Posts Tagged ‘ bowery presents ’

Long Ryders: November 10, 2016 Bowery Ballroom

November 17, 2016

Any discussion about the beginnings of the “alt-country” or “no depression” movement needs to include the story of the Long Ryders. The band is linked with LA’s early 80s “Paisley Underground”, except that the Long Ryders added Americana to their sixties-influenced pop. The Long Ryders released an EP and three terrific albums before they broke up in 1987, just a few years before the emergence of bands like Uncle Tupelo, Jayhawks and Old 97s would be grouped in a “new” genre that owed much to the path laid out by the Ryders. I owned all of the Ryders releases on vinyl and they often made appearances on my many mixed tapes over the years, cementing the band’s influence in my own music journey.

Each of the four members of the Long Ryders found significant success in the 1990s. Sid Griffin moved to London, founded the great Coal Porters and became a music writer. Stephen McCarthy moved to Virgina and worked with Steve Wynn in Gutterball and in recent years spent time in the Jayhawks. Tom Stevens returned to Indiana and launched a successful solo career, played with Wynn in Danny & Dusty and earned a degree in Computer Science. Greg Sowders stayed in LA and became a music publishing executive as a senior VP of A&R at Warner Chappell. The band did have a couple of brief reunions last decade but for the most part have moved on from the Long Ryders.

This year finally saw the release of the ultimate Long Ryders box set Final Wild Songs (Cherry Red Records), which includes all 3 albums, the EP, a bunch of bonus tracks, and a full live set from 1985. This extraordinary collection of material made the current music press sit up and take notice. The Box Set received five stars from AllMusic, 8/10 from Popmatters, and four stars from UnCut. The band played some reunion dates in Europe in the Spring, and this Fall saw the Long Ryders visit NYC for the first time in 29 years.

We’ve acknowledged that these reunion shows can be a mixed bag. Generally speaking, the relative life situation of the members often dictates the quality of the return to the music. That is to say that if we’re dealing with folks who don’t need to revisit past glories, the performances tend to be more tight and focused. Given that all four Long Ryders have had significant success in their lives after the band’s demise, this group was among the category of folks who reunited for all of the right reasons — love of music, dedication to fans, and an opportunity to reach younger fans to cement their rightful place in music history.

Last week at Bowery Ballroom, the Long Ryders were clearly focused and fully in sync. The set began in earnest with the roots rock of Sid Griffin complimented by McCarthy’s sweet tenor country rock. Sowders and Stevens provided a precise rhythm section with Stevens stepping forward as the protagonist in two expert numbers. The setlist comprised exactly the songs you’d want the Ryders to play (“Lights of Downtown”, “State Of My Union”, “Looking for Lewis and Clark”), included some great covers that were part of their recorded output (“I Want You Bad”, “Masters of War”) and indeed one cover that I believe the band never laid down in a studio — Buffalo Springfield’s “On The Way Home”, which proved a perfect outlet for McCarthy. Sure the crowd was older — to the point where at least a dozen of them pulled out chairs onto the Bowery floor — but this music sounded as fresh and new as it did in the mid-1980s, in large part because the Long Ryders were a direct influence on bands still making music today.

The Long Ryders have completed their tour but just recently announced that they will appear at the Stagecoach Festival in California in April, along with dates in Santa Ana and Hollywood, info here.

I recorded this set in our standard location at Bowery with the Schoeps cards mixed with an excellent balanced feed from the band’s talented FOH Adrian. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Long Ryders
2016-11-10
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer Adrian] + 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 1:29:31]
01 Tell It to the Judge on Sunday
02 Lights of Downtown
03 A Stitch in Time
04 Gunslinger Man
05 You Don’t Know What’s Right, You Don’t Know What’s Wrong
06 Years Long Ago
07 Run Dusty Run
08 Ivory Tower
09 [banter – Joshua Camp intro]
10 The Light Gets In The Way
11 Masters of War [Dylan]
12 Two Kinds of Love
13 [banter – dedication]
14 I Want You Bad [NRBQ]
15 I Had a Dream
16 [banter – chick on a horse]
17 And She Rides
18 Final Wild Son
19 Man of Misery
20 You Just Can’t Ride the Boxcars Anymore
21 (Sweet) Mental Revenge [Mel Tillis]
22 State of My Union
23 [encore break]
24 On the Way Home [Buffalo Springfield]
25 Looking for Lewis and Clark

SUPPORT Long Ryders: Website | Twitter | Merch! | Purchase Final Wild Songs from Cherry Red Records [HERE].

