones and an excellent soundboard feed.  Please help out with the setlist if you can.

Stream “Southtown Famous”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/B2305Bunnygrunt0210/13%20Southtown%20Famous.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Bunnygrunt
2010-05-23
NYC Popfest 2010
Littlefield
Brooklyn, NY  USA

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

Equipment: Stereo soundboard feed + DPA 4021>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: ROC, left wall of SBD cage, mics at 8?
Mastering: 2×24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (set fades, mixdown, tracking, amplify channels)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total time 32min]
01
02
03
04 S. Kings Highway Bubblegum Factory
05
06
07 Frankie Is A Killer
08
09
10 Let It Out
11
12
13 Southtown Famous

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Bunnygrunt, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their records from HHBTM Records here.

[photo courtesy of Aquarium Drunkard]

As one of the most accomplished songwriters of the last two decades, including his work with Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, the recent collaboration with indie-darling Ben Gibbard, and his solo career, Jay Farrar has cached enough cred to deserve abundant respect. Last Friday at Maxwell’s, that was sadly not the case. As this recording unfortunately details, the superb music emanating from the stage was seemingly mere background music to a social event. The unabashed high volume chatter at this show is simply an outrage — thoroughly disrespectful to this excellent artist and also to one of the metro area’s greatest venues. If you can’t shut up for 90 minutes, stay home.

In terms of the performance, for this tour Jay has been accompanied by multi-instrument virtuoso Mark Spencer. While the setlist is quite similar to the Son Volt show featured on nyctaper in September, Jay added a few more of the Big Sur numbers, performed a very special rare Uncle Tupelo number (“Still Be Around”), and encored a rocking Townes Van Zandt cover.

This show was recorded with acidjack’s new Schoeps microphones at the front corner of the soundboard. While we often mix four channels of audience and soundboard at this venue, Jay’s taping policy does not permit board feeds, so this is a straight audience recording that suffers from the obvious persistent and rude crowd chatter. There is also one brief battery-change splice in “Still Be Around”. With those caveats, enjoy!

Stream Jay Farrar “Cocaine and Ashes” live at Maxwell’s:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/S1790SonVolt9290/JayFarrar_Cocaine&Ashes_2010-06-04.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Jay Farrar
2010-06-04
Maxwell’s
Hoboken, NJ USA

Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Front and Center of Soundboard

Schoeps CMC6/MK41 > Naiant Littlebox > Sony PCM-M10 > 24bit 44.1kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, close clapping reduction, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded by acidjack
Produced by nyctaper
2010-06-08

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:31:05]
01 Down To The Wire
02 The Picture
03 Feel Free
04 When The Wheels Don’t Move
05 Cocaine and Ashes
06 Dust of Daylight
07 Pushed Too Far
08 No Turning Back
09 Big Sur
10 Methamphetamine
11 Strength and Doubt
12 San Francisco
13 Dynamite
14 Bandages & Scars
15 Breathe Our Iodine
16 Tear Stained Eye
17 Damn Shame
18 Still Be Around
19 Windfall
20 Afterglow 61
21 [encore break]
22 White Freightliner Blues (Townes Van Zandt)

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Jay Farrar, visit his website, and purchase his official releases directly from the Jay Farrar Official Store [HERE].

[photo credit]

For good or bad, Brooklyn Bowl is the perfect venue for a Les Claypool show in NYC. First, the good. The superior sound system at The Bowl presented all the intricacies of the band — bass, electric cello, xylophone, drums — with superb clarity. Every plucked and slapped note on Claypool’s bass was pristine. The venue’s odd juxtaposition of music and sport also provided Les with comedic fodder. Finally, the room seemed to be the perfect size for this crowd. While the show was sold out, it was also not so packed as to be uncomfortable. Then, there was the bad. Brooklyn Bowl has an outstanding beer selection, primarily from their neighbors the Brooklyn Brewery and Red Hook’s craft beer wizards at Six Point. The potency of some of these fine beers though was too much for a good portion of the crowd. The end result was puddles of beer and broken glass on the floor and some seriously strange behavior (somewhat noticeable on the recording). Les actually stopped playing in the middle of “Duchess” to chide “Mr. Bald Headed Guy” who was harassing women up front. However, the set itself was a seriously outstanding Claypool show, which touched on his Primus work and his various solo incarnations. “Makalaster > Pachyderm > Makalaster” was an extended exercise in true collaborative improvisation, and the “One Better” medley featured Les at his best. Ever the cut-up, he introduced the Rush cover encore as a “Sly and the Family Stone tune” that takes him back to the “Oakland soul” citing as his “only true source of information” — Wikipedia.

