Hi diddle dee dee. God damn! The pirate's life for me!

I made a list of online tapings of The Mountain Goats

[tapingthedative]

I MADE A LIST OF EVERY MOUNTAIN GOATS LIVE SHOW WITH LINKS TO THEIR TAPINGS ONLINE

Mountain Goats Shows

Back in August, I started a list of every Mountain Goats show known to the fandom wiki with links to anywhere a taping has been uploaded. And now it is done.

details if you're curious:

There are two sheets here which you can swap to by tabs at the bottom of the screen. The first sheet is the list itself, and the second sheet explains why some cells are coloured and what those colours mean.

Because I used the Mountain Goats fandom wiki, a handful of shows and tapings may not be there. But I estimate that 97 to 99% of shows are on there. There’s probably a bunch of tapings I haven’t found yet.

I wanted to know what we have and what we don’t. Now that I have a good idea, I want to share the list with everyone else. 

Despite having reached the end of the list of live shows on the fandom wiki, there’s still stuff to be done with the list. For starters, I’ll do what I can to keep them up to date. I also need to improve the layout of the list and link to the wiki pages of the shows.

But, I need help from you readers as well if possible. As I mentioned before, it’s likely that the wiki has fewer links to tapings than are actually out there. If you know of one, please let me know (in my asks) so I can make the list more accurate. Also, if we can get shows up on more sources, with permission from the uploaders, these things won’t become lost. A few may have been already since there are dead links on the wiki, and thus this list. If you can help in either of those ways, it would be much appreciated.

I’m not asking for money and I’m not trying to boost myself online. All I hope is that this tool is out there and useful to folks like me and you.

[tapingthedative]

I went to my first pride yesterday and I happened to notice someone who looked kinda like Matt Douglas.

I texted my friend @emi--rose about this, and she replied:

"He does have dad at pride energy"

so, Matt Douglas, wherever you are... you are hereby perpetually everyone's dad at pride.

[tapingthedative]

Reading documents at work hits different when listening to music

🎵 "I'm doing this for revenge"🎵

am I now?

🎵"I'm doing this to try and stay true" 🎵

Is that what's happening?

🎵"I'm doing this for the ones they had to leave behind" 🎵

I'm reading about how to write java. Who got left behind?

🎵"I'm doing this for you" 🎵

Is she pretty?

[effervescent-fool]

pov john darnielle from the mountain goats fucking gets you

[tapingthedative]

I tend to think of TMG in eras

(hi, been a while. trying to get back into tumblogging)

I kinda define these eras by how john writes things, what instruments he likes to incorporate into things, also vibes.

the first era

i call the "tape era", john's recording to tape for every album pretty much. it's mostly him on the recordings, but sometimes Rachel or later peter on bass. in my mind, this era ends with coroner's gambit.

The second era

i call the "studio era", the band is going into the studio now, john's writing albums with a more direct connection to his personal life. towards the end of the era, Wurster joins the band and in my eyes the goats feel more complete. this era ends with transcendental youth.

the third era

i call the "nerdout era" (i used to call it the concept era) in this case several these albums were conceptually about something john's nerdy about. 70s wrestling, goth bands, D&D, action movies. we also get Matt Douglas whose presence as a multi-instrumentalist causes a shift in john's writing style

this are just how i interpret things, these eras probably aren't real and john's just growing as an artist does. and if you wanted to, you could get ultra specific and narrow it down to individual tracks

when i first listened to the albums, going from TCG to AHWT i didn't feel the era change. i actually felt "woah, this is a distinct difference" first in Tallahassee, but going back i realized the new feeling slowly built over other albums but was distinct for the first time in AHWT and really leaned into it with Tallahassee. felt the same way with Beat The Champ and Transcendental Youth.

and now, i'm noticing that again. in listening to the newest album i really felt "there's a new vibe that's really strong. let's go back and find the threads". and there's bits of it in dark in here and bleed out, but it feels distinct across the whole album in Jenny from Thebes. i don't know what themes and vibes of era is gonna be yet, but i am sure we are two albums deep into it.

[tapingthedative]

adding a screenshot of @unloneliest 's tags in case they don't make it through the reblog response

all good points. there's throughlines all over the place, even cross-era. i feel like the coroners gambit, AHWT and tallahassee flow well together. as well as the four-part thread from all eternals deck to goths is a good one as well.

the commonness in AHWT and tallahassee i feel is less about sound but more about how they make me feel and the themes john uses.

breaking into smaller eras is doable, there's definitely something different from publisher to publisher that works

[tapingthedative]

I tend to think of TMG in eras

(hi, been a while. trying to get back into tumblogging)

I kinda define these eras by how john writes things, what instruments he likes to incorporate into things, also vibes.

the first era

i call the "tape era", john's recording to tape for every album pretty much. it's mostly him on the recordings, but sometimes Rachel or later peter on bass. in my mind, this era ends with coroner's gambit.

