[photo by nyctaper]

We have read much about Crystal Stilts over the last couple of years, but by happenstance we had not seen them live until last Sunday night at Bowery. Crystal Stilts are currently on tour with Love Is All, and this was their hometown show — with a large and supportive crowd. The live performance of their reverb-heavy 60’s-influenced garage rock is really quite compelling. The guitar work which is somewhat muffled by the authentic feel of the mix on their new CD Alight of Night literally comes to “life” in the live setting and as a result the songs are brighter and more organic. Singer Brad Hargett provides the standard tenor-drone for this genre, but live adds a few grunts and groans with a little Ian Curtis thrown in for taste. The ubiquitous percussionist Frankie Rose has the minimalist drumming style down to an art. At the end of the Crystal Stilts set, there were quite a few well-deserved calls for an encore.

We recorded this set from the same location at the Love Is All set and the sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Crystal Stilts return from this US tour and have two dates in NYC before a lengthy European tour in early 2009. The two NYC shows are here:
Dec 17 2008 Le Poisson Rouge NYC
Jan 10 2009 Silent Barn (moved to) Market Hotel Brooklyn

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Crystal Stilts
2008-12-07
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Balcony Rail
Next to Soundboard

Neumann KM-150’s (AK-50 Hypercardiod Capsules) > Apogee Minime > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack > 16bit 44.1kHz wav files > Soundforge (set fades, slight level adjustments, slight EQ) > CD Wave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper
2008-12-11

Setlist:
[Total Time 28:14]
01 [introduction]
02 Through The Floor
03 Crippled Croon
04 Shattered Shine
05 Converging in the Quiet
06 The City in the Sea
07 Seeds
08 The Dazzled
09 For The Love Of Ivy (Gun Club)
10 Love is a Wave

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Crystal Stilts, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their new album Alight of Night from links at their MySpace page, including at Insound [here].

When we posted a preview of New Orleans’ Hurray For The Riff Raff and their upcoming shows in NYC, we expected that we would enjoy the show based up on the quality of their new CD It Don’t Mean I Don’t Love You. On Monday night at Pianos, Hurray For The Riff Raff exceeded all of our high expectations. Led by Alynda Lee’s strong vocals and relaxed stage presence, this quartet contains all talented multi-instrumentalists and a series of excellent songs. Frankly, we were quite surprised to see a packed house in Pianos for an out-of-town indie band, but the crowd’s enthusiasm was well rewarded with a superb 40 minute set including an encore.

We recorded from in front of the soundboard with the microphone pole at maximum height. As the band performs primarily acoustic instruments, there can be heard room noise at times. Overall, however, this is an excellent authentic “room recording”. Enjoy!

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Hurray For The Riff Raff
2008-12-08
Pianos
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Recorded from Front of Board
20 Feet from Stage

Neumann KM-150s (AK-50 Hypercardiod Capsules) > Monster XLR cables > Apogee Minime > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge 8.0 (set fades, slight level boost, resample 16/44) > CD Wave 1.95 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
nyctaper@nyctaper.com
2008-12-09

Setlist:
[total time 41:06]
01 Calmly
02 Daniella
03 I’m Leaving
04 Skin & Bones
05 Is That You?
06 Junebug Waltz
07 Dance With Death
08 Bricks
09 Fly Away

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Hurray For The Riff Raff, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their new album from links at their MySpace page, including download at Amie Street [here], or physical copies from CD Baby [here].

[photo courtesy of MusicSnobbery Blog]

We have seen Sweden’s Love Is All five times this year, in every setting from someone’s basement to the cavernous Roseland Ballroom — and yet no matter the size of the crowd, the band has delivered an excellent set. With the release of the on-everyone’s-best-of-2008-list A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night (What’s Your Rupture?), we do not expect to see many more “basement” shows, but more likely Love Is All will perform in venues like Bowery Ballroom as they did in June and again Sunday night.

On Sunday, Love Is All performed another superb set, added a new number (on the written setlist as “NYA”) and stretched out to over 40 minutes for the first time this year. We recorded from the balcony rail next to the soundboard and this capture is the highest quality recording of the four Love Is All recordings on this site. Enjoy!

Crystal Stilts were also recorded and will be featured on nyctaper in the coming days.