I recorded this set with the Neumann microphones pointed directly up at the stacks at about 30 feet from the stage. The sound quality in the venue was superb and this recording reflects that quality, along with the boisterous crowd. Enjoy!

Stream Les Claypool’s cover of “The Spirit Of Radio” (Rush) Live at Brooklyn Bowl:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/C1006Claypool2110/14%20LesClaypool2010-06-08_nyctaper_t14.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Les Claypool
2010-06-08
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Recorded Upfront 30 Feet from Stage

Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2010-06-09

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:45:04]
01 Highball with the Devil
02 Duchess And The Proverbial Mind Spread
03 Amanitas
04 David Makalaster I
05 Southbound Pachyderm
06 David Makalaster I
07 Red State Girl
08 Precipitation
09 Jam/Drums
10 Booneville Stomp
11 One Better / The Awakening / One Better
12 Riddles Are Abound Tonight
13 [encore break]
14 The Spirit Of Radio (Rush)

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Les Claypool, visit his website, and purchase his official releases directly from Club Bastardo [HERE].

[Ghastly City Sleep. All photos courtesy of Jonny Leather]

Our good friend Jonny Leather has been going above and beyond to give the already-teeming Brooklyn scene access to exciting new music through his semi-regular concert series.  We were fortunate enough to capture this excellent bill, featuring Brooklyn’s Ghastly City Sleep, garage rock duo Royal Chains and Austin’s Royal Forest (along with Brick + Mortar, whose set we unfortunately missed) at Glasslands, which is a perfect place to absorb yourself in some new music.  Each act was striking in it own way, but perhaps none so much as Ghastly City Sleep, whose music takes a sharp turn from current trends with dark, sometimes lengthy songs that are not afraid to challenge listeners’ expectations.  Jonny Leather compares them to Radiohead, and I can see the resemblance in the rhythmic variations,  sharp, angular vocals, and the aforementioned dark overall tone. For a young band, these guys have a fully developed sound that is poised for bigger things. Check out their debut album at Robotic Empire Records and see for yourself.

[Royal Forest]

Royal Forest could be called “The Band Formerly Known As Loxsly”, but they probably made the right choice with the wholesale name change to avoid any association with the somewhat weak act by a very similar former name.  Apparently in their former incarnation the band earned a lot of comparisons to Grandaddy, which I still hear echoes of, along with occasional hints of my favorites Polvo.  Currently the band is promoting a self-titled EP, with a full-length on the way.

[Royal Chains]

Being a garage-rock duo, Royal Chains needed to do everything right to impress me – and they did.  Too often, I find these setups aren’t musical enough (or are just too wasted), or seem to treat the whole thing as a joke.  Royal Chains came out and played their asses off.  With two EPs under their belt, these guys have shown they are serious about songwriting, and they seem determined not to fall into the lame “we’re two drunk guys playing half-assed songs” trap at all.  Instead, band members Adam and Dan bring real musicianship and feeling.  And, in a perfect ending, they managed to show they don’t take themselves too seriously by playing a cover of Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.”

Please support Jonny Leather and the shows he promotes.  One good way to learn more is to be his friend on Facebook. Thanks to Jonny for inviting us to this excellent show.  It took us a month to get it posted, but I think it will be worth the wait!

