I was a teenage show-taper.
After first being exposed to up-close-and-personal live music at age 15, through a serendipitous series of performances by local bands at a Boston radio station’s festival, I wanted to capture that magic somehow. And while I loved the idea of taking photos, I knew my skills in that department were rather lacking. Plus, photos aren’t the actual music.
Somehow I found out about the concept of a “professional” portable recorder, and I begged and pleaded my parents to get me one, until I was gifted a Sony WM-D6C for my 17th birthday. And there my journey begun, taping indie rock shows from Boston to New York, starting in earnest the following summer after I graduated high school. That summer I also had a boyfriend with a car (I didn’t drive), enabling me to drag him to attend far more shows than had previously been possible.
Most of these live tapes have been sitting around for over 25 years, rarely touched and never before widely shared. Given that the average lifespan of a cassette tape is supposedly 30 years, I figured I didn’t have much time left to extract the music from them before it was gone forever. And hey, now I get to share some of those inspiring, formative concert experiences of mine with you.
A Few From the Vault
Below is a list of shows that I attended and personally recorded, from 1990 to 1996. Some of these have already been digitized, some not. This week I will be sharing out some of the digitized and cleaned-up shows, one per day:
Monday
The Chills (1992) | Listen on YouTube
Tuesday
Edwyn Collins (1995) | Listen on YouTube
Wednesday
Small Factory (1992) | Listen on YouTube
Thursday
Magnetic Fields (1995) | Listen on YouTube
Friday
Stereolab (1994) | Listen on YouTube
Saturday
The Verlaines (1992) | Listen on YouTube
More shows to follow, on a slightly less predictable schedule. I will update this page with links as I upload each recording.
Jen Matson Live Recording Archive
| Band(s) | Venue | City | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Cavedogs Gigolo Aunts |
The Cat Club | New York, NY | July 16, 1990 | |
| Steve Kilbey | T.T. the Bear’s | Cambridge, MA | October 15, 1990 | |
| Straitjacket Fits | T.T. the Bear’s | Cambridge, MA | July 18, 1991 | listen |
| Smashing Orange | T.T. the Bear’s | Cambridge, MA | July 19, 1991 | |
| Sebadoh | The Paradise | Boston, MA | July 21, 1991 | |
| Japanese Beetles (members of Shonen Knife, Big Dipper, Christmas) | T.T. the Bear’s | Cambridge, MA | August 2, 1991 | listen |
| Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey | The Hatch Shell | Boston, MA | August 3, 1991 | |
| Small Factory | The Spiral | New York, NY | September 28, 1991 | |
| American Music Club | The Knitting Factory | New York, NY | October 23, 1991 | |
| Sebadoh Luna |
CBGB’s | New York, NY | January 17, 1992 | |
| Small Factory | The Knitting Factory | New York, NY | March 18, 1992 | listen |
| The Verlaines | The Knitting Factory | New York, NY | March 27, 1992 | |
| Magnetic Fields Tsunami Honeybunch Velocity Girl |
The Providence Indie Rock Explosion! Festival at The Church House | Providence, RI | March 28, 1992 | listen (MF) |
| The Verlaines | Maxwell’s | Hoboken, NJ | March 29, 1992 | listen |
| The Mad Scene | The Middle East Upstairs | Cambridge, MA | May 17, 1992 | listen |
| The Cakekitchen | CBGB’s | New York, NY | June 17, 1992 | |
| David Kilgour | The Gas Station | New York, NY | June 18, 1992 | listen |
| Velocity Girl | Club Babyhead | Providence, RI | June 19, 1992 | listen |
| The Chills | Maxwell’s | Hoboken, NJ | October 15, 1992 | listen |
| The Bats | T.T. the Bear’s | Cambridge, MA | November 13, 1992 | listen |
| Lois | Maxwell’s | Hoboken, NJ | January 30, 1993 | |
| Tiger Trap Lois |
Maxwell’s | Hoboken, NJ | June 19, 1993 | |
| Stuart Moxham Barbara Manning |
The Middle East Upstairs | Cambridge, MA | July 19, 1993 | |
| Nothing Painted Blue The Folk Implosion |
? | Providence, RI | July 25, 1993 | |
| Honeybunch | Patrick’s Pub | Providence, RI | August 4, 1993 | |
| Air Miami | Under Acme | New York, NY | August 1994 | Slant 6 | Sideshows by the Seashore at Coney Island | New York, NY | August 1994 |
| Grant McLennan | Fez | New York, NY | September 21, 1994 | listen |
| Stereolab | CMJ Festival at Marriott Hotel Ballroom | New York, NY | September 22, 1994 | listen |
| Robert Forster | Brownie’s | New York, NY | October 17, 1994 | listen |
| Kicking Giant | In Your Ear Records | Boston, MA | October 19, 1994 | |
| Grant McLennan | The Mercury Lounge | New York, NY | January 9, 1995 | |
| Magnetic Fields Pest 5000 |
The Middle East Upstairs | Cambridge, MA | January 27, 1995 | listen (MF) listen (P5k) |
| Edwyn Collins | Mercury Lounge | New York, NY | March 21, 1995 | listen |
| Hi-Fi | The Coffee House | Dennisport, MA | June 1995 | listen |
| Pest 5000 | The Middle East Upstairs | Cambridge, MA | July 16, 1995 | |
| Barbara Manning | WHRB | Cambridge, MA | September 1995 | |
| The Chills | Mercury Lounge | New York, NY | November 2, 1996 | |
| Vehicle Flips The Receptionists Mad Planets Sarge The Poconos |
Kardyhm’s house | Hastings-on-Hudson, NY | January 18, 1997 | |
| Bis | Other Music | New York, NY | February 1997 |