iamserio.us

It was way too hot to stealth last night, so I only taped the first band. It wouldn’t have been so hot but the only clean jacket I had (in which to stuff my gear) was a heavy Carhartt one which made it unbearable to stealth. Add this to the fact that I’m sort of burned out on taping shows just to tape them and you come up with me being a total pussy.

So last night was Tapes ‘n Tapes with openers Cold War Kids and The Figurines, respectively. I taped Cold War Kids for my boss at Suicide Squeeze because she was raving about them all week and I thought she’d appreciate a recording. By the end of their set I was sweating balls and not feeling well, so the lady and I ditched and went home. I’ll just tell people I’m so indie that I buy tickets to sold out buzz-band shows and then leave after the opener plays. Shit yeah.

Cold War Kids – 2006-06-19 Crocodile Cafe – Seattle, WA
Download: cwk2006-06-19.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: cwk2006-06-19sample.mp3

Third night blazin’ through your modem. For the third night, BTS brought out Mess With Time and Sidewalk as newcomers to the setlist. Other than that, it’s the same jams you heard the first two nights. They also brought the Calvin Johnson skit back for this set.

The real downer of this show was the fact that the crowd was full of drunk assholes (moreso than the second night). It got so bad during Brett’s opening set that he stopped before his last song and bitched the crowd out for being so rude while he was playing. I was pretty much in agreement with him… concerts aren’t about the people in attendance; they’re about the people on the stage. That’s my stance at least.

Built To Spill – 2006-06-15 The Showbox – Seattle, WA
Download: bts2006-06-15.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: bts2006-06-15sample.mp3

EDIT: Removed opening sets to make space on the server.

Second night comin’ atcha. Opened and closed with the same tunes but the middle is where the creamy goodness lies. For the second night, BTS blessed Seattle with Liar, Life’s A Dream, Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss, and Gone.

The Calvin Johnson skit is missing from this night but they played two more songs total. Overall, the sound is a lot nicer and the band played tighter. The diginoise that I experienced on Tuesday night popped up again during Helvetia’s set but not during the other two bands. I’m going to sit down and figure out where the problem is (and I might run the JB3 as a backup if it is, in fact, the S/PDIF cable that is culprit).

Built To Spill – 2006-06-14 The Showbox – Seattle, WA
Download: bts2006-06-14.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: bts2006-06-14sample.mp3

EDIT: Removed opening sets to make space on the server.

What a night. Last night was the first time I’d ever taped with another taper and it was an all-around good time. I actually hadn’t planned on going to these BTS shows but a fellow taper had an extra ticket for Tuesday and Wednesday so I came along (seems like this happens a lot lately). So myself and this guy ran a stand from the bar and it was the most enjoyable taping experience I’ve ever had. We had chairs to sit in, a perfect view of the stage and we pretty much had a jovial time.

Last night was also the first time I’d ever dealt with a patcher. For the uninformed, a patcher is someone who goes to a show in hopes that a taper will be there so they can “patch out” of their deck and get an auxiliary feed from the mics. I really don’t have a problem with it and I think it’s a smart, inexpensive way for people who want to guarantee that they’ll get a copy of the show. What I didn’t like was that this guy was drunk, loud and expected me to run his Minidisc deck for him.

Patcher: HAY! Are you the ‘purveyor of the microphones’?
Me: Sure, I guess.
Patcher: Do you have a headphone out I could use?!
Me: Uh, yeah sure. You’re going to need a 1/4″ adapter
Patcher: Yeah I got that covered, man!
Me: Ok, yeah. Here you go.
Patcher: ALRIGHT! I’ve got levels and I’m good to go! So when the band starts just hit this button and then this button and when it’s done hit the button again. THANKS DUDE!
Me: Uh, sure.

Minidisc players aren’t rocket science so I could handle it, but it was a little rude of him to presume that I would want to. He stopped by later to make sure everything was going well by giving me a “thumbs up” coupled with a questioning look in his eyes. I returned the gesture to let him know that everything was ok (or I thought it was, I still don’t know if his MD got a proper recording).

