[photo credit]

Marco Benevento has invited an interesting and varied roster of guest performers for his Thursday night January residency at Sullivan Hall. This past Thursday was the second installment and featured his standard partner Joe Russo (drums) in addition to Brad Barr from The Slip on guitar. The improvisation was top notch, and combined elements of prog, jazz, fusion and trance. The open ended nature of the sessions allow each artist to stretch out the limits of the space and be free of genres.

Sullivan Hall is the old Lion’s Den after a complete over-hall. The inside layout is quite similar, but the changes resulted in serious upgrades to the sound system and facilities. The venue is extremely friendly to tapers, and Marco Benevento permits open taping.

Unfortunately, I arrived fairly late at the venue, and the crowd was packed. As a result, I set up in a very busy location which became unworkable about 30 minutes after Benevento & Guests began their set. I recorded a segment of the first set and offer it as a sample of the magic produced this night. I will be returning on the 31st to record the closing night of the Benevento residency. The sound of this recording is outstanding (except for the massive crowd and its chatter). I expect the quality will be superior on the 31st, as well as a complete concert recording. Enjoy this sample as a preview of the excellent music available at these shows. See the last three!

Marco Benevento continues with unique guests each Thursday for the remainder of the month:
January 17: with Stanton Moore and Marc Friedman
January 24: with Billy Martin, Calvin Weston, and Skerik
January 31: with Reed Mathis and Andrew Barr

Download this recording in FLAC [HERE].

Marco Benevento & Guests
2008-01-10
Sullivan Hall
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Recorded Front of Board Left Center

DPA 4021s > Edirol UA-5 (Oade Digimod) > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 16bit 44.1kHz wav file > Soundforge (levels and fades) > Flac Frontend

Recorded by nyctaper
Premiere download offered at
https://www.nyctaper.com

Partial First Set:
[total time 20:26]
01 Jam

Please SUPPORT Marco Benevento and visit his website, where you can purchase his official releases (here).

[photo credit]

It was nearly 19 years ago when I last saw Natalie Merchant perform live. She was then the strong-voiced and charismatic singer of 10,000 Maniacs who was a bit quirky if not a little cold. After nearly two decades of success, including Maniacs charting singles, and a solo career that eclipsed her prior band, Natalie stopped touring and had a child.

Her announcement of six New York City dates — her first NYC concerts in 4 years — at the intimate Hiro Ballroom were a pleasant surprise, if not a complete shock. 2008 finds Natalie’s voice and charisma as strong and sharp as ever, but the years have added stage comfort, wit, and charming storytelling abilities that were a true pleasure to behold. Natalie’s interaction with the crowd throughout the night was warm and playful. Tuesday night’s show, at a Springsteen-like 2 hours and 20 minutes long, featured a series of new numbers from a pair of upcoming releases, including original adaptations of children’s poetry, along with the solo career standards.

This recording has been removed from the site at the request of the artist. nyctaper respects the artists wishes. Please do not email the site about this recording, it is not available.

Natalie Merchant
2008-01-08
Hiro Ballroom
New York, NY USA

Setlist:
[total time 2:16:54]
01 Carnival
02 Build a Levee
03 Break Your Heart
04 Too Long At The Fair
05 Shakespeare’s 73rd Sonnet
06 Equestrienne
07 The Janitor’s Boy
08 If No one Marries Me
09 The Man In The Wilderness
10 Texas
11 Life is Sweet
12 Wonder
13 Golden Boy
14 Go Down Moses
15 Giving Up Everything
16 The End
17 [encore break]
18 Village Green Preservation Society
19 Sweet Lady Genevieve (partial – Natalie acappella)
20 Tell Yourself
21 I Need Love
22 Kind & Generous
23 [second encore break]
24 Which Side are You On?
25 Butterfly Song
26 I’m Not Gonna Beg

Despite the removal of this recording, nyctaper encourages our readers to PLEASE SUPPORT Natalie Merchant and visit her website.

[photo credit]

moe.’s annual New Year’s warm-up gig was an intimate affair at a packed Irving Plaza. The special surprise guest was the (former) Allman Brothers legend Dicky Betts, who guided the band through an epic In Memory of Elizabeth Reed before joining in during Al Schnier’s Allmans-like Mexico.

This recording was made from the perfect location in this venue, and should be better than it is. In December, I sent my Neumann microphones to be serviced, and have used the DPA microphones exclusively. The quality of the two sets is fairly similar, but the Neumann’s have a -10db pad for situations like this concert. The sound in the venue was quite powerful and overwhelmed the DPA > Apogee system. I used the “soft-limiter” to prevent distortion, but during louder moments the sound is still “crunchy”. The problem was significantly reduced during the 2nd set. During quieter passages, particularly in Set 2, this recording is absolutely superb. Enjoy!

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

moe.
2007-12-30
Irving Plaza
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Front of Board
Dead Center approximately 40 feet from the stage

DPA 4021s (9 ft Stand) > Apogee Mini-Me > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (set fades, balance levels, dither, downsample, patch) > CDWave 1.95 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

*crossfade 1 minute and 10 seconds of patch material from an alternate recorder in the middle of Buster (thanks Eric)

Recorded and Produced by
nyctaper
2008-01-05

Setlist:
Set 1
[total time 1:02:44]
01 Stranger Than Fiction
02 Runaway Overlude
03 Captain America
04 Seat Of My Pants
05 Sensory Deprivation Bank
06 Timmy Tucker

Set 2
[total time 2:05:25]
01 Opium
02 In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
03 St. Augustine
04 Where Does the Time Go?
05 Mexico
06 [encore break]
07 Spaz Medicine
08 Buster
09 Spaz Medicine

If you download this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT moe. and visit their website.
and purchase their latest official release: