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Photos / Live Review: Shearwater, Wye Oak, Hospital Ships @ Johnny Brenda’s (2010.03.28)

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Despite a horrendously rainy evening, I made the trek up to Philadelphia to see two of my absolute favorite extant artists (Wye Oak and Shearwater) play impressive sets at Johnny Brenda’s. Though a bit oddly shaped, and accordingly awkward for sound, the venue is an absolute charmer. It feels like a back-room, private cabaret with some insane lighting rigs and luxuriously appointed design elements such as buttoned red velvet cushions on the walls. The venue shoots upwards two stories, but is shallow and intimate, making sure you are never more than 10 rows from the stage (which is well-elevated for a venue this size, giving everyone good sightlines).

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Northern Exposure: Foreward by the Author

Ed. note: Aural Slate Recordings artist Caverns is embarking on a North American tour (that includes you Canada) in support of Aural Slate’s inaugural EP release We Lied.   Tagging along with Maryland stoner rock legends Clutch, Caverns will be going pretty much everywhere you don’t want to be  in April, if you like to be warm!

Greetings.   Welcome to Northern Exposure, which is to be a written archive of all of the adventures our band, Caverns, whilst touring with the mighty Clutch.  As I’m writing this, most of the band is, like me, at lunch at their day job mentally preparing to embark on this 3 week, 16 date tour.   We’re all still in shock that we got the time off work (except for our piano player, Patrick who is his own “boss”) to live out this childish rock fantasy, but never underestimate the generosity of a well kissed ass!  Seriously though, thanks so much to the powers that be for letting us take the time to do this, you know who you are and you win.  We’re leaving for our first show in Portland, Maine tonight after Rush Hour.  What did you think we’d go on tour for three months without watching Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker hilariously riff off of each other?  No chance, kemosabe.

Getting ready for our first national tour has been fraught with buying unnecessary items, people offering questionable advice, and losing the thing you just had in your hand two seconds ago because you have so much shit on your mind.  We’re probably gonna forget Ross when we leave.  We’re about 99% of the way done at this point, but I will say that, for a band about to embark on a tour opening for Clutch, we are wildly deficient in facial hair department.  Ross and our tour manager Ira have respectable beards, but even then they are not at viking status, which is where I think they need to be.  I myself am clean shaven because I just don’t have the stones to grow a beard and Pat’s face never went through puberty.  Anyone know a good costume shop in Portland?

We’ll be checking in pretty much daily with news or our happenings and wildly embellished retellings of assorted road hijinks that may or may not have occurred.  There will be pictures, videos, laughing and love.  Oh and a daily recap of amazing events and noises Pat was able to sleep through.  So please stay tuned, good AS reader, we will be back to check on you very very soon from Portland, ME.

Love,

Kevin/Caverns

Livewire: Teaadora Nikolova & Bethany Dinsick @ the Zodiac (2010.03.19)


Photo & words: Greg Szeto

This was an interesting and unusual night. Billed moreso a night of spiritual cleansing as opposed to a night of live music, the theme was to usher in the transitioning seasons, notably the Spring equinox. Things started off with Secret Secrets delivering some dark and moody sounds. Alternating periods of gentle and pummeling percussion (courtesy of Melissa Moore), swelled amidst the melodic vocals, loops and synths of Beverly Shana Palmer (Childe Bride), and the guitar, feedback and throatsinging of Gerry Mak (recent Baltimore transplant and unwitting proxy for down-and-out hipster life and reflexive ire for it). This allowed us to check off the astral communication/seances portion of the night, and left you with that dark, inwardly reflective feeling that visits cold, black nights in front of a fire.

Then, the glorious and cathartic thawing and rejuvenation was led by a collaborative set between our very own Bethany Dinsick and out-of-towner Teaadora Nikolova. They split the second set of the evening in half, Bethany’s gentle and ascendant melodies, particularly her soprano-ranged vocals, slowly warmed us before Teaadora’s music (and an abrupt bit of performance art barbering) brought the show to a reservedly sunny close.

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1. Improvization
2. Bethany Dinsick – Oklahoma Alley
3. Bethany Dinsick – Bottle Tree
4. Bethany Dinsick – Love Vacation
5. Bethany Dinsick – Ecuador
6. Bethany Dinsick – Bad Lil’ Boy
Teaadora – Serial Dating (omitted at artist request)
7. Teaadora – On Conversations: On an On an On an On
8. Teaadora – Untitled
9. Teaadora – Don’t Expect a Stradivarius

Download entire set as MP3s

Preview: Konk Pack, Matmos, Leprechaun Catering @ the 5th Dimension (2010.03.26)

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  1. MP3: The Work – Cain & Abel from Slow Crimes (1982)
  2. MP3: Konk Pack – Off Leash Excerpt from Off Leash (2004)

Tentative plan for tonight: 930PM start, order (first to last) = Matmos > Leprechaun Catering > Konk Pack

Tonight, Baltimore is once again ground-zero for an atom-bomb of experimental improv talents. Firstly, there are few openers that hit harder than the one-two punch of local luminaries Leprechaun Catering and Matmos. The former’s ever-engrossing, stream of thought racket combines seamlessly with the latter’s deft compositions that somehow use unconventional tools to mine the deepest pits of experimentalism, and emerge with gleaming gold nuggets of pop.