The second era

i call the "studio era", the band is going into the studio now, john's writing albums with a more direct connection to his personal life. towards the end of the era, Wurster joins the band and in my eyes the goats feel more complete. this era ends with transcendental youth.

the third era

i call the "nerdout era" (i used to call it the concept era) in this case several these albums were conceptually about something john's nerdy about. 70s wrestling, goth bands, D&D, action movies. we also get Matt Douglas whose presence as a multi-instrumentalist causes a shift in john's writing style

this are just how i interpret things, these eras probably aren't real and john's just growing as an artist does. and if you wanted to, you could get ultra specific and narrow it down to individual tracks

when i first listened to the albums, going from TCG to AHWT i didn't feel the era change. i actually felt "woah, this is a distinct difference" first in Tallahassee, but going back i realized the new feeling slowly built over other albums but was distinct for the first time in AHWT and really leaned into it with Tallahassee. felt the same way with Beat The Champ and Transcendental Youth.

and now, i'm noticing that again. in listening to the newest album i really felt "there's a new vibe that's really strong. let's go back and find the threads". and there's bits of it in dark in here and bleed out, but it feels distinct across the whole album in Jenny from Thebes. i don't know what themes and vibes of era is gonna be yet, but i am sure we are two albums deep into it.

[skaraptor]

[tapingthedative]

A bias for the Internet Archive and the future of archiving circa 1971?

Hi folks. been a while.

So, I was updating a link on the list today. It's not a new show that wasn't previously there; the original link was on soundcloud, and someone recently uploaded it to the internet archive. I don't know if it was the same recording, but it's the same show.

I will always favour the Internet Archive over other sources. even the original source. i just feel like even though the internet archive is having difficulties, it's the place where the show is easiest to access and least likely to disappear.

you can't download from soundcloud without premium, you can't download from youtube at all, media fire links go dead all the time.

i think best case scenario is that the tapings can be on as many platforms as possible and be easy to access. Having the shows up on as many places as possible ensures they never go away.

Arguably, the most easily accessible method is an FTP server. File Transfer Protocol. The great thing about FTP servers is that you can mirror them. effectively hosting your own duplicate, which I think updates as the main one does. And if the main one goes down, the mirrors still exist.

Now, I don't know how to host it myself, so this is just a pipe dream. The only real downside is that if you don't know how to use FTP clients, you might not want to use FTP.

This is just something I've been thinking about for a while, and I wanted to pass the thought along.

Also, there's one bootleg that's only available on Bandcamp? Bandcamp! a platform where people are expecting you to buy music, not stream it. Its price is "pay what you want", but it still makes me uncomfortable

-Josh

[tapingthedative]

Diggin through the tapes:

I was listening to Beat the Champ with a friend of mine this past weekend. he had never heard it before. he was a huge wrestling fan so I thought he'd get a kick out of it. and he did.

one thing he said got me digging through bootlegs. he said that he bets Foreign Object has immaculate vibes live. so, I went looking for some of my favourite live versions.

first, here's the one that sent me on this mess this week, my favourite version of Foreign Object recorded on 2018-04-22 at Ardmore Music Hall in Ardmore, PA.

and my friend was right, the vibes are wonderful.

The second track I wanna share with you folks is this wonderful full-band version of The Best Ever Death Metal band Out of Denton it's not slower, but it feels slower. the piano is a little hard to hear in the mix, but damn the band goes hard and the crowd is wonderful.

the third and final track I wanna share is a version of Idylls of the King from this past December. As of writing, it is the most recent show. Wurster is going hard here and it's just beautiful.

[tapingthedative]

DROP OFF THE ENVELOPES, STILL PLAYING POSTMAN

or, the Jan 03, 2025 list updates post. Happy New Year.

We have 18 new updates this week.

