Posts Tagged ‘ Merge Records ’

the Mountain Goats: April 12, 2015 City Winery – Flac/MP3/Streaming

April 16, 2015

[screen cap from capnkoons video here]

There are times when the people who book shows make the perfect pairing of a band and a venue and this weekend the Mountain Goats and City Winery were a marriage made in heaven. We caught both nights with two different NYCTaper contributors but we both were in complete agreement that these were outstanding shows in large part because of where they took place. City Winery prides itself on being a “listening room” — a place where people who come to see an artist perform respect the music. There is literally a pre-show message to refrain from talking during the music. For Mountain Goats fans however, the warning may not be actually necessary. They may sing along with the lyrics (all known by heart) and call out the most obscure requests in between songs, but when the band is playing, the listening is happening. And City Winery is both large enough to satisfy the two-night ticket demand for this band, and small enough to maintain a nice level of intimacy.

The Mountain Goats are currently on tour in support of Beat the Champ, which is ostensibly John Darnielle’s tribute to the early days of professional wrestling of the 1970s and early 80s. But as with the Mountain Goats music, there’s much going on beneath the surface of these songs. The basic routines that made wrestling attractive to suburban kids of the time — identifiable heroes and villains, fluid loyalties, physical comedy, and deception — are all themes that Darnielle is comfortable covering in Mountain Goats material as symbols of wider human truths. For example, the protagonist in “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero” (streaming below) becomes the “good guy” foil to Darnielle’s abusive stepfather and “Southwestern Territory” becomes a parable for the musician’s life on the road. In a lengthy show at City Winery, these and other Champ songs fit well within a career spanning setlist that offered a “gimmick” of its own. The band had played a pared-down “basement” set for the City Winery’s video series this week and enjoyed the experience so much that the actual stage plot on this night featured a small drum kit and Peter Hughes fretless bass — an “unplugged” set-up if you will. There were also some change-ups, as usual set-closer “This Year” appeared very early in the set, and “No Children” featured a complete-song vocal performance by the crowd while Darnielle led the chorus while standing on a table in the audience. Other highlights of this terrifically entertaining set included personal favorite “Up The Wolves” (also streaming below), “Foreign Object” with the outstanding horn work from new band member Matt Douglas, and a goofy acoustic cover of the Grateful Dead’s “St. Stephen” — and of course a significant amount of John’s usual humorous banter. While the Mountain Goats will not be back in NYC until next year — the current tour runs through June and then its off to Europe in the Fall — we expect that when they do the NYC shows will again be at City Winery. At least we hope they are, since this was one of my favorite tMG shows of the many I have seen.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards clamped to the same beam that acidjack used for the previous night’s show and mixed with a superb soundboard feed by longtime Mountain Goats FOH Brandon Eggleston. The sound quality is quite excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Up The Wolves”:

Stream “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero”

Mountain Goats
2015-04-12
City Winery
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer: Brandon Eggleston] + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, EQ, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:45:07]
01 [wrestling intro]
02 Get Lonely
03 [banter – basement]
04 Werewolf Gimmick
05 This Year
06 Animal Mask
07 Slow West Vultures
08 [banter – weapon]
09 Foreign Object
10 Luna
11 Deuteronomy 2:10
12 Shot in the Dark [Ozzy Osbourne]
13 [banter – audible]
14 Steal Smoked Fish
15 St. Stephen [Grateful Dead cover]
16 Cotton
17 The Ballad of Bull Ramos
18 Cry for Judas
19 Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph Of
20 Love Love Love
21 Choked Out
22 Up the Wolves
23 The Legend of Chavo Guerrero
24 [encore break]
25 The Diaz Brothers
26 [banter – fiefdoms]
27 Southwestern Territory
28 No Children
29 [second encore break]
30 Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, PLEASE SUPPORT The Mountain Goats, visit their website, and purchase Beat the Champ from the Merge Records website [HERE].

The Mountain Goats: April 11, 2015 City Winery – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

April 12, 2015

By acidjack

John Darnielle possesses the writer’s gift of universality. From his very specific songs come truths that touch the hearts of listeners who have never lived his life. You may never have felt the humiliation of being a burned out tweaker, sweating it out in a dingy hotel room, but you understand what it means to feel you’re at rock bottom. You know what it is to be dumb and wild and free. You know what it is to desperately, desperately, survive a year that hasn’t gone the way you hoped. In John’s quirky new songs about wrestling from Beat the Champ there are classic themes about underdogs and alienation, themes that you don’t need to wear a mask to understand. The Mountain Goats built their fervent fan base not on the strength of riffs but on words. Listening to Darnielle’s stories, feeling the emotions he projects, his heart becomes your heart; his trials, yours.

