Posts Tagged ‘ Hiss Golden Messenger ’

Hiss Golden Messenger: September 18, 2014 Rough Trade NYC (FLAC/MP3/Streaming)

September 19, 2014
By


IMG_7819
[photos by acidjack]

I have only seen Hiss Golden Messenger once before with a full band, a revelatory performance at the 2012 Hopscotch Music Festival. Since then, I have caught Mike Taylor several times in what one might call his de facto state, as the solo artist on his own, playing songs the way he did for his stripped-down, four-track album Bad Debt. In my time following Taylor’s work, I have come to see HGM as the embodiment of two different instincts — one, the band-leading artist drawing on his love of audience-pleasing, crowd-moving southern rock and gospel found in particular on Haw and Country Hai East Cotton; the other a man alone in a kitchen beside a sleeping baby, wrestling with his demons as the tape spools away like time. The challenge, and the reward, of Hiss Golden Messenger is the ability to reconcile those impulses.

This set at Rough Trade NYC, sponsored by Aquarium Drunkard, began with one of my all-time favorite HGM numbers, “Red Rose Nantahala” from Haw. As that song segued into the upbeat “Saturday’s Song” from Taylor’s Merge debut, Lateness of Dancers, it almost told the story of the latter-day band in two songs. The first finds Taylor pleading “Oh Lord, let me be happy” and “let me be the one I want”. The next, from an album that by all rights should take HGM to the “next level“, is a grown-up father’s song, about wanting to cut loose on the weekend, drink some whiskey, Sunday hangover be damned. The character in that song seems resolutely himself. Content at last, hangover be damned.

After that second song, Taylor slapped his guitar and noted that a Hiss Golden Messenger tour used to just be him and that single instrument (that’d be as recently as March, when he played a tour de force performance at Mercury Lounge). Today the band is a five-piece that features longtime collaborator Scott Hirsch on bass, Matt Douglas on saxophone, vocals and guitars, Megafaun‘s Phil Cook on keys, banjo and vocals, and Matt McCaughan (Rosebuds, Portastatic, Bon Iver) on drums. In some ways, the band reflects Mike’s changing circumstances, not only as a more known musician, but as an ever-more-firmly entrenched member of the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina music scene whose players pop up as regularly on each other’s records as they do at one another’s shows. Lateness feels less like a purely Mike Taylor album and more like a Triangle music album circa 2014, at a time when the scene is flourishing in all sorts of ways, but also ever-more-mindful of its roots. It leans, then, more toward Mike’s country-rock and gospel impulses, and that’s a fine thing.

So when we heard the Poor Moon classics “Blue Country Mystic” and “Call Him Daylight” in this new configuration, they were part of the “dance portion” of the set, an entire concept new to HGM sets that I’ve seen. “Daylight”, in particular, became a twangier, country-funk number, and as Douglas’ sax breakdown hit, the most striking thing of all was that people actually did dance. I shook my head a tad at a reckoning with god inspiring that reaction in people, but when Taylor hit the song’s final, climactic verse, the chills were there. As far as southern rock-via-HGM goes, it’s hard to beat “Lucia” from Lateness, or the equally compelling “Raven (Snake Children” that followed. This was my first time hearing both of these songs live, and they seemed to benefit most from the band and this setup (which isn’t surprising, since these players recorded them). Similarly, the Lateness material I had heard live before — “Southern Grammar” and “Chapter & Verse” — sounded better-realized than ever.

In another sign that today’s HGM is a more collaborative effort these days, the show’s final song was played on the floor, unamplified, with Taylor and the band pressed in on all sides by fans, performing “Drum” as the crowd added its own percussion and sang along. “Take the good news / and carry it away”, the crowd sang, rendering Mike’s voice just one among many. Hiss Golden Messenger has grown from one man and one instrument to a true band, and the good news for us is, they’ve got many miles left to travel. “We’re going to play a lot of shows this year. I guess everybody up here needs to get ready for that,” Taylor told us earlier in the set. That goes for you fans out there, too — here are the current tour dates.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones at the soundboard and a stereo feed from house engineer Cameron. The sound quality is outstanding, though of course note that “Drum” was sung on the floor unamplified, so it sounds like that. Enjoy!