But people around here already know that. So I’m going to take a second and introduce tonight’s special guests, British/German imrpov trio Konk Pack. Read the rest…

Live Review: Philly Serves Tan Dun’s Tea, Curtis Recitals Shine

Intrepid music lovers should head North on 95, cut over onto 76 and head into Center City Philly for action. First gem: Opera Company of Philadelphia. This is the only East Coast company, so far as I know, with the balls and the budget to invite Chinese composer Tan Dun to conduct his own opera, Tea: A Mirror of Soul.

I was lucky enough to be gifted a front row seat for the Feb. 21 performance by a very awesome sister. Dun does not so much conduct as conjure from a well within; I couldn’t stop watching him the entire performance. What makes an operatic success? Not the story, but the spectacle; not the characters, but the voices. Tea’s vocal lines are almost at home in Italian opera, although the words are disappointingly English. Haijing Fu’s unwavering baritone grounded the proceedings well, but Dun’s instrumental abandon is what makes the opera glisten and resound.

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NoVo / Nouveau: Live Audio, Day 3 – Insect Factory (2010.03.04)


Photo credit: http:​/​/​www.​firkingood.​com

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  1. MP3: Untitled

Download the entire set in FLAC.

Insect Factory

guitar – stereo DI’s
stage – apex 460 tube (c12 modded clone-set to omni)
stage – mxl 990 (angled at 45 deg in towards the middle of the stage)
mid room: Oktava 012 (x/y)
back room: AT871R Boundary

Recorded by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Windup Space
Mixed by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Mobtown Studios

Tracked with Logic 9.1

NoVo / Nouveau: Live Audio, Day 3 – Yeveto (2010.03.04)

Photo credit: Tedd Henn

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  1. MP3: Untitled
  2. MP3: Five Fives
  3. MP3: Cowboy Song
  4. MP3: The Hyena and Other Men

Download the entire set in FLAC.

Yeveto

kick – shure beta 52
snare – shure sm57
overheads – shure sm81s
guitar amp – sennheiser 421
cello – DI
cello – oktava 012
keys – DI
moog – DI
stage – apex 460 tube (set to omni)
stage – mxl 990 (angled at 45 deg in towards the middle of the stage)
mid room – oktava 012 (x/y)
back room – AT boundary

Recorded by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Windup Space
Mixed by Matthew Leffler-Schulman @ Mobtown Studios

Tracked with Logic 9.1

NoVo / Nouveau: Live Audio, Day 3 – Nathan Bell (2010.03.04)


Photo credit: Greg Szeto

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  1. MP3: Untitled
  2. MP3: Untitled
  3. MP3: Untitled
  4. MP3: Untitled

Download the entire set in FLAC.

Nathan Bell (feat. Ami Dang)

drum overheads – shure sm81s
banjo amp – sennheiser 421
banjo spot – oktava 012
sitar amp – sennheiser 421
acoustic guitar with pickup – shure sm57 on amp
stage – apex 460 tube (set to omni)
stage – mxl 990 (angled at 45 deg in towards the middle of the stage)
mid room – oktava 012 (x/y)
back room – AT boundary

Recorded by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Windup Space
Mixed by Matthew Leffler-Schulman @ Mobtown Studios

NoVo / Nouveau: Live Audio, Day 3 – Gregory Rago (2010.03.04)

Photo credit: Tedd Henn

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  1. MP3: They Will Seek to Poison You
  2. MP3: Untitled Instrumental
  3. MP3: Augusta
  4. MP3: The Quivering Gyre of the Mid-Atlantic

Download the entire set in FLAC.

Gregory Rago

Acoustic guitar – Shure SM81 pointed at the 12th fret
Room Mics – Oktava 012 (x/y)

Recorded by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Windup Space
Mixed by Matthew Leffler-Schulman @ Mobtown Studios

Tracked with Logic 9.1

Album Review: Title Tracks – It Was Easy (Ernest Jennings)

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Title Tracks – Every Little Bit Hurts

To start, Title Tracks sound nothing like Q and Not U, whose raucous clatter compelled DC post-punkers to dance in the early part of the last decade. Neither does Title Tracks remind you of the energetic indie pop of Georgie James, John Davis’ first post-Q and Not U band. Instead, Title Tracks produces mid-tempo power pop with all the requisite influences, {insert The Jam/Big Star reference here}. And they follow this formula quite well, crafting some tight and exciting songs in the process.

That’s the good news — if you enjoy that sound and feel, you’re probably gonna eat this up the way I ate up Abe Vigoda (who?) a year and a half ago. But frankly the formula is weary, old, and been done before, many thousands of times over. If you’ve decided to step into this arena you have to face the fact that there are a thousand other guys out there playing the same chords and singing the same “la-la”s. So what’s there to distinguish you from them? Usually the answer lies in strong vocals and melodies, and on both counts Davis is fine. In a world where ex-post punkers are embarassing themselves at an alarming rate, give the guy props because he certainly succeeds more often than he fails, but I wish he would take enough chances to do either on a large scale.

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