Last October the US avant rock unit Garcia Peoples played a gig at Nublu in New York. The show marked the first time the band played the title track of their 2019 album One Step Behind with the saxophonist Bob Malach (father of guitarist/vocalist Tom Malach) whose contributions to the studio version were overdubbed. Stretching to over 30 minutes on record, the live rendition of the song ran for almost an hour and demonstrated the band's versatility as they pushed the cosmic rock of the original into R&B and jazz territory.

The show, captured by Eric Pier-Hocking – an active part of the live taping scene that continues to thrive in the US and a regular contributor to the NYC Taper website – will be officially released on cassette and digital formats via Beyond Beyond Is Beyond on 6 March, but The Wire has an exclusive first listen here. In addition Pier-Hocking spoke to Joseph Stannard about taping culture, taking inspiration from The Dead and why Garcia Peoples are well suited to this kind of attention.

Tell me about the foundations of the current taping scene.

The current taping scene is very much indebted to the community that sprung from Grateful Dead tapers, and jam bands are certainly the most visibly recorded and shared bands. But tapers are also out there recording a wide variety of genres, from enormously popular bands playing arenas to local bands playing DIY spots and everything in between. Of course, with the proliferation of smart phones and YouTube, live music is being recorded and shared at a staggering rate. Unfortunately, that amounts to partial recordings of mostly shaky video and blown-out audio. Generally, tapers are people who are committed to recording and sharing full sets in the highest sound quality possible. The cool thing is that’s it’s really selfless, done purely out of the love of live music and the desire to document and preserve it for others to hear. Usually the most a taper can expect out of a recording is a thanks or compliment from one of the few people that downloads and listens. And it’s a ton of work that goes into them, from coordinating with bands and venues, to getting there early to set up and waiting around for the show to start, to all the post-processing and uploading the files to sharing services. But it’s amazingly rewarding too, just to get to be a part of the music even in this small way.

How did you personally get involved?

I started trading tapes online via Prodigy bulletin boards in 1994, and then taping shows myself in 1996 when I was 15. Specifically, I was prompted to start taping in order to document the NYC/DC post-hardcore band Girls Against Boys. I taped maybe 20 shows total between 1996–98 but stopped when I went to college (concert tickets, DAT tapes and gear were expensive). After college I moved to New York City and being so close to everything it was really easy to go out and see a lot of live music. I discovered that a whole bunch of shows I was going to see around New York were being taped and shared by Dan Lynch and Jonas Blank at NYCTaper.com and so I started keeping up with their posts religiously. I had traded tapes with Jonas in the 90s but didn’t really know him. Eventually I introduced myself after a Circuit Des Yeux set at Hopscotch in Raleigh. A couple months later there was an Oneida gig at Secret Project Robot that neither Jonas nor Dan could attend, so I borrowed some gear from them and did it myself. After that I became a regular contributor to the site.

In 2018, Beyond Beyond is Beyond invited me out to record Garcia Peoples for the release of their first album and I really connected with the band and their music. I’ve been going to see and record them since.

Do certain bands and artists lend themselves to involvement in this scene?

I like to say semi-seriously that a band or artist’s level of engagement with The Grateful Dead is directly proportional to their interest in being taped. If a band digs The Dead they’re likely to let you tape them. But even if they’re not Deadheads, a lot of bands are really receptive to the idea. It’s really easy to reach out to a band these days via social media and ask if you can record them. Sometimes it’s really surprising who will say yes and be really chill about it. Other times bands say yes but they and their management want to hear it before you post it. And then they want to make edits to remove a song that’s not yet released or where they made a mistake. That’s fine – I want to be really respectful of someone’s music and process – but I really like presenting a recording completely. It’s live music, it shouldn’t be perfect.

That’s definitely the opposite of Garcia Peoples, though. They’ve never requested an edit or anything and I think it’s partially because they’re such confident musicians but also because they’re really committed to improvisation and trying new things even if they don’t always work out. Those guys rehearse and jam together like crazy, so it pretty much always does work out. And because every show is different, it’s worth going out every time they play and recording it. I wouldn’t feel that way about a band that plays the same setlist every night by rote.

Did you have any indication before you were taping the Garcia Peoples show that it would be special?

I knew beforehand that it was going to be the record release night of their residency and that Bob Malach would be playing with them. When I got down to Nublu to set up for recording and talked to the band, it was clear there was an electric energy to the night, especially for Tom who was excited to perform with his father. I had seen them play “One Step Behind” a few times before, but it had disappeared from the their setlists for a while and I hadn’t heard the album version yet. So while I knew the song pretty well I wasn’t sure what kind of mutations had taken place in the studio and how the saxophone was going to fit in.

The thing that’s really great about “One Step Behind” is that it’s comprised of a few different sections, each of which gives the band opportunity for improvisation. And it’s continually evolving, so that each time they play it they’re exploring new things and then next time they play it they may call back to things they discovered in the previous performance. Each successive version builds on the last one and all those that came before. It sounds trite to say it’s their “Dark Star” but maybe you can say it’s their “Sister Ray”. Sometimes it sucks in other songs like “Hangin’ On” into its orbit, too.

I think the Nublu show is (so far) the longest performance of “One Step Behind” but I wouldn’t call it definitive because they’re going to keep playing and expanding on it. I’ve already heard a few tapes from earlier this year and they’ve already expanded on it so much. I’ve been blown away by the recordings I’ve heard. I hope that they can bring Bob back in the future to do this again and he’ll probably have new or different parts to add, to build on it further.

What are your own impressions of the night and the recording?

The physical layout of Nublu makes it logistically difficult to make a matrix recording (one that mixes a soundboard feed with a pair of room mics, so this one’s a straight up audience tape. One of the benefits of audience recordings is that you get that you-are-there experience even if sometimes being there means you hear a little bit of someone’s conversation next to you. The other thing about the layout of the venue is that it’s not conducive to setting up a mic stand in a central location, especially when the venue is crowded like it was for Garcia Peoples. Luckily, the band was so compelling that there was very little noise from the crowd or the bar behind me.

I’m really happy with how the recording came out. Sometimes circumstances are unpredictable – taping live music is a lot like a field recording in which you’re really not in control and have to do the best you can to figure out how to best capture the music. But this show was pretty easy as far as taping goes. Of course it was really important that Bob be heard well for this show so I’m glad his saxophone came out sounding really up front.

In an age where music is largely mediated by websites and social media, what does taping offer the music enthusiast – and the musician?

As a non-musician, taping has been a great way for me to contribute to the music communities both here in New York City and online. I’ve also met a lot of awesome people who go to so many of the same shows I do. For the musicians, I hope my recordings are good media coverage, just a different type of coverage than your usual review and photos. I hope it prompts people to go buy a record or a ticket, to go to a show and buy some merch.

10-10-19 Nublu, NYC is released by Beyond Beyond Is Beyond on 6 March