Tup Keewah Recordings

The Essex Green Live at Baby Jupiter

2011-04-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Essex Green
Live at Baby Jupiter, NYC
Saturday, May 23, 1998

1. Intro
2. Sixties
3. New Orleans
4. I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
5. Mrs. Bean
6. Chester
7. Sun
8. Ball in the Sky
9. Primrose
10. Everything is Green
11. Last in Line

I found an old cassette recorded at this show we played with Stupid Club, Bela Bartok and Fan Modine. There were lots of friends from Burlington, VT there. Enjoy!

Chris Ziter, Jeff Baron, Sasha Bell, Michael Barrett, Tim Barnes.

Guppyboy • Live at Phyllis' Musical Inn

2010-02-20T19:05:00.000-08:00

Guppyboy

Phyllis' Musical Inn

Chicago 9/26/93

Pleasure

Fred Jones

Overflow

Shee!

Fine Young Handsome Man

Taste

Mr. Mutty

Pleasure Seeker

Aloha

Spiral Steps

North Hyde Park

Recorded on a single mono track on a Tascam 424 cassette 4-track recorder. Highlights include a rare, live version of "Shee!" and the cover version of Do It Now Foundation's "Pleasure Seeker". The cassette tape seems to have run out during the set, so the last song cuts off abruptly during the first chorus.

Essex Green Demos

2010-01-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

Essex Green Demos

Recorded in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Fall 1998.

Mrs. Bean (Demo)

Sun (Demo)

Chester (Demo)

Everything is Green (Demo)

These songs were recorded mostly live to 1/2" 4-Track reel-to-reel in the Saturnine rehearsal space in the basement on 6th Avenue where Chris Ziter was living. We never released these tunes, and soon began recording at Marlborough Farms and Studio .45 in Hartford, CT for the Elephant 6 EP and the "Everything is Green" full-length LP.

Chris Ziter, Tim Barnes, Sasha Bell, Jeff Baron, Mike Barrett

Happy 2010

2010-01-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

Happy 2010. Here are some random Guppyboy and Michael Barrett music videos from the archives posted to YouTube. Enjoy!

Guppyboy - "Washington Square"

Michael Barrett - "Cool Wave"

Guppyboy - "Fred Jones"

Michael Barrett - "Loving Arms"

Sixth Great Lake "Sunday Bridge" LP

2009-04-18T18:44:00.001-07:00

The Sixth Great Lake
"Sunday Bridge"
Tup Keewah Recordings
Price: $10.00
Available on blue vinyl LP

"A cohesive collection of tunes, perfect for cuddling in bed with your sweetie on a rainy Sunday morning while the coffee is still brewing. Like warm caramel dripping down the side of an ice cream sundae, the songs ooze, melt and flow like sugar on snow. If you don't have a turntable, here is the reason why you should."

For any questions, please email michaelbarrett1@mac.com.
Payment methods: PayPal, check or money order.
Make PayPal payments to: mikebarrett30@hotmail.com.
Include $2.00 for shipping within the United States.
All other countries, email for shipping cost.

Tup Keewah Recordings Online Store

Tup Keewah Recordings
% Michael Barrett
12 Lowell Street Place
Arlington, MA 02474

6GL Live at Crossing Border Festival

2008-05-08T11:50:00.001-07:00

LIVE AT PARADISIO, AMSTERDAM
OCTOBER 27, 2001

Crossing Border Festival

Zach Ward
Chris Ziter
Mike Barrett
Neil Cleary
Brendan Skwire

Here are some mp3 links to a live set we played right after 9/11 in Amsterdam. We were flown over by Maurice to be part of the Crossing Border Festival, performed a set of songs broadcast on VPRO and played this live set at Paradisio. Chris had a terrible cold and you can hear it in his voice. Chris, Brendan Skwire and Neil Cleary joined Zach and I between shows from the middle of an Essex Green tour.