Sloan: October 17, 2016 Bowery Ballroom

October 27, 2016

By nyctaper

[photo by Jim Sharky]

Twenty years ago the end game in the script for success in the music industry was still a big record deal. But like most “sure things”, the big deal was often a big trap. For Sloan that meant signing with Geffen Records for their 1992 album Smeared, but by the time of the release of their second album their relationship with Geffen went sour. After 1994’s Twice Removed, Sloan left the label and rumors of their break-up began to circulate.

The reports of their death having been greatly exaggerated, Sloan recorded One Chord To Another in 1996 on a shoestring budget and with modest recording techniques. And not only were they not dead, One Chord ended up being Sloan’s best selling record and a Juno Prize winner. Twenty years later it was time to celebrate this pivotal point in the band’s long and illustrious career and in 2016 One Chord To Another got the box set treatment and a tour.

At Bowery Ballroom last week, the One Chord tour rolled into town and Sloan played a two-set show with the album played straight through as the first set, and an intentionally democratic selection of songs as the second set. The band specifically referenced trying to cover at least one song from every album for this show — and that they did. The two hours of music and full album play made this show an event, but what made the night even more special occurred with two fans in between sets. In 2011, a couple had their first date at the Sloan show at Bowery Ballroom and play our recording every year on their anniversary. Five years later, Bowery and Sloan was perfect time and place for Ben Lindbergh to propose — and she said yes!

I recorded this set in a slightly different manner from our usual way — the placement of Sloan’s touring soundboard moved our mounted room microphones a little to the left and our feed from the remote board came with some issues. It took me a while to sort everything out in editing this set, including trying to minimize the sonic issues that came with the amplifier that exploded at the end of the first set. But all in all, I feel like this is now a superb recording. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Sloan
2016-10-17
Bowery Ballroom
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 1:47:10]
Set One (One Chord To Another)
01 The Good in Everyone
02 Nothing Left to Make Me Want to Stay
03 Autobiography
04 Junior Panthers
05 G Turns to D
06 A Side Wins
07 Everything You’ve Done Wrong
08 Anyone Who’s Anyone
09 The Lines You Amend
10 Take the Bench
11 Can’t Face Up
12 400 Hundred Metres
Set Two
13 [Ben Lindbergh Proposal]
14 Deeper Than Beauty
15 Underwhelmed
16 C’mon C’mon
17 Money City Maniacs
18 So Far So Good
19 Unkind
20 Who Taught You to Live Like That
21 Sinking Ships
22 People of the Sky
23 Midnight Mass
24 I’m Not a Kid Anymore
25 I Can Feel It
26 Snowsuit Sound
27 The Rest of My Life
28 Losing California
29 [encore break]
30 The Marquee and the Moon
31 If It Feels Good Do It

SUPPORT Sloan: Website | Facebook | Buy One Chord To Another Box Set HERE

Teenage Fanclub: October 15, 2016 Bowery Ballroom

October 16, 2016

By nyctaper

[photos by PSquared Photography]

The legend goes that in 1991, SPIN Magazine selected Teenage Fanclub’s album Bandwagonesque as its record of the year ahead of such luminaries as REM’s Out of Time, Nirvana’s Nevermind and My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. Over the years, that choice has been ridiculed in certain circles, but twenty-five years later the selection is rather prescient. My Bloody Valentine didn’t make another album after Loveless until twenty-two years later, REM never made another album that approached the quality of Out of Time, and of course Nirvana was over less than three years later. As careers go, Teenage Fanclub has been the most consistent of the four bands and produced the largest quality catalog in the years since SPIN took heat for them.

This year Teenage Fanclub released their eleventh album and first since 2010. Here (Merge Records) is a record of significant maturity and focus — the band is producing songs as strong as ever and the group harmonies are as sweet as ever. The band has now embarked on a US tour in support of the album and NYC enjoyed two shows this weekend, including Brooklyn last night and the Bowery Ballroom show we caught on Saturday night. Teenage Fanclub live was as compelling and impressive as the new album. This is a band that is both fully committed and comfortable and the show was just one peak after another. The setlist drew fairly democratically from the band’s full catalog and with just five songs from Here, was not overly weighted to push new material. And twenty-five years on, the only two tracks from Bandwagonesque played were given center stage, with a perfect version of the classic “The Concept” closing the main set.

