Ryley Walker at Hare and Hounds in Birmingham, England on August 31, 2022

I'm taking the opportunity afforded by the recent announcement that Ryley Walker will be returning to Big Ears Festival next year (after an inexcusable 12 year absence) to look around on my hard drive for some vintage live Ryley shows to share.

This set was recorded at the wonderful Hare and Hounds club in Kings Heath -- a suburb just to the south of England's second largest city. The trio of Ryley on guitar and vocals, bassist Andrew Scott Young and percussionist Ryan Jewell took the stage after a wonderful opening set by force of nature Gwenifer Raymond (offered up here).

Despite not having access to a soundboard feed, I feel that this is a nice recording of this varied set. An unexpected treat here is a cover of an XTC song, but all the songs performed this night are wonderful -- and Ryley is in high quality banter mode.

Purchase his most recently released material here.

Recording information:

RYLEY WALKER

2022-08-31

Birmingham, England

Hare and Hounds 

Ryley Walker: guitar and vocals

Andrew Scott Young: bass

Ryan Jewell: drums

Setlist:

01 Banter - We Couldn't Find the Factory (0:52)

02 Striking Down Your Big Premiere (8:50)

03 Banter - We Listened to Black Sabbath the Whole Way Here (1:13)

04 The Halfwit in Me (18:01)

05 Axis Bent (4:41)

06 Banter - Thought I'd Hit You With a Little James Taylor (1:30)

07 Telluride Speed (9:58)

08 Knuckle Down [XTC](4:50)

09 Shiva With Dustpan (5:27)

10 Banter - Ticket Sales in Guildford Are What You Would Call Bleak (1:10)

11 Opposite Middle (3:47)

12 Banter - Yeah, The Kebab's Pretty Good (1:51)

13 The Roundabout (27:44)

Total time: 89:54

Recorded with permission by Richard Hayes for this blog

Microphones: Line Audio CM3 (ORTF)

Recorder: Sound Devices MixPre 6ii

Software: Audacity

There was cell phone interference from 14:00-14:50 of track 13 — I used a patch from the source by Dimeadozen user “auto_pilot” to repair.

audio downloads 

these will automatically download when you click them:

  

24 bit, 48 kHz FLAC files (998 MB)

these are the highest resolution audio files which I was able to record at the time

320 kbps mp3 files (473 MB)

highest quality mp3 files possible

video of "Knuckle Down" from this performance:

Gwenifer Raymond at the Hare and Hounds in Birmingham, England on August 31, 2022

I spent the last few days of August and the first few of September of 2022 following both Ryley Walker and the Handsome Family as they toured around England. One big surprise of that trip was the fiery Welsh-born guitarist Gwenifer Raymond, who opened for Ryley at shows I saw in Exeter and Birmingham. She is much better known now, but for me at those shows she was a discovery. 

Buy her latest album here.

Recording information:

GWENIFER RAYMOND
2022-08-31
Birmingham, UK at Hare and Hounds

Gwenifer Raymond: acoustic guitar

Tracklist:
01 The Three Deaths of Red Spectre ~ Deep Sea Diver (11:03)
02 Worn Out Blues (6:10)
03 Gwaed am Gwaed (5:53)
04 Ruben's Song (4:20)
05 Hell for Certain (6:37)

Total time = 34:03

Microphones: Line Audio CM3 in NOS on stand
Recorder: Sound Devices MixPre6ii
Software: Audacity, Fission, xACT

downloads:

16bit, 44.1 kHz FLAC files (219 MB)

these lossless files can be burned to CDR, if you are into that sort of thing

320 kbps mp3 files (85 MB)

highest quality lossy mp3 files possible