Posts Tagged ‘ acidjack ’

Ryley Walker: November 3, 2016 Villain

November 16, 2016
By

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[Photo by Sierra Starno on Instagram]

The second time I saw Ryley Walker happened to be not long after I had received some bad news. I had immersed myself in his music since encountering him at Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh some months before. This time, I knew what to expect from him, but on a personal level, I felt unmoored in a way that I hadn’t in years. What struck me as he poured himself into “Summer Dress” that afternoon at Rough Trade in 2014 was not that the actual words he was saying necessarily spoke to my condition, but the way they sounded. Part of the beauty of Walker’s work is that his often-obtuse lyrics can be a blank canvas, albeit one surrounded by a complex web of sound. I couldn’t speculate what Ryley had experienced in order to pen these songs, but whatever it was, somehow, hearing him experience it made me feel better.

This show, at the multipurpose Williamburg venue Villain (relocated from the temporarily re-shuttered Market Hotel), took place less than week before what would become the most catastrophic political event in my lifetime, so I can’t say that it gave me the same level of comfort at the time. Listening back to this performance now, though, I think this music once again serves the same purpose. Even in the darkest of times, there are voices that speak to us, that lift us up, that remind us why it’s worth it to go on.

This set came at the rollicking end of the band’s U.S. tour. And I do mean band. As has been the case with recent shows I’ve seen, Ryley arrived with not only the stalwarts Ryan Jewell on drums and Anton Hatwich on bass, but he also had sometime musical partner Bill MacKay there to do double duty with him on guitar. It befitted not only this larger room (you can hear its size in the recording) but the direction Ryley has preferred of late, with his album songwriting serving as more of a jumping off point to dense psychedelic folk jams, Grateful Dead-style, than as pieces to stand by themselves. To wit, this show of just four songs was the longest I’ve seen by Walker yet–over 80 minutes long.

One of Walker’s more interesting paradoxes is how different his between-song persona is from the music he plays. To the same degree that his songs drift toward melancholy and darkness, the guy that shows up in between traffics in an exuberant, could-give-a-fuck abandon, cracking jokes about showing up at the wrong kind of “improv” party, talking about his band of accomplished jazz players as if they’re no different than the twenty-year-old punk knuckleheads down the block. Maybe that’s right–maybe they’re not. Music itself may often be serious, but it doesn’t have to be somber, at least in a room of friends.

My favorite of this night’s numbers was a song from Ryley’s latest, Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, that I hadn’t seen live yet. This twenty-three minute version of “Age Old Tale” began with a sustained ambient noise jam that paid homage to this neighborhood’s roots (“this is where you’d have gone to see a noise band fifteen years ago” Ryley said of the room, or something approximate). If you’d walked in during this song, you might have had no idea that the best comparison that certain corporate publications can come up with for Ryley is Van Morrison. It might be true of his albums, to a point, but what you experience in the room is something else entirely, and a sustaining reason why I personally never miss his shows. We need music right now. We especially need music like this.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed from the FOH Ryan together with Schoeps MK4V microphones back by the soundboard. If I do say so myself, it’s pretty fucking cool that I got a shoutout from stage during the process of recording this. This isn’t one of the easier rooms, sound-wise, but based on the music alone, this recording should be a must-add to your collection.

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC/ALAC]

Stream the complete show:

Ryley Walker
2016-11-03
Villain
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Ryan) + Schoeps MK4V (DFC, at SBD)>KCY>Z-PFA>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CC (compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, image)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [intro banter]
02 The Roundabout
03 [banter2]
04 Sullen Mind
05 [banter3]
06 Age Old Tale
07 [banter4]
08 Funny Thing She Said

Band
Ryley Walker
Bill MacKay – Guitar
Anton Hatwich – Bass
Ryan Jewell – Drums

PLEASE SUPPORT Ryley Walker: Website | Twitter | “Ryley Walker Bootlegs” (his word, not ours)

Lambchop: September 8, 2016 Hopscotch Music Festival (Raleigh, NC)

November 14, 2016
By

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By now, Lambchop fans have had a chance to hear the band’s daring new record, FLOTUS, a critically-acclaimed shot across the bow to anyone who would dare claim a classic artist can’t reinvent themselves. But back in September, at the Hopscotch Music Festival, fans were probably more ready for a show like the one we witnessed there in 2012, or any number of the band’s lauded full-band shows whose cast can stretch to over a dozen people.  So when Kurt Wagner sang the first Vocoder-enhanced lines of “NIV” — a song nobody there had heard before — a fan might have been forgiven for being freaked out. When the entire show, including pre-FLOTUS material, continued in that vein, you have to imagine more than a few WTFs were exchanged. But that would have been a serious mistake, as not only are these new songs compelling in their own right, but the very fact of their existence says something special, too. Artists in the third decade of their career don’t often make these kinds of stylistic moves, and when they do, they often ring hollow. Wagner had already experimented with an electronic sound with his side project HeCTA in 2015, but for that to migrate to his main act represents an additional leap.

