A Happy, Merry (Very)

A Happy, Merry (Very)

Holiday to Y'All

I'm outta here for 2022, but I do want

to wish everyone happy holidays.

If you're still looking for holiday music, be sure to click

HERE

(takes you to all the holiday-themed posts I've shared over the years)

I'll see you again early in 2023

Yo La Tengo with Alex Chilton - Hoboken, NJ 2007

15th Anniversary Repost

 

Maxwell’s, Hoboken, N.J.
December 8, 2007
Hanukkah, night 5

  

soundboard-audience matrix (sound quality: VG++ to Ex-)  

DISC 1

01 Barnaby, Hardly Working
02 Shaker
03 Stockholm Syndrome
04 Tears Are In Your Eyes
05 Season of the Shark
06 Don’t Say a Word (Hot Chicken #2) 
07 Song for Mahlia
08 talking
09 The River of Water
10 talking
11 Sometime In the Morning (King/Goffin) 
12 talking
13 E.T.I. (Blue Oyster Cult)

  

?!NO KIDDING?! Alex Chilton — night 5 of Yo La Tengo's Hanukkah celebration in 2007
photo by Jacob Blickenstaff 

Gotta extinguish the menorah...

DISC 2

01 Mr. Tough
02 Big Day Coming
03 Watch Out for Me, Ronnie
04 The Story of Yo La Tengo
05 encore break – talking

    *(encore)* with Alex Chilton on guitar & vocals 

06 I’ve Had It (Bell-Notes)
07 The Oogum Boogum Song (B. Wood)
08 Let Me Get Close to You (King/Goffin)
09 Femme Fatale (Velvet Underground)
10 Baby Strange (T-Rex)
11 Hey Little Child (Alex Chilton)
12 Government Center (Modern Lovers)

ROB SEZ: 15-year anniversary repost. Gotta love the surprise 7-song encore set by Mr. Alex Chilton. Whether or not you observe Hanukkah — or any other religious holiday this time of year, I do hope you'll enjoy this one. Although there's no sample to audition, you can trust me: it sounds great. The sharer says, "Thanks to Yo La Tengo, sound guy Mark Luecke, the great folks at Maxwell’s, and thir13en!"

IRA SEZ: Here's what Yo La Tengo lead dude Ira Kaplan said in his Hanukkah diary:

   

Alex Chilton was willing to come back for a second night of special guesthood, and we were thrilled to have him. We reprised “Femme Fatale,” “Let Me Get Close to You” and “Hey! Little Child” from Friday night, and worked up Brenton Wood’s “Oogum Boogum,” (as heard on Alex’s Set cd), an old Cossacks favorite, the Modern Lovers’ “Government Center,” longtime staple of Big Star’s repertoire T.Rex’s “Baby Strange,” and went back to Alex’s Like Flies on Sherbert record for the Bell Notes’ “I’ve Had It.” We even taught him a few words of Hebrew.

  
FLAC
  
MP3@320
  

The dB's - Maxwell's Dec. 1986 (aud - new source!)

Maxwell’s 
Hoboken, N.J.
Dec. 7, 1986

audience recording (sound quality: VG++; transferred from McKenzie master tape)

  

HOLIDAY GREETINGS to Tom at The McKenzie Tapes for his generous sharing of this recording’s digital master for our listening pleasure. It's early Christmas, on the 36th anniversary of this show!

A great, sweaty club show deserves a photo like this one 

ROB SEZ: I posted this excellent show many years ago, using a different source tape. That was pretty darn good, but this new source (transferred from the master, courtesy of the fabulous McKenzie Tapes collection) brings a new dimension of clarity and punch to the proceedings. In this case, "the proceedings" are a thoroughly enjoyable live show at Maxwell's, where The dB's were adopted as hometown heroes (Gene Holder had moved there and the band played Maxwell's frequently). Here, Gene is in very fine form, peeling off tasty lead licks right and left. If the term "adoring crowd" ever applies, it's certainly fitting in this case. You can hear that Peter is jazzed on account of the band's recent signing to IRS Records (though not yet announced publicly — thus the opening cover tune). Rarities include the non-album song "Darby Hall," Will singing his own "The Room's Still Spinning" (Georgia from Yo La Tengo takes over drums so Will can be up front), and a seasonally appropriate "Feliz Navidad" for the final encore. Why not take a few seconds to leave a comment here, thanking Tom at McKenzie Tapes for his generosity? 

