[photo credit]

As the old adage says, without the rain, there would be no rainbow. When we canceled our outing to see Mark Knopfler in Central Park on Wednesday, the forecast called for the skies to open and at least an inch of rain to fall. Two tapers with more courage than I did attend the show and report that the rain held off almost exactly for the period of the concert. Knopfler went on a little early (before 8 p.m.), and the skies literally opened five minutes after his performance was over.

While we are extremely disappointed to have missed this show, we are quite fortunate to have a recording to offer our readers — the legendary taper Scott Brown has generously offered to permit nyctaper to host the 16-bit flac files of his superb recording. Odds are that if you have collected the highest quality unofficial live recordings offered in the NYC area in the last 10 years, you have more than one Scott Brown recording in your collection.

Scott’s mobile recording rig contains the same microphones as nyctaper (DPA 402X series) but his recorder is superior, as he captured with the pro-quality Sound Devices 722 digital recorder. He recorded Knopfler from the prime location and the quality of this recording is absolutely phenomenal. Enjoy!

There will be NO MP3 files for this Recording. Grab the FLACS!

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Mark Knopfler
7/23/2008
Rumsey Playfield, Central Park
New York, NY

Recorded by: Scott Brown
Source: DPA (B&K) 4023s (in hat) > Sound Devices 722 @ 24 bit, 96khz
722 > Apple MacBook Pro > Spark Xl 2.8.2 (tracking, normalize, resample to 44.1khz) > Sample Manager 3.1.2 (dither to 16 bit using MBIT+) > xACT 1.65 > flac
Location: about 20-30 feet from stage, dead center

Disc 1

01 Intro 00:42.11
02 Cannibals 05:16.52
03 Why Aye Man 06:47.71
04 What It Is 05:16.00
05 Sailing To Philadelphia 06:57.19
06 True Love Will Never Fade 05:06.73
07 Fish and The Bird 04:24.14
08 Hill Farmer’s Blues 05:02.43
09 Romeo and Juliet 08:49.37
10 Sultans Of Swing 08:52.74
11 Song For Sonny Liston 07:08.01

Disc 1 Total: 64:24.20

Disc 2

01 Band Introductions 04:25.18
02 Marbletown 10:12.05
03 Speedway At Nazareth 06:47.29
04 Telegraph Road 16:00.61
Encore:
05 Brothers In Arms 07:14.19
06 So Far Way 04:57.55
07 Going Home 05:27.67

Disc 2 Total: 55:05.29

notes:
-Mark went on a few minutes before 8PM, and I missed the first minute of Cannibals. I spliced in Dan Molda’s Audio Technica U853-C > Nady CBM-40T > Denecke PS-2 > Edirol R-09HR (24/96) source for the Intro track and the first minute or so of Cannibals.
-This is a 16 bit, 44.1khz recording for CD. The original 24 bit, 96khz recording exists in flac format.

compiled by scott brown on 7/27/2008

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Mark Knopfler, visit his website, and purchase his official releases from the Mark Knopfler Store at his website.

The Dream Syndicate

“Welcome to 1983!” was Steve Wynn‘s facetious introduction last night before he and his current band The Miracle 3 performed the entire classic album The Days of Wine and Roses from Steve’s previous band The Dream Syndicate. Ultimately, the return to 1983 was not entirely accurate. The twenty-five years have given Wynn the maturity and perspective to perform the album — the title of which refers to the fleeting nature of time — with a sense of purpose and direction. Technically the performance was top notch, with all instruments tight and focused at the proper moments and loose and relaxed when the band opened up to flesh out the songs. Of particular note was the jam in “Halloween” that reached an energetic crescendo, and the closing title track where Steve brought the band down to silence before ending the song with a fury. We anticipated that this performance would be special, but Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3 exceeded all of our expectations.

We recorded with the matrix mix we have used for each of our recordings at Maxwell’s this year. The Neumann microphones were mounted at the front of the soundboard booth and raised to eight feet, and were mixed with a feed from the board. The results are absolutely outstanding. We are extremely pleased to have captured this historical performance with a special recording. Enjoy!

Many thanks to Steve Wynn for permission to record this performance and for his invitation to the soundcheck. The quality of this recording is a tribute to this artist.

This recording is available for download as FLAC or MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3
2008-07-25
Maxwell’s
Hoboken, NJ USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard/Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Front of Board Neumann KM-150s > Edirol UA-5 (Oade Digimod) > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (set fades, slight level boost, downsample, dither) > CD Wave 1.95 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by
nyctaper
2008-07-26

Setlist:
[Total Time 55:28]
The Days of Wine and Roses
01 [introduction]
02 Tell Me When Its Over
03 Definitely Clean
04 That’s What You Always Say
05 Then She Remembers
06 Halloween
07 When You Smile
08 Until Lately
09 Too Little, Too Late
10 The Days of Wine and Roses
11 [encore break]
12 Season of the Witch (Donovan)

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Steve Wynn, visit his website, visit his MySpace page, and purchase his official releases from the Steve Wynn Store at his website.

Read more »

[photo by Matt, links to full resolution photos below]
[photo 1] [photo 2] [photo 3] [photo 4] [photo 5] [photo 6] [photo 7]

When we posted yesterday about the Dirty on Purpose gig at the McCarren Pool Afterparty, the day time pool bands were TBA for August 10. We did not realize that just a few hours later the bands would be confirmed for that date. Felice Brothers are the headliners, and our old friends Deer Tick are also on the bill.

We figure this is good time to offer a download of Deer Tick‘s (John solo) performance from the Bowery opening for Jaymay in June. This recording was captured by Matt from brooklynvibes, and he reports that John was very well received by the crowd who also included Jaymay in the audience for this set. To bring this post full circle, Jaymay also supported her friends in Dirty on Purpose with a guest vocal on “Like Bees” earlier this year.

Matt recorded this with his high end AKG microphones and the sound is spectacular. Enjoy!

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE)

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

John McCauley of Deer Tick (Solo)
New York, NY
Bowery Ballroom
June 10, 2008

Taper: Matt Casey
Source: AKG 414’s> Sound Devices 702
Conversion: Matt Casey
Source: CF> USB> Wavelab (normalizing)> CDWAV (tracking) >FLAC

Setlist:
01 [introduction]
02 Straight Into A Storm > Spend The Night
03 Live Fast Love Hard Die Young (Faron Young)
04 Art Isn’t Real
05 Mexican Home (John Prine)
06 Baltimore Blues No. 1
07 The Ghost
08 Dirty Dishes
09 Little White Lies
10 Ashamed
11 Poor Poor Pitiful Me (Warren Zevon)
12 These Old Shoes

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Deer Tick, visit their website, visit their myspace page, and purchase the War Elephant release from Itunes, or emusic, or order it directly from Feow Records when its back in stock.