2014-04-19 Laurie's Planet of Sound Chicago, IL (Ghost Cave Incubation Chamber Solo Non-Tour Tour 2014)

2014-04-19 Old Town School of Folk Music (Ghost Cave Incubation Chamber Solo Non-Tour Tour 2014) 2014-04-20 Old Town School of Folk Music (Ghost Cave Incubation Chamber Solo Non-Tour Tour 2014)

updated to be complete 1995-04-22 Fast Forward Festival - Doornoosje Club Nijmegen, The Netherlands (european tour 1995)

show previously not on the list 1997-07-16 Capitol Theater Olympia, WA

noted a mislabelling in other downloads regarding 2001-05-04

fixed date for 2004-04-02 XFM Session - London, England

1997-06-12 University of Wisconsin - Madison, WI (Ornery As Pigs Tour 1997)

1996-11-07 VPRO Radio -Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Second European Tour 1996)

1996-11-02 Gothenburg Radio - Gothenburg, Sweden (Second European Tour 1996)

2003-03-14 The Hideout - Austin, TX (Extra Glenns show)

2022-09-11 The Hall - Little Rock, AR (Fall Tour 2022)

2023-10-27 Cactus Theater - Lubbock, TX (Spectral Tide Texas Tour 2023)

2023-10-29 The Heights Theater - Houston, TX (Spectral Tide Texas Tour 2023) (this completes the Specral Tide Texas Tour 2023

2023-11-27 Rialto Theatre Raleigh, NC

2017-10-11 O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire - London, England (European Tour 2017)

2012-10-18 Daytrotter Session - Echo Mountain Recording Studio Asheville, NC

created youtube playlist for 5 shows 2007-03-29, 2007-03-31, 2007-06-20, 2007-07-22, 2007-09-22

Those are all the updates for now. I intend to release these update lists the first Friday after I reach 10 updates.

thank you to all the folks who have uploaded files.

on the audio side of the uploads, I'd like to thank:

annotatedtmg notasfarwest kidoftheblackhole TheAmazombie BenJR Vermin L ezralite23 rationalfish jamienova

and on the video side of the uploads, I'd like to thank

mnsc mugabe23 katten lycopersicon iskeith3 Ashley Shotwell Brian Howard

Thank you all for preserving chunks of this band's work.

and, I'd like to thank the folks who informed me of updates to make. This week, I was helped out by @jennyfromthebes who sent me messages on discord providing a whopping 13 updates. it was a big help, I really appreciate it.

If any of you folks know of any tapings not on the list (which you can find in my pinned) please send me an ask here on Tumblr, or if you happen to know my normal username a message on discord or Reddit works too.

If you are one of these uploaders I mentioned and you have a tumblr, please let me know and I will edit the post to @ you.

[tapingthedative]

HOT TAKE: SECRET SONGS

So, in my explorations of what's taped and what's not, I have noticed that every once in a while during a show John will request that anyone taping keeps a particular song off the internet. Or in the case of a Beatles cover, he unplugged from the amp so it was harder to record.

John has been pretty respectful and encouraging towards tapers, so this intrigues me.

I've read through Reddit threads debating this. Some people think "If you tape it, it should be out there." and to an extent, I agree. As someone who has made a list of live shows and where to find them with hopes that we'll find more, it would be hypocritical of me to completely disagree with it.

But if John tells a crowd he'd rather not have a song publically downloadable, I believe that should be respected.

I would love to have everything I can get my hands on, however, if John says he doesn't want that performance of a song out there I am going to straight up pretend that recording doesn't exist and ruminate on the mystery.

If you have a recording and post it somewhere, no judgments at all. You do you, but I'm not going to listen to it.

In my eyes that performance of that song is for the people at that particular show. Specifically, because John said so. It's his art, and I think there's a beautiful feeling of being in the room when he says that. That crowd gets to share in something. I don't thing it's selfish, I think it's an act of creative intimacy. John isn't just saying "I don't want this out there." He's saying "Let's keep this between us.", and the act of doing that with him is part of the performance.

Later John may choose not to say that for one particular song anymore, and I will listen to that performance of it. but not the ones he said don't on.

This is not about hoarding tapes (I don't have any of those secret songs on my drive and I don't want them unless I was there), this is about the art of the performance.

Again, I'm not judging you if you wanna post those songs on the wider internet. This is just how I'm going to approach it in my journey forward. If John says during a show that he'd rather not have the performance of a song he just did (or is about to play) out there, I'm not gonna seek that recording out.

This take is controversial to some people, so I would love to hear your thoughts

(Also if this is a new topic for you, not every unreleased song is a secret song. There are unreleased songs that John has played live and doesn't mind being out there. totally different thing.)