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

Stream the complete show: 

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.

Hiss Golden Messenger
2014-09-18
Rough Trade NYC
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Schoeps MK4V (inside SBD cage, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>Sound Devices USBPre2 + Soundboard (engineer: Cameron)>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, adjust levels, limiter)>Izotope Ozone 5 (light EQ, imaging, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks:
01 Red Rose Nantahala
02 Saturday’s Song
03 [banter]
04 Mahogany Dread
05 Day O Day (A Love So Free)
06 [banter2]
07 Busted Note
08 [banter3]
09 Blue Country Mystic
10 [banter4]
11 Call Him Daylight
12 [banter5]
13 I’ve Got A Name for the Newborn Child
14 [banter6]
15 Lucia
16 I’m A Raven (Snake Children)
17 [banter7]
18 Southern Grammar
19 [encore break]
20 Chapter & Verse (Ione’s Song)
21 [banter8]
22 Drum [played on the floor]

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Hiss Golden Messenger, visit his website, and buy Lateness of Dancers from Merge Records and his other records from his shop. And see the band on tour.

IMG_7821

Hiss Golden Messenger: March 2, 2014 Mercury Lounge – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

March 11, 2014
By


IMG_6790
[Photos by acidjack]

Standing in the packed house, at an early show on Oscar night, I got the sense that we may be witnessing Hiss Golden Messenger hitting a natural peak. There’s the anecdotal information: a glowing Daily Beast write-up (among much other favorable press), the sold-out Mercury Lounge on a Sunday night, even people in their twenties who knew the words to every song. But the greater thing is the performances themselves, more assured and powerful at every encounter. We’ve covered HGM in a variety of configurations — large full band, small duo/trio and solo, not to mention fronting Magnolia Electric Co.  — but I’m not sure I’ve seen or heard a stronger set that this one. On this night Taylor drew from a deep well; you could hear it in every note. You could see it on the faces in the crowd, too, both the newcomers and the old, marveling at just how much he has to give.

There were a few rarities in tonight’s setlist, including the old song (we’re fairly sure is called) “Lucia” and the Songs: Ohia number “What Comes After the Blues”. Taylor also shared some songs from his forthcoming album, which he was in town to master. We got both “Southern Grammar”, which he shared with us at Glasslands back in August, as well as a new one from that whose title we don’t know “The Lateness of Dancers”, which was new to us (thanks to commenter Felice for the heads-up on the title). If you missed it, Mike has also been promoting the Paradise of Bachelors re-release of his LP Bad Debt, a lo-fi masterpiece that sourced many of the songs that would later re-appear in fully-realized form on Poor Moon and elsewhere. The man standing there before a crowd that knew his name felt, in some ways, a far cry from the lone artist in his kitchen, hammering out Bad Debt while his baby slept. Perhaps Taylor isn’t that exact same man, but a better version of him. An artist coming, like the slow bloom of this spring, fully into his own.

I recorded this set with the house mix by head engineer Kevin Mazzarelli, plus Schoeps MK41 microphones and a Sound Devices preamp to provide ambiance. The quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Stream “What Comes After the Blues” [Songs: Ohia]

Stream “Sufferer”

Download the complete show [MP3] | [FLAC]

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.

IMG_6792

Hiss Golden Messenger
2014-03-02
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Kevin Mazzarelli) + Schoeps MK41 (PAS)>KCY>Z-PFA>Sound Devices USBPre2>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (compression, align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ)>Audacity 2.0.3 (tracking, fades, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 When I Was A Young Boy [Nina Simone/traditional]
02 [banter]
03 Call Him Daylight
04 [banter2]
05 Blue Country Mystic
06 Balthazar’s Song
07 [banter3]
08 O Little Light
09 A Working Man Can’t Make It No Way
10 [banter4]
11 Busted Note
12 The Lateness of Dancers
13 Southern Grammar
14 Jesus Shot Me In the Head
15 [banter5]
16 Lucia
17 [banter6]
18 What Comes After the Blues [Songs: Ohia]
19 [banter7]
20 Super Blue (Two Days Clean)
21 Sufferer

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Hiss Golden Messenger, like him on Facebook, and purchase Haw, Bad Debt and his other releases on digital or vinyl from Paradise of Bachelors [HERE], or all of his releases on vinyl [HERE].

