2011-08-31

The Soft Moon / Craft Spells - 2011-08-25 - Rickshaw Stop SF


I can't think of a better way to break my dry spell other than posting the setlists for these two wonderful groups.  If you don't already own the CDs/vinyl, PLEASE, PLEASE head over to Captured Tracks' site to purchase these

As of this writing, this was the fourth time capturing The Soft Moon and the second for Craft Spells.  Both of these are the usual "TZ0TH1" blends, with an additional twist in that before Craft Spells went on, I inadvertently sprinkled my M10 with essence de Anchor Steam, and while the unit continued to do its fine job capturing tracks, it started to malfunction and gave up the ghost afterwards, so a hearty RIP to my Sony.  I have an Olympus LS-5 on order, let's see how that does.

The Soft Moon
2011-08-25
Rickshaw Stop (Popscene)
San Francisco CA
TZ0TH1 blend

Setlist

Into The Depths
Dead Love
Circles
Breathe The Fire
We Are We
Out Of Time
When It's Over
Parallels
Phantoms
Tiny Spiders



The crowd begged, pleaded, and cajoled for an encore, but there was to be none, with Luis instead inviting everyone to come out to the Independent on Halloween for their EP record release party.




Craft Spells
2011-08-25
Rickshaw Stop (Popscene)
San Francisco CA
TZ0TH1 blend


Setlist


Love Well Spent
Scandinavian Crush
Your Tomb
From The Morning Heat
Beauty Above All
After The Moment
The Fog Rose High
Party Talk
Given The Time
You Should Close The Door




While there was nothing in the way of video from this show, probably due to the dim lighting, I've put together an addendum for all summer 2011 Craft Spell footage that I've managed to scare up.

Enjoy!

2011-08-30

Craft Spells - live summer 2011



Here's more links to a few Craft Spells songs played two nights before (2011-08-23) at Holocene in Portland.  All of these courtesy of IchabodPDX:

Love Well Spent
Scandinavian Crush
Your Tomb
From The Morning Heat

Southgate House - Newport Kentucky (2011-08-04) (julianstoked):

From The Morning Heat
You Should Close The Door

Casa Del Popolo - Montreal Quebec (2011-08-01) (ohhthehorrors):

Party Talk

Great Scott - Boston, MA (2011-07-31)  (BostonPhoenix):

Your Tomb
You Should Close The Door

unknown date, posted (2011-07-26)  (rmsk5):

You Should Close The Door

Tracks for the Capitol Hill block party (2011-07-22) pre-show, shared by seattletimesdotcom.  These are acoustic:

Beauty Above All
After The Moment
The Fog Rose High
Party Talk 

The show itself...

From ponchsuxs46:

Your Tomb

And from Pike024:

Party Talk

You Should Close The Door

Davoral:

The Fog Rose High (ambiance)

Berbati's, Portland OE (2011-05-06):

Noisey 070: Meet Craft Spells

Includes From The Morning Heat / Party Talk / The Fog Rose High / After The Moment)

From mbmrmt:
 
Your Tomb
After The Moment

Slim's, San Francisco (2011-05-05):

My first Craft Spells post...

Other assorted fun things:

Party Talk (Right Angle Triangle Mix)

After The Moment (Live on Radio K)


2011-08-24

What happened?


?


WARNING: no music to be found in this post.

Astute followers of this blog will have noted I have seemingly not been very active as of late.  This is for a combination of reasons, but I will be remedying that shortly.  One thing I *have* been doing is recording shows, but as some of you fellow recordists know, it's pretty time-intensive to go back and edit/blend/master/tracksplit/ID shows, and I have a somewhat-bad habit of doing this for *every* band I record.  

And like many people I have a full-time job *and* a family (a wife and three kids!) to look after...well, often they look after me, but you catch my drift...whoops, speaking of which...

[a few minutes later, after putting the youngest to bed, and running a couple of assorted errands...]

Where was I?  Ah yes...

Another reason is I've been mulling whether to explicitly seek consent before posting a band's shows, rather than the "don't ask, don't tell" approach I've so far employed.  I think what I will do here on in is put up the shows and link these to a group's Facebook/whatever site, and see where the chips fall.  

For those of you unfamiliar with the recordist ethos, it involves first and foremost to forswear ever directly profiting or leveraging said material for material gain, including hosting banner ads.  Even with this in mind, I will honor the moral right of the artists I feature to have any performance which does not suit them removed from public view, whether due to the perceived quality of the performance or for any other reason. 

An additional concern is airing unreleased songs without first being granted permission.  In fact, that's been majorly factoring into why I haven't been posting as of late.  I'm not sure how to approach this except by waiting until the tunes in question have been released...or by seeing if the particular composition has appeared on YouTube or elsewhere.  If anybody has any other ideas or approaches...please comment.  

I try to be thoughtful and considerate in everything that I do, but realize there is no pleasing everyone always.  I'm sure I owe some of you some heartfelt apologies.

And finally, here is my guest list spiel/rant...I've thought about this quite a bit and decided that I prefer paying my own way into shows.  This is more to have a policy ahead of time to save me future grief than due to any incidents in the past.

Here are my reasons:

(1) I am quite well-compensated in my day job.  Quite a few other people are not, and are struggling to make ends meet and look forward to a fun night out to see their friends play.  They should get the guest list slots, not me.

(2) See "recordist ethos" above.  Being invited to attend freely amounts to material gain, which I am duty-bound to decline.  It also hamper's one objectivity, not that this sort of enterprise isn't anything but subjective, anyway.

(3) There is nothing worse than going up to the door and saying that "so-and-so put me on the guest list" and then discovering to one's chagrin that there's no record of so-and-so doing so.  I'd rather not have to rely on the generosity of others to get in, especially for a sold-out performance.

(4) This is not some pathetic reverse-psychology bid to get freebies.  I actually *want* to benefit performers and venues by
paying my own way in.  As well as buying the merch on offer.  Especially considering that I am capturing sound waves for later use.

A corollary to these arguments is being invited by member of a previously unknown-to-me group to see their band play, whether out a genuine gratitude for helping to give exposure to artists or to get exposure themselves.  This puts me in an awkward, no-win situation which is best avoided.  Performers should follow their own muse, and so should their fans.

I'm inspired by, back in the mid-90s, how Nick Cave responded to MTV upon being informed that he was nominated for best male singer for their annual music awards.  Read his reply, here:  http://www.nick-cave.com/mtv/mtv.shtml

We all should strive to achieve and emulate his level of grace and class.


Over and out.