[tapingthedative]

I THOUGHT THIS SONG WAS LOST

So, this morning I made a post about what The Extra Glenns' catalogue. And I mentioned that the song Going to California isn't linked on the wiki and is probably lost since I did some googling and youtube searching and couldn't find it. and then 15 minutes ago I got a discord notification from Lyric aka @jennyfromthebes . what did they say to me? in all caps "HEY. I FUCKING FOUND GOING TO CALIFORNIA!"

and it sent the song to me, I heard it and confirmed those were the right lyrics (and was John singing)

I'll give my thoughts on that song when I go through the catalogue of The Extra Glenns.

I'm not going to upload it, though I don't mind sharing it privately. I'm just not an uploading person. And they don't feel right uploading it either. I'm sure there are more people who have it out there, If you upload it somewhere everyone can download please let me know and I will add it to the list.

the conversation then went into other subjects regarding live tapings which I have an opinion on there (and will share that on Friday).

Thanks again to @jennyfromthebes for sending the song my way. They do TMG blogging as well, check its blog out if you want more of that.

[tapingthedative]

THE EXTRA LENS (or Glenns)

So, early on I chose to include The Extra Glenns' shows in the google sheet listing all Mountain Goats live shows (pinned post) and where to download them.

Why did I make that choice?

if you're unaware of The Extra Lens (formerly The Extra Glenns), it's a collaboration between John Darnielle of TMG and Franklin Bruno of Nothing Painted Blue. The project pre-dates The Mountain Goats but the majority of their known live shows are often partially also Mountain Goats shows. There are 23 shows Extra Glenns shows listed on the wiki, 12 of them are also Mountain Goats shows.

So, Because it's a John Darnielle project, there are so few known Extra Lens shows, and half of them are also Mountain Goats shows, I opted to include those shows on the list.

...But before the list, I hadn't listened to The Extra Glenns. And now I've only heard one.

I do wanna dive into them, but every time I consider it I think "I'll do it once I account for their live stuff and see what unreleased songs we do and don't have"

And now I've done it. Of the 23 shows (which are either fully Lens or partially), 10 of those shows have a recording of every Glenns song from it somewhere on the internet. 10 of them have none. and three of them have only a small portion (two of them have 1 song, one of them has two.

I'm not gonna list those shows in this thread because that would make it much longer. But I will list their overall catalogue real quick.

First off, in rare early versions of the TMG tape Transmissions to Horace, there are 7 songs from The Extra Lens back when they were The Extra Glenns. four of which did not get re-released somewhere

those four are:

Greasepaint Friday

The Moon (outside of the Horace tape. it was played live in '95 and '98, both of which are on the internet)

Sliding Down the Right Pathway

Bird on the Wire (a Leonard Cohen cover)

someone has posted that Horace tape to the internet archive

These recordings apparently pre-date The Mountain Goats

After that, they released 8 songs to 7 compilations from 1992-1996, an EP called Infidelity in 1993, and 2 albums. The first album was released in 2002 and is called Martial Arts Weekend. The second one is called Undercard and came out in 2010. Both have 12 songs apiece.

So, it looks like everything is accounted for. I can dive in. Right?

wrong.

There are four songs of theirs that have only been played live.

All Frosting has been played three times, two of which can be found online.

Alpha Aquae has the same situation

Brilliant Disguise has been played twice, one is online.

...

...

and then we have Going to California. which has been played once. the lyrics are online and there is no recording. it's the only lost Glenns song.

The google sheet is a constant reminder that we don't have everything, I wish we did but we're not entitled to everything. However, I am disappointed.

I did the research on these unreleased/Horace songs and I was getting excited "Wow, we have everything" and then we got to the last one... and it's gone. If Going to California were the first one, I would probably feel relieved that we are only missing one song.

but, that's everything Lens. I'm gonna dive in and let you folks know what I think.

If you've gotten this far, track 7 of this taping is the origin story of The Extra Glenns. it's hilarious. Sorry about the clapping and the whistling lessons, that part hurts like hell.

one day I'll find a good signoff.