The Mountain Goats played NYC shows on this tour both at Webster Hall and two nights at City Winery, in lieu of a single large show at Terminal 5 or a similar venue. For that, we can be grateful, as City Winery — where as John said, he could actually see the back of the venue from the stage — vibed perfectly with what he wanted. For this tour, the regular trio of Darnielle, Jon Wurster and Peter Hughes is joined by the NC-based journeyman and Swiss army knife of a musician Matt Douglas, who has now appeared on this site with three different bands, if you count his solo show. The addition of Douglas on sax, guitar, horns and keys adds welcome texture and complexity to the full-band numbers, and takes some pressure off of Darnielle, whose massive catalog is always a challenge on tour. The intimate room amplified the songs’ emotional heft; it was a joy to see the rather well-heeled crowd of (probably) former nerds, geeks and rejects sing along to one of Darnielle’s most approachable verses:

people were mean to you
but i always thought you were cool
clicking down the concrete hallways
in your spiked heels
back in high school

That’s Darnielle’s magic, distilled: A song about a single person that many of us could see in ourselves, even if what made us different had nothing to do with spiked heels. If proof were ever needed of the value of being yourself, Darnielle and his slow-burning but runaway success would be the best of it. That he has created an entire community of people who feel the same way is his gift to all of us. Happiness isn’t conformity, or cowing to others’ idea of who you ought to be. It’s doing every stupid thing that makes you feel alive, and the joy you feel at coming out on the other side, still breathing. Long live The Mountain Goats.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK41 supercardiod microphones in a position forward of the board, along with a stereo feed of The Mountain Goats’ engineer Brandon Eggleston’s excellent house mix. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

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

Stream the entire set:

The Mountain Goats
2015-04-11
City Winery
New York, NY USA

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

Schoeps MK41 (FOB, ROC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>Sound Devices USBPre2 + Soundboard (engineer: Brandon Eggleston)>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, adjust levels, fades, downsample)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter, imaging)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:33:56]
01 [intro]
02 Get Lonely
03 The Ballad of Bull Ramos
04 Love Love Love
05 [banter1]
06 Palmcorder Yajna
07 Animal Mask
08 [banter2]
09 Luna
10 Deuteronomy 2:10
11 [banter3]
12 Beyond the Mysterious Beyond
13 Raja Vocative
14 Woke Up New
15 Steal Smoked Fish
16 Never Quite Free
17 Song for Dennis Brown
18 Stabbed to Death Outside of San Juan
19 Foreign Object
20 This Year
21 The Legend of Chavo Guerrero
22 [encore break]
23 You Were Cool
24 Southwestern Territory
25 Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1
26 [encore break 2]/piano jam
27 No Children

Band:
John Darnielle – Vocals, guitar, keys
Matt Douglas – saxophone, guitar, keys, horns
Peter Hughes – Bass
Jon Wurster – Drums

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT The Mountain Goats, visit their website, and buy their records from their online store.

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

February 27, 2015

By acidjack

[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 acidjack

Follow @acidjacknyc

[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.

Spoon: September 5, 2014 Hopscotch Music Festival, Raleigh, NC – FLAC/MP3/Streaming Set

September 15, 2014

By acidjack

Follow @acidjacknyc

[Photo courtesy of Rodney Boles]

Even before they were popular and therefore backlash-ready, Spoon caught flack for not being “interesting” enough. Their music has a consistency to it that I find oddly divisive. Most bands would be lucky to have one sequence of tunes as good as their high watermark, Gimme Fiction, while Spoon has come close to that feat on almost every record. Maybe this year’s They Want My Soul will be applauded as the stylistic tweak that convinces the doubters, but who’s to say for sure. If you wanted experimental music, Hopscotch Music Festival offered lots of excellent examples. But if you’re an organizer trying to pack in your festival’s public stage on a Friday night, the right move is a band so dialed in at their craft that they’re a sure thing that’s nevertheless a thrill. Spoon aren’t a flashy band, or a gimmicky one. They’re in that rare category of music’s winners, whose success is hard-earned and whose work still deserves the love. If consistency is a sin, then let’s let more bands sin the way they do.