Outro

Straford Projects

2008-03-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

STRATFORD PROJECTS LIVE

2008-03-02T13:53:00.000-08:00

Stratford Projects

Live at Abbey Lounge

Tuesday, March 25th

11:45pm

www.abbeylounge.com

3 Beacon Street

Somerville, MA

9:00pm - Magen Tracy

9:45pm - St. Helena

10:45pm - Crushing Low

11:45pm - Stratford Projects

BIG MUFF

2008-02-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

I spent the afternoon repairing the ol' Big Muff. I spliced off the 9V attachment from the wah pedal, stripped the black and red plastic from the wires, twisted the ends together and taped them up with black electrical tape. Then i glued the extra rubber foot back on with super glue. It works again. Back from bock, the big muff is alive again. It was all scraped up and peeling so I painted it blue and white with some fast dry enamel. It's missing a top knob (the distortion knob) but it still screams like cats in a bowl. I had forgotten that to get back to clean chords you need to depress the button with your foot a beat early, then let go. It swtiches back when you lift your foot off the button. If the tone knob is too far clockwise it's a thin, tinny sound. With the tone knob dialed to the left, it gets very grungy like the Melvins. This was always fun to plug the bass guitar into. Now if i could only get the wah pedal working...

Bove's Bread

2007-08-27T18:53:00.001-07:00

Go Bove's?

I believe that it was last Wednesday that my wife, Anna, made a meal with a jar of spaghetti sauce from Bove's. The sauce triggered a Proustian memory from my junior high school days growing up in Vermont. As a kid, my friends and I would take the bus into Burlington to spend the day tromping between Earth Prime Comics, Upton's Arcade/Barrel of Fun and Bove's on Cherry Street. Coincidentally, a couple days later, we found ourselves seated in that very same restaurant, tearing through a basket of Bove's bread. The restaurant, the bread, the spaghetti, the service and the sauce were exactly the same as I remembered it growing up. Amazing. Some things never change. Bove's is one of them. If you're ever in the Champlain Valley, do yourself a favor and get a booth at Bove's. video

Down South

2007-08-06T18:46:00.000-07:00

Michael Barrett

Down South

This was the most fun I have ever had producing and recording a song all by myself. It was at Stratford Projects in Brooklyn, just before I moved to Nashville. I remember James W. Hindle was visiting from London, recording a record over at Marlborough Farms. It was a mix of influences by Barry White, The Band's The Last Waltz, Dr. Dre and the ProTools vocal pitch shift plug-in. Jeff Baron plays the little guitar lick samples on his old brown Fender strat.

Michael Barrett - Down South

Essex Green Live on WFMU

2007-08-06T16:57:00.001-07:00

The Essex Green

Live on WFMU 91.1 FM

February 21, 2000

Fabulous Day

Everything is Green

The Playground

Grass

Saturday

Mrs. Bean

Sixties

New Orleans

Tinker

Carballo

Jeff Baron, Chris Ziter, Sasha Bell, Michael Barrett, Tim Barnes, Sara Blust. Recorded live on-air at WFMU 91.1 FM Studios, February 21, 2000 by Irene Trudel.

It Was Ten Years Ago Today...

2007-08-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

Guppyboy

Jeffersonville CD Release

Live at Club Toast

Burlington, VT

August 1st, 1997

Ball in the Sky

Affection

Cannon Beach

I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight

See You on the Roof

I dug this out from the Tup Keewah archives. The sound quality is pretty poor since it was recorded from the back of the club with a mono cassette recorder. It still captures the vibe and excitement of this great show with The Pants, celebrating the release of "Jeffersonville" (CD/LP) on Colin Clary's Sudden Shame Records label. A couple highlights from the show are Sasha Bell's vocals on the Richard and Linda Thompson cover as well as Neil Cleary and Steve Lemcke's oboe/trumpet duet at the end of Seventh Avenue. Enjoy.

Guppyboy "Jeffersonville" CD reviews

Latitudefortyfourpointnorth_Blog

Buzz Night at Metronome

2007-08-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

Guppyboy

Live at Club Metronome, Burlington, VT

9/22/97

Affection

Tips for Teens

Sun

Cannon Beach

Show Must Go On

Mr. Leary Man

Orange Sunshine

Fuss

Cryin' Waitin' Hopin'

Holiday

Featuring Zach Ward, Mike Barrett and Neil Cleary. The last live Guppyboy show, minus Chris, Jeff and Sasha. A crazy bridge of Guppyboy outtakes, future Essex Green/Sixth Great Lake songs and a Buddy Holly cover. Recorded off the sound board on cassette tape.

