Posts Tagged ‘ Merge Records ’

Hiss Golden Messenger – November 15, 2016 Music Hall of Williamsburg

November 20, 2016

Hiss Golden Messenger’s new album, Heart Like a Levee, is one for dark times—and dark times we’ve got in abundance. Still, last week’s tour stop at the Music Hall of Williamsburg was nothing if not uplifting. “Red Rose Nantahala,” normally dedicated to North Carolina’s horrid (and hopefully former) governor, is here dedicated to “a whole bunch of people,” and I think the whole room here in Brooklyn more than ever felt the import of those lyrics, “Well let me be the one I want / Well let me love the one I want.” On the lighter side, it was the band’s cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Brown-Eyed Women” that stole the show. Their version appeared originally on the Day of the Dead compilation and this was apparently the first time it had been attempted live. The epic, thirteen-minute closer “Brother, Do You Know the Road?” (a personal favorite among HGM tunes), fittingly performed to end a set of songs about finding your way home, and on one of the last dates of their tour, will send you off feeling pretty good.

I recorded this set with the mics set up at the soundboard combined with a board feed from the band’s touring engineer, Luke. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Download: MP3/FLAC

Stream:

Hiss Golden Messenger
2016-11-15
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY

Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com

Soundboard [engineer: Luke] + AKG C480B/CK63 (DFC, PAS, at SBD) > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, compression, mixdown, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [2:07:11]
01. As the Crow Flies
02. Biloxi
03. Saturday’s Song
04. Mahogany Dread
05. Red Rose Nantahala
06. Day O Day (A Love So Free)
07. [banter]
08. Heart Like a Levee
09. Tell Her I’m Just Dancing
10. O Happy Day
11. Like a Mirror Loves a Hammer
12. Call Him Daylight
13. I’ve Got a Name For the Newborn Child
14. [banter]
15. I’m a Raven (Shake Children)
16. [banter]
17. O Little Light
18. Flags and Banners [Faces]
19. Say It Like You Mean It
20. Cracked Windshield
21. Lucia
22. Southern Grammar
23. [encore break]
24. Brown-Eyed Women [Grateful Dead]
25. Brother, Do You Know the Road?

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT by buying Hiss Golden Messenger’s records from Paradise of Bachelors and Merge Records, as well as HGM’s online store.

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

November 14, 2016

By acidjack

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stream the complete show:

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

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

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

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

PLEASE SUPPORT Lambchop: Website | Merge Records

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

A Giant Dog: September 8, 2016 Hopscotch Music Festival, Slim’s (Raleigh, NC)

October 5, 2016

By acidjack

[screen capture from this video]

The addition of the Austin band A Giant Dog to the Merge Records team further bolstered the label’s noisier section of the roster. The band’s well-received Merge debut, Pile, is a hard hitting slab of punk-inflected hard rock, an old-fashioned paean to sex, drugs, and not giving a fuck. They’re well-known for their live performances for a reason, and theirs is the kind of music that calls for being listened to in a narrow, all-black closet of a room. Slim’s, Raleigh’s go-to for this sort of thing, fit the bill perfectly on this first night of Hopscotch Music Festival, and A Giant Dog lit it up for the packed house. Led by frontwoman Sabrina Ellis’s frenetic delivery, A Giant Dog proved you can play with both abandon and appeal. By the time they made it to “Sleep When Dead,” they’d pretty much established a mantra for festivalgoers settling into three days of non-stop music, and they’d proven once again that Merge knows how to pick ’em.

David Schwentker recorded this set with Church Audio CA-14 omnidirectional microphones hung from an optimal point in the venue. You may need to turn up the volume on this one a bit more than usual, but believe us, it’s all there. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

A Giant Dog
2016-09-08
Hopscotch Music Festival
Slim’s
Raleigh, NC USA

Recorded and produced by David Schwentker

Church Audio CA-14 omnis > Olympus LS-10 > WAV > Audacity (track, mixing) > Trader’s Little Helper (conversions) > FLAC (level 8) > foobar2000 (tagging)

Tracks:
01. [intro]
02. Creep
03. [banter/amp issues]
04. Another World
05. Lady Slut
06. Hitchhike Love
07. new song
08. Sex & Drugs
09. & Rock & Roll
10. I’ll Come Crashing
11. Photograph
12. King Queen
13. Too Much Makeup
14. Jizzney
15. Angst In My Pants (Sparks cover)
16. Sleep When Dead

SUPPORT A GIANT DOG: Website | Merge Records

PS Eliot: September 15, 2016 Market Hotel

September 19, 2016

By nyctaper

[photo courtesy of Amanda Hatfield – originally posted at brooklynvegan]

