Hiss Golden Messenger: November 19, 2015 Baby’s All Right

November 25, 2015
By

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Continuing with the “running out of things to say” theme, I think even the band is starting to wonder if I do much of anything besides attend Hiss Golden Messenger concerts. If you read about the band’s doings in Durham, NC earlier last week, you’d know they debuted Heart Like A Levee, an entire new album, before two successive nights of attendees at Duke University. That album should be appearing on Merge Records in due time.

Well, this show at Baby’s All Right wasn’t that, but that’s not to take anything away from this sweaty, raucous show before a sell-out crowd. M.C. Taylor was joined on this jaunt by most of his regular band — the Cook brothers on keys and guitars, Matt McCaughan on drums — with Josh Kaufman taking up additional guitar duties. This show sounded like one by people who’ve fallen into a comfortable groove, and despite the extremely unpleasant temperature (how you make a club over 100 degrees indoors in the middle of November is a mystery to me) the band sweated through some strong versions of their tour favorites, plus less-heard numbers like “Mahogany Dread,” off of Lateness of Dancers, Poor Moon‘s “Super Blue (Two Days Clean)” and a newly-rocking version of “Brother, Do You Know the Road?” Perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation (the band were so hot their guitars were covered in sweat), we only got one encore, but it was a keeper — Waylon Jennings’ “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean.”

So, forgive the brevity of this writeup, but if you’re already on the train, you can read any of my reviews of recent shows to get a pretty good idea where things are headed. If you’re new to the band, well, this is a fine, fine way to take the plunge.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK5 cardiod microphones at the stage lip, together with Harrison Fore’s soundboard feed. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Hiss Golden Messenger
2015-11-19
Baby’s All Right
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Harrison Fore) + Schoeps MK5c (onstage, ORTF)>KCY>Z-PFA>Roland R-26 (2x24bit/48kHz WAV)>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (adjust stereo mix of onstage mics, compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects, EQ)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( Level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:19:17]
01 Saturday’s Song
02 Lucia
03 Call Him Daylight
04 Super Blue (Two Days Clean)
05 Mahogany Dread
06 I’ve Got A Name for the Newborn Child
07 Day O Day (A Love So Free)
08 Brother, Do You Know the Road?
09 I’m A Raven (Shake Children)
10 Blue Country Mystic
11 Southern Grammar
12 [encore break]
13 Lonesome, On’ry and Mean [Waylon Jennings]

Band:
MC Taylor
Phil Cook – Keyboards, Guitar
Brad Cook – Bass
Josh Kaufman – Guitar
Matt McCaughan – Drums

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT by buying Hiss Golden Messenger’s records from Paradise of Bachelors and Merge Records, as well as HGM’s online store.

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Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band: November 12, 2015 The Bowery Ballroom + New Show Announcement!

November 24, 2015
By

Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band

It’s been a wild, satisfying year for those of us following Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band. I’ve been treated to so many live excursions from the band since January, I’m running out of adjectives. Luckily they’ve got an upcoming 2xLP+7″, The Rarity of Experience, dropping early 2016 to help me replenish my vocabulary. Three songs from this Bowery Ballroom set will feature on that album: “Anthem,” “High Castle Rock,” and “The Rarity of Experience, Parts 1–2.” The back half of the set covers last year’s Intensity Ghost, with “The Ballad of Freer Hollow” and the dreamy, meandering closer “I Ain’t Waiting.” Opening up for the alt-country Futurebirds, you might think Forsyth and gang would hold something back for the unfamiliar audience—instead, they let it rip and I’ll daresay they won over an unsuspecting crowd entirely.

I recorded this set from our usual spot in the venue, with a board feed from FOH Kenny. The sound is fantastic. Enjoy!

New Show Announcement!
We are extremely pleased to be able to bring Chris Forsyth and the Solar Motel Band back to NYC. On December 12, 2015, NYCTaper Presents the band at Trans Pecos. The direct support for this show is provided by the outstanding Maine-based psych-rock band Herbcraft. Tickets are available now at Ticketfly [HERE]. The Facebook invite page is here.

Downloads are available at the Live Music Archive

Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band

Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band
2015-11-12
The Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by Eric PH

Soundboard (engineer: Kenny) + AKG C480B/CK61 (PAS) > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, compression, mixdown, normalize, fades) > Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [48:35]
01. Anthem
02. [guitar swap]
03. High Castle Rock
04. [banter]
05. The Rarity of Experience, Parts 1-2
06. [banter]
07. The Ballad of Freer Hollow
08. I Ain’t Waiting

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Chris Forsyth. Visit his website, like him on Facebook, and buy Intensity Ghost from No Quarter.

