YO LA TENGO
Tramps
New York, NY
May 19, 1995

Stonecutter Archives #2

AUD > Sony 909 mics > Sony WM-D6 > cassette master > Tascam 424 Mk II > Sony PCM-M10 (Line In, 24/48) > WAV > SoundStudio > FLAC (16/44)
Recorded by Rich B.
Transferred and digitally mastered by neil d

01 Paul Is Dead
02 Five-Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck)
03 Decora
04 Pablo and Andrea
05 Tom Courtenay
06 Double Dare
07 Don't Say A Word
08 My Heart's Reflection
09 Shaker
10 False Alarm
11 Sudden Organ
12 Blue Line Swinger
13 When You Were Mine (Prince)
14 Prisoners of Rock 'n' Roll (Neil Young)
15 Yellow Sarong
16 Fog Over Frisco
17 We're An American Band (Grand Funk Railroad)

Ira Kaplan: guitar, keyboards, vocals
Georgia Hubley: drums, vocals
James McNew: bass, keyboards, vocals
Kurt Wagner: vocals on track 13
Paul Niehaus: steel guitar on track 13

Rich B., aka Stonecutter, recorded hundreds of shows in New York in the '80s and '90s, and traded for hundreds more. Until recently, many of these have been stacked up in trays and trays of DATs and cassettes in his basement, never shared beyond a relative handful of tape trades back in the day. Through his generosity, a few of us are helping to digitize and share these hidden gems. No one can say how many of these there will be, as we haven't hit bottom yet.

Yo La Tengo played semi-regularly at Tramps in the early '90s, a time when they were growing in popularity but hadn't yet started their regular residencies at Maxwell's and elsewhere. This show was an early stop in support of "Electr-o-Pura" (released just two weeks earlier), and features outstanding versions of several songs from that album, including what may well have been the first-ever live performance of "Paul Is Dead." The encore is pretty excellent, as well, starting with opener Lambchop's Kurt Wagner singing a sweet, quiet version of Prince's "When You Were Mine" (later a Dump cover staple) and finishing up with a raucous "We're an American Band" — the Grand Funk Railroad original, not the YLT song of the same name that would follow a couple of years later.

This recording had a ton of level changes, as the recorder hustled to react to the loud and quiet songs. I've tried to even everything out as best as I could — as a result, there's some audible hiss during some of the quieter bits, though it usually disappears a second or two into the song.