The NYCTaper coverage of Tubby’s Fifth Anniversary returns with Idle Ray!
Idle Ray’s set in the arc of the Tubby’s anniversary party was crucial. The day had started pretty bleak. Massive storms had essentially made travel out of New York City impossible, and several bands, and fans, had to cancel travel arrangements. I had been at the venue the previous night setting up gear and staff morale was super high. When I got back that afternoon I arrived to less than peak vibes, but things started turning around quickly. A couple drinks, the first band hitting the stage, a surprise fill in from Wild Pink and suddenly things were looking good. By the time Idle Ray hit, no one was talking about the storm. It was party time.
Idle Ray’s inclusion on the bill made perfect sense. Fred Thomas, Idle Ray’s primary songwriter, is a long time veteran of Detroit’s vibrant music scene with credits on far too many records to list. He has performed several times at Tubby’s as part of the excellent Detroit based DIY/Punk band Tyvek and is also in Winged Wheel with one of Tubby’s owners. Recorded mainly during Covid, the Idle Ray project was created as an attempt at “going back to basics of recording on cassette four-track and having it be more about interesting sounds and feel than perfect performances or getting an industry-standard snare sound.”
The studio recordings are all Fred. For this show, Fred handled guitar and lead vocals with Devon Clausen on bass and Frances Ma on guitar and lead vocals, with backing drum machine tracks. I was unfamiliar with the material before this, but the hooks are there. It took all of half of the set opener “Overlook” to be glad I had hit record. The trio brought all the fuzzy power pop glory anyone could want to the evening. Great songs, well played and a nice bonus of some great stage banter. Fred mentioned one of the songs was about the time his ex ran for Mayor of his town. His summation of the experience; “SSUUUCCCKKKEEEDDDD”. It never occurred to me that the only way the endless forced misery of political campaign advertisements could be more hellish is if your ex was featured in them.
You can catch Fred back in town playing with Winged Wheel at Bearsville theater (with Guided By Voices!) on 8/10. You can also catch Tyvek, sans Fred, at Tubby’s on 7/27.
Recording for this set differed pretty significantly from the normal Tubby’s set up. Since they had two “stages” with two different sets of speakers, I had to set up two different sets of mics and recorders and start and stop each between bands. Thankfully, I was able to get a board feed from the main console in the back for each “stage”. I combined the front room mics with the board feed for the recording you have here. It sounds excellent; full of life and screaming guitars. Crank it!
Download and stream from the live music archive!
Idle Ray
2023-09-29
Tubby’s
Kingston, NY
Source 1: SP-CMC-4U (AT853 cards, low sens mod) > SPSb-11 > R-07
Source 2: SDB > Zoom F8
Source 1 + Source 2 > Adobe CC (time align, EQ, compression) > Audacity (tracking, fades) > FLAC (lvl 8)
Recorded and produced by kliked for nyctaper.com
Thanks to Tubbys FOH engineers Wil for the patch and Kyle for the mix!
This was part of the Tubby’s 5 Year anniversary celebration
- Overlook
- Backwards
- Emphasis Locator
- Corridors of Summer
- Luck Be Damned
- New Weird Thing
- Localism Hours
- Quiet Cab
- Ruiner
Idle Ray:
Frances Ma: Guitar and Lead Vocals
Devon Clausen: Bass
Fred Thomas: Guitar, Tapes, Lead Vocals
Support this excellent band:
https://idleray.bandcamp.com/
Support the venues bringing you interesting music:
https://www.tubbyskingston.com/music-calendar
Recent Comments