Son Volt: April 7, 2017 Bowery Ballroom

April 16, 2017
By


[photo by Joe Kelly]

Son Volt is currently on tour in support of their new album Notes of Blue, the band’s ninth record in more than twenty years of work. Despite the early years as torch-carriers for the alt-country/No Depression movement, Son Volt has built a career on solid roots/Americana rock. Like band leader Jay Farrar, there’s nothing particularly flashy about the group, they’re just built on a consistent foundation of high quality music. The new album continues in that vein, if not a tad bit more focused on the “roots” sound more representative of the Son Volt’s recent output.

The Son Volt tour came through NYC last week for a few local dates, and we were fortunate to attend the Bowery Ballroom show which sold out months ago. Like the band, the fans of this band are consistent and faithful — members of our group for the Bowery night came from Ireland, Boston and Missouri to see this show. And the band did not disappoint. After the early set concentrated heavily on Blue material, Son Volt delivered a twenty-six song show with a setlist pulled democratically from all eras of the band. Indeed there were three Uncle Tupelo songs in the encore set, and the night ended with Keith Richards penned Stones cover. Son Volt will be on tour throughout the next two months mostly in the West and Midwest, dates here.

I recorded this set with room mics only, running the Schoeps from our traditional spot in the front center of the balcony. The sound quality reflects the show experience — excellent quality sound supplemented by some feisty fans. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Son Volt
2017-04-07
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded at Soundboard Booth

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:39:26]
01 Cherokee St
02 Lost Souls
03 Buzz and Grind
04 Static
05 Damn Shame
06 The Picture
07 Dynamite
08 Tear-Stained Eye
09 Midnight
10 Sinking Down
11 Back Into Your World
12 Catching On
13 Cairo and Southern
14 Ten Second News
15 Promise the World
16 [band introductions]
17 Back Against the Wall
18 Bandages and Scars
19 Driving the View
20 Route
21 Drown
22 Afterglow 61
23 [encore break]
24 Still Be Around
25 Windfall
26 Graveyard Shift
27 Chickamauga
28 [second encore break]
29 Happy [Rolling Stones]

PLEASE SUPPORT Son Volt, visit their website, and purchase Notes of Blue and other official releases directly from the Official Son Volt store [HERE].

Big Ups: April 7, 2017 Sunnyvale

April 12, 2017
By


[Photo by Acidjack]

I could yap a bunch about Big Ups and how great they are, but I’ve done that before and you already know. Okay just one thing: this is one of the best of a bunch of Big Ups shows I’ve seen, so it’s more than worth checking out. While you’re listening you can pick up Before a Million Universes from Exploding in Sound, still available on orange vinyl for you collector scum.

Like the Pile set from the same night, we recorded this set from the stage lip combined with a board feed from Sunnyvale’s engineer Dave. The sound is terrific. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Big Ups
2017-04-07
Sunnyvale
Brooklyn, NY

Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com

Soundboard (engineer: Dave) + AKG C480B/CK61 (stage lip) > Zoom F8 > 2 x WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, mixdown, balance, compression, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, tagging, dither, downsample) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [29:05]
01. Capitalized
02. Justice
03. Knight
04. Wool
05. Contain Myself
06. Hope For Someone
07. Dogs
08. Negative

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Big Ups, visit their website, like them on Facebook and buy Before A Million Universes from Exploding In Sound.

Pile: April 7, 2017 Sunnyvale

April 10, 2017
By

“Thank God for Pile”—if you listen closely, you’ll hear one zealous audience member with an enthusiasm you don’t often see for such a young band. But people really love Pile—and everyone in-the-know knows Pile are damn great. Their comparatively small but dedicated following gets bigger with each album and I daresay if you missed out on Pile this time around, I’m afraid you’ve missed the last of their shows in a small room.

On Friday, we squeezed ourselves into a packed Sunnyvale for the band’s second of two sold-out Brooklyn shows (the first was at Baby’s All Right). The thing about bands on Exploding in Sound Records is that where there’s one there’s bound to be more. Pile headlined a stacked bill featuring some current and future EIS greats: Gnarwhal, Big Ups, and Stove. Their set gets cut a bit short due to time constraints, but that only served to increase the intensity as their finale of “Rock and Roll Forever With the Customer in Mind” will attest. That tune is from 2015’s You’re Better Than This, while the rest of the set is comprised of songs off their latest album, A Hairshirt of Purpose, and their first EIS record, Dripping. Whether you’re new to the band or a longtime fan, listen to this cracking performance and be thankful for Pile.

