Live.Music.Curator

Warning, very long and rambly post lies ahead...

So it's been a month since I started hosting recordings on my Tor .onion and this blog. The most notable recording is the one off BREATHEWATCHLISTENTOUCH: The Work and Music of Yoko Ono from 2019-03-22 featuring musical performances by Shirley Manson, Francisca Valenzuela, and many others. While Yoko's own music isn't for everyone, I found the musical performances that night surprisingly accessible and enjoyable, so you owe it to yourself to give it a chance.

The rest of my Shirley Manson recordings are with Garbage, and I've got plenty of those recordings in the queue (some or most of which may've been covered and released by other tapers).

My most recent recording is Shiner at Zebulon on January, a few nights ago on 2022-01-24. I'd only heard of Shiner a few months ago at the recommendation of a friend, but they're right up the alley for fans of Hum, Failure, and other heavy shoegaze.

My oldest (published) is Fountains of Wayne at the Troubadour from 2011-10-13. It's not a unique recording at all and I wasn't alone in taping that night; I generally prefer recordings made with omnidirectional mics. I've got at least one other FoW show in my queue. Song title help for the Mike Viola opening set would be appreciated.

Also from the Troubadour, Devin Townsend's performance on 2011-10-24 was my first time seeing him headline. There's numerous more Devin concerts in my queue, so expect more.

Possibly my most popular recording will be Billy Corgan at the Lodge Room on 2019-11-05; and it doesn't require Tor to download! https://archive.org/details/wpc2019-11-05.4063 I don't have any more Corgan solo shows, but do expect some from the Smashing Pumpkins and side projects of their members.

That Corgan recording and BREATHEWATCHLISTENTOUCH were my most challenging editing processes in terms of dynamics and audience noise, while Shiner and Spirit in the Room where some of the easiest.

I'll likely upload Local H @ the Roxy on 2016-06-02 to archive.org, soon but there might some small level tweaks for the quieter songs of the set before I upload. My last show of 2020 featured Local H at the Teragram and I intend to publish that sometime, too; along with several other Local H recordings I've made over the years.

I've also published my penultimate 2020 show with Cult of Luna, Emma Ruth Rundle, and Intronaut at the Fonda on 2020-03-10. What a blast that was. Older recordings from each of those artists are also in my queue, and hopefully we'll see future ones, soon.

While I'm sure another copy exists and was likely published, my recording of Nina and Louise (of Veruca Salt) at Amoeba Music on 2015-07-13. Most notably for me, this acoustic version of “Come Clean, Dark Thing” is far preferable to the brickwalled album version.

I also published my recording for Mazzy Star in Ventura on 2018-11-01. This isn't the only complete recording of that show, and while I'm usually not completely happy with recordings I make with high-quality microphones; they are miles better than what phones can do. I've also got a Hope Sandoval show in the queue which isn't half bad, but this is my only Mazzy Star recording.

Riverside in Whittier on 2015-09-27 was probably my most anticipated show of 2015, and one of the rare ones where I used X-Y cardioids to record. I've got at least one other Riverside show in the queue, and hopefully more in the future.

Since Riverside and The Pineapple Thief have overlapping fanbases, and I've made some EQ tweaks to my only Pineapple Thief recording so far on 2019-12-09.

My favourite recording of all time remains Morcheeba at Pappy and Harriet's on 2019-10-12. I published both those Morcheeba and Pineapple Thief recordings shortly on a semi-private tapers forum shortly after the pandemic started, but hopefully this gives it wider exposure. Expect a Skye+Ross recording at some point, too.

My second favourite recording of all time is currently Steven Wilson from The Belly Up! on 2016-11-06. Unfortunately, Steven banned his recordings from DIME and The Traders' Den, so I will likely honor his wishes beyond those torrent sites and not share it, here. Friends who know me personally already have a recording of the second set :) That night in November 2016 was a few days before the US election; making the “Sign O' the Times” Prince cover was especially fitting. The live performance was far more intense than his “Cover Version” release, and got me interested enough to explore the music of Prince.

While I don't feel comfortable publishing Steven's recording from the Belly Up!, I have several other recordings from that great venue I can publish, starting with Chelsea Wolfe from 2017-10-02. Though I still prefer my recording of them from Substance 2021 on 2021-11-26. I've got several more Chelsea Wolfe recordings, both with a full band and without; and some of those definitely deserve more focus.

There's also a Jesus and Mary Chain recording from when they opened for NIN on 2018-12-11 at the Hollywood Palladium. Of course I recorded NIN that night, too, and I'm now revealing myself as the anonymous taper who contributed the DPA 4063 source on https://NINlive.com/shows/2018/20181211.html I'm not at all happy with the way my recording was EQ-ed (or not at all) on NINlive.com. Omni recordings typically need significant EQ to sound good on full-range playback systems and I plan on re-EQ-ing and sending that to NINlive.com once I'm done and their site is back up. That wasn't even the only show I recorded on December 11, 2018 :)

For reference, all my recordings will be available at: http://s35tjjsibx24bjtgbbhfyf2d3hx2b7hxxfpalrdd5wbweorqkqfyh4yd.onion/ indefinitely. You'll need Tor to access .onion URLs, or OnionBrowser if you're on iOS.

tor2web.io (and other tor2web nodes) may work, but there's more reliability problems and whoever runs it could shut off access at any moment (or even alter downloads): https://s35tjjsibx24bjtgbbhfyf2d3hx2b7hxxfpalrdd5wbweorqkqfyh4yd.tor2web.io/

PS. I'm using the term “taper” because the term seems to have stuck despite everything being digital, nowadays.