[photos by PSquared Photography]
The old corporate music industry used to do this band-kill all the time — label a legitimate band the “next big thing”, turn their career upside down and ultimately cause them to crash and burn. The most extreme example is the Bangles, who went from LA paisley-folkies to glamor girls to defunct in about two years. After several excellent albums and a few breakthrough songs, in 1991 the Dead Milkmen went through the music industry meat grinder, and did not survive. The band broke up in the mid-90s and it stayed apart for over a decade. It took the death of original bassist Dave Schulthise to bring the band together for a tribute concert, and fortunately for their fans it sparked a permanent reunion. Unburdened by industry pressures and aided by decades of life experience, the Dead Milkmen are back as live performers to where they were in the late 80s, a relaxed humorous group of regular guys who also happen to be an extremely entertaining band. At Bowery Ballroom on Sunday night, a packed crowd saw the band work through an excellent selection of choice older material mixed in with some new songs, in a 85-minute set that was everything we’d hoped for, energetic, well-played and an absolute hoot. Rodney Anonymous wasn’t feeling that well, but rather than letting his health to negatively effect his performance, he turned it into a positive as he allowed a revolving group of rabid fans to sing selected lines from songs they all knew by heart. He even used it as a joke — “how do you get sick on a 3-show tour”. Ultimately, the band used the theme of the night — that “Dream On” should be the State song of Massachusetts — as motivation for an unexpected (not on the written setlist) tongue-in-cheek full-on cover of the Aerosmith classic to end the show. After an extended encore segment, the crowd departed with what this band has always given their fans, a big smile.
I recorded this set with the Sennheiser Cards mounted in our usual balcony position and supplemented with a board feed. Since the room sounded excellent on this night, the mix is predominantly room mics, with a 20% feed used to clarify the vocals and keys. The result is a superb recording which captures the crazy energy of the show. Enjoy!
Stream “Punk Rock Girl”:
Stream “Surfin Cow”:
Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]
Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.
Dead Milkmen
2013-04-21
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY
Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix
Soundboard + Sennheiser MKH-8040s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)
Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper 2013-04-23
Setlist:
[Total Time 1:22:00]
01 Beige Sunshine
02 Tiny Town
03 Tacoland
04 She’s Affected
05 Punk Rock Girl
06 Methodist Coloring Book
07 Serrated Edge
08 Meaningless Upbeat Happy Song
09 Dean’s Dream
10 If You Love Somebody Set Them on Fire
11 Now I Wanna Hold Your Dog
12 Stuart
13 Nutrition
14 Bitchin Camaro
15 Beach Party Vietnam
16 Fauxhemia
17 VFW
18 Hangman
19 Smokin Banana Peels
20 Right Wing Pigeons
21 Undertown
22 Ronald Reagan Killed The Black Dahlia
23 Big Lizard in My Backyard
24 Life is Shit
25 Dream On [Aerosmith]
26 [encore break]
27 The Guitar Song
28 In Praise Of Sha Na Na
29 Life is Shit (Reprise)
30 The Woman Who Was Also A Mongoose
31 Surfin Cow
If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Dead Milkmen, visit their website, purchase their official releases from the Milkmen Shop! link at their website [HERE].
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