Wagner, on the other hand, has made a stripped-down, gorgeous album whose songwriting, pacing and structure (bookended by two epic-length tracks) are as equally of note as the dedication to the vocoder. The new sound echoes something essential about our era, taking a style once so resolutely organic and making it largely electronic. You feel both excited by the new possibility, yet threatened by the loss of something more natural, more human.

Here, in Raleigh’s comfortable Fletcher Opera Theater, those electronic tones were warmed up by not only the band’s physical presence, but Wagner and his bandmates’ banter, which alone was worth the price of admission. If he gets tired of music, pianist Tony Crow might well have a career in front of him as a comic sideman, as he traded jokes with Wagner throughout the night. Though this was the first time that many of these songs saw the light of day, it turns out that these versions are faithful to the album versions. Equally interesting were the FLOTUS-fied versions of earlier material like the standout Mr. M track “If Not I’ll Just Die” and several of its fellow Mr. M tracks. Stripped of that album’s lush arrangements, we’re left with arctic tone of Wagner’s altered words. The effect was unsettling but lovely, adding focus to Wagner’s words.

If you haven’t heard FLOTUS yet, I’d encourage you to give it a shot. Whether you knew Lambchop before or not, the album, and the quality of its songs, stands on its own as an of-the-moment document by an artist who has followed his own muse for decades. Also, I’d like to thank our friends at Merge Records for letting us post this recording. As eager as we were to share it with the world, both Merge and we thought the best thing was to hold back this live show of a large chunk of the new album until fans have gotten to hear it for themselves. Now, you can compare the two side by side.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed and Schoeps MK4V microphones. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC/Apple Lossless]

Stream the complete show:

Lambchop
2016-09-08
Hopscotch Music Festival
Fletcher Opera Theater
Raleigh, NC USA

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

Soundboard + Schoeps MK4V (ROC, at SBD)>KC5>CMC6>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 NIV
02 The Hustle
03 [banter]
04 Poor Bastard
05 Old Masters
06 If Not I’ll Just Die
07 [banter2]
08 Gone Tomorrow
09 In Care of 8675309
10 [banter3]
11 Nice Without Mercy
12 [banter4]
13 Directions To the Can
14 [encore break]
15 When You Were Mine

PLEASE SUPPORT Lambchop: Website | Merge Records

Guerilla Toss: July 30, 2016 Secret Project Robot

November 3, 2016
By

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We had seen Guerrilla Toss a few times before this year’s Out in the Streets Festival performance that we captured. To us, and to anyone who has watched their ascent, they are one of those rare live bands that you seek out, who combine musical originality and daring with a live performance that’s bound to engage even the more pop-leaning subjects whom it reaches. It’s not insignificant the this band is signed to DFA, not only because that avatar of the previous decade conjures the best about the north Brooklyn scene, but also because they tend to sign acts that get your body moving, with whatever technology necessary.

This Secret Project Robot show only extends the myth and the mystery of this band, being held in a creative space that, like most things north Brooklyn, was temporal but great. Add to that their specific choice of playing on the floor, rather than on stage, putting frontwoman Kassie Carlson, in particular, right in the audience’s face. If it wasn’t the technically strong show, in terms of sound system, it was absolutely one that showed what is best about this band’s interactive, high-energy live experience. This writhing, sweaty rager, featuring songs from the band’s DFA debut, Eraser Stargazer, showed that fun music can be cerebral, too.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones not far from the band. The sound quality is reflective of the setup and the way it was recorded, and fits the moment perfectly. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [FLAC/MP3]

Stream the complete show:

