Posts Tagged ‘ matt douglas ’

the Mountain Goats: April 19, 2016 City Winery

April 24, 2016
By

tMG Winery 3 Lowden
[photos by Andrew Lowden]

Over the course of three shows at City Winery, John Darnielle gave his Mountain Goats bandmates a subtle but meaningful tribute that you would have missed if you were not paying close attention. For the first song of each of the three John “solo” segments in each show, a different band member was featured in a duo with the band’s protagonist. On Sunday, Matt Douglas played sax on “Foreign Object”, on Monday Peter Hughes played bass on “Jenny”, and for this Tuesday night finale of the residency, Jon Wurster joined John for a cover of Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” — a song Darnielle revealed that Wurster had never played before this performance.

These are some of the little things that bring the fans back to see the Mountain Goats time and again. There were many fans who attended each of the three nights at City Winery and perhaps other East coast shows. What brings them back night after night isn’t just the promise of different and sometimes rare songs at any given show, or the often hilarious banter, or the chance to hear their favorite songs — the most compelling aspect of the Mountain Goats experience is the feeling of belonging. There is a strong sense of unity within the band, between the fans, and between the fans and band. The music offers a sense that no matter how difficult things are for you, there are people out there who know what you’ve endured and can tell you from experience that you’re going to be alright.

The final night of this special set of shows became the “celebratory” performance in large part because this particular crowd was quite rambunctious. And John rewarded the energy with a couple of first-time covers and a few songs that had yet to appear on this tour. In particular “Cobscook Bay” and “Nine Black Poppies” were familiar but welcome additions to the tour itinerary, both not having appeared on a setlist since last year. For a final night of the tour and likely the last NYC Mountain Goats show until 2017, this show was exactly what we’d hoped to experience.

I recorded this set in the same manner as the previous night and the sound quality is equally superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show in FLAC and MP3 from Archive.org [HERE]

Stream the Complete Show (minus banter tracks):

Mountain Goats
2016-04-19
City Winery
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer: Brandon Eggleston] + 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 1:42:44]
01 Get Lonely
02 Foreign Object
03 Woke Up New
04 Until I Am Whole
05 Cry for Judas
06 [banter – gimmick intro]
07 Werewolf Gimmick
08 Rainbow in the Dark [Dio]
09 [banter – thanks]
10 Superman [Goldfinger]
11 Nine Black Poppies
12 Cobscook Bay
13 Lakeside View Apartments Suite
14 Southwestern Territory
15 Love Love Love
16 Stabbed to Death Outside San Juan
17 Damn These Vampires
18 [banter – game show intro]
19 Game Shows Touch Our Lives
20 The Young Thousands
21 Liza Forever Minnelli
22 [encore break]
23 See America Right
24 Up the Wolves
25 Home on the Range
26 No Children
27 Spent Gladiator 2
28 [second encore break]
29 This Year

SUPPORT the Mountain Goats: Website | Twitter | Buy Official Releases | Tour Dates

the Mountain Goats: April 18, 2016 City Winery

April 21, 2016
By

tMG City Winery Lowden
[photos by Andrew Lowden]

We saw all three of the Mountain Goats performances this week at City Winery. And while this is not the first time we’ve experienced three straight tMG shows (Bowery in 2011 was 3 in a row), this set of shows was so emotionally rewarding. As we’ve pointed out already this month, the tour that concluded in NYC was inspired by a show we recorded at this very venue one year ago. Each of the nights took on a different personality and on night two, the song choices geared in a subtle way towards the positive and inspiring — perhaps motivated by the birthday of band member Matt Douglas (check out the slowest happy birthday song ever). Monday night included the only NYC performances of “Dennis Brown” and “Never Quite Free”, and the only appearances all tour of the New York-based duo of “Going to Port Washington” and “Going to Queens”. And there was reason to be positive. This tour was entirely successful on its merits, the band is playing at its peak, and City Winery seems to be the perfect fit for the current incarnation of the Mountain Goats. Indeed, this tour also contained a stop in Chicago for two shows at that branch of the venue. The balance of the set consisted of primarily songs we’ve seen on this tour which have included inspired 2016 versions of “Woke Up New” and “Damn These Vampires”, which continued to shine on this night. We expect to post the third and final night in the next few days, so stay tuned.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards clamped to a pole 20 feet from the stage and mixed with a perfect soundboard feed provided by the band’s longtime FOH Brandon Eggleston. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show in FLAC or MP3 at Archive.org [HERE]