Pile is touring the U.S. and Europe through June. Check dates here and go see Pile!

Acidjack and I recorded this from our usual location at Sunnyvale right up at the stage lip, plus a board feed from Sunnyvale’s engineer Dave. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Download: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream:

Pile
2017-04-07
Sunnyvale
Brooklyn, NY

Recorded by Eric PH and Acidjack
Produced by Eric PH

nyctaper.com

Soundboard (engineer: Dave) + Nakamichi CM-300/CP1 (ORTF, stage lip) > Zoom F8 > 2 x WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, mixdown, balance, compression, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, tagging, dither, downsample) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [45:00]
01. Worms
02. Hissing For Peace
03. Rope’s Length
04. Grunt Like a Pig
05. Dogs
06. [banter]
07. Texas
08. [banter]
09. Leaning on a Wheel
10. [banter]
11. Bump a Grape
12. Fingers
13. [banter]
14. The Browns
15. [encore break]
16. Rock and Roll Forever With the Customer in Mind

• Bandcamp
• • Facebook
• • • Tumblr
• • • • Buy A Hairshirt of Purpose via Exploding in Sound

Bardo Pond: April 1, 2017 Knockdown Center

April 10, 2017
By

It was heartening to see The New York Times give such prominent billing to this Bardo Pond show, held at Maspeth’s somewhat-remote but welcoming Knockdown Center this past weekend. If the use of the phrase “noise rock” to describe the band was reductive in extremis, it at least got at the notion that Bardo Pond shows are loud, distortion-drenched, hallucinatory affairs. But give a listen to Under the Pines, which the band played in full at this show to celebrate its release, and vocalist Isobel Sollenberger features more prominently for much of this journey, at least compared to past pairing with the Gibbons brothers and Clint Takeda’s guitar attack. A vocalist is almost always a critical component of a band’s sound, of course, but it feels like Sollenberger is a more confident and featured presence than she’s been at any time in their long career.

We first saw many of these songs at the Three Lobed Sweet Sixteen show we recorded last year, and again at Union Pool in November, and they’ve only gotten sharper and better since. This full-album run through told the album’s story well, demonstrating both its cohesive flow and the diversity of sounds. “My Eyes Out” continues to be one of the more “pretty” songs in the catalog, while “Moment to Moment” continues to establish itself as one of the band’s most vital new long-form songs. In a rare treat (at least, not seen by us since the 2011 Death By Audio show), this set wrapped with the vital combo of “Don’t Know About You” directly into “The Stars Behind.” There’s no new tour information for the band yet, but expect a fun one once they return to the road.

I recorded this set about 10 feet from the left PA stack with Schoeps MK41V microphones and a soundboard feed. The characteristics of the room and the sound being amplified through the stacks (mostly vocals) mean the vocals are a bit more prominent in this recording than would be optimal. Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable listen!

Download this show from the Live Music Archive: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Bardo Pond
2017-04-01
Knockdown Center
Maspeth, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK41V (FOB, LOC)>KCY>Z-PFA + Soundboard>>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CC (align, mix down, hard limiter)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.03. (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:14:54]
01 Crossover
02 Out of Reach
03 My Eyes Out
04 [banter1]
05 Moment to Moment
06 Under the Pines
07 Effigy
08 [banter2]
09 Don’t Know About You>
10 The Stars Behind

SUPPORT Bardo Pond: Website | Three Lobed Recordings | Fire Records

Lambchop: March 30, 2017 Bowery Ballroom

April 6, 2017
By


[photo by PSquared Photography]

In my not so humble opinion, Lambchop’s FLOTUS was the best album of 2016. In a similar regard, “In Care of 8675309” is the best song released this decade. What makes it more remarkable is that the album represents for Kurt Wagner a stylistic pivot from a twenty-five year career of eclectic americana. For FLOTUS, Wagner used modern technology juxtaposed with his intimate lyrics to create a masterpiece about the maintenance of an interpersonal connection in a world increasingly enslaved to machines.