Guerilla Toss
2016-07-30
Secret Project Robot
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Schoeps MK4V (FOB, DFC, PAS)>KCY>Z-PFA>Aeta PSP3>Roland R-26>24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (channel mixer, compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Betty Dreams of Green Men>
02 Trash Bed>
03 TV Spell>
04 TV Do Tell>
05 Ritual In Light>
06 Realistic Rabbit
07 Eraser Stargazer Forever>
08 The String Game>
09 Billy Blood Idol

PLEASE SUPPORT Guerilla Toss: Bandcamp | Facebook | DFA Records Page

Joan of Arc: October 7, 2016 Knitting Factory

October 31, 2016
By

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The last time we recorded Joan of Arc, I noted that they could be a bit of an acquired taste; that they are a band that rewards listeners who want to be challenged, not who show up for something typical. At this Knitting Factory performance, their first in New York in quite some time, they doubled down on that statement, as they played a set of songs that was alternately fascinating and head-scratching, but consistently expectation-defying. The current band includes Tim Kinsella on guitar and vocals, regulars Bobby Burg and Theo Katsaounis on bass and drums, Jeremy Boyle and the artist Melina Ausikaitis, who performed both an a cappella number mid-set and joined Kinsella on vocals at points in addition to playing some custom instruments.

This set was meant to showcase the band’s forthcoming album, He’s Got the Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands, which you can pre-order here, and which is of a piece with the band’s general perspective. The record contains a heavier emphasis on electronic instruments than one might expect from a member of the legendary Cap’n Jazz and the much-vaunted (or maligned, depending on your perspective) “emo” scene, which was a term that never really meant much of anything, but means even less when considered in light of this band. Songs like “This Must Be the Placenta” (the album’s first single) and “Stranged That Egg Yolk” are sure to stretch boundaries for some fans, and if their reception tonight was to be believed, Joan of Arc’s fans are ready for them. Things got weirder after we hit the halfway point, with Ausikaitis’ pseudo-Appalachian a cappella number followed by “The Hands” from the band’s first album, which then led into a lengthy aside by Kinsella about seeing the Misfits in a hockey arena, followed by two mostly-instrumental songs that I found to be the most compelling in the set (if these have names, please help me out), which made up a combined twenty minutes of the just-over-an-hour total.

In total, then, this show felt reminiscent of that show back in 2011: depending on one’s perspective, some things may have “worked” better than others, but you have to applaud the whole of it for its willingness to take risks, to let things go to uncomfortable places. Based on the preview tracks floating around on the Internet, the new album should be a more than worthy entry into the band’s canon, and represent some of the best of those experiments. Nearly twenty years after their first album was released, Joan of Arc know who they want to reach and how they want to reach them, and that has continued to make their story one worth following.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones next to the soundboard with a feed from house engineer Rob. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete set: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete set:

Joan of Arc
2016-10-07
Knitting Factory
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Rob) + Schoeps MK4V>KCY>Z-PFA>>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (fades, align, compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:07:10]
01 Explain Yourselves #2>instrumental
02 Stemingway and Heinbeck
03 Flowers
04 This Must Be The Placenta
05 Stranged That Egg Yolk
06 Staying Alive and Lovelessness
07 Shown and Told
08 “Red Headed Girl”
09 The Hands
10 [banter]
11 [new]>
12 [new2]

PLEASE SUPPORT Joan of Arc: Website | Pre-Order the new album

Phish: October 15, 2016 North Charleston Coliseum, Charleston, SC

October 17, 2016
By

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Whether this second night of Phish‘s 2016 fall run appealed to you or not, it wasn’t a night for the fans who love the big rockers, or the hits. It’s no surprise that the band’s latest album Big Boat saw heavy representation, including a debut of “I Always Wanted It This Way.” There’s considerable pressure on acts in the fourth decade of their career to “play the hits,” and while Phish may not have “hits” in the same way as some other bands, they still have those tour staples that the fans expect to see in regular rotation. While those classics were present from time to time in this set — “Maze,” “Wolfman’s Brother,” “Possum,” “Twist,” and “Carini,” for example — the songs just named were about it. If the band wanted to send the message that “Phish 3.0” still believes that it has new music worth making, they did that on this night.