Teenage Fanclub plays Boston tonight and the tour continues through six more October US dates before the band returns to Europe in November, all dates here.

I recorded this set in our usual manner in this venue, with the Schoeps mounted at the balcony rail mixed with a fine feed from the band’s touring FOH. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Set:

Teenage Fanclub
2016-10-15
Bowery Ballroom
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 1:30:23]
01 Start Again
02 I Need Direction
03 Verisimilitude
04 I Don’t Want Control of You
05 [tuning music]
06 Sometimes I Don’t Need to Believe in Anything
07 Hold On
08 It’s All in My Mind
09 Thin Air
10 About You
11 The Darkest Part of the Night
12 Don’t Look Back
13 Can’t Feel My Soul
14 I Have Nothing More to Say
15 I’m In Love
16 Star Sign
17 [banter – thanks]
18 The Concept
19 [encore break]
20 Did I Say
21 Radio
22 Your Love Is the Place Where I Come From
23 Everything Flows

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

Heartless Bastards: May 10, 2016 Music Hall of Williamsburg

May 20, 2016

By acidjack

Our journey with the Heartless Bastards continued this year with this show at Music Hall of Williamsburg, part of a dual-headlining tour with the Old 97’s (unfortunately, not taped). Since we first started covering their shows seven years ago, the Bastards have proven over and over to be a consistent, happy go lucky gang of road warriors, churning out one high energy show after another. It’s a credit to them that over a career that spans numerous albums and more than a decade, there’s not a dud among the bunch. Like another Cincinnati band we like to gush about, this band trades flash for grit, quality for quackery. For this show, the second of theirs we’ve covered at this venue, there wasn’t a brand-new album to promote (Restless Ones came out last year) so we were treated to a hit parade of sorts, from “Blue Day” from All This Time, to some of my favorites from Arrow like “Down in the Canyon” and “Skin and Bone,” to the new stuff, including obvious road winner “Gates of Dawn.” As both bands played essentially headliner-length sets, this clocked in a touch shorter than some of the recent sets we’ve seen (though still well past an hour) but nobody left complaining. The band went on to swap places with the Old 97’s a couple nights later at Irving Plaza, but I have to believe the Music Hall crowd got the better end of the bargain. As Erika said, the band loves this club, and for good reason. Like the band themselves, it’s something familiar, and something good.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK5 cardiod microphones in our usual spot, plus an Aeta PSP-3 preamp to provide optimum clarity. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Heartless Bastards
2016-05-10
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Live engineer: Ryan McHugh

Schoeps MK5c (at SBD, DFC, PAS bar)>KCY>Z-PFA>Aeta PSP-3>Zoom F8>24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (fades, light compression)>Izotope Ozone 5
(EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 The Mountain
02 Gates of Dawn
03 Got To Have Rock N’ Roll
04 Black Cloud
05 Into the Light
06 Skin and Bone
07 Blue Day
08 Hold Your Head High
09 Hi-Line
10 Down In the Canyon
11 Gray
12 Only For You
13 Parted Ways
14 Sway
15 [encore break]
16 Low Low Low
17 Nothing Seems the Same

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT the Heartless Bastards, visit their website, and buy Restless Ones from Partisan Records.

The Rooks: December 5, 2015 Mercury Lounge

February 18, 2016

By nyctaper

[screen shot from this video]

The indie-soul crossover movement of the last decade that included the likes of Sharon Jones and Raphael Saadiq was admirable but would only be truly meaningful if it led to young bands taking up the mantle. This is where The Rooks come in. The band was formed at Wesleyan College in Connecticut. The Rooks moved to NYC in 2013 and began to play gigs that were immediately lauded — their residency at Pianos in January of 2014 is on record as one of the most highly-attended runs that venue has produced. We caught the band during those shows and acidjack noted the band’s obvious talent, appeal and predicted future success. We’re still sticking with that story. In December, I captured The Rooks in a double bill with their friends Lawrence, and the packed sold-out Mercury Lounge confirmed that we’d been right. The band is bigger than ever and with the crowds bursting at the seams, they are poised to move up the ladder to bigger venues and more high profile gigs. The band’s set included tracks from their 2015 EP Wires, a couple of unreleased songs, and three neat covers, including the closing song from an unmentionable artist that tore down the house. Catch The Rooks on tour this Spring including a show at Rough Trade BK on February 27.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps mounted next to the soundboard and mixed with an excellent feed from Mercury’s FOH Alex. Other than a boisterous crowd somewhat noticeable during quieter moments, the sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