Spoon packed Raleigh, North Carolina’s City Plaza on the festival’s penultimate night more than any other band would or did. It’s safe to guess that most of this crowd had not heard the new material live, so they gave it to us right away with “Knock Knock Knock” and “Rent I Pay” before dishing up the last-decade classic “Don’t You Evah”. The band’s cadence never wavered, and the crowd showed as much love to each of the new songs as to Gimme Fiction mainstays like “The Beast and the Dragon Adored” and “I Turn My Camera On”. The former song gives the band a new North Carolina connection, as Hiss Golden Messenger recently covered the track, with Raleigh-area mainstay and touring member Matt Douglas on keys.

One had to grin at “Outlier”, from They Want My Soul, a key-driven song that’s the most stylistically au courant of the new material, and one that might be interpreted as a question mark to rock fans themselves. It also drops the album’s best line, which gives Spoon’s own view about bland “indie” tropes: “And I remember when you walked out of Garden State / ’cause you had taste, you had taste / you had no time to waste”. When they followed that with “The Underdog”, warning its subject that having no fear of the underdog is a mistake, you had to think this was the part of the set that frontman Britt Daniel had reserved to talk about his own band. The band’s brief encore consisted of with “Inside Out” from the new record, “The Way We Get By” and the closer, “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”, sending the festivalgoers into a night of music that was just getting started.

It’s worth noting that Spoon owe a good bit of their success to one of North Carolina’s finest institutions, the Durham, NC-based Merge Records, a little label whose cultural reach makes you sometimes forget how small and independent they really are. It was on Merge that Spoon hit their groove and found their broadest audience. Being here in Raleigh, on the fifth anniversary of a festival that serves as the entire state’s musical ambassador, felt necessary and right.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V cardiod microphones just in front of the board dead center. While you can hear some people chattering at points on headphones, the sound quality is overall excellent. Enjoy!

Download the set from the Live Music Archive: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the full show from the Live Music Archive:

[crowd shot by acidjack]

Spoon
2014-09-05
Hopscotch Music Festival
City Plaza
Raleigh, NC USA

Hosted at nyctaper.com
recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK4V (FOB/DFC)>KC5>CMC6>Roland R-26>24bit/48kHz WAV>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:10:57]
01 [intro music]
02 Knock Knock Knock>
03 Rent I Pay
04 Don’t You Evah
05 Small Stakes
06 Who Makes Your Money
07 Don’t Make Me a Target
08 Do You
09 The Beast and Dragon, Adored
10 I Turn My Camera On
11 I Summon You
12 Outlier
13 The Underdog
14 Got Nuffin
15 Black Like Me
16 [encore break]
17 Inside Out
18 The Way We Get By
19 You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Spoon, visit their website, and buy their records in their store and at Merge Records.

William Tyler: April 16, 2014 Union Pool – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

April 22, 2014

By acidjack

Follow @acidjacknyc

[Photos by acidjack]

William Tyler has been pounding the pavement for the better part of a year now, touring relentlessly on his acclaimed Merge Records release Impossible Truth. No surprise, then, that the road has made his stories richer, his playing sharper than ever before. At this point, folks could be forgiven for forgetting Tyler is also a member of Lambchop; these days he’s more visible for his own work, as he ought to be after two song cycles — Impossible Truth and 2010’s Behold the Spirit — that reached the pinnacle of the solo guitar genre.

This night at Union Pool celebrated the end of Tyler’s long journey with new material and old, as well as some killer stories from the road. Of note in particular were the brand-new “Highway Anxiety”, which to our knowledge is not yet planned for release, as well as at least one of the songs that will appear on Tyler’s forthcoming Merge EP Lost Colony, which drops April 29 and can be pre-ordered at the link below. Unlike prior Tyler releases, this one will feature a full band. “We Can’t Go Home Again”, played on this night, is one of the songs you can expect to see on that album.

Tyler’s an ideal performer for an intimate spot like Union Pool, and the crowd’s attention was rewarded with fine-grained renditions of some of his best. We’re happy to see the man step off the road for a while, since he deserves a rest, but this was a stellar way to close out this latest chapter of a fine and promising solo career.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed from the Union Pool engineer Robert, along with Schoeps MK41 microphones to provide the most direct sound. The first track, “Highway Anxiety”, does not include the soundboard feed, but the sound on all tracks is equally excellent. Enjoy!

Stream “Highway Anxiety”

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

William Tyler
2014-04-16
Union Pool
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Schoeps MK41 (DFC, A-B)>KCY>Z-PFA + Soundboard (no SBD on track one; engineer: Robert)>>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects, EQ)>Audacity 2.0.3 (tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 45:56]
01 Highway Anxiety
02 [banter1]
03 We Can’t Go Home Again
04 [banter2]
05 Oahspe
06 [banter3]
07 Cadillac Desert
08 A Portrait of Sarah
09 [banter4]
10 Missionary Ridge

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT William Tyler, visit his website, and purchase Impossible Truth and Lost Colony from Merge Records.

