Mp3s: Stratford Projects live in Somerville
Posted on April 14, 2008 at 1:26 pm | 2 Comments
A few weeks back, the on stage debut of Stratford Projects happened at Somerville’s Abbey Lounge, and if I was in the audience instead of behind the drum kit, I’d have doubled the crowd. Ok, so that’s a slight exaggeration… but that’s what we get for a first-ever show near midnight on a Tuesday. It really wasn’t about who was there (or, rather, who wasn’t) to see us, though, but more about getting our feet wet as an under-rehearsed five-piece. Despite the count-on-one-hand crowd, a good time was had, and we pulled it off. Enough to maybe schedule a second show, despite our collectively busy personal lives.
I wasn’t going to share my recording of this one, but a request-via-comment and a couple emails were enough to overcome the aversion of self-indulgence, or at least the potential fear of embarrassment (like I said, first show ever). So here it is: The songs of Michael Barrett (and a couple covers) as performed by Mike on guitar/vocals, Anna Jaysane-Darr on keys, Neil Cleary on guitar/backing vocals, Adam Boc on bass/backing vocals, and yours truly on drums.
The setlist includes songs pulled from Mike’s Planting Seeds solo album, “Couches and Carpet” (“Beach Song“, “Chill Out“), a couple from his first band Guppyboy (“New Orleans“, “Overflow“), ones he wrote with his Essex Green pals in The Sixth Great Lake (“Everything Is White“, “27 Forever“, “Cannon Beach“), and a song from Essex Green guitarist Jeff Baron’s never-released solo record (“The Ravenswood“).
Live at The Abbey Lounge
in Somerville, MA
on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
01. Cannon Beach
02. Grand Canyon (Magnetic Fields)
03. Chill Out
04. The Ravenswood
05. Beach Song
06. Everything Is White
07. 27 Forever
08. New Orleans
09. Overflow
10. Trains Across The Sea (Silver Jews)
Some Stratford Projects-related links…
The Stratford Projects site, home of all things Mike Barrett, the “Couches and Carpet” album info page, the Sixth Great Lake site, an archive of Guppyboy, the Eef site (the band Mike and I used to play in together), Neil Cleary‘s site, and the home of Jumprope, Adam Boc’s old band (which was also on the Planting Seeds label). Additional Audio: Download some unreleased Michael Barrett solo Mp3s, a whole bunch of Sixth Great Lake songs, a few Essex Green Mp3s, and some vintage live Essex Green (on WFMU in 2000) as well. Photos: My few Flickr-hosted shots from the show (with an assist from a friend of Mike’s who took a couple) are here. As always, stream any and all ‘Nac-hosted Mp3s at the Hype Machine.
the fine print… If anyone has an issue with these Mp3s being made available, just let me know (my contact info in the ‘nac faq). Live sets recorded with a Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps Mp3s. Files are made available for a limited time, and are not reposted once removed.
Friday Music Miscellany
Posted on April 11, 2008 at 9:50 am | No Comments
This will be brief. There are things you must know…
Tickets for all the films showing during the upcoming Independent Film Festival of Boston are now on sale. Go get ’em, procrastinators will suffer. I’ll have a post next week focusing on all the music-related aspects of this year’s fest.
Mission of Burma keeps their rocking career retrospective going with not one, but two shows at the Paradise here in Boston this summer. On Thursday, June 12th, they’ll run through the entirety of their 1980 “Signals, Calls and Marches” release, and On Friday the 13th, we’ll be lucky enough to get a complete live performance of their 1983 “Vs” record (as you know, both were just reissued and expanded). A pre-sale for two-day passes ended this morning, but individual tickets for the general admission gigs can be had here starting at 10am on Thursday, April 17th.
If you’re a New Yorker, you’ll get your own version of the MoB album run-throughs on June 14th and 15th at the Bowery Ballroom. Tickets here, on sale at noon today.
Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott further embraces his musical past by taking part in another Boston band reunion: The Volcano Suns are coming up for air again. I totally missed this when it was announced in December, but Harp details what will be the band’s second reunion tour (a few shows took place in 2005), which will coincide with the Taang Records reissue of a double-cd collecting two albums: “The Bright Orange Years” and “All Night Lotus Party”. While the 2005 reunion had Prescott playing with David Kleiler and Bob Weston (who is remastering the reissue), this year’s tour has the original lineup of Prescott, Jeff Weigand and Jon Willams hitting the road.
According to the article, the reissue was originally planned for this month, but there’s been no news for while, so hopefully that means it’s only delayed a bit.
That Hallelujah the Hills free EP I wrote about last week is now available for your downloading and listening pleasure. The 7-track “Prepare To Qualify” EP will help us pass the time between HtH’s excellent debut disc and their sophomore record, which should be out next year. The tracks, along with lyrics, and downloadable artwork, can be grabbed here. The band plays a release show tomorrow night at Great Scott with Ho-Ag, Pretty & Nice (update: P&N had to bow out due to injury, but Big Digits are stepping up to the plate in their place), Thunderhole, and DJ Mark Pearson. Tickets here. It’ll be a busy day for ’em, as they’re also playing a G.S. Rock-n-Romp kid-friendly show that afternoon. Details here. If B was a little older, we’d be there.
Archers of Loaf / Crooked Fingers frontman Eric Bachmann recorded a session for Spinner’s Interface recently, running through a few acoustic numbers, including one of the greatest songs of all time, the Archer’s “Web In Front”. Here’s his solo version…
For the rest of the performance, with audio and video of Eric doing “Devil’s Train“, “Little Bird“, and “Run, Lt., Run“, hit up Spinner. Eric mentions in the interview portion that another Crooked Fingers album is in the works. Very nice. Also cool to see a Richard Thompson name check, although the misspelling is a bummer. AOL needs to hire another proofreader.
Some shows on Tokyo Police Club‘s upcoming tour are already selling out, and once their debut full-length “Elephant Shell” arrives on April 22nd, more will likely follow. It’s a great record, with short, sharp shocks of ultra-catchy songs that reveal a few new tricks we didn’t hear on their inaugural EP. They put on an excellent show at Great Scott when they first hit town in 2006, nice to see ’em graduate to the Paradise stage relatively quickly. Tickets for the Boston show are still available, but not for long I’d wager, especially with Smoosh and Meligrove Band sharing the bill.
Check out the video for TPC’s “Tessellate“, and download the Mp3s for two other songs (“Juno” and “In A Cave“) right here.
Psyched about all those Rhino Replacements reissues I mentioned recently? They’re coming out in just a couple weeks, and to wet your whistle, Enough Cowbell directs us to some classic live ‘Mats video hosted over at their old label, Twin/Tone. We’re talkin’ 1981-style here, people. Two full sets of Quicktime vids, with seriously early material and covers. Pure gold.
NPR will stream the entirety of Nada Surf‘s performance tomorrow night (Saturday 4/12) at Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club, starting around, well, 9:30pm EST. Calexico‘s Martin Wenk will join the band on keys and trumpet, and the set should be archived for listening later on.
A reminder: Tickets for Radiohead‘s August 13th show at the Mansfield, MA Tweeter Center go on sale tomorrow morning at 10am via Live Nation. Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear opens up.
Boston-area old-school videogame geeks take note: Tomorrow I’ll be roadtripping to New Hampshire’s Weir’s Beach for a visit to gamer’s paradise Funspot. If you’ve seen the excellent King of Kong documentary, you know what I’m talking about. I’ve got a bag full of leftover tokens from my last trip in 2003, and it’s the perfect prescription for a rainy spring Saturday. So who’s with me?