The Rooks
2015-12-05
Mercury Lounge
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [engineer Alex] + 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 45:47]
01 Intermission (Wires)
02 Doubt
03 Nothing Wrong
04 [Lawrence intro]
05 Gin and Juice [Snoop Dogg]
06 Secrets
07 You’re the One
08 Kiss From a Rose [Seal]
09 May Care
10 Bury Me Deep
11 Purple Reign [Prints]

SUPPORT THE ROOKS: Website | Bandcamp | Facebook

Shearwater: February 6, 2016 Mercury Lounge

February 10, 2016

By nyctaper

[photos by PSquared Photography]

I’m a big fan of intelligent and accomplished musicians — the type of people who don’t just play music but thrive at other vocations. Recently we enjoyed the music of fashion icon Preetma Singh, mathematics whiz Kiran Gandhi, composing genius Owen Pallett, award-winning novelist John Darnielle, and others. On Friday at Mercury Lounge, it was Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater, who besides fronting an outstanding band is also a renowned ornithologist, or a bird expert, who has been profiled in Scientific American.

Meiburg’s dual expertise results in some consistent themes in Shearwater’s music. The lyrical content includes many references to nature, with two of the albums actually called Animal Joy and The Golden Archipelago. Last month, Shearwater released their eighth full-length record Jet Plane and Oxbow and its been described as a “protest album” which given current climate science, would seem to be an instinctual reaction for someone in tune with the natural world. At Mercury, the band played eight of the eleven songs on the new album (along with three classics and one cover) and the entire event was truly breathtaking. The show began with a single white light illuminating Jonathan’s face as the band began the set with the album’s opening track “Prime”, a song that offers dual themes of tragic love and a natural world on the precipice of danger. The set continued in dramatic fashion until book-ended by the album’s closing track the somber “Stray Light at Clouds Hill”, a song that shares a lyrical refrain with “Prime” but mourns both human and natural death. For an “encore” (the band never actually left the stage), Meiburg offered a heartfelt tribute to the late David Bowie by pointing out that the album Lodger helped him through some difficult times, before the band broke into a powerful version of “Look Back in Anger”. It was a compelling and appropriate end to what was most certainly one of the best shows we will see all year. Shearwater is currently on tour in Europe but will return to the US in March, including a show back in NYC at Bell House on March 12. Our local readers would be wise to attend that show.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps mounted at the soundboard booth and mixed with an extraordinarily well-mixed board feed by the band’s very talented touring FOH (whose name I did not get, please provide if you know ). The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Set [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Set [banter tracks removed]:

Shearwater
2016-02-06
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 1:02:44]
01 Prime
02 Filaments
03 [banter – crows]
04 A Long Time Away
05 Rooks
06 [banter – uncomfortable dislocation]
07 Quiet Americans
08 You As You Were
09 Wildlife in America
10 [banter – louder]
11 Pale Kings
12 [band introductions]
13 Backchannels
14 [banter – Lodger]
15 Stray Light at Clouds Hill
16 [banter – thanks]
17 Look Back in Anger [Bowie]

SUPPORT Shearwater: Website | Facebook | Twitter | BUY Jet Plane and Oxbow

Lawrence: December 5, 2015 Mercury Lounge

January 28, 2016

By nyctaper

[photo from Lawrence Facebook page]

Lawrence the band is co-led by a brother and sister duo, Clyde Lawrence and Gracie Lawrence. In a true display of the idea that talent is genetic, both Lawrence siblings have been accomplished performers for the majority of their short lives. Clyde Lawrence is on record as the youngest member ever of the Songwriters Guild (SGA), having written a song for a major motion picture at the ripe age of six. Clyde continued to write songs for movies throughout his teens and indeed wrote the complete score for the 2014 film The Rewrite, starring Hugh Grant and Marisa Tomei. Gracie Lawrence has been in several movies and indeed appeared on Broadway in Brighton Beach Memoirs. She has pages on the Playbill Vault, Wikipedia and IMDb and she is only eighteen years old.

At Mercury Lounge in December, the band previewed much of their upcoming debut album. The record was produced by Eric Krasno of Soulive and is expected to be released in February. Lawrence is going on tour throughout February (dates here), which culminates in the record release show at Webster Hall’s Marlin Room on February 18.