Any Phish show is likely to have its fanboys and its detractors, and part of the fun of a band like this is that one person’s relative bummer of a set can fall firmly in another dozen’s wheelhouse. That said, people who have attended far more shows than I have can better describe the alchemy of a transcendent Phish set, and most longtime fans I spoke with admitted that this unevenly-paced one at the North Charleston Coliseum didn’t quite have it. It’s not unfair to say that some of these Big Boat and Fuego songs need more road time to come into their own, though the saccharine “Joy” has had since 2009 and doesn’t seem likely to. In addition to the selection of material, there was the pacing, as the first set started off with a string of mostly-mediocre material before “Maze” came along to refocus everyone’s attention. Even a solid “Carini” (though marred by childish screaming during the chorus) couldn’t quite make that first set make sense, especially as it was led into by the gimmicky, off-key and quite frankly annoying “Ass Handed” interlude.

The second set overall was much better, with the non-album track “Mercury,” leading off as an absolute highlight, followed by “Twist” into the extremely strong debut of “I Always Wanted It This Way.” The proggy, synth-led track felt like the kind of new music you hope a band makes at this point in their career, representing such an evolution that it made the song feel like a familiar-sounding cover. Unfortunately, things went back off the rails after that, as the buzz-killing “Miss You” was followed by the milquetoast “Fuego.” After a killer “Sand” put things back on the right track, we got plunged back into ballad territory with “Joy” before “Possum” closed things out on a high note. The one-song encore nodded toward another of the band’s strongest traits, as they delivered a rollicking “Good Times, Bad Times,” that found Trey taking his best shot at Robert Plant and Jimmy Page at once.

Nonetheless, there’s plenty to like about this tour so far. Mainly because it’s not a greatest-hits tour–this band is actually trying to make something new, after all this time. If this part of the tour has a few stutter-steps, or a few shows that are slightly less-than, you still have to reward this band for being what it is. For trying.

I recorded this set at the soundboard with Schoeps MK41V supercardiods into an Aeta PSP3 preamp. The right channel of “Blaze” was patched from the left channel during most of the song, but the remainder of the show’s sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC/ALAC]

Stream the complete show:

Phish
2016-10-15
North Charleston Coliseum
Charleston, SC USA

Recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK41V>KC5>CMC6>Aeta PSP3>Roland R-26>24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity (patch right channel for 4min of first song, fades, track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 2:40:23]
Set I
01 Blaze On
02 What’s the Use?
03 Martian Monster
04 Devotion to a Dream
05 Waking Up Dead
06 Timber [Josh White]
07 Things People Do
08 Let Me Lie
09 Maze
10 Ass Handed
11 Carini
12 Wolfman’s Brother

Set II
13 Mercury>
14 Twist
15 I Always Wanted It This Way
16 Miss You
17 Fuego>
18 Sand
19 Joy
20 Possum

Encore
21 Good Times Bad Times [Led Zeppelin]

Bill Nace: September 9, 2016 Three Lobed / WXDU Day Show, King’s (Raleigh, NC)

October 14, 2016
By

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Bill Nace‘s reputation among noise aficionados is a well-deserved one, with him having collaborated with the likes of Okkyung Lee, Chris Corsano, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, and Paul Flaherty. If his work with Gordon in Body/Head is his best known, that still means Nace’s experimental guitar work still resonates with a relatively specific (but dedicated) portion of the music-loving population. Among a diverse bill, perhaps Nace’s appearance most drove home what sets Three Lobed Recordings apart even from its brethren among small labels.  On a day that spanned Watery Love’s scuzzy hardcore to Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore’s delicate folk, Nace’s set nonetheless stood out as a testament to music’s outer boundaries. The abstract, hypnotic and deeply felt composition that Nace wove on this afternoon was one of those things that leaves each listener open to interpret it how they wish; for me, a reward of this type of music is the way that it forces the listener to decide what it is, rather than interpret more direct expressions like lyrics. While sometimes a recording cannot fully capture what it meant to experience something live at the time, I submit that this is almost the reverse — on headphones, in a car or some other enclosed, personal space, this set is even better to engage with.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones onstage and Brad Womack’s house mix. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC/ALAC]

Stream the complete show:

Bill Nace
2016-09-09
Three Lobed / WXDU Day Show
King’s
Raleigh, NC USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Brad Womack) + Schoeps MK4V (stage lip, DFC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>Zoom F8>3x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 improvisation

PLEASE SUPPORT BILL NACE — Buy his other records here and get Body/Head material here.