Songs: Ohia & Magnolia Electric Co.: Jason Molina Tribute at The Hideout (Chicago, IL) – FLAC/MP3/Full Set Streaming

January 13, 2014
By


IMG_6499
[Photos by acidjack]

An artist who is great does not go quietly. Long after he is gone, his echo will expand into new ears, carry forth his vision and provide inspiration and hope.

Jason Molina was special. I didn’t know him, but you’d have to be tone-deaf to the English language not to recognize the talent in every line he wrote. In the best tradition of song, his sung poetry managed to be both personal and universal. Molina’s words were often dark, but their beauty leavened their ache.

Molina made music under several names, but the two most permanent and best-known were Songs: Ohia, which lasted until a new roster became Magnolia Electric Co. in 2003. While none would dispute that Molina was the animating creative force behind both, he wasn’t alone. In tribute to Molina and his deep well of songs, the members of Magnolia Electric Co. performed a mini-tour this January that sent them to Durham and Asheville, NC, Indianapolis and, finally, Chicago. For the first three dates, Mike “Hiss Golden Messenger” Taylor handled the bulk of lead vocal duties. But this final show of the four-date tour, at The Hideout in Chicago, gave us something else entirely. What we got were more than two hours of Jason’s songs performed by two very serious rock and roll bands that were headless, in a sense, but heartless in none, joined by a cadre of special guests.

For the first set, the Songs: Ohia lineup shared vocal duties among themselves as well as country great Lawrence Peters for two numbers. On a searing rendition of “The Big Game Is Every Night”, Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen (formerly of Silkworm, now of Bottomless Pit) added guitars and vocals. Compared to the sprawling Magnolia Electric Co. set that was to come, the seven song Songs: Ohia set was brief, but it was no less memorable. People remember Molina’s words as nuanced and vulnerable, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make music that was loud. What you realized as Songs: Ohia closed their set with “The Black Crow”, featuring guitar pyrotechnics that could shake a venue ten times the Hideout’s size, was that Molina’s brand of ragged modern blues could make an emotional impact at any volume.

Magnolia Electric Co. took the stage with the deep melancholy of “Whip-Poor-Will”, followed by Taylor handling vocals on the harder-rocking “Hammer Down”. From there, a host of guest vocalists and players cycled through, including Peters, Midyett and Cohen reprising their earlier roles, plus David Vandervelde and Joseph “Elephant Micah” O’Connell. It quickly became clear that the 80-minute format of the previous shows would be ignored as the band pulled out tune after tune, relying at some points on lyric sheets (“This song’s got a lot of fuckin’ words!” Peters said of “Shenandoah”) but never lacking the passion to honor the material. Perhaps the most Molina-esque vocal turn came from among one of his own bands, drummer Mark Rice, who gave a stunning take on “The Lioness”. That said, making a list of highlights would be impossible, as each new song offered a new take on yet another Molina classic.

The crowd’s largest response came to perhaps Molina’s best-known song (and inarguably one of his best), “Farewell Transmission”. In that song, Molina sings that the real truth about it is that no one gets it right, but we’re all supposed to try. Well, if Jason could have heard his former bandmates and friends on this night, I think he would agree that they got it right. And they proved another piece of truth from that great song, that he will be gone, but not forever. Because the real truth about it is, a great artist like Jason Molina doesn’t die, he just changes shape. In our hearts and minds, he is forever.

I recorded this set with the kind assistance (not to mention outstanding house mix) of The Hideout engineer Joey King, together with Schoeps MK4V microphones. While no recording can quite capture the emotion present in the room, this is certainly an outstanding representation of the sound. I hope you enjoy it. Also, the bulk of the Molina canon is in print or has been reissued in LP and other formats on Secretly Canadian (including the 10th anniversary reissue of the seminal Magnolia Electric Co. record). You owe it to yourself to buy them.