The Arp

2007-07-03T15:15:00.001-07:00

I loved the Arp. I remember Jeff and I found it in a now-defunct music store inside the Burlington Square Mall in Burlington, VT. It was that store that used to be in the way back on the bottom floor by Barrel of Fun. The keyboard synth was used and wore a price tag of $135.00. We tried it out in the store for about an hour and even though I was broke, I decided to buy it. It produced some of the strangest and most unique sounds we had ever heard. We were waist-deep in our 4-track recording phase as a band and combined with Jeff's new $100 used Wurlitzer electric piano purchase, we had the keyboards nailed down for our "studio."

The Arp was actually a model called the Pro/DGX. It was a 30 sound preset monophonic analog snythesizer. It had a great portamento, repeater and cool sliders to change the sound. The banjo, the fuzz guitar and the bassoon were pretty awesome sounding. I remember that the low end coming out of that Arp was the deepest, thickest bass sound any keyboard could make. After we laid down rhythm tracks and guitars on our 4-track recordings we'd always try to lay down an Arp track for texture and icing.

Here are a couple sample Guppyboy songs that utilized the Arp. The first one, Taste, shows off the sound of the Arp about halfway through. You'll hear that low-end bassoon sound pretty clearly. The second piece is an original Arp composition recorded by Zach Ward in Chicago in 1993.

Guppyboy - Taste (Demo)

Guppyboy - Zachary's Arp

Our Arp made it to Chicago, spent some time in Brooklyn and ended up back in Burlington for a bit before it's slow demise over most of 1996. It became electronically unstable and wouldn't play unless you hit the top of it really hard. It nearly electrocuted me after shooting out sparks and blowing out all the fuses in the house. It was a very sad site to see it in pieces, proudly wearing that black and white Sam the Eagle sticker in the trash can out back at 38 Orchard Street. The Arp was one of the coolest things I have ever owned. I've been searching Ebay and some Vintage Synth Sites for another Arp. Maybe not that same model but something similar.

A software company, Arturia, makes stand-alone software recreations of some vintage analog synths, including the Arp 2600 and the MiniMoog. They have free demos and are so much fun to play around with. I highly recommend it. Enjoy.

Here's some wikipedia history of Arp Instruments. They used an Arp in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. You remember that 5-note melody they used to communicate with, right?

Broadcast Design and Animation

2007-07-01T09:28:00.001-07:00

Here's a link to my broadcast design site. You can check out a bunch of quickime animations I did during my five-year tenure with MTV Networks. There's also a batch of style frames and silkscreened posters to explore. For the past year I have been working as a broadcast designer for NESN (New England Sports Network) and hope to convert and post all my new work sometime soon. I recently was nominated for 4 Emmy Awards and won 5 Bronze Telly Awards. For now, enjoy some of my past works.

33 1/3

2007-06-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been inspired by a couple of books from a series called 33 1/3. Each book is dedicated to a single album, chronicling the history and drama of the musicians involved along with the recording process of each song. If you love records you will most likely enjoy these books. The first one I read was Paul's Boutique by Dan LeRoy. I don't read books much but I flew through this Beastie Boys book about their sophomore recordings with Matt Dike and the Dust Brothers. I've got this idea, in which I plan to purchase a book from this series along with the album being chronicled. The first record I'm exploring is The Notorious Byrd Brothers by the Byrds. I've been listening to the album for two weeks now and am on page 29 of the Ric Menck companion novella. The next album in line for me is The Band's Music From Big Pink. Here are a few of the other 33 1/3 books I hope to get to: The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street by Bill Janovitz, The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds by Jim Fusilli, Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper, Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited by Mark Polizzotti and The Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs by LD Beghtol. If you love an album so much and you can't get enough out of playing it over and over again, these books may add another dimension to your listening perspective.

Welcome to Tup Keewah

2007-06-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

So this is my first post. It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon here in Boston. I'm listening to the Oakland A's beat up on the Yankees 7-0 on MLB Gameday audio. I'm waiting on my copy of the new Beastie Boys record, "The Mix-Up" to arrive. Anna went out to pick up the CD at Newbury Comics. It'll be my first listen to this new instrumental record. I'll let you know all about it. I Just got back from a week's vacation in North Carolina on the Outer Banks. It was fantastic. Maybe I will post some photos of our trip to check out. Tonight, Josh Beckett starts at Fenway against the Texas Rangers. I guess that's enough random info for my first blog post.