On Saturday December 9, 2011, PS Eliot played its “final” show at Death By Audio in Brooklyn in front of less than 100 people. A lot has changed in the subsequent five years not the least of which is the enormous success enjoyed by the two sisters who anchored the original band. Katie Crutchfield’s Waxahatchee has released three well-received albums and is currently signed to Merge Records, and Allison Crutchfield’s band Swearin’ has also released two excellent albums and Allison recently signed as a solo artist also with Merge. Although the band played a brief one-off reunion at Silent Barn in 2013, this year became the right time to look back and do the full-on reunion. Earlier this year Don Giovanni Records released 2007-2011, a thorough compilation of the band’s original discography, which also includes bonus home demos and a complete oral history of the band in zine format that was assembled by the writer Liz Pelly.

The release of the complete discography has also fortunately been accompanied by a band reunion and a mini-tour. The Crutchfield sisters joined again with bassist Katherine Simonetti and guitarist Will Granger to play a six-date tour that included stops in San Francisco and Chicago and completed with a headlining spot at Don Giovanni’s New Alternative Music Festival this past Friday and two final dates at Philadelphia’s MOCA last night and tonight.

The fourth date of the tour was at our own Market Hotel on Thursday when the band played in front of more than 500 people. From the very outset PS Eliot and crowd were fully engaged in the experience. Throughout the night, the Crutchfield sisters were out and about at the Market and there were a lot of excited greetings and hugs for old friends. When the set began it was clear that the quartet were fully in sync and for the hour-long set they passed around a bottle of pink champagne while they worked through a large assortment of classic PS Eliot material. The band was tight, energetic and seemed to be having a great time. If playing PS Eliot material is this much fun for the group, I would venture a prediction that this is not the last we will see of them. And that would be great news.

I recorded this set with the installed AT mics mixed with House FOH Jason Kelly’s superb feed. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

PS Eliot
2016-09-15
Market Hotel
Brooklyn NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Upfront Audience

Soundboard [Engineer: Jason Kelly] + Audio Technica 4051 > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 59:24]
01 Broken Record
02 We’d Never Agree
03 [banter – thanks]
04 Hail Mary
05 Asphalt
06 Pink Sheets
07 [banter – the zine]
08 Cry Uncle
09 Bear Named Otis
10 Shitty and Tragic
11 Crosseyed
12 [banter – NYC]
13 Sadie
14 Like How You Are
15 Tonight [Spica]
16 Sore Subject
17 Watch On Mute
18 Troubled Medium
19 [encore break]
20 Untitled
21 Tennessee

Support PS Eliot: Bandcamp | Purchase 2007-2011 from Don Giovanni Records

The Mountain Goats: April 17, 2016 City Winery

April 18, 2016

By acidjack

[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

William Tyler: February 2, 2016 Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, NY) + June 26, 2015 Mercury Lounge

February 12, 2016

By acidjack

Our friend William Tyler has been a real road warrior these past few years, hitting NYC multiple times both as a headliner and support act. These two performances represent the latter, with Tyler’s virtuoso guitar playing setting the stage for another act. This month, Tyler did the duties for Wilco at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, a legendary venue that Tyler acknowledged as such before delving into a concise but powerful set that featured a brand-new song, “Venus and Aquarius,” along with growing tour favorite “Highway Anxiety.” The vibe was a bit different at the intimate Mercury Lounge back in summer of 2015, when Tyler opened of the two Ty Segall acoustic sets we covered that day, but what didn’t change was Tyler’s gratitude and generosity toward his audience, as he played another new song (tentatively titled “Going Clear”) as well as another excellent version of “Highway Anxiety,” among others. If you were in the taper’s section at the Cap, you’d have noted the surprise among the Wilco diehards who hadn’t heard Tyler before. Part of Tyler’s charm is that how easily he wins over not only crowds that aren’t his own, but crowds who aren’t generally familiar with instrumental guitar music. Give these sets a listen — both the songs and the banter — and you’ll get a sense of why.

nyctaper recorded each of these sets with Schoeps CCM4 microphones. The Mercury show also includes a soundboard feed. The quality of both is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete sets: [Capitol Theatre] [Mercury Lounge]

Stream the complete sets

William Tyler
2016-02-02
Capitol Theatre
Port Chester, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded by nyctaper
Produced by acidjack

Schoeps CCM4 (ROC, FOB, PAS)>Sound Devices 744T>24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Missionary Ridge
02 Venus and Aquarius [new]
03 Highway Anxiety
04 We Can’t Go Home Again
05 Cadillac Desert

_______________________
William Tyler
2015-06-26
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded by nyctaper
Produced by acidjack

Schoeps CCM4 (ROC, FOB, PAS)>Sound Devices 744T>24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Portrait of Sarah [fades in]
02 Missionary Ridge
03 [banter]
04 Highway Anxiety
05 [banter2]
06 Going Clear
07 [banter3]
08 We Can’t Go Home Again

If you enjoyed these recordings, PLEASE SUPPORT William Tyler, visit his website, and grab his records from Merge.