Superchunk: September 27, 2013 Bowery Ballroom – Flac/MP3/Streaming

October 2, 2013

By nyctaper

[photos by PSquared Photography]

I couldn’t make the Friday night Superchunk show, as I was attending The Suburbs at Mercury (recording very soon). But fortunately, intrepid correspondent neild was there for the capture. Neil reports:

“First things first: Not to contradict our fearless leader, but Superchunk didn’t technically go on hiatus after 2001’s Here’s to Shutting Up. There were occasional shows and EPs here and there, whenever Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance could take time away from their main gig running Merge Records. But the band’s masterful 2010 CD Majesty Shredding still deserves to be ranked with the most impressive comeback albums of all time, featuring instant classics like “Digging For Something” and “Learned to Surf” that melded the band’s guitar crunch with McCaughan’s pop hookery more deftly than ever before. And this year’s I Hate Music (spoiler alert: they don’t actually) is more of the same – or rather, another step forward in the same direction, stretching the band’s boundaries while still staying true to its strengths in rocking out.

This show was the first of two nights at the Bowery Ballroom (the second is available here), and the sold-out crowd was not disappointed: From the opening clap-along bars of “This Summer” (a throwaway single release from last year that might just be their catchiest tune ever), the band was in fine form, with McCaughan bouncing around the stage for almost the entire hour and a half of music. (As my spouse, a Superchunk first-timer, remarked with understatement, “Mac sure has a lot of energy.”) With Ballance sidelined by ear problems, drummer Jon Wurster’s Bob Mould band mate Jason Narducy subbed in as a replacement, and was an excellent fit both on bass and on backing vocals. The setlist featured a spate of songs from I Hate Music, plus a selection from the band’s catalog that managed to be almost entirely different from the next night’s set; “Skip Steps 1 and 3,” “Hyper Enough,” “Rope Light,” and “Driveway to Driveway” (streaming below) were among the highlights here that didn’t reappear on Saturday.

I recorded this from the Bowery’s left balcony, which made for reduced crowd noise and a nice direct sound from the left speaker stack. It was recorded with two sets of mics, Core Sound Binaurals and Church Audio CA-14 cardioids, which were later mixed to provide optimum depth and presence.

Do not sell this under any circumstances, buy all of Superchunk’s records if you don’t have them already (did you get their 2008 EP Leaves In The Gutter? you probably believed that “hiatus” thing and missed it, didn’t you?), and by all means, do yourself a favor and go see them live when they come to your town.

(Special thanks to nitcomb for the setlist.)

Stream “Driveway to Driveway”:

Download the Complete Show [MP3] or [MP3] (off site) / [FLAC] or [FLAC] (off site)

Superchunk
Bowery Ballroom, NYC
September 27, 2013

Source 1: AUD > CoreSound Binaurals > MM-EBM-1 battery box (with bass roll-off) > Line In > iRiver H320 (Rockboxed) > AIFF
Source 2: AUD > Church Audio CA-14 Cardioids > Line In > iRiver H320 (Rockboxed) > AIFF
Mixing: AIFF > Sound Studio > FLAC > XAct (for SBE and tags) > FLAC
Recorded and mastered by neil d
Extremely light dynamic compression in Sound Studio

01 intro
02 This Summer
03 FOH
04 Me and You and Jackie Mittoo
05 Learned to Surf
06 Skip Steps 1 and 3
07 Staying Home
08 Void
09 Out Of The Sun
10 Kicked In
11 Nu Bruises
12 Low F
13 Animated Airplanes Over Germany
14 Rope Light
15 Digging For Something
16 Slack Motherfucker
17 encore break
18 Tiny Bombs
19 What Do I
20 Brand New Love (Sebadoh)
21 Hyper Enough
22 encore break 2
23 Driveway To Driveway
24 The First Part

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

Superchunk: September 28, 2013 Bowery Ballroom – Flac/MP3/Streaming

September 30, 2013

By nyctaper

[photos by PSquared Photography]

