Posts Tagged ‘ ericv ’

Los Lobos: April 25, 1996 Mercury Lounge – Flac/MP3/Streaming (uncirculated ericv recording)

March 12, 2015
By

loslobos

I’m not entirely certain of the exact date that I met Eric Vandercar, but my best guess is February or March of 1996. We met through the old NYC-DAT-heads email list, and the immediate connection was the fact that we both had enormous DAT tape collections. When I first visited Eric in the Elizabeth Street apartment that he shared with his wife Jill, one of the first DATs he played for me was a March of 1996 Neil Young show in a small club in Santa Cruz — a recording that inspired me to purchased the very microphones that were used for that show. Eric and I traveled to shows in several different cities in the late 90s, and I’ve talked about those roadtrips in previous posts, but I believe that the first show Eric and I actually attended together was this Los Lobos show at Mercury Lounge on April 25, 1996. I am certain that Eric recorded this show from a mic stand mounted at the front left side of the soundboard booth at the Merc — in other words, at one of the most foot-traveled spots in the venue. My job was to block people from bumping into Eric’s rig and from the sound of this recording I did a pretty good job — up until the encore break when there are a few bumps on the mic stand.

At this point in their history Los Lobos was a very well established band, and when they released their 1996 album Colossal Head, there was a traditional round of promotion for the band to do. One of the best means of early album promo in the old days was a visit to Letterman, and on April 24, 1996, Los Lobos played David Letterman’s Late Show in the Sullivan Theatre, performing “Mas Y Mas” on national television. So with the band in NYC for a few days, there was a “secret show” scheduled at Mercury Lounge for which we were fortunate to snag a ticket. A venue the size of Mercury was a very intimate show for Los Lobos in 1996 and on this Thursday night the place was absolutely packed, including a reporter from the New York Times, who wrote a review of the show. Lobos worked through much of the then-new album, and seemed to be having a great time interacting with the crowd — there’s quite a bit of banter on this recording besides the tracked portions. When the set came to a close with an extended and well-jammed “Peace” it seemed very much as if the show was over. Indeed Eric faded out and turned off his deck when house music came over the PA. But the capacity crowd was having none of that and after a long break Los Lobos returned for two encores, including an outstanding Neil Young cover that we are streaming below.

This recording has not previously circulated in flac format as far as I can tell. There is no entry at db.etree and no reference to this recording on any online trade lists. Eric recorded this set on a stand in the location described above with his trusty B&K cards. There is a decent amount of crowd chatter but overall this is a superb recording and certainly up to par with Eric’s high standards. The DAT that I possess was cloned digitally from Eric’s master and extracted without a single error. There is one brief bit of digi-static in the first song likely from the original transfer (no error shows up on my DAT). I edited a few loud claps, joined the fade-out portion of the encore break, boosted the levels and added fades in and out. Otherwise this is Eric’s recording in its 19 year old glory. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Cinnamon Girl” (Neil Young cover):

EPSON MFP image

Los Lobos
1996-04-25
Mercury Lounge
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
FOB Audience – Front Left Corner of SBD Booth

B&K 4021 > Apogee AD-1000 > Tascam DA-P1 > DAT Master

DAT Clone > Sony PCM R-300 > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 16/44 wav files > Soundforge (mastering) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac

Recorded by Eric Vandercar (ericv) (nyctaper DAT clone)
Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:42:09]
01 Colossal Head
02 Revolution
03 Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes
04 Dream in Blue
05 Angel Dance
06 Can’t Stop the Rain
07 Manny’s Bones
08 That Train Don’t Stop Here
09 Little Japan
10 [banter – new record]
11 Everybody Loves a Train
12 Kiko and the Lavender Moon
13 [banter]
14 Maricela
15 [banter – bass line]
16 How Much Can I Do?
17 Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio
18 Volver, Volver
19 Georgia Slop
20 I Walk Alone
21 Peace
22 [encore break]
23 Evangeline
24 [tuning]
25 Cinnamon Girl [Neil Young]

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Los Lobos, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from the Store at their website [HERE].

moe.: October 31, 1998 Utica NY – Flac/MP3/Streaming – Dedicated to ericv

February 15, 2015
By

ericv_moe
[Eric in 1996 at a moe. show – photo courtesy of Craig Hillwig and Eric Vandercar: In Memoriam]