Thanks to Seth Dodson and Joey King of The Hideout, the members of Magnolia Electric Co. and Songs: Ohia, and Mike Taylor.  Please let me know if any of my information about personnel is incorrect or incomplete.

Stream Songs: Ohia playing “The Black Crow”

Stream Magnolia Electric Co. playing “Farewell Transmission”

Download the complete show (both sets): [MP3] | [FLAC]
If either link has stopped working, please use the links below.

Download individual set downloads from the Live Music Archive:
Songs: Ohia: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Magnolia Electric Co.: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete Songs: Ohia set:

Stream the complete Magnolia Electric Co. set:

IMG_6492

Songs: Ohia
2014-01-11
The Hideout
Chicago, IL

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

Schoeps MK4V>KC5>CMC6 + Soundboard (engineer: Joey King)>>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 46:27]
01 Are We Getting Any Closer
02 Constant Change
03 Almost Was Good Enough
04 Just Be Simple *
05 [banter]
06 The Old Black Hen *
07 [banter2]
08 The Big Game Is Every Night $
09 [banter3 – Tribute to Jason]
10 The Black Crow

* with Lawrence Peters on vocals
$ with Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen on vocals/guitar

_____________________________________

Magnolia Electric Co.
2014-01-11
The Hideout
Chicago, IL

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

Schoeps MK4V>KC5>CMC6 + Soundboard (engineer: Joey)>>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:37:51]
01 Whip-Poor-Will
02 Hammer Down ^
03 The Dark Don’t Hide It *
04 Talk To Me Devil, Again *
05 [banter]
06 North Star
07 Bowery @
08 O! Grace
09 What Comes After the Blues ^
10 [banter2]
11 Lonesome Valley ^
12 Leave the City
13 Northstar Blues %
14 [banter3]
15 Shenandoah %
16 [banter4]
17 Memphis Moon !
18 [banter5]
19 The Lioness &
20 I’ve Been Riding With the Ghost ^
21 [banter6]
22 John Henry Split My Heart
23 Farewell Transmission %
24 [banter7]
25 Hold On Magnolia ^

*Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen of Bottomless Pit/Silkworm
! with David Vandervelde on vocals
& Mark Rice on vocals
% Lawrence Peters on vocals
^ Mike Taylor on vocals
@ Joe “Elephant Micah” O’Connell on vocals

If you enjoyed this recording, you ought to purchase the music by many of these fine musicians, including Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co., Hiss Golden Messenger, Lawrence Peters, Bottomless Pit, David Vandervelde, and Elephant Micah.

IMG_6511

Hiss Golden Messenger: August 17, 2013 Glasslands – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

August 20, 2013
By

Hiss-Golden-Messenger26
[Photos courtesy of P Squared Photography]

A man can make complicated music these days in a room alone with a machine. Create a symphony out of bits and bytes, a hit single out of a 4/4 beat and an idea. If you look at what’s celebrated most often in music these days it’s one person transcending the limits of money and time and space and the need for bandmates, usually because of his or her skill with a machine. In case you forgot, men alone have been doing that for decades, centuries, eons. Just the machines were simpler.

Hiss Golden Messenger has more words in its name than regular band members. In the studio the band is MC Taylor, former lead singer of beloved San Francisco band The Court & Spark, and longtime collaborator Scott Hirsch, plus the cream of available guest players. On the road, it’s often Taylor alone.

What started it all — a rough-hewn bit of work called Bad Debt — was nothing more than Taylor banging out songs with a guitar and a tape deck in his kitchen, while his baby slept. If it sounds old-fashioned, way more old-fashioned than some wide-eyed impresario making beats with a MacBook Pro and Ableton, well, that’s because it is. Sometimes the best things are the simplest things, the ones made how we used to before everything got too easy. But to hear the deep feeling and rich meaning that Taylor can put into a song with the tools he has, well, the old way starts to look economical. Take the Bad Debt spirit, add a band and unforced, high-quality production, and you’ve got masterpieces like his two primary releases on North Carolina imprint Paradise of Bachelors — Poor Moon and this year’s Haw, which are probably my two favorite records of the past two years.