00 stage entrance, greeting

01 Everybody's Happy Nowadays

     (Buzzcocks cover)

02 She Got Soul

03 Living a Lie

04 Lonely Is as Lonely Does 

05 Never Say When

06 Today Could Be the Day

07 New Gun In Town

08 I Lie

09 Never Before and Never Again

10 White Train

11 band-audience banter

12 Darby Hall

13 Change With the Changing Times

14 Any Old Thing

15 Amplifier

16 Love Is for Lovers

17 The Room's Still Spinning (Will Rigby song)

18 A Spy In the House of Love

19 See No Evil (Television cover)

20 Feliz Navidad

The dB’s:

Jeff Beninato – bass, vocals

Will Rigby – drums, vocals

Gene Holder – lead guitar

Peter Holsapple – vocals, guitar

*Georgia Hubley (Yo La Tengo) - drums on #17

FLAC

  

MP3@320

  

The dB's - KCRW Live Session 1987 (new source!)

SNAP with Deirdre O'Donoghue
KCRW, Santa Monica, CA
Dec. 3, 1987

35th Anniversary Lossless Repost

KCRW soundboard master

Straight outta KCRW's vaults: the tapes!

via 2022 webstream capture (quality: Ex-)

01 intro
02 Today Could Be the Day
03 chat
04 Change With the Changing Times 
05 more chat
06 Molly Says
07 some chit-chat
08 Working for Somebody Else
09 talk & band member intros
10 This Is Where I Belong

Peter, singing emphatically, with Eric nearby.

     (Kinks cover)
11 some comments
12 White Train
13 droll anecdotes
14 Amplifier
15 yammering & tuning
16 Home for the Holidays
17 banter
18 O Holy Night (trad.)
19 banter, more
20 Bonneville
21 inane banter
22 Spitting In the Wind 
23 prevarications
24 She Got Soul
25 aimless ruminations
26 New Gun In Town
27 random thoughts & false starts
28 Neverland
29 final chat & DJ sign-off

The dB's:
Peter Holsapple - guitar, vocals
Will Rigby - drums, backing vocals
Jeff Beninato - bass, vocals
Eric Peterson - guitar

ROB SEZ: Thanks to alert blog reader Eugene, I found recently-posted streams of vintage live sessions from the amazing "SNAP" radio show on KCRW in Santa Monica. What made "SNAP" so great? The musicians and their performances, of course. Just as significant was the one-of-a-kind Deirdre O'Donoghue, the host of SNAP. Deirdre (R.I.P.) not only had an easy-on-the-ears voice, she was also a music enthusiast like none other, which you can hear in this hugely-enjoyable live session. Although I shared this set many years ago, that recording was sourced from a very good FM capture. This one, by contrast, was recently transferred from the station's master tape. It's webstream capture, yes, but the sound quality is amazing for a 35 year-old (!) recording. Since the session took place between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the band plays the dB's classic "Home for the Holidays" and Peter attempts "O Holy Night" — despite not being able to remember all the words! There's a bunch more of these live sessions, featuring many artists featured on this blog, at KCRW's brand new archival SNAP site. Happy holidays, everybody.

FLAC lossless capture of lossy source

MP3@320

  

Weather Station - Copenhagen, DK 2022 (aud)

Loppen 

Copenhagen, Denmark

March 30, 2022

audience recording (sound quality: VG++, from master recording by willer)

-sample "Loss" live in Toronto, 2021-

01 crowd, band entrance 

02 Loss

03 Separated

04 You & I

05 Way it Is, Way it Could Be 

06 Stars

07 Ignorance (Magpie)

08 Look

09 Tried to Tell You

10 Better Now

11 Wear

12 Heart

13 Robber

14 Atlantic

15 Parking Lot

16 To Talk About 

17 Subdivisions

18 Thirty

ROB SEZ: Remember the long parade of "New Bob Dylans"? Seems like whenever a music journalist bestowed the label on a promising new musician, it turned out to be the kiss of death — or at least a guarantee of career-long obscurity. So when I say The Weather Station's founder and frontwoman Tamara Lindeman sounds to me like the new Joni Mitchell, I sincerely hope I'm not casting bad juju in her direction. I'm not making the comparison merely because Joni & Tamara are both Canadians. I say it because it's been forever since I could draw a sincere comparison between the great JM and another artist with anything close to her talent for songwriting, singing, and bottling magic in the recording studio. Lindeman deserves hundreds of thousands of willing hearts and minds to hear and appreciate her extraordinary musical art, which mixes folk, rock, singer-songwriter, jazz, and pop in roughly equal measure, depending on the album or tour in question. Very big thanks to willer for recording & sharing this one, which is a great-sounding audie. Please enjoy.

FLAC

MP3@320

        

Superchunk - Not Lonely, Just Live 2022

Rough Trade

Superchunk plays Webster Hall, N.Y. in 2022
photo by Douglass Dresher

New York, N.Y.