If the horrific Metro North crash on February 3, 2015 that took the life of my friend Eric Vandercar and five others taught me anything it was only to reinforce the notion that life is inherently unfair and at times utterly senseless. Eric was a superior individual — a man with a profoundly successful career, a wonderful family and a large variety of engaging and eclectic interests. The news reports have described him as a “banker”, which is kind of like describing Lincoln as a politician. Eric was at the forefront in the creation of varieties of municipal bonds, essentially for nearly thirty years creating the finance mechanisms that allow cities to raise funds for development. In his free time Eric was also one of the most prolific and knowledgeable tapers of the last twenty years. He was also a skier, a diver, and a world traveler. Ultimately, there was very little that Eric Vandercar did not do in his too-short 53 years of life. But here we are two weeks removed from the accident, and its time that I choose to rise above the anger and the sadness and begin the healing process by remembering Eric for the good he brought to this world in the best way I know how — the recorded music.

In a way, Eric and I lived parallel lives. When we were both newly married and living a short distance apart in NYC we spent a lot of time together going to shows locally and on the road from about 1996 to 1999. When each of us had children and when the Vandercars moved upstate, we saw each other infrequently. But with Eric, it was easy to pick up where we’d left off before. The last time I saw him we chatted for a while in the taper’s section at a Phish show on Randall’s Island, and talked about those old days when we’d sit for hours in his Elizabeth Street apartment and listen and swap the latest DAT recordings.

One of the more memorable trips I made with Eric was the moe. Halloween show in Utica NY in 1998. On previous roadtrips we’d gone with groups of tapers but for this weekend jaunt it was just the two married couples driving north in Eric’s SUV. I’d never been to Utica (before or since) but my memory was a small city similar to countless others in Upstate New York. We’d booked a hotel a short walk from the venue — a classic old theatre that had been renovated and renamed the Stanley Performing Arts Center. moe. were dressed in holiday costumes and kicked of the show with a straight forward “Reaper” cover before working through familiar material from this era in the band’s history. The show is notable for the appearance of a then-obscure local guitarist Joe Bonamassa, who has subsequently gone on to have a terrific career including a Grammy nomination in 2013. Other highlights include a very lengthy segment in the second set of Timmy > Brent > Moth with varied teases and short jam interludes in the suite.

This show was recorded by Eric with his trademark B&K 4021 microphones from a position at the front and center of the balcony. I had a seat on the floor, so before the show I gave Eric my Sony portable DAT deck and a couple of tapes and he did the rest patching my deck into his deck. So while I technically have “master” tapes, these are really “ericv” masters. His master of this show has not previously circulated before now.

On playback, the second set was extracted flawlessly but the first set had a few bits of digital static. It took me three plays to get this transfer of the first set. Not bad for a pair of seventeen year old DATs that I don’t remember ever actually playing.

I will be extracting more of Eric’s DATs in the immediate future and posting them here. In a very large way, NYCTaper would not have existed without the influence of Eric Vandercar on my own personal approach to taping and trading. I’ll be talking about that influence in future posts.

This Recording is available for Download in Flac and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE]. Stream the entire show below.

moe halloween 1998

moe.
1998-10-31
Stanley Performing Arts Center
Utica NY

Digital Master Recording
FOB Audience – First Row Center Balcony

B&K 4021 > Apogee AD-1000 > Tascam DA-P1 > Sony PCM M-1 DAT Master

DAT Master > Sony PCM R-300 > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 16/44 wav files > Soundforge (mastering) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac

Recorded by Eric Vandercar (ericv) (nyctaper DAT patch)
Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 1:03:08]
01 Don’t Fear the Reaper [Blue Oyster Cult]
02 Akimbo
03 [banter – hell night]
04 Jazz Wank
05 Spaz Medicine
06 Buster
07 [banter – Utica]
08 Blue Eyed Son
09 [banter – canned food]
10 32 Things

Set 2
[Total Time 2:00:07]
11 Bring It Back Home
12 [banter – Joe intro]
13 Sensory Deprivation Bank*
14 Timmy Tucker
15 Brent Black
16 Moth
17 [encore break]
18 Plane Crash
19 Freebird [Lynyrd Skynyrd]

*with Joe Bonamassa on guitar

If you download this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT moe., visit their website and purchase their official releases from the moe. store here.

moe 10-31-98 Ticket

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