I don’t believe its quite accurate to say that Superchunk is the best working band in America today, but you’d be hard pressed to name one that’s actually better. For more than two decades, minus a few years hiatus, Superchunk has consistently released high quality albums filled with excellent songs. There’s not a clunker among any of their ten studio albums — heck, there isn’t even a bad song in their catalog. The newest release came out last month, and I Hate Music not only continues the streak, but its one of the strongest albums in their history. The band is currently on tour in support of the album and performed two shows at Bowery Ballroom this weekend, and we were there for Saturday’s barnburner. Superchunk opened the show on high octane, working through a democratic mix of songs from the new album interspersed with the classics in an hour-long set that barely came up for air. And the very-sold out crowd was with them throughout. From our standard balcony perch we could see the craziness on the floor, but the manic crowd response even spread to the balcony itself, where we witnessed enough pogoing to shake the floor of the upper deck. But it was in the ten song encore segment where all hell broke loose. The band welcomed out Merge recording artist Eleanor Friedberger for two legendary punk covers (we’re streaming the Patti Smith one below) and then just continued to play a series of their own deep tracks in maniacal fashion. The show reached its climax when Mac laid down his guitar, took over behind the kit and drummer Jon Wurster came out to deliver a couple of hardcore covers to end the night.

I recorded this set with the Sennheiser cards mixed with an excellent board feed. There is a couple of minutes of static near the very end of the set caused by a problematic mic on the snare drum, but otherwise this is a superb capture. Enjoy!

We will also have a recording of the first night of Superchunk’s Bowery shows. That recording should be available by the end of the week.

Stream “Free Money” (Patti Smith cover with Eleanor Friedberger):

Stream “Digging for Something”:

Download the Complete show [MP3] or [MP3] (off site) / [FLAC] or [FLAC] (off site)

Superchunk
2013-09-28
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Sennheiser MKH-8040s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 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 2013-09-29

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:32:11]
01 Breaking Down
02 FOH
03 Crossed Wires
04 Detroit Has A Skyline
05 Punch Me Harder
06 Staying Home
07 [banter – video]
08 Void
09 Like A Fool
10 Tower
11 Iron On
12 Water Wings
13 [banter – requests]
14 Out of the Sun
15 Me and You and Jackie Mittoo
16 Cast Iron
17 Digging For Something
18 Trees of Barcelona
19 [encore break]
20 Seed Toss
21 [Eleanor introduction]
22 Free Money [Patti Smith]
23 Oh Oh I Love Her So [Ramones]
24 Slack Motherfucker
25 Precision Auto
26 [second encore break]
27 Animated Airplanes Over Germany
28 Throwing Things
29 Fishing
30 20 Eyes [Misfits]
31 My War [Black Flag]

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

Mikal Cronin: September 6, 2013 Pour House, Raleigh, NC (Hopscotch Music Festival) – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

September 11, 2013

By acidjack

Follow @acidjacknyc

[Photos by acidjack]

For the second year in a row, I joined my friends in Raleigh, North Carolina for the Hopscotch Music Festival, which finds top North Carolina-based talent (and the talent from many of North Carolina’s most famous labels) rubbing shoulders with giants of the national and international music scene.

Mikal Cronin happens to be from San Francisco rather than NC, but he’s also one of the hottest acts this year on Durham, NC’s Merge Records for good reason. With his new MCII, Mikal established himself as a master of well-crafted power pop with his best work to date. He’s had exposure to some of the best in the field — including touring as part of Ty Segall’s band over the past year — but Cronin is very much his own man. As one would have to be with two well-regarded albums and a slew of seven inches and other output to their credit.

This show at Raleigh’s Pour House Music Hall proved to be the perfect way for Hopscotch revelers to end their second night. What sets Cronin apart almost immediately is the musicianship of he and his band, as they careened through thirteen tracks split between MCII and his Trouble In Mind debut, Mikal Cronin. Cronin isn’t the type to mug for attention — he set himself off to stage right, decidedly out of the spotlight — but anyone in the room that night couldn’t help but pay attention (even if you can hear people partying in the background of the recording). Of the standout tracks of the night, I was partial to “See It My Way”, streaming below, a perfect burst of a song that echoes predecessors like Sloan, Redd Kross and the band that made what Cronin identified at one point as his favorite album, Nirvana.

I recorded this set with my new Schoeps MK4V cardiod microphones and a soundboard feed by the longtime Pour House engineer, Jac. As most instruments were running through on-stage amps, this recording favors the audience mics and picks up a bit more crowd, but overall, the recording is excellent. Enjoy!

Look for more many more Hopscotch Music Festival recordings to appear on this site in the coming weeks, as well as on future official releases on Three Lobed Recordings.