June 14, 2022

(acoustic show)

audience recording

(sound quality: VG+) 
  

01 intro, tuning

02 Wild Loneliness

03 Endless Summer

04 Rainy Streets

05 Seed Toss

06 Driveway to Driveway

07 If You're Not Dark

-sample Superchunk's marvelousness here-

"Endless Summer" KEXP Live,  April 2022

KEXP Studios

Superchunk plays Bumbershoot in 2011

Seattle, WA

April 4, 2022

webstream capture (sound quality: VG++) 

  

01 Wild Loneliness

02 Refracting

03 Endless Summer

04 Rainy Streets

ROB SEZ: Superchunk may be too busy running Merge Records,  or whatever. If Mac McCaughan and company can't do much to promote Wild Loneliness, the band's *stunning* long-player released a few months ago, then I'm gonna do my little bit to try to get the word out. Wild Loneliness is fabulous, even in comparison to their extensive catalogue of fabulousness. I strongly encourage you to give it a listen. (Is Jon Wurster the best indie music drummer of his era? Discuss.) Meanwhile, I'm indebted to neil d and KEXP for sharing the music.

   

FLAC Rough Trade set is lossless, KEXP = lossless capture of lossy source

MP3@320

    

Julia Jacklin - Live In Melbourne & Seattle 2019

The Forum 
Melbourne, Australia 
March 14, 2019

webstream (sound quality: Ex-, Triple J Radio webcast)

01 Body
02 Leadlight
03 Motherland
04 Don't Know How to 

     Keep Loving You 
05 When the Family Flies In
06 Don't Let the Kids Win
07 Good Guy
08 You Were Right
09 Pool Party
10 Head Alone
11 Pressure to Party

*sample Julia Jacklin & band's live talent here*

(for me, this is the definitive version of "Head Alone")

KEXP Studios 
Seattle, WA
Aug. 12, 2019

webstream (sound quality: Ex-)

  

01 Don't Know How to 

     Keep Loving You 

02 Head Alone

03 Turn Me Down

04 Pressure to Party

   

05 LA Dream (KUTX 2017)

06 Head Alone (AB Session 2019)

07 Comfort (RNZ Live 2019)

08 Pressure to Party (RNZ Live 2019)

09 Eastwick (Sideshow Alley 2017)

ROB SEZ: This was supposed to be a different post, about an up-and-coming group that just released a new album — accompanied by LOTS of indie hype. I really wanted to buy into the hoopla. I bought the new album, listened attentively several times, and ... was singularly unimpressed. By contrast, Australian artist Julia Jacklin has been in heavy rotation at my house for many weeks now. Jacklin's music has everything I found lacking in the unnamed group's recent long player: an identifiable personality, impressive musical chops, loads of charm, and plenty of food for thought in the lyrics. Her 2019 album Crushing (AllMusic rating: 4.5 stars out of 5) and 2022's PRE PLEASURE (AllMusic rating: 4 stars out of 5) have rewarded me richly during their frequent spins. This post offers a hometown show that coincided with the release of Jacklin's second album as well as a 2019 live set for KEXP radio, augmented by other live (mostly acoustic) recordings from 2017 and 2019. Special thanks to Triple J Radio, KEXP, and the others for sharing. Please enjoy.

FLAC lossless captures, lossy sources

MP3@320

    

Green Pajamas - Live 2000-2017 (sbd + aud)

The Showbox

Seattle, WA

Nov. 4, 2000

    

soundboard recording (quality: Ex-) 

  

01 The Secret of Her Smile

02 She's Still Bewitching Me

03 Three-Way Conversation

04 Anna Day

05 Emily Grace

06 Downslide

07 Autumn Leaves

ROB SEZ: Seattle's Green Pajamas have been an overly well-kept secret of indie rock & neo-psychedelica fans since the band got started way back in the 1980s. Jeff Kelly and musical partner Joe Ross have led the combo through dozens of band efforts, solo albums, compilations, and side projects. After all these decades, they're still going strong. All the releases I've heard (about 15 albums & comps) are well worth a listen, and some are bona fide masterpieces. Learn more at AllMusic and Bandcamp (and — because they're so prolific — this additional Bandcamp site).

KEXP Studios

Seattle, WA

Dec. 27, 2013

webstream capture

(sound quality: VG++)

01 Lonesome End of the Lake

02 The Queen's Last Tango

03 Why Good Men Go Bad

04 The Red, Red Rose

xx Interview segments w. DJ Sharlese

  

Variously Live

Seattle, WA

2006, 2010, 2017

webstream captures (sound quality: VG+ to VG++)

01 Fairy Queen

      (live Seattle 2017-03-11) 

02 Three-Way Conversation

      (live Seattle 2017-03-11)

03 Cold Turkey

      (live Seattle 2010-10-09)

04 A Long Way From Home

      (Ray Davies cover, rec. 2006) 

FLAC (2000 set is 100% lossless; the other 2 are lossless captures of lossy sources)

MP3@320