I recorded this set in our usual manner at Mercury — Schoeps on a stand at the board and mixed with an excellent feed provided by house FOH Alex. The crowd was a bit boisterous on this late weekend night but overall it just adds some authenticity to the recording, which otherwise sounds quite excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Lawrence
2015-12-05
Mercury Lounge
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:09:01]
01 High Road
02 Wake Up
03 Alibi
04 [banter – Justin Ryan intro]
05 So Damn Fast
06 Me and You
07 Where It Started From
08 Superficial
09 [untitled new song – Missing You]
10 Get Busy [Sean Paul]
11 Cold
12 Play Around
13 [new song – Shine]
14 Say My Name [Destiny’s Child]
15 [band introductions]
16 Do You Want To Do Nothing With Me
17 [encore break]
18 Wash Away
19 Hot In Herre [Nelly]

Support Lawrence: Facebook | Twitter

Cass McCombs: January 7, 2016 Bowery Ballroom

January 11, 2016

By nyctaper

[photos by Will Oliver]

The timing was excellent. My first show of the new year took place at the legendary Bowery Ballroom and featured one of my favorite artists. And did Cass McCombs ever deliver. We’ve seen Cass perform intense shows, fun shows, and even split shows with the Meat Puppets. But what Cass and his band did on Thursday night was one for the ages — an over two-hour epic night that featured a nice cross-section of material from his healthy catalog. Ostensibly Cass is on tour in support of his new album A Folk Set Apart: Rarities, B-Sides & Space Junk, Etc., which as its title makes clear, is a compilation. But the band only played a couple of songs from the new album, instead treating us to some inspired versions of older Cass material. Of note were the last two songs played — a huge thirteen-minute version of “County Line” and the finale, a fourteen minute take on “Dreams Come True Girl”, which also included a dual drum solo. The band this time out included the addition of two drummers (Jesse Lee and Ryan Sawyer) to replace Joe Russo (currently on tour with JRAD), and Cass regulars Dan Iead on guitar and Jon Shaw on bass. With several years together, the unit was both tight when necessary and also capable of letting loose for extended segments (see above) which ultimately provided us with a lengthy show that literally never lagged and was chock full of highlights.

I recorded this set from our usual location in this venue and the sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show [minus banter tracks]:

Cass McCombs
2016-01-07
Bowery Ballroom
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 2:02:28]
01 [intro]
02 Night Of The World
03 Big Wheel
04 [new song – River of Blood]
05 Brighter
06 [band introductions]
07 Name Written In Water
08 My Sister My Spouse
09 [new song – I Want to Know]
10 Robin Egg Blue
11 Aeon of Aquarius Blues
12 I Cannot Lie
13 Morning Star
14 Prima Donna
15 [new song – Why Does it Rain]
16 Home on the Range
17 County Line
18 [band intro – encore break]
19 Dreams Come True Girl

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, PLEASE SUPPORT Cass McCombs, visit his website, and purchase A Folk Set Apart: Rarities, B-Sides & Space Junk, Etc. from the Domino Records website [HERE].

Alex Bleeker & the Freaks “Play Dead”: December 30, 2015 Rough Trade NYC

January 6, 2016

By acidjack

If you were a fan of the Grateful Dead, and you saw the actual band live, then you’ve probably got more than your share of opinions about the various combinations of the remaining parts of it who’ve tried to transact on the original’s greatness. As someone who never saw the actual band (but has seen some successful and less-than-successful related projects), I’m not here to convince you. But for my money, there’s something rewarding, something essential, about watching much-younger musicians, with full careers filled with their own original material in front of them, paying tribute to one of rock music’s foundational bands.

I loved the Brooklyn Bowl show that we posted by Alex Bleeker and The Freaks — that one a combo run through their new album and some other originals, followed by a “Play Dead” set that’s become a staple of many of their live shows. This one flipped that script, with Bleeker and pals offering up a 100-minute set consisting almost entirely of Dead covers. This — my final show of the year — was billed as the afterparty to Phish’s 12/30 Madison Square Garden show, and the celebratory air from that event (an especially strong performance from this year’s MSG run) carried over into the more intimate confines of Rough Trade NYC.