Stream the Complete Show:

Mountain Goats
2016-04-18
City Winery
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer: Brandon Eggleston] + 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 1:34:54]
01 Song for Dennis Brown
02 Woke Up New
03 Until I Am Whole
04 [banter – stay on tour]
05 Werewolf Gimmick
06 New Monster Avenue
07 Stabbed to Death Outside San Juan
08 [banter – say yes]
09 Jenny
10 Going to Port Washington
11 Going to Queens
12 [banter – day pants]
13 Black Pear Tree
14 [Happy Birthday Matt Douglas]
15 Lakeside View Apartments Suite
16 Deuteronomy 2:10
17 Get Lonely
18 Alpha Rats Nest
19 Damn These Vampires
20 Oceanographer’s Choice
21 The Young Thousands
22 Liza Forever Minnelli
23 [encore break]
24 Never Quite Free
25 This Year
26 Spent Gladiator 2
27 [second encore break]
28 The Diaz Brothers
29 No Children

SUPPORT the Mountain Goats: Website | Twitter | Buy Official Releases | Tour Dates

The Mountain Goats: April 17, 2016 City Winery

April 18, 2016
By

tmg2016-04-17
[photo courtesy of music_defined‘s instagram page]

As noted in our review of the New Haven show, the concept of this Mountain Goats tour grew up around the band’s City Winery gigs of last year, of which we recorded both. That the band found inspiration in this particular room isn’t surprising; while some younger fans may not be used to seeing bands in more sedate environments, this venue must be an absolute dream for any performer who plays a wide dynamic range of music and whose fans hang on every word. The Mountain Goats took the stage at one of last year’s shows not with the type of upbeat number you’d need to launch a typical club gig, but with the gorgeous “Get Lonely,” which set the tone for an evening of wide-ranging sounds and deep catalog dives. Yes, the pro-wrestling-themed Beat the Champ made a few appearances, including a stripped-down take on “Foreign Object” and an inspired “Werewolf Gimmick,” and an encore of “Southwestern Territory,” but the deep dives were the real meat of the evening. John Darnielle reached all the way back to 1993 for “Water Song II,” followed by “Horseradish Road,” from 2000’s Coroner’s Gambit, played so rarely of late that Darnielle skipped a verse. Not that a rough spot here or there matters; only the hardest heart wouldn’t have wept at the night’s fragile, emotional peak, from “Steal Smoked Fish,” followed by “Black Pear Tree,” to “Lakeside View Apartments Suite” to “Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace,” the night’s most musically dense number, and a note of hope.

Among many gifts, Darnielle’s ability to swing from spinning metaphors about wrestling to such deep emotional fare, and back to lighter-hearted territory like “Damn These Vampires.” Despite the seriousness of the material, Darnielle’s freewheeling, conversational style with his audience makes the show itself intimate and light; especially in this seated, dinner situation, it feels like being part of a very large living room show. And, as we’ve noted before, Jon Wurster’s drums, Peter Hughes’ bass and multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas give Darnielle a backdrop that adds discipline and welcome twists to both new and old songs.

Darnielle closed with one of the band’s most poignant recent numbers, “Spent Gladiator 2.” As with “No Children,” the closer of the 4/12/15 City Winery show, Darnielle performed most of the song in the audience,  circling through the crowd, singing the lyrics without amplification. That refrain, to stay alive, just stay alive, felt like both the universal plea that it is and a personal one to each of us. If you were lucky enough to be sitting there, having taken in this exceptional hour and a half, you knew life was worth living.