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Love Is All
2008-12-07
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Balcony Rail
Next to Soundboard

Neumann KM-150’s (AK-50 Hypercardiod Capsules) > Apogee Minime > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack > 16bit 44.1kHz wav files > Soundforge (set fades, slight level adjustments, slight EQ) > CD Wave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper
2008-12-08

Setlist:
[Total Time 42:24]
01 Wishing Well
02 Give it Back
03 Talk Talk Talk Talk
04 Ageing Had Never Been His Friend
05 Last Choice
06 Seasick
07 NYA
08 Busy Doing Nothing
09 I Ran (Flock of Seagulls)
10 Make Out Fall Out Make Up
11 Felt Tip
12 [encore break]
13 New Beginnings

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Love Is All, visit their website, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their new album A Hundred Things Keep Me up at Night from links at their MySpace page [HERE] or at the What’s Your Rupture Records MySpace page [HERE].

Treasure is a fairly new trio from Brooklyn, although all three members are veterans of the local music scene — vocalist Amanda Tomme performed most recently with The Phenomenal Handclap Band, Caleb Lindskoog plays guitar with local rockers The Silver State, and Ryan Trott has played with the folk band Hologram. Treasure is built around the emotive and throaty vocals of Tomme, the full-bodied chord work of Lindskoog and tasteful and appropriate percussion by Trott. Each member compliments the others with grace, and as a result the songs are well balanced, richly melodic and melancholic without being gloomy. The new Treasure CD is called Tea Parties and is available in individually hand-painted 300 limited numbered copies.

We captured Treasure‘s outstanding recent live performance at Glasslands. The show was recorded from the video-projection desk in the front of the balcony and the sound quality is excellent. Amanda’s vocals were originally mixed low, but that deficiency was corrected quickly. Enjoy!

Treasure will perform three local shows in the next few weeks:
Dec 10 2008 Union Hall Brooklyn
Jan 07 2009 Zebulon Brooklyn
Jan 19 2009 Under St. Marks Told Reading Series NYC

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Treasure
2008-11-25
Glasslands Gallery
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Recorded from Front of Board
Microphones on Video Station in Front of Balcony
15 Feet from Main PA Stacks

DPA 4021s > Edirol UA-5 (Oade Digimod) > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge 8.0 (level adjustments, downsample 16/44) > CD Wave > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2008-11-30

Setlist:
[total time 28:45]
01 We Were Hunted
02 White Wake
03 Shapeless
04 Arrowheads
05 Rainbow
06 In Hawaii
07 My Feather

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Treasure, visit their website, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their limited edition CD from the links at the Treasure MySpace page.

[photo by nyctaper]

On the final night of their winter tour in support of the superb new CD Broken Hymns, Limbs And Skin, Brooklyn’s O’Death returned home. As the band ripped through a seventy-minute set of material old and new, the floor of the Bowery Ballroom literally bounced with the energy of a crowd dancing and slamming to O’Death‘s unique approach to gothic country punk. We focused much of the time on the impressive electric banjo work of Gabe Darling, but in reality each member of the talented quintet could have been centerstage at any point in the evening.

O’Death will be off the road for the remainder of the year, but return to touring in February with a run through the South and then an extensive tour through Europe. The unbridled energy of this band guarantees that each show will truly be a memorable experience. The Bowery last night was no exception.

We recorded with our best mobile rig from the prime location in this venue. The results are a faithful capture of the energy of this excellent show. Enjoy!

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

O’Death
2008-12-05
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Recorded from FOB
Dead Center 30 Feet from PA

DPA 4021’s > Marantz PMD-660 (Oade BCM) > 16bit 44.1 wav > Soundforge (set fades, level boost, slight eq) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by
nyctaper
2008-12-06

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:08:37]
01 Home
02 Only Daughter
03 Adelita
04 On An Aching Sea
05 Spider Home
06 Underwater Nightmare
07 I Think I’m Fine
08 Ratscars
09 Lean-to
10 Lowtide
11 Down To Rest
12 A Light That Does Not Dim
13 Angeline
14 Fire On Peshtigo
15 Mountain Shifts
16 Legs To Sin
17 [encore break]
18 Allie Mae Reynolds
19 Nimrod’s Son (Pixies)
20 Yonder Christian

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT O’Death, visit their website, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their latest CD from Kemado Records, or itunes from the Store at the O’Death website [HERE]