[tapingthedative]

BOATS EASE INTO THE HARBOUR BEARING REAL SUSPICIOUS CARGO

or, the Dec 27, 2024 list updates post

I hope to be able to inform you folks of updates to the list. If I make 10 updates/changes to the list there will be an update post the Friday after that happens. (changes that aren't like fixing typos)

and the most recent updates are:

2024-10-12 Mr. Smalls Theatre Pittsburgh, PA (rule of three tour 2024)

2024-01-18 Neighbourhood Theatre Charlotte, NC (sworn to the effort tour 2024)

2024-01-19 Saturn Birmingham, AL (Sworn to The Effort Tour 2024)

2024-01-20 Chelsea's Live Baton Rouge, LA (Sworn to The Effort Tour 2024)

scrubbed out links to individual youtube videos

made the youtube channel and made playlists for: 10 shows (20 songs total)

2024-12-09 Paper Tiger San Antonio, TX (Arval Brethren Revival Tour 2024)

2024-12-10 Antone's Austin, TX (Arval Brethren Revival Tour 2024)

2024-12-11 Antone's Austin, TX (Arval Brethren Revival Tour 2024)

2024-12-13 Tipitina's New Orleans, LA (Arval Brethren Revival Tour 2024)

updated links for 2004-04-08 and 2004-03-07

added link to 1992-05-31 (one Extra Glenns song)

resurrected a dead link 2009-10-06 Colbert Report

resurrected a dead link 2012-01-17 Old Ideas with New Friends Session

resurrected a dead link 2012-06-28 Swedish American Hall

resurrected a dead link 2012-09-18 Pitchfork session

I want to thank the uploaders of the audio files and videos individually:

on the audio upload side, thank you to:

Tape&Bake Evan Davis312 ezralite23 astrolyric (the only of the four whose Tumblr I know of @jennyfromthebes )

on the video side thank you to:

notasfarwest willneu97 also lizardmoor cecropiasilkworm bowky57 evileivind beninak carolweav Jesse Hill

thanks to everyone who has helped so far either on Tumblr ( @hydra-collector and @thetrial who have sent me messages and/or asks providing some links for the updates this week) or this month on Discord as I was getting close to being able to post the link publically again (i believe it was @emi--rose and BenjaminL)

If I've mentioned you here without tagging you, please let me know and I will edit the post to tag you.

[tapingthedative]

The Mystery of TMG's 2001 visit to Winnipeg

Here's a weird one. There are 14 shows that we don't know the day of the month they happened. Even weirder, there are two shows on the list we don't know what month they happened in.

Now, for a third kind of weird some of these shows, we don't even have a setlist for some of them. We don't even know the venue for a few. Their alleged 2001 show in Winnipeg Manitoba is one of these.

How do we know this show happened? Their previous show was in Pennsylvania and the following show was in San Francisco. There was enough time between those shows that travel would have been reasonable.

The only proof I can find that this show was at least planned was an interview on the CBC radio program Brand New Waves. John expressed a concern that he might get sent home at the border just because they apparently give musicians a hard time.

What venue was this show in? Did John get into the country?

We may never know.

[honeymushroom]

just watched john darnielle sing to a possum

[jennyfromthebes]

Hi! Everybody in the notes who was at this show and reminiscing about it, I'd like to let you know that a high-quality full audio recording of this show is now available to stream and download on the Internet Archive!

Mountain Goats Live at Antone's on 2024-12-11 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

1  [Intro]2  Elijah3  [lil between songs]4  Idylls of the King5  [banter - piano protection and Romans background]6  Romans 10 97  The Young

I know I post a lot about the Live Music Archive collection, but I also know that my posts dont actually reach that many people, and it really is such an incredible resource. All of the 450+ tapes on the archive were recorded, edited, and uploaded by individual fans doing the work to preserve the experience of concerts, and it is a really really cool subculture within the tMG community. So if you were at this show, check out the tape! If you weren't, check it out anyway, or check out one of the other ones from that week, or maybe there's one for a past concert that you were at! The tapes are something that I have a lot of enthusiasm and love for, and if they're new to you, I hope they can mean something to you too.

[tapingthedative]

PLAYLISTS

tapingthedative

This channel is a companion piece to a google sheet listing every Mountain Goats show with links to their tapings. for more information abou

I've created a YouTube channel to make playlists for the Mountain Goats shows on YouTube that are not up on the internet archive. If the show is incomplete and/or divided into multiple parts, I will make a playlist to more easily link to on the spreadsheet.

There will probably be a lot of playlists with only one song. also, there's not much I can do right now regarding the handful of songs presently on Daily Motion or Vimeo.

these playlist are mostly concerned with full songs. if the song in the video's title is partial, it will not be included. if the video is exclusively banter, I probably won't find it and if I do I'm likely not to include it unless it leads into a song that's already in the playlist.

also, this YouTube channel is not about uploading, it's just about playlists. if you upload a live taping to YouTube from one of the partial shows, let me know via my asks and I will add it to the relevant playlist.