[Photo by acidjack]
It’s hard not to like the Heartless Bastards. They’re one of those bands that never lets you down performance-wise, that’s always on their game, that always gives their fans something special. This pair of shows at Mercury Lounge (our recording of night 1 here) certainly qualifies as that, as the band played these sets in “acoustic” (but really just sans-drummer) mode, and showed off considerable new material. The most immediate effect of going drummerless was to focus even more attention on lead vocalist Erika Wennerstrom’s old-soul voice. The opening lines of one of my Bastards favorites, “Done Got Old” proved she can carry a show without any accompaniment at all, and she remained note-perfect throughout a 90-minute set that was a bit longer than Saturday’s performance. Most of this group stood respectfully as Erika, Jesse and Mark debuted new numbers like “Skin and Bones,” and the Western-tinged “The Arrow Killed the Beast.” While the new record will not be acoustic, and some of the material was so new it didn’t even have names, what we heard on this night showed the level of promise we’ve come to expect from this band. As Johnny mentioned in his review of the Saturday show, this only ups the anticipation for the new record.
I recorded this set from the same spot that Johnny used for the Saturday recording, focusing the sound a bit more toward the perfectly balanced soundboard feed from Kevin at the Mercury Lounge. As with Saturday’s recording, the sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!
Stream “Skin & Bone”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/H6602HB9922/07 Skin & Bone.mp3]
Stream “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere [Bob Dylan]”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/H6602HB9922/13 You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.mp3]
Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]
Direct download of FLAC files [HERE]
If the FLAC link is no longer working, email nyctaper for the FLAC files
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Heartless Bastards
2011-07-24
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY USA
An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com
Equipment: Schoeps Mk41>CMC6>Sound Devices USBpre2 + Soundboard >> Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod] (24/48)
Position: At soundboard, DFC, mics at 7.5′, PAS
Mastering: 2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Audition (mixdown, effects)>Audacity (set fades, tracking, amplify and balance)>FLAC ( level 8 )
Tracks [Total time: 89:29]
01 Done Got Old
02 [new song]
03 Sway
04 Hold Your Head High
05 [banter]
06 The Will Song
07 Skin & Bone [new]
08 The Arrow Killed the Beast [new]
09 Blue Day
10 [new song]
11 [banter]
12 Searching for the Ghost
13 You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere [Bob Dylan]
14 Runnin’
15 Be So Happy
16 [encore break]
17 [new song]
18 The Mountain
If you download this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Heartless Bastards, visit their website, visit their MySpace and Facebook pages, and purchase their official releases and merchandise [HERE].
Yo — this recording sounds great! These guys are new to me – totally digging the Midwestern bluesy riffs. Thanks so much for sharing!