I recorded this set with a feed of engineer Brandon Eggleston’s live mix, together with Schoeps MK41V microphones mounted on a post forward of the board. The sound quality, as with all of our City Winery recordings of this band, is exceptional. Enjoy!

Download the complete show from its page on the Live Music Archive: [MP3] | [FLAC]

The Mountain Goats
2016-04-17
City Winery
New York, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Brandon Eggleston) + Schoeps MK41V (FOB, ROC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix
down, adjust levels, light compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, image)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC (
level 8 )

Tracks [Total TIme: 1:32:53]
01 Woke Up New
02 Until I Am Whole
03 Maize Stalk Drinking Blood
04 [banter1]
05 Werewolf Gimmick
06 Get Lonely
07 [banter2]
08 Foreign Object
09 [banter3]
10 Water Song II
11 Horseradish Road
12 Steal Smoked Fish
13 Black Pear Tree
14 Lakeside View Apartments Suite
15 Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace
16 Wild Sage
17 Damn These Vampires
18 Game Shows Touch Our Lives
19 See America Right
20 The Young Thousands
21 Liza Forever Minnelli
22 [encore break]
23 Southwestern Territory
24 Up the Wolves
25 [banter4]
26 No Children
27 [banter5]
28 Spent Gladiator 2

SUPPORT the Mountain Goats: Website | Twitter | Buy Official Releases | Tour Dates

tmg-JLB

M.C. Taylor & Friends: January 18, 2015 NARAL NC Benefit, The Pinhook (Durham, NC) – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

February 27, 2015
By

hgm2015-01-18
[Screen shot from this YouTube video by Dan Schram]

DONATE TO NARAL PRO-CHOICE NORTH CAROLINA HERE

M.C. Taylor, aka Hiss Golden Messenger, had a hell of a 2014. Among his accomplishments — signing with Merge Records, who released Lateness of Dancers to critical acclaim; appearing on Letterman; touring the U.S. and Europe extensively; serving as de facto lead vocalist for the Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. tribute shows in honor of Jason Molina; and producing and appearing on Alice Gerrard‘s Grammy-nominated Follow the Music. After being everywhere in 2014, Taylor inaugurated 2015 back on his home turf, with an extravaganza of a show that combined a bunch of his recent activities into one wild ride of an evening. As Hiss Golden Messenger now tours as a full unit, Taylor decided to bill this as “M.C. Taylor and Friends” rather than the band name; the night’s main lineup included some, but not all, of HGM’s touring component. This special show was a benefit for NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina, who have been leading the ongoing fight for choice in North Carolina.

After kicking off with a couple of Poor Moon classics, the “friends” started to come out in force. Gerrard joined Taylor for three numbers, including a cover of Merle Haggard’s “You Take Me For Granted”. Then it was Phil Cook‘s chance at the vocal mike, a turnabout from his normal role in HGM. The lucky crowd then got a second look at Taylor’s collaboration on the Songs: Ohia / Magnolia Electric Co. material, which was first debuted in the Triangle last January. Magnolia Electric Co.’s Jason Groth came up onstage for those three songs, including perhaps Molina’s finest number, “Final Transmission.” Then it was back to HGM for a bit, until the night’s final number, Taylor’s first known cover of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” shown on the video above.

This performance was recorded by my friend and prolific Triangle-area recordist Dan Schram, whose video is showing below. Dan kindly provided me the audio files, to which I applied a little additional mastering and mixing “sparkle”. The sound quality is outstanding. We hope you enjoy it, and more importantly, that you will support the cause for which the music was made, NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina.