YVETTE: September 29, 2016 Market Hotel

October 11, 2016
By

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[photo by _.@belinda_, courtesy of the Godmode Instagram]

YVETTE owned the stage on this night at Market Hotel, preparing the crowd for HEALTH with their enveloping, dark, and percussive sound that seems like it won’t let you go. Since 2013’s Process we’ve seen YVETTE grow and evolve as a band, as they’ve continued to gestate new material before rapt live audiences. Between our Hopscotch encounter with them in 2014 to a Trans-Pecos show in 2015, they’ve continued to develop new and exciting ways to get under our skin, including a couple of new songs on this night that we hadn’t heard before (one so new it lacks a title). Likewise, the Market made sense for this band and the one it followed, with the room’s layout literally narrowing the focus to the lone duo up front, backlit and relentless. Noah Kardos-Fein and drummer Dale Eisinger have always maintained a certain economy to their shows, foregoing most chatter in favor of weaving their set into a continuous flow. It feels like time for a new record, which they’ve continued to work on, especially as Process predates Eisinger’s time in the band. We can’t wait to hear it.

I recorded this set with the mounted AT 4051 cardiods an a flawless soundboard feed from house engineer Jason. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Yvette
2016-09-29
Market Hotel
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Jason) + Audio Technica 4051>>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades, normalize)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>xAct 2.36 (tags, encode)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Pure Pleasure
02 Sell It Off
03 B61
04 Radiation
05 Absolutes
06 Smoke In Your Eyes
07 (untitled)
08 Cuts Me In Half

If you Download this recording from NYCTaper PLEASE SUPPORT YVETTE, visit their website, and purchase Time Management and their other releases from Godmode Records[HERE].

MAKE: September 9, 2016 Hopscotch Music Festival, Pour House (Raleigh, NC)

September 29, 2016
By

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MAKE represent another of my favorite recent finds from the Triangle in North Carolina. The three-piece, consisting of Scott Endres, Luke Herbst and Spencer Lee, make the kind of intense, loud-as-hell, but thoughtful metal that, with doom, black, and stoner elements, and a decent dose of flat-out classic rock, puts them in a category beyond a single niche scene. Like more than a few bands in the area, MAKE has been fighting hard against North Carolina’s bigoted HB2 law, including with their most on-the-nose contribution, the song “Human Garbage,” featuring Governor Pat McCrory’s face on the cover. That song made the rotation during this Hopscotch Music Festival show at the Pour House in Raleigh, which remains one of the best places in the area to see heavy music.

The band’s performance, kicking off the night in the venue, shook the rafters with Endres and Lee’s deep riffage, bringing the heaviest elements of the band’s sound to the fore. That’s in keeping with their latest album, Pilgrimage of Loathing, which (perhaps reflecting their view of the political situation) is a harder-edged and more rage-fueled affair than 2015’s The Golden Veil, which keeps company at many points with an entirely different group of bands (Sleep, Om, Arbouretum) than the references you might hear on Pilgrimage. The juxtaposition was thrilling live — experience the whip-turn from “The Somnabulist” and “Human Garbage” to “The Absurdist” and “The Architect” from The Golden Veil. It showed, in a relatively short set, how versatile, and how enjoyable, this band can be, and one would hope to see them around this part of the world (paging Saint Vitus) sooner rather than later.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V at the soundboard booth. The vocals are a bit quieter than I would like in the recording, but otherwise this is an excellent representation of this band. Check out Pilgrimage of Loathing on bandcamp, which is also streaming below, and the band’s other records. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Check out Pilgrimage of Loathing:

MAKE
2016-09-09
Hopscotch Music Festival
Pour House
Raleigh, NC USA

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

Schoeps MK4V (LOC, at SBD)>KC5>CMC6>Zoom F8>24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (hard limiter)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 The Somnambulist
02 Human Garbage
03 The Absurdist
04 [banter]
05 Birthed Into A Grave They Made For You>
06 The Architect

PLEASE SUPPORT MAKE: Facebook | Bandcamp

mccrory

Al Riggs: September 9, 2016 Hopscotch Music Festival, Deep South (Raleigh, NC)

September 28, 2016
By

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[Screen capture from this video]


As happens more and more frequently these days in North Carolina, Al Riggs dedicated one of his songs — “Carolina Peacemaker” — to the state’s governor Pat McCrory, whose brazenly incompetent and offensive campaign against LGBTQ people has lost the state several major concerts, the NCAA tournament, a major PayPal facility, and the NBA All-Star Game, among other things. As he detailed in an interview this summer, Riggs, who is gay, didn’t set out to make his music political, at least not about that topic. But he, like many of his fellow citizens, has found that if you live under this regime, you no longer have a choice.