I recorded this set from the balcony with the DPA microphones in an “XY” pattern.  The recordings are generally excellent, with a small caveat – during Royal Forest’s set, the mics were clamped to the balcony rail, which was vibrating due to a fan clamped to it nearby.  Therefore, during quiet parts of the music, you can hear these vibrations.  The band thought it sounded good despite this flaw, so I think it is still very worth your time.  For listeners’ convenience, and to provide maximum exposure to all three bands, the music of all three bands is included in one ZIP file of MP3s.  The MP3s are properly tagged for easy importing into iTunes, including artwork!

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete shows in FLAC [GHASTLY CITY SLEEP] / [ROYAL FOREST] / [ROYAL CHAINS]

Ghastly City Sleep
2010-05-03
Glasslands
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Equipment: DPA 4021>Naiant littlebox>Sony PCM-M10 (24/44.1)
Position: Clamp to balcony rail, XY
Mastering: 24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (set fades, EQ, tracking, amplify)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 I Never Left My Head
02 Farewell My Friend
03 [banter]
04 Foreboding Shapes
05 1994 (it’s a weird world)
06 Subtle Disaster

Royal Forest
(same source info)
Tracks
1. Civilwarland
2. Battalions
3. Spines Came Unglued
4. Anagrams
5. The Manual That You Wrote
6. Save the Ghost
7. Courtesy in Decline
8. Borrowed Tune (Neil Young)

Royal Chains
(same source info)
Tracks (please help with the setlist)
01
02 Feedback
03 Lucy Takes the Dare
04 [banter]
05
06
07
08
09 Won’t Back Down [Tom Petty]

Please support all of these excellent bands by visiting their websites and buying their music and merchandise (or in some cases, downloading it for free), as follows:
Websites/MySpace:
Ghastly City Sleep
Royal Forest
Royal Chains

Records/Merchandise:
Ghastly City Sleep
Royal Forest Bandcamp Site (Free Download)
The Royal Chains (EPs are $5)

[Galactic at Roseland in November 2007.  Photos courtesy of Andrew J Fischler]

Galactic made a recent appearance in the HBO series Treme, producer David Simon’s love letter to the culture and resilience of the band’s native neighborhood and their home city of New Orleans.  The episode goes out of its way to point out that although Galactic is a funk band with white members, they are 100% legit.  Spend a night with them, like their kickoff of a three-day run this weekend at Brooklyn Bowl, and you won’t need a TV show to make the case that great music, of any genre, is neither black nor white.  Just ask guest vocalist Corey Glover, who is best known for his work in late-80s/early-90s phenomenon Living Colour, a band that reminded those who had forgotten that rock music is not “white” any more than funk, R&B and soul are “black.”  Along with Glover, the band was joined at various points by NOLA legend Cyril Neville, Corey Henry of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and the night’s DJ, Questlove.  Among many high points during the roughly two hour set, the band ripped through some classic rock covers, including Hendrix’s “Fire” and the night’s encore, a bombastic, funked-up version of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” and showed off some new material from their NOLA-all-star collaboration, Ya-Ka-May.  The final show of this run is tonight, so get your tickets while you can.

I recorded this set from along the right side wall, about halfway between the stage and the soundboard, with the mics up high to avoid crowd chatter, with my new Schoeps supercardiod microphones.  The result is an excellent capture despite the somewhat challenging placement in the venue.

I would appreciate help with the setlist – although I don’t want to make this a habit, I am still trying to process a long backlog of shows, and getting setlist assistance is a huge help.  The fileset is otherwise properly tagged (both the FLACs and MP3s).  Enjoy!

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Galactic
2010-06-03
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY  USA

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

Equipment: Schoeps CMC6/mk41>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: FOB, ROC, ~11ft up
Mastering: 24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (set fades, tracking, amplify channels, downsample)>FLAC Level 8

Tracks
01 [venue intro banter]
02
03 [banter]
04
05
06
07
08
09 [banter]
10
11
12 Fire [Jimi Hendrix]
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21 [encore break]
22 Whole Lotta Love [Led Zeppelin]

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Galactic, visit their website, and purchase Ya-Ka-May and their other releases [HERE].