Wooden Shjips

Bitterzoet
Amsterdam
The Netherlands

19th February 2014 (2014-02-19)


RECORDING:

Type: Audience master, recorded 2 metres from suspended left-hand side PA.

Source: Factory-matched pair of Schoeps CCM 41V microphones (DINa mounted) ->
Marantz PMD661 recorder with Oade Concert Mod
(-18 dB gain/44.1 kHz/24 bit WAV)

Lineage: Audacity 2.0.5
* Smoothed out a few transient peaks.
* Normalised to 0 dB.
* Applied variable envelope amplification across recording for
consistent listening experience.
* Attenuated incidental loud hand claps.
* Added fades.
* Split tracks.
* Converted to 16 bit.
-> FLAC (compression level 8) [libFLAC 1.3.0 20130526]

Taper: Ian Macdonald (ianmacd)


SET LIST:

01. [02:35] [intro]
02. [04:36] Black Smoke Rise
03. [06:33] Other Stars
04. [04:44] Motorbike
05. [07:03] Fallin'
06. [06:38] Ruins
07. [07:21] For So Long
08. [09:42] Flight
09. [04:37] Ghouls
10. [05:18] Lazy Bones
11. [00:14] [banter]
12. [06:07] Death's Not Your Friend
13. [01:24] [encore break]
14. [06:20] Buddy

Total running time: 73:16


NOTES:

It's been a while since I found myself in Bitterzoet. I'm not sure exactly how
long, but I haven't been here in quite some time, perhaps not since the Palma
Violets' first non-UK headliner early last year.

At the end of a long day, filled with midwife and doula appointments, bringing
and fetching three children from school, a kung fu lesson, an overdue visit to
the barber for two of us, followed by guitar and swimming lessons, what better
way to relax than with some ear-splitting west-coast space-rock from the
strangely spelt Wooden Shjips?

The tiny venue on the Spuistraat is packed by the time the Shjips come on.
They certainly look the part: grey hair, beards, tie-dye apparel and a blank
expression.

And there we go: fuzzy guitar; plodding bass; rich organ; metronomic drums.
Oh, and vocals, too, but so low in the mix that they're barely audible and
wholly unintelligible. Not that the sound engineer is falling down on the job,
mind you. The mix is faithful to the records. This is simply how the band
(want to) sound.

Wooden Shjips have only one volume setting: loud. Consequently, the live
portion of my work is pretty much done after the first ten seconds. I set the
microphone input level to record the band at slightly less than maximum volume
and then the meter reading barely wavers until the band leave the stage again.
If only all gigs were this easy.

To approximate the sound of Wooden Shjips, imagine the Velvet Underground at
their most raucous, enriched with a deep sixties organ and installed atop a
Neu-esque motorik beat. Filter the guitar through a vast plank of effects
pedals, turn the volume up really loud and you're getting close.

The set is mostly drawn in roughly equal parts from 'Dos', 'West' and 'Back To
Land', the last of which is the band's most recent album, released towards the
end of last year.

There's not quite enough variety in the band's songs for the Shjips' own
particular brand of space-rock to hold my attention past a single album at a
time in the home listening environment, but bombarded here live by an army of
decibels, the experience is visceral enough that the band's set passes quickly
without any discernible dips in momentum.

The encore is a Shjips live standard, obscure New Zealand band Snapper's
'Buddy'. The crowd want more, but don't get it.

With next to no banter and even the song breaks dispensed with by plugging the
gaps with the sound of pouring water, what we end up with is an almost
seamless barrage of fuzzed up 4/4 thumping that lasts a good seventy minutes.
In other words: a handy chunk of ideal motorway music.

I've wanted to see and record Wooden Shjips for quite some time, but it has
taken until now to do so. Finally, my mission has been accomplished and here
they are, in all their fuzzed out, seething glory.

As always, samples are attached to the torrent to assist you in determining
whether this is something for you.