Superchunk: December 3, 2015 Baby’s All Right

December 6, 2015

By acidjack

[photo courtesy of Ellen Qbertplaya]

Superchunk spawned one of the most revered independent labels, revitalized the music scene of two entire towns, and continue to inspire men and women alike to pogo at the stage lip singing every word. Few bands can claim those achievements, but even fewer can claim to have not only kept, but expanded their fans’ loyalty since the early 1990s. Mac McCaughan may well be one of his generation’s few ageless indie stars, as unabashedly confessional, athletic and compelling onstage as he was when he was in his twenties. What separates his songs from those of lesser peers is that those lyrics aren’t just reflections of youthful naiveté — they just say what they need to in the most direct, compelling way. It hurts none that behind Mac is a crack band (sans, sadly, Laura Ballance these days) that has only gotten better over the years; if many drummers are hitting the kit better than Jon Wurster at any age, they ought to count themselves lucky. And that doesn’t even begin to touch the humor of Jim Wilbur (who’s a pretty darn good player, too).

The band came into Baby’s All Right on this Thursday to follow up a performance the night before at Ground Control Touring’s 15th Anniversary, meaning they weren’t here to flog a new record or for any purpose other than to remind their fans exactly why they stick around. They rewarded us with a set that drew from all over their catalog, treating 2013’s I Hate Music and their 1990s canon with equal reverence. The sold out crowd gave as good as they got in terms of energy, as the people in the front didn’t stop moving, or singing, the entire time. The band may have joked before “The Popular Music” (from Indoor Living, 1997) about how they would sit around in front of a Britney Spears poster in their practice room and wonder if a new song they were writing would “make them popular” (Mac’s reply — it didn’t) but the reality is that, in the longer run, their efforts worked. Sometimes it’s quality, and not quantity of “popularity” that counts, and Superchunk has the former in abundance. For a certain group of people, Superchunk were a foundational band, in the same way other giants of the era like Pavement (or further toward the mainstream, Nirvana) inspired countless stints as independent radio DJs, memberships in variously-successful bands, and LP/CD collections that burden many of us to this day. In 2013, we called them “the best working band in America today,” and noted that they “don’t have a bad song in their catalog,” and those sentiments remain true to this day.

To be honest, I’m not really sure if they haven’t played the first encore, “The Breadman” single in more than 20 years as claimed, but I’m not going to be that guy who disputes the band on the Internet (according to said Internet, this was only the second time it’s ever been played). I will say that “Hyper Enough,” still rings true — rocking this night with an energy that belied its twenty years in the rotation, and a song whose central premise still rings true of Mac now as when he wrote it. And “Throwing Things,” which closed the first encore, well, it was as compelling as it was when it first appeared on No Pocky for Kitty in 1991. True to their nature, the band came out for a second encore, and closed with “Slack Motherfucker.” Balance wrote the song back in 1990 and, whoever it was addressed to at the time, Mac has proven to be anything but.

I recorded this set with Superchunk FOH Matthew Barnhart’s soundboard mix, together with Audio Technica 4051 microphones onstage. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show (minus banter tracks and encore breaks):

Superchunk
2015-12-03
Baby’s All Right
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Matthew Barnhart) + Audio Technica 4051 (onstage)>Zoom F8>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, adjust width, fades, very light compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, image)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time: 1:24:15]
01 [intro]
02 Like A Fool
03 Cursed Mirror
04 Hello Hawk
05 Good Dreams
06 Me & You & Jackie Mittoo
07 Punch Me Harder
08 On the Mouth
09 [banter1]
10 Rosemarie
11 Kicked In
12 Iron On
13 The Popular Music
14 Low F
15 Crossed Wires
16 Detroit Has A Skyline
17 Driveway to Driveway
18 Digging for Something
19 [encore break]
20 The Breadman
21 Hyper Enough
22 Throwing Things
23 [encore break 2]
24 Slack Motherfucker

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Superchunk, visit their website, and purchase their albums directly from Merge Records [HERE].