At the end of the night I still had his deck and the guy was nowhere to be found. I was about to just leave his deck at the bar when some guy came up to me to retrieve it, but it wasn’t the original drunky. The guy informed me that he was picking up the deck because the guy who owned it had been kicked out of the venue. To quote my fellow taper: “Imagine that. We definitely didn’t see that one coming.”

So that’s my story that you probably don’t care about. Concerning the actual music: it was an alright show. The openers were decent, if a little on the subdued side and Built To Spill blew me away as they always do. Doug opened with Car and that pretty much sold it for me. They could have played noodly jams the rest of the night for all I cared because that song is pretty much the best BTS song ever.

The recordings turned out fairly clear and decent, but not as good as I had hoped/expected. It was nice that we had our mics at the bar because it’s on a 3′ platform. This made it possible to fly our mics 11′ up (plus everyone around the mics was sitting down). For some reason, Bret Netson’s set has some weird crackling in the waveform and I don’t know why. I saw it happening during the recording because the MT’s peak lights were going off at times when there is no possible way the audio would be clipping. I think it’s time to invest in a better S/PDIF cable.

Built To Spill – 2006-06-13 The Showbox – Seattle, WA
Download: bts2006-06-13.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: bts2006-06-13sample.mp3

EDIT: Removed opening sets to make space on the server.

Within the taper community the mantra is Quality is king!. Tapers pride themselves on getting a quality recording and most are insulted at the thought of raping their waveform with a lossy codec like MP3, and rightly so.

See, when you encode a WAV to MP3 a lot of information is left out. MP3 leaves out everything above ~15kHz because the average person (and even most audiophiles I’d wager) can’t hear those frequencies anyway. So who cares? Well, a lot of people, and here is why.

1) Once it’s gone it’s gone.

See, when you encode a WAV to an MP3 and it loses that data, you can’t get that data back. That’s not a huge deal in regards to albums because people can always go out and buy the CD if they want to hear the original files. With live recordings however, they’re not as easy to locate and sometimes the source recording is lost forever if a taper loses his source recording or if he just disappears from the scene completely. It’s up to the members of the taping community to maintain the integrity of the recordings for everyone.

2) Once it starts, it’s hard to stop it.

Say I post a show of mine in MP3 format and a dozen people download it. Then a few of those people burn the MP3s to a CD for listening on-the-go and their friends want copies. So they take those CDs and rip them to MP3 (using only god knows with which to encode). Now you’ve got MP3 > WAV > MP3 lineage going on and it just keeps going from there. It’s a slippery slope folks.

Even bearing both of those important points in mind, I still understand why people want MP3s instead of FLAC. iPods don’t play FLAC files and most people have those, Winamp doesn’t play FLAC files out of the box and iTunes flat out refuses to play them, and the files are 4-5 times bigger than MP3s. The reasons are varied, but they’re all quite valid. Trust me, I’m on your side on most of the points.

So I’ve given it some thought and decided a compromise is in order. No, I’m not going to start hosting MP3s. That’s crazy talk. What I will do, however, is make it easy for the end-user to convert the FLACs to MP3 with a click, a wish and a prayer. Enter: FLAC2MP3.

Download: FLAC2MP3.zip

Ok so I didn’t write this script, but a buddy of mine sure did when I asked him to because he’s all kinds of crazy cool like that. Written in WSH, FLAC2MP3 will take any set of FLAC files and decompress them to WAV, then encode them to MP3 and delete the remaining WAVs. It even transfers over the metadata!

This way I still get to force the quality of lossless files on the unwashed masses and you get to listen to your filthy MP3s on your lil’ beatbox! Just make sure that when someone asks you for a copy of that smokin’ tape you give them FLACs (or at least a straight audio cd sourced from the FLACs).