Robyn Hitchcock: November 20, 2015 (Early Show) City Winery

November 23, 2015
By

Robyn Hitchcock City Winery Quartly
[photo courtesy of Chris Quartly]

There are a few things you can expect at any given Robyn Hitchcock performance — namely humourous and often strange banter, a completely different setlist from the last time you saw him, and ninety minutes of entertainment. Robyn has been a profoundly influential and productive artist for the better part of four decades in a series of different bands and in many different formats. Its truly inexplicable why he does not receive the accolades of some of his contemporaries but he doesn’t seem fazed by it all. For the City Winery shows this past week, Robyn added a new wrinkle. For the November 20th shows (early and late), he promised vintage material and accepted requests, “everything considered, nothing guaranteed.” Fortunately for Andrew our taper on the scene, Robyn played his request “The Ghost Ship”, an ancient b-side that ultimately saw wide release on 1995’s You & Oblivion. The balance of the setlist drew primarily from the early catalog, including quite a few from the late-80s set of Eqyptians records. Robyn was joined midset by the Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift, who provided ethereal backing and duo vocals, the most memorable of which was her turn in “Pale Blue Eyes” during the all-covers encore segment.

Robyn Hitchcock recently announced more tour dates, which includes a return to the NYC area in January. All dates here.

Andrew recorded this set with the Sennheiser compact omni microphones mounted on a stand at the soundboard area. As this was a quiet acoustic show essentially in an active restaurant, there is quite a bit of typical ambient noise. Additionally, in post-production, I had to manually reduce each burst of crowd cheering following the songs but the crowd can still be a bit overwhelming at times. With those caveats, enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show (banter removed):

Robyn Hitchcock
2015-11-20
Early Show
City Winery
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Recorded at Soundboard area

Sennheiser MKE-2s > Zoom H4 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, EQ, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded by Andrew Lowden
Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:35:32]
01 Mexican God
02 Balloon Man
03 My Wife and My Dead Wife
04 [banter – tiny towels]
05 The Ghost Ship
06 [banter – early divorces]
07 The Devil’s Coachman
08 [banter – psychic payload]
09 San Francisco Patrol
10 Trouble In Your Blood
11 [banter – banjo]
12 Death and Love
13 Goodnight I Say
14 [banter – beanbags]
15 I’m Only You
16 Nietzche’s Way
17 Linctus House
18 [banter – harmonica holder]
19 Queen Elvis
20 [encore break]
21 River Man [Nick Drake]
22 Pale Blue Eyes [Velvets]
23 Motion Pictures [Neil Young]

If you Download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Robyn Hitchcock, visit his website, and purchase his official releases from the Store at his website [HERE].

Kathryn Calder: September 11, 2015 Mercury Lounge

November 19, 2015
By

Kathryn Calder Mercury
[photo by nyctaper]

Kathryn Calder’s solo career got a jump start this year. After Kathryn spent much of 2014 on tour as a member of the New Pornographers, a band within which she’s been a member for almost a decade, she returned to making her own music. It was the dual tragedy of the separate deaths of her parents that caused Kathryn to step away from solo material. Her 2010 album Are You My Mother? so poignantly captured the mixture of sadness and devotion involved in caring for a sick parent as Kathryn was coping with her mother’s ALS. Five years removed from that album, Kathryn Calder (self-titled) was released in April of this year. While not as profoundly personal as Are You My Mother?, the new album is consistent with Calder’s solo work — personal songs anchored by her rich and moving vocals. Her performance at Mercury Lounge in September took place on the most somber of days in NYC, but as with all of her material the message of hope was most appreciated on that particular day. Kathryn worked through five of the ten songs from the new album, some older material and one brand new song in a well-paced fifty-minute set that delivered exactly what we came to see.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards mounted at the front of the soundboard and mixed with a board feed. The post-production work was a little difficult reconciling the quieter and louder moments during the set, which partly explains the delay in posting this recording. However, the final product is quite excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Kathryn Calder
2015-09-11
Mercury Lounge
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + 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 46:54]
01 Slip Away
02 Turn A Light On
03 Take A Little Time
04 Beach
05 My Armour
06 [banter – mini tour]
07 Blue Skies
08 City of Sounds
09 One Two Three
10 New Frame of Mind
11 New Millenium
12 [band introductions]
13 When You See My Blood

If you Download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Kathryn Calder, visit her website, and purchase her official releases from the Store at her website [HERE].

Courtesy Tier: November 3, 2015 Rough Trade BK

November 18, 2015
By

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[photo by nyctaper]

Its been too long since we last attended and recorded a Courtesy Tier performance — five years to be exact. The silver lining to that kind of missed opportunity is to witness a sort of time lapse of talent that was saw at Rough Trade last week. Courtesy Tier is a much bigger, more powerful and more refined outfit than we saw a half-decade ago. That is not to say that the band wasn’t quite excellent back in 2010, when their energy and potential excited us enough to invite them to our CMJ show that year. But in 2015, Courtesy Tier is an impressive, fully-realized unit and their set at Rough Trade was a revelation. This show was an EP release party for their newest Little Rock, a three-song collection that was performed in the heart of the set. The balance of this Courtesy Tier show was a textbook example of a trio playing on all cylinders with Omer Leibovitz’s crunchy guitar out front and supported by the aggressive rhythm section of drummer Layton Weederman and the newest member of the band, bassist Alex Picca. The band played a couple of new songs, but when it came time to close the night, one of the final numbers went all the way back to those nights in 2010, and this time around “Cold” was a kind of victory lap for a band that is definitely these days playing from the win column.

