One Good Thing of 2025 for Welcome To Hell World

Taper’s delight

At Ryley Walker's January 2025 show at the Empty Bottle, I noticed someone standing exceptionally still, even by the deferential standard of fans of improvised music, and brandishing a furry black orb that looked like a half-finished Muppet. I chatted with prolific taper Richard Hayes between acts, and I was thrilled to see his recording up on Walker's bandcamp page just a few days later, crystal clear thanks to his semi-pro microphone. I had assumed that the practice of taping - recording an entire show from the audience - was confined to the cultish fans of jam bands, a vestigial tail from the Dead's heyday, but concert tapes and bootlegs became a huge part of my music listening this year.

I made a pilgrimage to Indiana to see Bob Dylan and his band in a gorgeous South Bend theatre and was able to relive the sturm and drang thanks to a tape found on a pointedly web 1.0 fansite. I couldn't afford to see buzz band Geese when they came to town for two nights, but each night of their fall Getting Killed tour was taped for posterity. You can see a full Wednesday show recorded on the kind of archaic digital video camera a protagonist in a Wednesday song might find in a thrift shop. You can be front row to a Pixel Grip or YHWH Nailgun performance. 

I'm lucky to live in a city with an incredible live music scene, so the recordings aren't substitutes for going to shows but rather for all the other short-form hot-take crap jockeying for my attention. Concert recordings are a reminder of the collaborative nature of music, a testament to what people can create by listening to each other, coughs, crackles, missed notes and all. "AI" can generate audio but it sure can't put on a show. I lack the discipline to sacrifice my own dancing and singing along for the sake of future listeners (lapsed Catholic), so I salute all you tapers out there for your service.