What a great band these guys are. They played with full energy for 70 minutes straight and never missed a beat. All around, a very fun show as I pulled a pretty good stealth tape and I saw a bunch of old friends from various places.

Yeah, I guess I don’t have much to say other than, here you go:

Liars – 2006-06-10 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: liars2006-06-10.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: liars2006-06-10sample.mp3

Sometimes I go to shows and tape for people when I normally would have just sat at home. Usually it’s a good experience, like when I taped Massive Attack and Murder By Death. Last night I taped The Fall Of Troy for a friend of mine and, overall, it was a good show.

The low points of the show were:

The high points:

The opening bands weren’t terrible but they weren’t really my scene. The whole night was like being transported back to freshman year of college when I would go to shows at this venue all the time (back when it was called The Graceland). The first band, Classic Case, sounded a lot like Thrice. The second and third bands, Showbread and He Is Legend, were both Christian rock acts that I can’t say I hated or loved. They just sort of exist.

The Fall Of Troy, though, can do no wrong. They’re head and shoulders above the other bands on this tour, and not just because Thomas Erak can fucking shred his way around six strings either (because, let me tell you, he can). The band is just so damn tight and spot-on. They’re very good at creating segues into and out of their songs and you’ll never hear a song just like you heard it on the CD.

So here are all of the sets from last night. For all you punk rock kids who need to re-live last night’s get together.

The Fall Of Troy – 2006-06-09 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: fot2006-06-09.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: fot2006-06-09sample.mp3

Update: Someone filmed the new song Excreations with a digital camera and the video turned out decent, so I mixed it with my audio.

Download: Excreations_fixed.mpg

EDIT: Removed opening sets to make space on the server.

I don’t think Eluvium will ever get the sort of attention he deserves at a concert. I fear that he’ll never be a headlining act and that he’ll always be placed as an opening act at a concert where people want to talk, drink, be merry and not pay attention to the beautiful music he’s making. All throughout his set people chatted with their friends instead of listening to the beautiful music he was creating, though, a lot of people shut their noiseholes during the crescendo of “Under The Water It Glowed” because it’s hard not to appreciate how gorgeous that song is.

I loved that he took the stage and did not say a word. He sat up there at his piano and waited for the soundguy to kill the house music, then he just started playing. Between songs he didn’t say anything and I don’t think he even had a microphone. When he finished his last song he just looked up, smiled and waved his hand as if to say “Thanks for listening. Bye.”

During Mono’s set, he walked by my stand, pointed to the mics and smiled at me. I told him “I’ll send you a copy.” and he touched my shoulder lightly and did a scooping head nod (you know, where your head just kind of swoops down with your shoulders). He said “Thanks.” I half expected him to add “…my son” after. He’s just so humble and meak and unassuming and I would pay to see him play everyday of my life if I could.

Eluvium – 2006-06-03 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: eluvium2006-06-03.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: eluvium2006-06-03sample.mp3

Mono is one of my favorite post-rock bands of late. As far as the genre goes, few bands can build a crescendo as beautifully as these four tiny Japanese musicians can. I love how they can draw a song out to a point where you really can’t say when it will be finished, but at the same time you would be completely satisfied if they played the song for hours. At least I would. Because I’m a sucker for post-rock.

Much like Eluvium, the band did not say a word during their set. This may have partly been due to the language barrier but I think it’s more to do with the fact that their music says everything they need it to. Words are for losers and Mono knows this.

Also, I really am not good with their song titles or knowing where the tracksplits are. Sorry. (Update: Thanks to Skim for the song titles. The text file has been updated.)

Mono – 2006-06-03 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: mono2006-06-03.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: mono2006-06-03sample.mp3

I wasn’t too familiar with Pelican’s body of work before the concert but I decided to give them a try. Unfortunately, they bored me to the utmost degree. Their music never seemed to build up to anything. There was no crescendo and no payoff, no big breakdown that made you say “Hell yes I want the world to end.” I think that’s what I like in a lot of instrumental rock bands and Pelican just didn’t do it for me. Every once in a while the guitarist would bust out a really cool little riff or the drum beat would kick into double-bass action and I’d get excited, but those moments were not very frequent.