I recorded this set by placing the Schoeps cards mounted front and center of the soundboard booth, and mixing the audience capture with a fine soundboard feed provided by the band’s excellent FOH Matthew Curtis. The sound quality if this recording is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Courtesy Tier
2015-11-03
Rough Trade
Brooklyn NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer Matthew Curtis] + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wavs > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 44:17]
01 Mila Says
02 Childish Blues
03 Down Easy
04 Green
05 Little Rock
06 [banter – growls]
07 Shape I’m In
08 [band introductions]
09 And We Don’t Know
10 Cold
11 Home

If you Download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Courtesy Tier, visit their website, and purchase their new EP Little Rock from the links at their website [HERE].

Alex Bleeker and The Freaks: November 12, 2015 Brooklyn Bowl (2 Sources)

November 17, 2015
By

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[photo courtesy of Jackson Richards]

Alex Bleeker and The Freaks treated us to two concerts on Thursday night at Brooklyn Bowl. As the release party for the new album Country Agenda, the first set was an extremely well-played run through much of the record with some older Freaks tunes, and one outstanding cover. The second set was the Freaks “Play Dead” — a guest-filled performance of Grateful Dead tunes, similar to what the band did in Chicago in July.

Country Agenda struck me most upon first listen as an album with superb production values. The sound quality is absurdly good, but what’s more compelling is that the songs have a feel that is consistent with the music. While others have pointed to the American Beauty / Workingman’s Dead qualities of the songs, this album very much more resembles a Laurel Canyon record and the offshoots of that movement. For the live performance, what substituted for the production values of the record was the tightness of the band. The Freaks were extremely well rehearsed and wired into each other — this is a band of both talent and commitment and the performance proved that. But this was also a night when the Freaks had some fun and let loose. The jamming aspect of this show began with the final number of the first set, an extended cover of Ricky Skaggs’ “Gone Home,” and continued throughout the second set of Grateful Dead music. Among the Dead songs, the one that jumped out most was the Martin Courtney (Bleeker’s bandmate in his other project, Real Estate) appearance for “Here Comes Sunshine”, which featured Courtney’s unique vocals and a tight three-guitar attack (thanks to the addition of Courtney) that nailed what is otherwise a difficult song to pull off. By “difficult,” I mean that the Grateful Dead themselves stopped playing it for a couple of decades because of timing difficulties. The night ended in very sweet fashion, as the uber-talent Steve Gunn led the band through a profound version of “Wharf Rat.” In total, Alex Bleeker and The Freaks provided us with two sets and well over two hours of music featuring both the band’s superb new album and a fun set of Dead covers. It was a tremendous night and fortunately it will be repeated soon. The band will once again “Play Dead” on December 30 at Rough Trade.

Acidjack and I both recorded this set with separate rigs. We shared a superb board feed provided by Brooklyn Bowl’s FOH (we need help with his name to give full credit) and we both ran Schoeps from the middle of the room. I used the Schoeps CCM4 cardioids and acidjack ran his MK41V supercardiods. The sound in the room was also quite excellent (including very little crowd chatter). The nyctaper mix favors the audience feed (about 65/35 in favor of the room), while the acidjack mix accentuates the well-mixed board feed. The sound quality of both mixes is superb but offer different approaches to this show. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show:
nyctaper source [MP3] / [FLAC]
acidjack source [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show (nyctaper source):

Stream the Complete Show (acidjack source):

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

Alex Bleeker and The Freaks
2015-11-12
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

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

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 1:03:37]
01 Little Dream I Had
02 California
03 See You On Sunday
04 [false start]
05 Country Agenda
06 Portrait
07 The Rest
08 Sealong Hair
09 Honey I Don’t Know
10 Downright Stinson
11 Leave On the Light
12 U.H.M.
13 [banter – new record]
14 Gone Home [Ricky Skaggs]

Set 2
[Total Time 1:14:41]
15 Viola Lee Blues
16 Tennessee Jed
17 Jack Straw
18 [Martin Courtney intro]
19 Here Comes Sunshine
20 He’s Gone
21 The Other One
22 He’s Gone Reprise
23 [Steve Gunn intro]
24 Wharf Rat

*******************************************************

Alex Bleeker & The Freaks
2015-11-12
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard + Schoeps MK41V (A-B)>KCY>Z-PFA>>Edirol R-44>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Set 1 [Total Time: 1:03:42]
01 Little Dream I Had
02 California
03 See You On Sunday
04 [banter1]
05 Country Agenda
06 Portrait
07 The Rest
08 Sealong Hair
09 Honey, I Don’t Know
10 Downright Stinson
11 Leave On the Light
12 U.H.M.
13 [banter2]
14 Gone Home [Ricky Skaggs]

Set 2 – Grateful Dead cover set [Total Time: 1:14:44]
01 Viola Lee Blues
02 Tennessee Jed
03 Jack Straw
04 [banter3]
05 Here Comes Sunshine %
06 He’s Gone> %
07 The Other One>He’s Gone %
08 [banter4]
09 Wharf Rat $
% w/ Martin Courtney
$ w/ Steve Gunn

If you Download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, visit their Facebook page, and purchase their new album Country Agenda from Sinderlyn Records [HERE].

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