Stream “See It My Way”

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

Mikal Cronin
2013-09-06
Hopscotch Music Festival
Pour House
Raleigh, NC USA

Schoeps MK4V>KC5>CMC6 + Soundboard (engineer: Jac)>Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (mix down, adjustments)>Izotope Ozone 5 (tube effect, EQ)>Audacity 2.03 (tracking, fades, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Is It Alright
02 Situation
03 Apathy
04 Am I Wrong
05 [banter1]
06 You Gotta Have Someone
07 Get Along
08 Weight
09 See It My Way
10 Shout It Out
11 Again And Again
12 Change
13 Green and Blue
14 Gone

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Mikal Cronin, like him on Facebook, and buy MCII directly from Merge Records.

The Love Language: August 1, 2013 Glasslands – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

August 13, 2013

By acidjack

Tweet Follow @acidjacknyc

[Photos by acidjack]

The Raleigh, NC band The Love Language just released its third record, Ruby Red, but in some ways it feels like a debut. Frontman Stuart McLamb delivered his first album under this moniker in 2009; the band’s Merge Records debut was a similarly insular affair. Both Ruby Red and the band’s live show represent a vision blown wide open. Two years in the making, the record gave McLamb all the tools he needed to make the pop-driven, big-room-filling style of rock that he was born to make.

This show at Glasslands fulfilled the promise of the record in every way, with one big number after another making the case for a band on its way to the next level. McLamb’s songs manage to toe that narrow line between earnestness and bombast without over delivering either. Ruby Red itself is a high-gloss production that features a cast of twenty musicians, grand flourishes and ear-pleasing micro-details. The live show, with a touring cast of five, felt comparatively stripped down, but it gave the songs the chance to prove themselves. The Love Language came across as a hungry, tightly-rehearsed unit, delivering tracks like the album opener “Calm Down” with a sense of purpose and poise. Taking full advantage of every second they had before the usual 11:30 p.m. switchover to dance music in this venue, the band played homage to a now-classic New York band with The Strokes’ “The Modern Age”. In that context, not to mention the choice of city, covering the last band tasked with “saving” rock felt right. I won’t freight The Love Language or Ruby Red with that baggage, but for those still looking for new rock music that excites them, they’re a find.

I recorded this set with our usual combination in the venue of Naiant X-R microphones and a soundboard feed from house engineer Josh Thiel. As the band’s very loud guitar amps were not run through the board mix, this mix leans more heavily on the audience mics than normal, and is slightly lower in quality than the absolute best of our Glasslands recordings. That said, it’s still more than worth checking out. Enjoy!

The Love Language is currently touring the Southeast, Midwest and West Coast. Click here for tour dates.

Stream “The Modern Age [The Strokes]”

Stream “Calm Down”

Download the complete show [MP3] | [FLAC]

The Love Language
2013-08-01
Glasslands
Brooklyn, NY USA

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

Naiant X-R (cardiod, DFC, ORTFish)+Soundboard (engineer: Josh Thiel)>Roland R-26>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects)>Audacity 2.03 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 Kids
02 Hi Life
03 On Our Heels
04 For Izzy
05 [banter1]
06 Providence
07 Heart To Tell
08 First Shot
09 Golden Age
10 Sparxxx
11 [banter2]
12 Manteo
13 Faithbreaker
14 Gray Court
15 Pilot Light
16 [banter3]
17 Calm Down
18 [encore break]
19 The Modern Age [The Strokes]
20 Lalita
21 This Room

If you enjoyed this recording, please support The Love Language, visit their website, and buy Ruby Red from Merge Records [HERE].

Page 4 of 6

« 1 2 3 4 5 6 »

Categories

Recent Comments

Blogroll

Music Sites

Taper Blog Fraternity

Archives

Posts Tagged ‘ Merge Records ’

the Mountain Goats: April 12, 2015 City Winery – Flac/MP3/Streaming

The Mountain Goats: April 11, 2015 City Winery – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

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

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

Spoon: September 5, 2014 Hopscotch Music Festival, Raleigh, NC – FLAC/MP3/Streaming Set

William Tyler: April 16, 2014 Union Pool – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

Superchunk: September 27, 2013 Bowery Ballroom – Flac/MP3/Streaming

Superchunk: September 28, 2013 Bowery Ballroom – Flac/MP3/Streaming

Mikal Cronin: September 6, 2013 Pour House, Raleigh, NC (Hopscotch Music Festival) – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

The Love Language: August 1, 2013 Glasslands – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

Email

Recent Posts

DISCLAIMER and LEGAL NOTICE