I will say that upon giving the recording another listen at home, I enjoyed it more than I did last night. Maybe Eluvium and Mono had just tired me out on the whole instrumental rock thing.

Pelican – 2006-06-03 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: pelican2006-06-03.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: pelican2006-06-03sample.mp3

UPDATE: I’m turning off commenting for this entry because the numerous mentions of the word “mono” (you know, like the illness) has drawn the spambots like moths to a disease-ridden flame.

I hadn’t planned on going to this show but Beckah at Suicide Squeeze called and asked if I wanted to be put on the list, and who am I to turn down any sort of free entertainment? No one. That’s who.

The upside of this concert was that a) it was free and b) it was early and I like that because I am turning into an old man. The downside was that, other than Metal Hearts, I had no clue who the other bands were. The downside of the upside is that I actually didn’t get to bed any earlier and the upside of the downside is that the bands I hadn’t heard of were actually pretty cool. I don’t think it can get any more confusing than what I just wrote.

Metal Hearts were the openers so I had to get there early so I didn’t miss anything. I really like this band because they use drum machine tracks without sounding cheesy and they make a concerted effort to incorporate saxaphone into their music. I like me some saxaphone, let me tell you what.

Metal Hearts – 2006-06-01 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: mh2006-06-01.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: mh2006-06-01sample.mp3

After them was William Elliott Whitmore, a solo artist who seems to have been dug up from early twentieth century dustbowl-era America. He sounds like he’s coming at you over an AM radio and thematically bounces from damnation to redemption in all of his bluesy ballads. That he’s not yet thirty years old and a tattooed guy in a fedorah makes it that much more odd to watch. Odd in a good way I mean.

Also, this quote from him during his set cracks me up every time I hear it:

Thursday! Is today Thursday? Right on. ‘Thursday night? Fuck or fight.’ That’s my motto.

The quote is hilarious to me because it could have been any night of the week and that saying would still work. I bet that’s his motto for every day of the week and you know what? That’s a damn fine motto to have. If you’ve gotta hold a motto I suggest you use “[Day of the week] night? Fuck or fight.”

William Elliott Whitmore – 2006-06-01 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: wewhitmore2006-06-01.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: wewhitmore2006-06-01sample.mp3

Once Mr. Whitmore wrapped up, Murder By Death went on. I checked out their MySpace page before I left for the show because I was worried that somehow Metal Hearts had been booked to play with a metal/hardcore band by accident. As it turns out, they just have an unfortunately undescriptive name for their style of music (but they share a name with one of my favorite films ever).

A guy at the show I was talking to described them as “Cursive but harder”. I didn’t find that to be true exactly. I mean, they share some common characteristics with Cursive since they have a cello and all, but I think the similarities stop there. If I were to use other bands to describe Murder By Death, I’d say this:

If Johnny Cash had sons instead of daughters, and then one of those sons ended up writing country songs while hanging out with Nick13 of Tiger Army, he might be the lead singer of Murder By Death.

All in all, I dig their style. Some of the songs seemed like they should have been hookier but they weren’t. I expected them to use a driving snare cadence a lot more than they did… I love country songs that do that (so maybe I just wanted them to do that deep down). Also, the cellist is amazingly proficient at her task and she’s pretty cute too. These are the things I notice.

Murder By Death – 2006-06-01 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: mbd2006-06-01.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: mbd2006-06-01sample.mp3

And now I must admit that I left the show before the last band went on. I had already started tearing down when I realized there was another band coming. At that point, I really had to pee and I just wanted to get home before the rain got worse. If I knew who the band was (I didn’t) or had paid to get into the show (I hadn’t) then I might have stayed, but as it was, I just got the hell out of Dodge.

Eluvium/Mono/Pelican is on Saturday. Now that’s a show to get excited for! Hell yes that show is going to destrory.