This night’s show at Glasslands — Taylor’s first New York show in four years — brought us back to the Bad Debt days, with Taylor alone at a guitar in front of a room that, with no disrespect to the night’s headliner Daughn Gibson, seemed to include a lot of folks, myself included, who’d come to see him. We were rewarded again and again. Taylor’s typical set-starting song, “Father Sky” found itself replaced with his version of a traditional song, most recently popularized as “When I Was A Young Girl” by Nina Simone. Two new numbers, possibly to appear on an upcoming EP, showed up for the first time I’ve heard them. “Southern Grammar”, streaming below, was particularly breathtaking, continuing Mike’s ongoing lyrical struggles with faith. On stage sitting down in old jeans, a white tank top and a Caterpillar hat, Mike looked like an anachronism, especially on a Saturday night. He didn’t have much for us to look at, gimmicks to parlay into Twitter excitement or iPhone photos. Hiss Golden Messenger had nothing but music, and words. He sang, and the world went still.

This recording is primarily the soundboard feed of engineer Josh Thiel’s house mix, plus a small amount of the house mics for ambiance. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Stream “Southern Grammar”

Stream “The Serpent Is Kind (Compared to Man)”

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

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.

Hiss-Golden-Messenger19

Hiss Golden Messenger
2013-08-17
Glasslands
Brooklyn, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard (engineer: Josh Thiel) + Naiant XR>Sound Devices USBPre2>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (light reverb to SBD)>Izotope Ozone 5 (tape effect)>Audacity (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 38:28]
01 When I Was A Young (Boy) [Nina Simone]
02 [banter1]
03 Blue Country Mystic
04 Call Him Daylight
05 [banter2]
06 O Little Light
07 He Wrote the Book
08 Southern Grammar
09 [banter3]
10 Chapter & Verse
11 The Serpent Is Kind (Compared To Man)
12 [banter4]
13 I’ve Got A Name For The Newborn Child

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Hiss Golden Messenger, like him on Facebook, and purchase Haw and his other releases on digital or vinyl from Paradise of Bachelors [HERE], or all of his releases on vinyl [HERE].

Hiss Golden Messenger: September 7, 2012 Three Lobed/WXDU Day Show, Hopscotch Festival (Raleigh, NC) – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

October 9, 2012
By


[Photos by acidjack]

This second day of this year’s Hopscotch Music Festival has to have been one of the best days of music I’ve had all year. Though there were many high points, the main reason was getting the chance to see the Durham, NC recording artist MC Taylor, aka Hiss Golden Messenger, for the first time – and twice in the same day, at that. The first of those was Taylor’s stripped-down acoustic set at the Three Lobed Recordings/WXDU Day Show at King’s Barcade, and it held a singular beauty that was the equal of, but distinct from, the full-band set that HGM played later that night (that recording [HERE]). Taylor began the set with the a cappella “Father Sky”, and it’s a beautiful, brief religious allegory. The next songs were two of my absolute favorites – the band’s most approachable number, “Call Him Daylight” and the new “Red Rose Nantahala”, with its simple refrain of “Oh Lord, let me be happy”. Sung in Taylor’s voice, such a simple line can strike a deep emotional chord; he delivers the line with a canny mix of resignation, pleading, and hope.

Joined at points by Nathan Bowles, Scott Hirsch and Terry Lonergan, who would play in the full band that night, Taylor’s arrangements were much simpler during this day show. Compared to the full band set later that night, this show necessarily placed the emphasis on Taylor’s vocals and, thus, his actual words, and it was absolutely riveting to listen to. Taylor followed “Red Rose Nantahala” with “A Working Man Can’t Make It No Way”, “Bad Debt” from his Bad Debt debut LP, and ended with another stellar country-blues number, “O Little Light”, from his critically acclaimed current album, Poor Moon. He will eventually be putting out a follow-up to Poor Moon that should include “Red Rose Nantahala” as well as “Brother, Do You Know the Road”, which was played at the night set. Until then, settle in with this recording, and let Tyalor bend your ear.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed provided by the King’s staff combined with Schoeps MK5 mics in the omnidirectional setting split wide onstage.  The results are excellent. Enjoy!