[photo by Lauren Epstein]

Hiss Golden Messenger: November 19, 2015 Baby’s All Right

November 25, 2015

By acidjack

Continuing with the “running out of things to say” theme, I think even the band is starting to wonder if I do much of anything besides attend Hiss Golden Messenger concerts. If you read about the band’s doings in Durham, NC earlier last week, you’d know they debuted Heart Like A Levee, an entire new album, before two successive nights of attendees at Duke University. That album should be appearing on Merge Records in due time.

Well, this show at Baby’s All Right wasn’t that, but that’s not to take anything away from this sweaty, raucous show before a sell-out crowd. M.C. Taylor was joined on this jaunt by most of his regular band — the Cook brothers on keys and guitars, Matt McCaughan on drums — with Josh Kaufman taking up additional guitar duties. This show sounded like one by people who’ve fallen into a comfortable groove, and despite the extremely unpleasant temperature (how you make a club over 100 degrees indoors in the middle of November is a mystery to me) the band sweated through some strong versions of their tour favorites, plus less-heard numbers like “Mahogany Dread,” off of Lateness of Dancers, Poor Moon‘s “Super Blue (Two Days Clean)” and a newly-rocking version of “Brother, Do You Know the Road?” Perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation (the band were so hot their guitars were covered in sweat), we only got one encore, but it was a keeper — Waylon Jennings’ “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean.”

So, forgive the brevity of this writeup, but if you’re already on the train, you can read any of my reviews of recent shows to get a pretty good idea where things are headed. If you’re new to the band, well, this is a fine, fine way to take the plunge.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK5 cardiod microphones at the stage lip, together with Harrison Fore’s soundboard feed. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Hiss Golden Messenger
2015-11-19
Baby’s All Right
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Soundboard (engineer: Harrison Fore) + Schoeps MK5c (onstage, ORTF)>KCY>Z-PFA>Roland R-26 (2x24bit/48kHz WAV)>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (adjust stereo mix of onstage mics, compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects, EQ)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( Level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:19:17]
01 Saturday’s Song
02 Lucia
03 Call Him Daylight
04 Super Blue (Two Days Clean)
05 Mahogany Dread
06 I’ve Got A Name for the Newborn Child
07 Day O Day (A Love So Free)
08 Brother, Do You Know the Road?
09 I’m A Raven (Shake Children)
10 Blue Country Mystic
11 Southern Grammar
12 [encore break]
13 Lonesome, On’ry and Mean [Waylon Jennings]

Band:
MC Taylor
Phil Cook – Keyboards, Guitar
Brad Cook – Bass
Josh Kaufman – Guitar
Matt McCaughan – Drums

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT by buying Hiss Golden Messenger’s records from Paradise of Bachelors and Merge Records, as well as HGM’s online store.

Pipe: September 12, 2015 Orange County Social Club Day Show (Raleigh, NC) – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

October 8, 2015

By EricPH

Our friend and fellow taper, David Schwentker reports:

By Day 3 of Hopscotch, it can be tough to get out and moving after two full days of non-stop rockin’ and partying. Luckily, the past few years, the Orange County Social Club day party at Kings has offered a good kick start to the festival’s final day. This year might have been their finest party yet, where local, younger punks Natural Causes and Flesh Wounds set the stage for a great set from their forefathers, Pipe. Plenty of bands from the Triangle scene of the 1990’s gained more traction outside the region, but locally, Pipe was one of the most beloved bands around. After disbanding in the late ’90’s, the band was basically gone for 10 years, outside of a one-off show with the original line-up in 2004. Luckily for us, after playing the Merge XX festival in 2009, the band has remained active, playing shows in fits, writing new songs, and continuing to show everyone how fun punk rock should be. Recording for a new Pipe album began in earnest last year, and if we’re lucky, someday it will be available for purchase. Until then, this set, with a mix of 20+ year old classics and unreleased new songs, will have to suffice. Crank it up and imagine the cups and cans flying though the air, just try not to get beer on the cymbals.

This set was recorded by Eric PH with the mics clamped to a ledge behind the soundboard, combined with a feed from Kings FOH Justin. The results are outstanding.

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

Stream the complete show:

Pipe
2015-09-12
Orange County Social Club Day Show
Hopscotch Music Festival
Kings
Raleigh, NC

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by Eric PH

Soundboard (engineer: Justin) + AKG C480B/CK63 (PAS) > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, balance, mixdown, normalize, fades) > Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)

Tracks [32:03]
01. [Intro]
02. Human Gutterball
03. Biscuits
04. Bender
05. Backstroke
06. Kirk’s Floor
07. Submariner
08. Good Foul
09. Suckin’ Rocks
10. Puck Man
11. Chula
12. Little Black Lies

Support Pipe: Keep up with the band on their Facebook page, buy their music from Merge, or buy the first two LPs from Demonbeach Records.

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