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

Stream and download individual tracks:

Watch “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” on YouTube:

M.C.Taylor and Friends
2015-01-18
NARAL NC Benefit
The Pinhook
Durham, NC USA

Recorded by Dan Schram
Produced by acidjack

Soundboard + Rode NT5>Tascam DR-680>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, compression, reverb on SBD)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, imaging)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [intro]
02 Call Him Daylight [Hiss Golden Messenger]
03 [banter1]
04 Blue Country Mystic [Hiss Golden Messenger]
05 [banter2]
06 Get Up and Do Right [Alice Gerrard]*
07 [banter3]
08 Follow the Music [Alice Gerrard]*
09 You Take Me For Granted [Merle Haggard]*
10 If I Play With Fire [Alice Gerrard]*
11 [banter4]
12 Leave It There [Charles A. Tindley]
13 Ain’t It Sweet [Phil Cook]&
14 [banter5]
15 What Comes After the Blues [Magnolia Electric Co.]^
16 [banter6]
17 Talk To Me Devin, Again [Magnolia Electric Co.]^
18 Farewell Transmission [Songs: Ohia]^
19 [banter7]
20 Southern Grammar [Hiss Golden Messenger]
21 [encore break]
22 Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door [Bob Dylan]

Band:
M.C. Taylor – vocals, guitar
Kyle Keegan – drums
Brad Cook – bass
Matt Douglas – saxophone

* w/ Alice Gerrard – vocals
& w/ Phil Cook – vocals, guitar
^ w/ Jason Groth

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. You can buy Hiss Golden Messenger’s records from Paradise of Bachelors and Merge Records, as well as HGM’s online store.

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

Matt Douglas: January 9, 2011 Pete’s Candy Store – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Songs

January 20, 2011
By


[iPhone 4 photo by acidjack]

I have known the Raleigh, NC-based singer and songwriter Matt Douglas, best known for his work with The Proclivities and his new band with the singer-songwriter Caitlin Cary, The Small Ponds, since we were high school kids, so it is fair to say that I am not impartial when it comes to his music. A multi-talented musician who excels on multiple instruments including sax and guitar, Douglas has spent most of his life as a teacher and student of music. Matt’s songs draw on a range of musical influences, including Hungarian folk music, which you may not pick up right away in what on their surface are classic American songs with rock, folk and country influences. I was thrilled to have a chance to catch up with Matt on this short solo tour of small venues, where he played material he wrote for both of his current bands, as well as a cover of Etta James’ “My Heart Cried.” These stripped-down gigs have a way of accentuating excellent songwriting (or exposing bad songwriting) rapidly; the lyrical and stylistic diversity of these songs told me that Douglas has earned his place on this journey will both skill and dedication. Two new songs early in the set, the country-inflected “Two of a Kind” and “Plexiglass Coffin” are expected to be released on a Matt Douglas solo record sometime this year. Wherever he is, and whomever he is playing with or for, expect Douglas to continue to expand his musical universe.

Matt has two NY-area shows coming up in February – first on February 12 at Terminal 5, where he plays horns with Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band, and then on February 16 at one of our favorite venues, Rock Shop, which is a Small Ponds gig.

I recorded this set with the tiny DPA 4061 omnidirectional mics clipped to either sides of a chair directly in front of the stage. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Stream “Ray of Sunshine”:
[audio:http://www.nyctaper.com/M9010MattDouglas0211/mattdouglas2011-01-09pete’s_acidjack-02.mp3]

Stream “Two of a Kind”:
[audio:http://www.nyctaper.com/M9010MattDouglas0211/mattdouglas2011-01-09pete’s_acidjack-04.mp3]

Direct download of entire set in MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Matt Douglas
2011-01-09
Pete’s Candy Store
Brooklyn, NY USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced for nyctaper.com by acidjack

Equipment: DPA 4061 (Coresound “HEB”)>Sony PCM-M10 (24/44.1)
Position: Center, 1ft from stage
Mastering: 24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (tracking, smooth peaks, light compression, set fades)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time

1. Intro
2. Ray of Sunshine
3. banter
4. Two of a Kind
5. banter
6. Plexiglass Coffin
7. banter
8. Charlatan
9. banter
10. My Heart Cried
11. Handguns & Dancing Shoes
12. banter
13. Pauline
14. banter
15. Gypsy Cards

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Matt Douglas, visit his website, and purchase the latest Small Ponds record here or on iTunes.

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