Overall, this “Play Dead” was a looser, better and arguably truer performance to the spirit of the original band. While the Brooklyn Bowl set consisted mainly of discrete run-throughs of each song, you’ll notice that this set was filled with segues, kicking off with “China Cat Sunflower” into a surging “I Know You Rider” before venturing into cosmic territory with “Eyes to the World” into “He’s Gone” into “The Other One,” taking a short detour through “Dark Star” and ending up, improbably, with a Bleeker original, “Sealong Hair,” from their latest record, Country Agenda. After that came three more non-Dead tunes (two more originals, plus their regular-rotation cover of Mountain Man’s “Animal Tracks,” a fierce jam in its own right. Where Bleeker was joined last time by Real Estate’s Martin Courtney, here we had another cameo by one of his Ridgewood, NJ pals, Julian Lynch and multi-talented Dave Harrington (of many bands, but perhaps best-known for his work in Darkside). The band managed to deliver a little birthday salutation to Harringon in between “Tennessee Jed” and “St. Stephen,” which closed the set. By that point it was 2 a.m. and the club’s neighbors weren’t going to tolerate any more. For those of us inside, though, this was an afterparty that we’d have been happy to continue all night.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed from Rough Trade engineer Leah, together with Schoeps MK4V microphones. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete set: [FLAC] | [MP3]

Stream the complete set:

Alex Bleeker & The Freaks “Play Dead”
2015-12-30
Rough Trade NYC
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard [engineer: Leah] + Schoeps MK4V (PAS)>KC5>CMC6>>Zoom F8>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 )

Tracks [Total Time: 1:43:00]
All songs by the Grateful Dead unless noted

01 tuning>China Cat Sunflower>
02 I Know You Rider
03 Eyes of the World>
04 He’s Gone>
05 The Other One>
06 Dark Star Jam>
07 Sealong Hair [Alex Bleeker & the Freaks]
08 Downright Stinson [Alex Bleeker & the Freaks]
09 Animal Tracks [Mountain Man]
10 U.H.M. [Alex Bleeker & the Freaks]
11 Shakedown Street>
12 The Wheel>
13 Tennessee Jed>
14 [Happy bday to Dave]>
15 St. Stephen
16 [outro]

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

Holly Miranda: December 18, 2015 Bowery Ballroom

January 6, 2016

By nyctaper

[photo courtesy of Gina Garcia]

We’ve followed Holly Miranda for more than the last half decade, and she’s never let us down. Whether it was at the legendary Maxwells, headlining gig at Bowery, a private show at a wine bar, a night at Glasslands, or a show among friends at Zebulon, Holly Miranda has consistently delivered outstanding performances. Her latest record is a self-titled album that was recorded a couple of years ago after Holly moved to LA and parted ways with XL Recordings. As we noted in 2013, the new album and the artist would find a new home quickly and sure enough Dangerbird Records did just that. Last month at Bowery Ballroom, Holly brought together some old friends (including friend of the site Tim Mislock) and played a too brief support set which included much of the new album, a couple of older tracks and one sublime cover. As always, ultimately the set left us satisfied but wanting more. So, tomorrow night Holly Miranda will join forces with the excellent Hypnocraft and play a show at Manhattan Inn. Don’t miss it.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards mounted in our usual location in this venue. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show [minus banter tracks]:

Holly Miranda
2015-12-18
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
FOB Audience

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

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 38:48]
01 Mark My Words
02 Desert Call
03 Waves
04 No One Just Is
05 All I Want To Be Is Your Girl
06 Come On
07 [band introductions]
08 Mary Won’t You Call My Name [Morphine]
09 [Kyp Malone intro – Everlasting false start]
10 Everlasting

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Holly Miranda, visit her website, and purchase her official releases from the Music link at her website [HERE] or directly from Dangerbird Records [HERE].

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Posts Tagged ‘ bowery presents ’

Long Ryders: November 10, 2016 Bowery Ballroom

Sloan: October 17, 2016 Bowery Ballroom

Teenage Fanclub: October 15, 2016 Bowery Ballroom

Heartless Bastards: May 10, 2016 Music Hall of Williamsburg

The Rooks: December 5, 2015 Mercury Lounge

Shearwater: February 6, 2016 Mercury Lounge

Lawrence: December 5, 2015 Mercury Lounge

Cass McCombs: January 7, 2016 Bowery Ballroom

Alex Bleeker & the Freaks “Play Dead”: December 30, 2015 Rough Trade NYC

Holly Miranda: December 18, 2015 Bowery Ballroom

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