Stream “Red Rose Nantahala”

Stream “Father Sky”

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE] | Direct download of FLAC files [HERE]

If the FLAC link is no longer working, email nyctaper for the FLAC files

Check out all of NYCTaper’s Hopscotch Festival recordings

Follow acidjack on twitter

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.


Hiss Golden Messenger
2012-09-07
Three Lobed/WXDU Hopscotch Festival Day Show
Kings Barcade
Raleigh, NC USA

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

Soundboard + Schoeps MK5 (omni, onstage, 3ft split)>KC5>CMC6>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Audition CS 5.5 (mixdown)>Izotope Ozone 5 (tape effect exciter)>Audacity (set fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [intro – Cory Rayborn]
02 Father Sky
03 Call Him Daylight
04 Red Rose Nantahala
05 A Working Man Can’t Make It No Way
06 Bad Debt
07 O Little Light

Players:
MC Taylor (vocals, guitar)
Scott Hirsch (guitar)
Nathan Bowles (banjo)
Terry Lonergan (percussion)

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Hiss Golden Messenger, like him on Facebook, and purchase Poor Moon on digital or vinyl from Paradise of Bachelors [HERE] and all of his releases on vinyl [HERE].

Hiss Golden Messenger: September 7, 2012 Hopscotch Festival (Raleigh, NC) – FLAC / MP3 / Streaming

September 11, 2012
By


[Photos by acidjack]

It’s a fitting coincidence that as the third annual Hopscotch Music Festival took place in venues across downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, the Democratic Party gathered for its annual convention in Charlotte a few hours south to officially re-nominate the nation’s first black President. People unfamiliar with North Carolina have a habit of lumping it in with places that have little to do with it; witness the epithets thrown at the state following the passage of the state’s anti-gay marriage amendment. Like every state in this Union (including New York, where gay marriage didn’t exactly pass by overwhelming margins), North Carolina is a complicated jumble of old and new, and the negative things I saw people saying on social media and elsewhere didn’t square with the place I lived in eleven years ago. What I saw during this past weekend bested my highest expectations for the area’s future; more than ever, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area (the “Triangle”, as it’s known) is a place of big, positive things. Hopscotch – of, by and for the vibrant music scene of the Triangle – in many ways is a microcosm of modern North Carolina. And if one single artist could encapsulate all that was good about Hopscotch, I would submit that it’s the Durham, NC based songwriter MC Taylor, aka Hiss Golden Messenger.

Taylor took the Fletcher Opera Theater stage in the dark, the room so quiet we could hear his footsteps.

“Hey now, brother, don’t you know the road?” he called out, voice as sweet as that tea they like to drink down here.

And as they walked on, his current bandmates responded back: “Yes, my brother, I know”.

The classic blues call-and-response builds for a few minutes, as Taylor’s fellow players (an all-star cast consisting of, among others, the Nashville guitarist William Tyler and Phil and Brad Cook of Megafaun) take the stage behind him.

“I was no good and I was all alone,” Taylor sings, that sweetness rent with heartbreak.

“Yes, my brother, I know”.

The verses of “Brother, Do You Know the Road” continue until they build to an extended instrumental bridge, Tyler wailing a mournful line on his Telecaster, and ending, as it began, with that call-and-response. And that’s only the first few minutes of an hour-long set so beautiful it brought me to tears a couple of times. Taylor’s voice is spine-tingling good, with the songs to match.

This show never slowed from those first verses of “Brother”, as the band – who had never played together as a complete unit before this show – jelled into a formidable seven-piece that added a wealth of new texture to Taylor’s compositions. Along with “Brother,” Taylor played the as-yet unreleased “Red Rose Nantahala”, a bluegrass-tinged number in which Nathaniel Bowles’ (of the Black Twig Pickers) banjo lead melded with Tyler’s electric guitar. “Jesus Shot Me In the Head” was treated to a meditative, extended intro that accentuated its psychedelic leanings. Rather than a new band, this one sounded like a group of longtime collaborators; it couldn’t hurt that many of them are friends, and some had played on Taylor’s latest record, Poor Moon.  But really, even with a crack band, the centerpiece of Hiss Golden Messenger is always Taylor and his voice, and this intimate theater proved to be the perfect venue to showcase Taylor’s abilities. The band closed with “Super Blue (Two Days Clean)”, a rocking song about an addict’s welcome of a relapse. Charley Patton might have found a lot to like in Taylor’s lyrics, and he’d probably have been jealous of the quality of the players behind it.