We were fortunate to capture the live debut of the FLOTUS material at Hopscotch in September. Since that time Lambchop has toured the world and performed this material more than fifty times in a live setting, so that by the time they arrived at Bowery Ballroom last Friday, we were excited for the development of the songs. Our expectations were met early in the proceedings when Wagner sweetly crooned a subdued version of “NIV” that blended seamlessly into a guitar-driven truncated version of “The Hustle” that was transformed from the hypnotic electronic bifurcated melody on the album to a more unified alt-folk ballad live. “8675309” was placed in the middle of the set but Wagner’s intense vocal performance of the epic number was perhaps the highlight of the evening. The band’s setlist included a handful of older numbers and one cover, but this night was dedicated to FLOTUS and sans the title track, the album was nearly completely performed. The keyboardist Tony Crow provided several ace solos (and some hilarious banter) and the band also includes veteran bassist Matt Swanson and Wye Oak’s percussionist/electronic wiz Andy Stack, whose expert multitasking we’ve noted previously in this pages. But it was Wagner centerstage, and while his abundant use of vocals effects may have startled some of the old guard, the packed house was clearly on board for the FLOTUS sound and hovered on every note. Lambchop’s current tour comes to a close in the next few weeks, and they’re going back to Europe in the Summer festival season, but we expect that they will return to NYC in the Fall.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps mounted in our usual balcony spot and mixed with a flawless soundboard feed. The crowd’s great respect for this performer and this material permitted us to capture the often quiet moments of this set without distraction and as a result the sound quality of this recording is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Lambchop
2017-03-30
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Edirol R-44 (Oade Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:39:16]
01 NIV
02 The Hustle
03 Directions to the Can
04 Poor Bastard
05 Old Masters
06 Writer
07 [banter – physical comedy]
08 In Care Of 8675309
09 [band introductions]
10 The New Cobweb Summer
11 [banter – build character]
12 Howe
13 JFK
14 Relatives #2
15 Harbor Country
16 [encore break]
17 My Blue Wave
18 When You Were Mine [Prince]

PLEASE SUPPORT Lambchop: Website | Buy FLOTUS at Merge Records

Teenage Fanclub: March 27, 2017 Warsaw Brooklyn

April 3, 2017
By


[photo by Dean Keim]

We approached the return of Teenage Fanclub this past Fall with much optimism and we were rewarded with a superb new album and an outstanding show in October at Bowery Ballroom. The band has aged well — in particular the harmonies and songwriting remain top notch three decades into their career. Six months later, Teenage Fanclub has toured the world and as this phase of their career comes to a close, the band played Brooklyn last Monday as the final night of the tour. The success of this year’s work was evident in the size of the venue — from a 500 ticket Bowery show in October that sold out on the day of the show to a 1000 capacity Warsaw that was packed

At Warsaw, the Fannies were in a relaxed and playful mood and the band’s interaction with the large crowd was frequent. Norman Blake spoke frankly about the band’s previous night’s end-of-tour party, but if the players were feeling the effects it did not show in the performance which was as tight and focused as expected. The band took a request from a fan who had brought a sign asking for “Going Places” and the band took a brief break to work through the song before performing it. The setlist was varied from the October show and included a few tracks not played back then, including a tribute to the late Grant McLennan. After a four-song encore set, the band waved goodbye but given the success of this most recent reunion, we don’t expect it will be long before Teenage Fanclub returns.

I recorded this set with the Hypercards mounted back at the soundboard and mixed with an excellent feed. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Teenage Fanclub
2017-03-27
Warsaw
Brooklyn NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [engineer David] + Neumann KM-150s > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wavs > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3/tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:35:05]
01 Start Again
02 Don’t Look Back
03 Hold On
04 I Don’t Want Control of You
05 Thin Air
06 Verisimilitude
07 It’s All in My Mind
08 The First Sight
09 About You
10 I Need Direction
11 The Darkest Part of the Night
12 Je T’Aime tease [Serge Gainsbourg]
13 Can’t Feel My Soul
14 Ain’t That Enough
15 [banter – end of tour]
16 Going Places
17 I’m in Love
18 Sparky’s Dream
19 The Concept
20 [encore break]
21 I Was Beautiful When I Was Alive
22 Star Sign
23 Easy Come Easy Go [Grant McLennan]
24 [banter – thanks]
25 Everything Flows

SUPPORT Teenage Fanclub: Website | Facebook | Purchase Here from Merge Records

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