If you leave out the political stuff, the most notable detail about Riggs is the volume of his output, made mostly by himself, mostly using his iPhone or laptop. His work (he was heading up to record a new album the following week in New York) finds its moment when he decides, rather than the practicalities of a “release schedule” or studio time or the various other trappings of most musicians’ lives. As a result, he’s able and willing to share his ideas at a furious pace, about whatever topic suits him — from state politics to the (very) unfortunately (since re-)  named Durham restaurant “Hattie Mae Williams Called Me Captain.”

Being a festival-length set, this Hopscotch Music Festival performance at Deep South the Bar could hardly do justice to Riggs’ entire body of work, but it gave those of us who hadn’t seen him live a flavor of what he’s capable of. Riggs, with a sing-speak delivery that purposefully doesn’t obscure his words, lives in both the rock and folk worlds, able to deliver a forceful choogler like “Afraid of Heaven” with the same degree of skill he brings to more subtle tunes like “All The Cells” — a song, he said, “for every queer kid’s parents who are trying to figure out what to do next.” Even if this set was billed simply as “Al Riggs,” one has to give  credit to his band, the Inconveniences,” who appear on his most recent album (though it’s hard to keep up) Night Freedom. While Riggs has been successful at recording on his own, there’s no denying the additional power of the live act, and his music and this modest-but-accommodating venue were a natural fit. It’s not really worth leaving New York to see the bands that play here all the time (which is most of them). It’s the shows like this, by the local gems that you’d hate to miss, that make the trip.

I recorded this set with a relatively modest setup, Audio Technica AT 853 cardiod microphones mounted in the center of the room. While there are some occasional spots of crowd noise here and there, the sound quality of this recording is overall quite strong. Enjoy!

Stream and download this show on our bandcamp page

Al Riggs
2016-09-09
Hopscotch Music Festival
Deep South
Raleigh, NC USA

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

Audio Technica 853c (2’ split, DFC)>CA-UBB>Sony PCM-10>24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Don’t Smoke In Bed
02 [banter]
03 Young Hegelians
04 Afraid of Heaven
05 Reagan Slain By Hero Cop
06 All The Cells
07 [banter2]
08 Carolina Peacemaker
09 [banter3]
10 Tunnel of Gore
11 [banter4]
12 Hungry Months

PLEASE SUPPORT AL RIGGS: bandcamp | Facebook

The Dead C: September 20, 2016 First Unitarian Congregational Society

September 25, 2016
By

The Dead C
[Photo via]

Do The Dead C need any introduction? The band’s status among devotees of noise and Kiwi rock is near mythological. And their long absence from performing in the U.S. has confounded younger listeners who might have discovered the band in the mid-aughts when Ba Da Bing issued the compilation Vain, Erudite, and Stupid and then started reissuing long-out-of-print classics like DR503 and Eusa Kills. This year saw the release of Trouble, comprised of five twitching, droning, and pummeling tracks that thwart any attempt at dissection or categorization. Having long abandoned any semblance of traditional song structure in favor of visceral, blown-eardrum improvisation resembling the band’s most famed track “Driver UFO,” Trouble might yet be The Dead C’s rock opus. So to say the anticipation for their brief September tour (hitting only Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Louisville’s Cropped Out Festival, and Los Angeles) was high would be to massively understate it. Despite the absence of drummer Robbie Yeats, who unfortunately was unable to make the tour, this hour-plus set from Michael Morley and Bruce Russell is a tribute to the band’s endurance. Backed with crashing and ebbing prerecorded drum tracks from Yeats, the duo stretch the bounds of guitar-based music, resulting in a performance that is utterly and uniquely The Dead C.

Acidjack and I recorded this from a central location in the church, combined with a board feed from the engineer Gus. The sound is outstanding; the performance extraordinary. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [FLAC] [MP3]

Stream the complete show:

The Dead C
2016-09-20
First Unitarian Congregational Society
Brooklyn, NY USA

Recorded by acidjack and Eric PH
Produced by acidjack

Soundboard (engineer: Gus) + Schoeps MK22 (FOB, DFC, PAS)>KCY>Aeta PSP3>>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, fades, normalize)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>xAct 2.36 (tags, encode)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 improvisation

• Buy Trouble and other Dead C releases via Ba Da Bing/Grapefruit
• • Buy Harsh 70s Reality via Siltbreeze

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