Despite a much-deserved spate of recent positive press, Taylor still doesn’t play out much other than in North Carolina, where his legend is spreading. He has released a few records, including the hard-to-find Bad Debt LP of roughshod motel blues, the pop-veering Country Hai East Cotton, and the aforementioned current masterpiece, Poor Moon. Poor Moon, consisting partly of filled-out versions of the Bad Debt material, saw limited release on North Carolina’s Paradise of Bachelors imprint in 2011 before being re-released more widely by the Tompkins Square label (and re-pressed by Paradise of Bachelors) in 2012. Drenched in the blues, gospel, bluegrass and Appalachian folk, Poor Moon is an almost flawless work of songwriting in which Taylor melds those classic styles into a new form that is distinctly his. A lecturer on folklore, it is no surprise that Taylor is an expert on this area’s rich past.

This was my favorite by far, but this set from Taylor is one of many, many magical moments at this year’s Hopscotch. Co-founders Grayson Currin (a Pitchfork contributor) and Greg Lowenhagen and their team have created something truly special down in North Carolina. At this rate, it won’t be long before the Triangle is joining or even replacing the Austins of the world near the top of the U.S. musical conversation. Brother, now you know.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK5 microphones from the center of the balcony. Due to a battery failure, the last few minutes of the last song are patched from an inferior backup source, but other than this small flaw, the recording is excellent. Enjoy!

Stream “Jesus Shot Me In the Head”

Stream “Call Him Daylight”

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE] | Direct download of FLAC files [HERE]
If the FLAC link is no longer working, email nyctaper for the FLAC files

Follow acidjack on twitter

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.

Hiss Golden Messenger
2012-09-07
Hopscotch Music Festival
Fletcher Opera Theater
Raleigh, NC USA

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

Schoeps MK5 (cardiod, balcony, DFC, DIN)>KC5>CMC6>Edirol R-44 [OCM] + (last few minutes of last track only) Tascam DR-40 internal mics (X/Y)>>Audacity (set fades, tracking, EQ, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )
Tracks
01 Brother, Do You Know the Road?
02 [band intros]
03 Call Him Daylight
04 Red Rose Nantahala
05 A Working Man Can’t Make It No Way
06 Jesus Shot Me In the Head
07 [banter]
08 Drummer Down
09 O Nathaniel
10 Westering
11 O Little Light
12 Super Blue (Two Days Clean)

Musicians:
MC Taylor (Vocals, Acoustic Guitar)
Scott Hirsch (Bass Guitar)
William Tyler (Guitar)
Nathaniel Bowles (Banjo)
Terry Lonergan (Drums)
Phil Cook (Keyboards, Guitar)
Brad Cook (Electric Guitar)

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Hiss Golden Messenger, like him on Facebook, and purchase Poor Moon on digital or vinyl from Paradise of Bachelors [HERE] and all of his releases on vinyl [HERE].

SUPPORT NYCTaper




Email

Email nyctaper

DISCLAIMER and LEGAL NOTICE

nyctaper.com is a live music blog that offers a new paradigm of music distribution on the web. The recordings are offered for free on this site as are the music posts, reviews and links to artist sites. All recordings are posted with artist permission or artists with an existing pro-taping policy.

All recordings and original content posted on this site are @nyctaper.com as live recordings pursuant to 17 U.S.C. Section 106, et. seq. Redistribution of nyctaper recordings without consent of nyctaper.com is strictly prohibited.

nyctaper.com hereby waives all copyright claims to any and all recordings posted on this site to THE PERFORMERS ONLY. If any artist posted on this site requests that recordings be removed, those recordings will be removed forthwith.