

[photo courtesy of Yuki Matsumura]

Australia’s neo-psych phenoms King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard were here in New York during the Summer and made a bit of a splash. We saw them open for Thee Oh Sees at McCarren Park and could definitely see their talents, but conditions (crazy wind, early set time) didn’t allow us to see the band’s full potential. Baby’s All Right gave King Gizzard a multi-show residency back in June, so when the band returned to NYC for much of October it was perhaps fitting that we should capture them at their homebase away from home. Baby’s offers Gizz what they need to thrive — the right sized room, an adoring audience and a welcoming vibe. And thrive they did. The band played multiple shows at Baby’s including several CMJ shows. We were fortunate to capture the first of those October shows, and the last. On October 13, The King Gizzard set was truly what I had hoped to see when I saw the band’s potential back in June. This was a full-on psych-rock assault with dual-lead guitars, dual-drummers and all manner of non-traditional instruments (flute!). The new King Gizzard album I’m In Your Mind Fuzz came out at the end of the month, but two weeks early we got nearly the whole thing, beginning with the tremendous five-song segue that opens the album to also start the show. That mini-set literally never let up in its astounding energy. When the band finally came up for air a good twenty minutes into the set, you could almost hear an exhale from the crowd and feel a collective realization that this band had truly arrived — lots of mouthed wows and head shakes. Gizz was on and the room was electric. The remainder of the set was equally outstanding, including the end of the show which featured two extended jam sessions and finished with the band’s epic “Head On/Pill”.

At the end of the CMJ week, the appropriately named annual “CMJ Hangover Brunch” hosted by Panache Booking featured a completely different King Gizzard set from earlier in the month. This event was conceived as a quieter, more mellow experience and the Gizz played off that idea. The pared down version of the band displayed their talents at singing/songwriting and it was no less compelling than the psych-out aspect of the band. The October 26 set featured only two songs from the new album, the aptly named “Slow Jam” songs. After the set we had a nice chat with band leader Stu MacKenzie, an intelligent and thoughtful guy whose personality is well captured in this excellent piece in Interview Magazine.

King Gizzard is back in Australia and not likely to tour the US again until the Summer of 2015, but those shows will be events not to miss.

I also recorded the crazy Halloween show and that will be on the site within the next few weeks.

Both of these shows were recorded and mixed in the exact same manner by Baby’s FOH Devin. We blended the room mics with his excellent multitrack mix and the sound quality of each is superb, truly capturing the completely different feel of each of the sets. Enjoy!

Stream “I’m In Your Mind” from October 13 show:



Stream “Sleepwalker” from October 26 show:



Download of Complete Shows

Oct 13 Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Oct 26 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, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

2014-10-13

Babys All Right

Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Soundboard + Audience Multitrack Recording

Multitrack Soundboard (engineered and recorded by Devin Foley) > Devin mix Wav files + Room mic wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, setfades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and Tagging via Foobar)

Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:

[Total Time 48:56]

01 I’m In Your Mind

02 I’m Not In Your Mind

03 Cellophane

04 I’m In Your Mind Fuzz

05 Empty

06 Hot Water

07 Slow Jam 1

08 Am I In Heaven

09 Head On Pill

**************************************

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

2014-10-26

Babys All Right

Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Soundboard + Audience Multitrack Recording

Multitrack Soundboard (engineered and recorded by Devin Foley) > Devin mix Wav files + Room mic wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, setfades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and Tagging via Foobar)

Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:

[Total Time 28:49]

01 Slow Jam 1

02 Stressin’

03 Her And I (Slow Jam 2)

04 It’s Got Old

05 Vegemite

06 Sleepwalker

07 [banter]

08 God Is Calling Me Back Home

09 [happy birthday]

If you download this recording from NYCTaper PLEASE SUPPORT King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, visit their website, and purchase I’m In Your Mind Fuzz from the Heavenly Records website [HERE] or in the US currently from iTunes. The album has just been released by Castle Face Records in the US, buy it [HERE].



[photo courtesy of Dean Keim]